Taxonomy and systematics of New Zealand Faronitae (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Pselaphinae)

The New Zealand Faronitae was revised at the species level, and a phylogenetic study was performed based on morphological and molecular data. Eight new genera and 143 new species were discovered. Three new genera, “Brounea”, “Ahnea” and “Pseudoexeirarthra” were designated based on the species originally described in the genus Sagola. Five new genera, “Aucklandea”, “Chandlerea”, “Nunnea”, “Leschenea” and “Pseudostenosagola” were designated by new species. Three known genera, Exeirarthra, Stenosagola and Sagola were also revised at species level. Eighty four names were synonymized, two in Exeirarthra, four in Stenosagola and 78 in Sagola. Lectotypes of seven species, Sagola terricola Broun, S. rugifrons Broun, S. valida Broun, S. arboricola Broun, S. notabilis Broun, S. eminens Broun, and S. robustula Broun, were designated. These revisional results bring the numbers of New Zealand Faronitae from 145 species within 3 genera to 203 species in 11 genera. The largest faronite genus Sagola includes 143 species, 48 redescriptions and 95 new descriptions and is divided into 30 species groups based on diagnostic characters. Phylogenetic studies were performed based on morphological and molecular data. A morphological parsimony tree was reconstructed based on 49 taxa and 42 adult morphological data. Two most parsimonious trees resulted, and those do not support the genus Sagola as a monophyletic group. The “Brounea” and “Aucklandea” clades are placed within the Sagola clade. Three molecular trees, parsimony, maximum likelihood and Bayesian, were inferred using 32 taxa and ca. 4200 base pairs within 4 genes (COI, 18S, 28S and wg), and these indicated that the genus Sagola is paraphyletic. All molecular trees have a genus “Ahnea” within the Sagola clades, and two genera, “Brounea” and “Pseudoexeirarthra” are excluded. Except for the three genera, “Brounea,” “Aucklandea,” and “Ahnea,” all trees supported the monophyly of the genus Sagola. One Australian Sagola species, Sagola rugicornis was excluded from the New Zealand Sagola clade in both morpholog

A FUNDAMENTAL STUDY ON MEASUREMENT OF HULL ROUGHNESS

In this study, an investigation on the hull roughness measurement of a new ship, a 160m class car ferry, was performed. The hull roughness measurement was conducted in the ferry’s pre-coated state before launching. For measurement, the TQC manual and ITTC recommendations were considered, and measurements were made in a total of 230 zones below waterline of the ship. Accordingly, the average hull roughness of the car ferry was 81μm, which is relatively low compared to 150μm, the hull roughness of a new ship proposed by the ITTC. In addition, the measurement uncertainty was calculated using the ISO guidelines, and the effect of the number of zones on the hull roughness measurement was examined. Using the measured average hull roughness, we estimated the resistance performance at the design speed of the ship. Accordingly, it was confirmed that the total resistance of the new ship was reduced by approximately 2% owing to a decrease in its frictional resistance increase

Applications of Carbon Nanotubes to Flexible Transparent Conductive Electrodes

Transparent conductive electrodes (TCEs) have attracted great interest because of their wide range of applications in solar cells, liquid crystal displays (LCDs), organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), and touch screen panels (TSPs). Indium-tin-oxide (ITO) thin films as TCEs possess exceptional optoelectronic properties, but they have several disadvantages such as a brittle nature due to their low fracture strain and lack of flexibility, a high processing temperature that damages the flexible substrates, low adhesion to polymeric materials, and relative rarity on Earth, which makes their price unstable. This has motivated several research studies of late for developing alternative materials to replace ITO such as metal meshes, metal nanowires, conductive polymers, graphene, and carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Out of the abovementioned candidates, CNTs have advantages in chemical stability, thermal conductivity, mechanical strength, and flexibility. However, there are still several problems yet to be solved for achieving CNT-based flexible TCEs with excellent characteristics and high stability. In this chapter, the properties of CNTs and their applications especially for flexible TCEs are presented, including the preparation details of CNTs based on solution processes, the surface modification of flexible substrates, and the various types of hybrid TCEs based on CNTs

