Impact of alternative energy forms on public utilities

The investigation of alternative energy sources by the electric utility industry is discussed. Research projects are reviewed in each of the following areas; solar energy, wind energy conversion, photosynthesis of biomass, ocean thermal energy conversion, geothermal energy, fusion, and the environmental impact of alternative energy sources

Disruption of the developmental programme of Trypanosoma brucei by genetic ablation of TbZFP1, a differentiation-enriched CCCH protein

The regulation of differentiation is particularly important in microbial eukaryotes that inhabit multiple environments. The parasite Trypanosoma brucei is an extreme example of this, requiring exquisite gene regulation during transmission from mammals to the tsetse fly vector. Unusually, trypanosomes rely almost exclusively on post-transcriptional mechanisms for regulated gene expression. Hence, RNA binding proteins are potentially of great significance in controlling stage-regulated processes. We have previously identified TbZFP1 as a trypanosome molecule transiently enriched during differentiation to tsetse midgut procyclic forms. This small protein (101 amino acids) contains the unusual CCCH zinc finger, an RNA binding motif. Here, we show that genetic ablation of TbZFP1 compromises repositioning of the mitochondrial genome, a specific event in the strictly regulated differentiation programme. Despite this, other events that occur both before and after this remain intact. Significantly, this phenotype correlates with the TbZFP1 expression profile during differentiation. This is the first genetic disruption of a developmental regulator in T. brucei. It demonstrates that programmed events in parasite development can be uncoupled at the molecular level. It also further supports the importance of CCCH proteins in key aspects of trypanosome cell function

Enabling Multi-Stakeholder Cooperative Modelling in Automotive Software Development and Implications for Model Driven Software Development

One of the motivations for a model driven approach to software development is to increase the involvement for a range of stakeholders in the requirements phases. This inevitably leads to a greater diversity of roles being involved in the production of models, and one of the issues with such diversity is that of providing models which are both accessible and appropriate for the phenomena being modelled. Indeed, such accessibility issues are a clear focus of this workshop. However, a related issue when producing models across multiple parties,often at dierent sites, or even dierent organisations is the management of such model artefacts. In particular, different parties may wish to experiment with model choices. For example, this idea of prototypingprocesses by experimenting with variants of models is one which has been used for many years by business process modellers, in order to highlight the impact of change, and thus improve alignment of process and supporting software specications. The problem often occurs when such variants needed to be merged, for example, to be used within a shared repository. This papers reports upon experiences and ndings of this merging problem as evaluated at Bosch Automotive. At Bosch we have dierent sites where modellers will make changes to shared models, and these models will subsequently require merging into a common repository. Currently, this work has concentrated on one type of diagram, the class diagram. However, it seems clear that the issue of how best to merge models where collaborative multi-party working takes places is one which has a significant potential impact upon the entire model driven process, and, given the diversity of stakeholders, could be particularly problematic for the requirements phase. In fact, class diagrams can also be used for information or data models created in the system analysis step. Hence, we believe that the lessons learned from this work will be valuable in tackling the realities of a commercially viable model driven process

N-Ferrocenylmethyl-2-(3-methylstyryl)-N’-methylbenzimidazolium hexafluorophosphate

In the title compound, [Fe(C5H5)(C23H22N2)]PF6, the F atoms of the [PF6]- anion are disordered over four different orientations with equal occupancies. In the cation, the five-membered imidazolium ring forms dihedral angles of 71.48 (10) and 19.83 (10)° with the substituted C5H4 ring and the benzene ring of the styryl group, respectively. In the crystal structure, there is a significant C-H...[pi]([eta]5-C5H4) interaction

2-(3,5-Dimethylbenzene)-1-ferrocenylmethyl-1H-1,3-benzimidazole

In the title molecule, [Fe(C5H5)(C21H19N2)], the five-membered imidazole ring forms dihedral angles of 88.61 (8) and 42.15 (6)° with the substituted cyclopentadienyl and dimethyl-substituted benzene rings, respectively. In the crystal structure, there is an Nsp2...H contact and a modest C-H...[pi](arene) interaction involving the benzene ring of the benzimidizole system

Iterated dominance and iterated best response in experimental "p-beauty contests"

Picture a thin country 1000 miles long, running north and south, like Chile. Several natural attractions are located at the northern tip of the country. Suppose each of n resort developers plans to locate a resort somewhere on the country's coast (and all spots are equally attractive). After all the resort locations are chosen, an airport will be built to serve tourists, at the average of all the locations including the natural attractions. Suppose most tourists visit all the resorts equally often, except for lazy tourists who visit only the resort closest to the airport; so the developer who locates closest to the airport gets a fixed bonus of extra visitors. Where should the developer locate to be nearest to the airport? The surprising game-theoretic answer is that all the developers should locate exactly where the natural attractions are. This answer requires at least one natural attraction at the northern tip, but does not depend on the fraction of lazy tourists or the number of developers (as long as there is more than one)

Statistics on the Heterotic Landscape: Gauge Groups and Cosmological Constants of Four-Dimensional Heterotic Strings

Recent developments in string theory have reinforced the notion that the space of stable supersymmetric and non-supersymmetric string vacua fills out a ``landscape'' whose features are largely unknown. It is then hoped that progress in extracting phenomenological predictions from string theory -- such as correlations between gauge groups, matter representations, potential values of the cosmological constant, and so forth -- can be achieved through statistical studies of these vacua. To date, most of the efforts in these directions have focused on Type I vacua. In this note, we present the first results of a statistical study of the heterotic landscape, focusing on more than 10^5 explicit non-supersymmetric tachyon-free heterotic string vacua and their associated gauge groups and one-loop cosmological constants. Although this study has several important limitations, we find a number of intriguing features which may be relevant for the heterotic landscape as a whole. These features include different probabilities and correlations for different possible gauge groups as functions of the number of orbifold twists. We also find a vast degeneracy amongst non-supersymmetric string models, leading to a severe reduction in the number of realizable values of the cosmological constant as compared with naive expectations. Finally, we also find strong correlations between cosmological constants and gauge groups which suggest that heterotic string models with extremely small cosmological constants are overwhelmingly more likely to exhibit the Standard-Model gauge group at the string scale than any of its grand-unified extensions. In all cases, heterotic worldsheet symmetries such as modular invariance provide important constraints that do not appear in corresponding studies of Type I vacua.Comment: 58 pages, LaTeX, 17 figures, 3 tables; v2: one new figure and references adde