Comprehensive textbook on functional programming

Functional programming / Anthony J. Field, Peter G. Harrison. - Wokingham : Addison-Wesley, 198

Reply to Comment on "Reevaluation of the parton distribution of strange quarks in the nucleon"

A Comment on the recently published reevaluation of the polarization-averaged parton distribution of strange quarks in the nucleon using final data on the multiplicities of charged kaons in semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering is reviewed. Important features of the comparison of one-dimensional projections of the multidimensional HERMES data are pointed out. A test of the leading-order extraction of xS(x) using the difference between charged-kaon multiplicities is repeated. The results are consistent with leading-order predictions within the uncertainties in the input data, and do not invalidate the earlier extraction of xS(x).Comment: Reply Comment to arXiv:1407.372

Ramsar Policy Brief No. 5. Restoring drained peatlands: A necessary step to achieve global climate goals

Peatlands cover about 400 million hectares (ha), or 3% of the land surface of our planet. Yet they store more carbon, more effectively and for longer periods, than any other ecosystem on land. Intact peatlands also provide essential ecosystem services such as regulating water cycles, purifying water, and supporting a wealth of biodiversity. Since peat is hidden below ground, it is often unrecognised and can be damaged unknowingly. New, large peatland areas are still being discovered including forest-covered peatlands in the tropics. Around 50 million ha of peatlands globally are currently drained and have been transformed to grazing land, forestry land and cropland, used for peat extraction or impacted by infrastructure. These drained peatlands are responsible for approximately 4% (2 Gt CO2 -eq/year) of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Achieving the climate goals of the Paris Agreement requires protection of all remaining intact peatland and rapid restoration of almost all drained peatlands. This will also contribute to delivering the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular SDG 6, Target 6.6, on protecting and restoring water related ecosystems and SDG 15, Targets 15.1, on conservation, restoration and sustainable use of terrestrial and inland freshwater ecosystems and their services, as well as 15.5 on reducing degradation of natural habitats. The United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030 provides the opportunity to rapidly scale up efforts

Functional consequences of sphingomyelinase-induced changes in erythrocyte membrane structure.

Inflammation enhances the secretion of sphingomyelinases (SMases). SMases catalyze the hydrolysis of sphingomyelin into phosphocholine and ceramide. In erythrocytes, ceramide formation leads to exposure of the removal signal phosphatidylserine (PS), creating a potential link between SMase activity and anemia of inflammation. Therefore, we studied the effects of SMase on various pathophysiologically relevant parameters of erythrocyte homeostasis. Time-lapse confocal microscopy revealed a SMase-induced transition from the discoid to a spherical shape, followed by PS exposure, and finally loss of cytoplasmic content. Also, SMase treatment resulted in ceramide-associated alterations in membrane-cytoskeleton interactions and membrane organization, including microdomain formation. Furthermore, we observed increases in membrane fragility, vesiculation and invagination, and large protein clusters. These changes were associated with enhanced erythrocyte retention in a spleen-mimicking model. Erythrocyte storage under blood bank conditions and during physiological aging increased the sensitivity to SMase. A low SMase activity already induced morphological and structural changes, demonstrating the potential of SMase to disturb erythrocyte homeostasis. Our analyses provide a comprehensive picture in which ceramide-induced changes in membrane microdomain organization disrupt the membrane-cytoskeleton interaction and membrane integrity, leading to vesiculation, reduced deformability, and finally loss of erythrocyte content. Understanding these processes is highly relevant for understanding anemia during chronic inflammation, especially in critically ill patients receiving blood transfusions

Automatic rebuilding and optimization of crystallographic structures in the Protein Data Bank

Motivation: Macromolecular crystal structures in the Protein Data Bank (PDB) are a key source of structural insight into biological processes. These structures, some >30 years old, were constructed with methods of their era. With PDB_REDO, we aim to automatically optimize these structures to better fit their corresponding experimental data, passing the benefits of new methods in crystallography on to a wide base of non-crystallographer structure users

Functional surface micropatterns by dewetting of thin polymer films

Patterned polymer surfaces are of great importance with respect to an increasing number of technological and bio-medical applications, due to their great versatility in terms of chemical composition, properties and processing techniques. Surface micro-patterning by spontaneous dewetting of thin polymer films represents a versatile and robust process to fabricate surfaces with controlled topography and chemistry at the micro-scale. In this Thesis, we used polymer dewetting in combination with complementary approaches to engineer both surface chemistry and the ordering of the dewetting patterns. The dewetting of poly(D,L-glycolide-co-lactide) (PLGA) thin films on polystyrene (PS) was combined with the grafting of protein-repellent poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG), in order to form topographical and chemical surface micropatterns consisting in protein-adhesive PS domains surrounded by protein-repellent PEG-grafted PLGA films. The produced micropatterned surfaces were used for site-specific protein adsorption, and represent a promising platform for biological applications, such as proteomics, single-cell studies and tissue engineering. Spatially ordered surface micropatterns were obtained by combining polymer dewetting with microcontact printing and colloidal lithography, respectively. The dewetting of thin PS films was guided within specific regions of the substrate by prestamping of the silicon substrate with self-assembled monolayers of an alkylsilane by microcontact printing. Ordered micropatterns consisting in arrays of holes with tunable size were obtained by exploiting the spontaneous dewetting of poly(4-vinyl pyridine) (P4VP) thin films on PS from the holes produced by colloidal imprinting with two-dimensional colloidal crystals assembled on the polymer bilayer