Chandlerea and Nunnea (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Pselaphinae), Two New Genera from New Zealand with Descriptions of Three New Species

Two new genera and three new species of New Zealand endemic pselaphine staphylinid beetles belonging to the supertribe Faronitae are described as follows: Chandlerea Park & Carlton, gen. nov., including C. donaldi Park & Carlton, sp. nov.; and Nunnea Park & Carlton, gen. nov., including N. johni Park & Carlton, sp. nov., and N. kuscheli Park & Carlton, sp. nov. A key to species, habitus photographs, line drawings of diagnostic characters and distribution maps for all species are provided

Proteomic analysis of organelle-contact sites using a split, promiscuous biotin ligase in live cells

Department of ChemistryOrganelle-contact sites are crucial for organelle communications and regulating homeostasis. Although growing interest exists for understanding resident proteins at contact sites, conventional methods are limited. Herein, we present a novel proteomic mapping method of the local proteome at an organelle-contact site, based on a split, promiscuous biotin ligase (pBirA). After screening for temporal biotinylated activities, we selected split pBirA system which divided into N-G78 and G79-C, which showed strong biotinylated activities only when complexed. We named this system as MCS-ID and targeted this to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane and outer mitochondrial membrane (OMM), respectively, in mammalian cells using anchoring transmembrane proteins and identified biotinylated proteins by mass spectrometry. We identified 72 proteins reproducibly labeled by MCS-ID, 69 of which were novel ER???OMM junction proteins. We also identified 14 proteins localizing to the ER???OMM junction during starvation. The major functions of these proteins were related to ubiquitination, which affect mitochondrial quality or mitophagy. Our new method (MCS-ID) facilitated reliable identification of the local proteome at the ER???OMM contact site, and it can potentially be employed to map other organelle-contact sites in live cells.ope

The Role of Evaluability Bias and the Fairness Effect in the Escalation of Commitment to Troubled Software Product Development Projects

New software product development entails considerable risks. One significant risk is that decision makers can become overly committed to troubled software product development projects (i.e., escalation of commitment). While prior research has identified factors that promote escalation in information technology projects, there has been little attempt to leverage the context of software product development, which can include evaluating attributes of a software product under development and weighing a personal financial reward tied to a successful product launch. In this study, we conducted two experiments to investigate how evaluability bias concerning software attributes and the fairness effect that arises from the relative amount of a personal financial reward influence the escalation of commitment to troubled software product development projects. Our findings suggest that the escalation of commitment to troubled software product development projects is influenced by both evaluability bias, which affects the perceived attractiveness of a software product under development, and the fairness effect, which influences the perceived attractiveness of a personal financial reward tied to a successful product launch. This study contributes to both the information systems literature and the escalation literature by providing novel theoretical explanations as to why escalation occurs in the context of new software product developmen

Ruthenium anchored on carbon nanotube electrocatalyst for hydrogen production with enhanced Faradaic efficiency

Developing efficient and stable electrocatalysts is crucial for the electrochemical production of pure and clean hydrogen. For practical applications, an economical and facile method of producing catalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is essential. Here, we report ruthenium (Ru) nanoparticles uniformly deposited on multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) as an efficient HER catalyst. The catalyst exhibits the small overpotentials of 13 and 17 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm(-2) in 0.5M aq. H2SO4 and 1.0M aq. KOH, respectively, surpassing the commercial Pt/C (16 mV and 33 mV). Moreover, the catalyst has excellent stability in both media, showing almost "zeroloss" during cycling. In a real device, the catalyst produces 15.4% more hydrogen per power consumed, and shows a higher Faradaic efficiency (92.28%) than the benchmark Pt/C (85.97%). Density functional theory calculations suggest that Ru-C bonding is the most plausible active site for the HER