Explaining the Diffusion of Web-Based Communication Technology among Congressional Offices: A Natural Experiment Using State Delegations

Do legislators learn to use new communication technologies from each other? Using data from the official homepages of members of the U.S. House of Representatives, we test whether web-based communication technology diffuses through congressional state delegations. We use a natural experimental design that exploits ignorable state boundaries to distinguish between causal diffusion processes and spatial heterogeneity. Using nonlinear conditional autoregressive models for the statistical test, we find that web communication technology practices are weakly driven by communication within state delegations, and with the effect slightly more pronounced among Democrats than among Republicans.

Using Mycelium to Bioremediate Environments Damaged by Acid Mine Drainage

Acid mine drainage (AMD) is a major source of environmental contamination around areas that were once utilized by the mining industry, and does not have many pragmatic remediation solutions. Pleurotus ostreatus mycelium has been previously tested and shown to be able to biosorb a variety of heavy metals into its mycelial tissue. This project utilized P. ostreatus mycelium as a novel and natural approach to bioremediate acid mine drainage. There were two experiments: one proof-of-concept experiment and one situational experiment that used stream mesocosms. (Project II

Business Lobbying as an Informational Public Good: Can Tax Deductions for Lobbying Expenses Promote Transparency?

The view that “lobbying is essentially an informational activity” has persistently served the suggestion that lobbying provides a public good by educating legislators about policy and the consequences of legislation. In this article, we link a proposed tax reform with a substantive disclosure requirement to promote the kind of “information subsidy” that serves the public interest, while mitigating – at least to some extent – the distortion that may result from the imbalance of financial resources on the business side and other institutional contraints identified in the literature. We argue that corporate lobbying should be encouraged – by allowing business to deduct lobbying expenses – but only to the extent that the information subsidy that corporate lobbying supplies in fact educates lawmakers on complex policy issues. In other words, to the extent that lobbying supplies an informational public good, such information should actually be made generally available through full and timely publication, rather than inserted strategically into the legislative process at a time, and in such manner, that excludes others from using the information to assess the merits of proposed legislation

Carbonate Free Electrolyte for Lithium Ion Batteries Containing γ-Butyrolactone and Methyl Butyrate

A novel carbonate free electrolyte, 1 M lithium difluoro(oxalato) borate (LiDFOB) in 1:1 gamma-butyrolactone (GBL)/methyl butyrate (MB), has been compared to a standard electrolyte, 1 M LiPF6 in 1:1:1 EC/DMC/DEC, and a 1 M LiDFOB in 1:1:1 EC/DMC/DEC electrolyte. The conductivity of 1 M LiDFOB in GBL/MB is higher at low temperature, but slightly lower at higher temperature compared to the standard electrolyte. The 1 M LiDFOB in GBL/MB electrolyte has comparable cycling performance to the standard electrolyte, and better cycling performance than the 1 M LiDFOB in EC/DMC/DEC electrolyte. The reversible cycling performance suggests that the LiDFOB in GBL/MB electrolyte forms a stable anode solid electrolyte interface (SEI) in the presence of GBL. Ex-situ surface analysis of the extracted electrodes has been conducted via a combination of XPS, FTIR-ATR and SEM which suggests that the stable anode SEI results is primarily composed of reduction products of LiDFOB. The widespread implementation of electric vehicles (EVs) requires further improvements in lithium ion batteries.1–3 Some of the biggest challenges for lithium ion batteries in EVs are cost, low temperature performance and battery lifetime.2,3 Improvements in the electrolyte can assist in the resolution of each of these problems.1,4,5 Most commercial electrolytes are composed of LiPF6 in a mixture of carbonate solvents.5 However, the high cost and poor thermal and hydrolytic stability of LiPF6 is problematic for the electrolyte.6–8 In addition, ethylene carbonate (EC) is typically a required component of the electrolyte due to the role of EC in the formation of the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) on the anode.5,9–14 Since EC is a solid at room temperature, electrolytes containing EC frequently have poor performance at low temperature.15 Despite the shortcomings of LiPF6 / EC based electrolytes, these formulations have proven very difficult to replace. While there have been significant efforts to develop novel electrolytes with superior performance to LiPF6 in carbonates, there has been limited success. The development of novel solvent systems has been more limited and frequently targeted toward specific problems such as high voltage cathodes, salt solubility, or reactivity issues.16–21 The development of novel salts has encountered problems related to salt solubility and corrosion of the aluminum current collector on the cathode.21,22 One of the more interesting and promising alternative salts is lithium difluoro(oxalato) borate (LiDFOB).1,4,23,24 LiDFOB is promising due to good solubility, thermal stability, passivation of the aluminum current collector, stable SEI formation, and potentially lower cost. While there have been a limited number of investigations of LiDFOB as the conducting salt in the electrolyte,4,16,25 there have been several reports of the use of LiDFOB and the related salts lithium bis(oxalato) borate (LiBOB) and lithium tetrafluoro(oxalato) phosphate (LiTFOP) as additives to LiPF6 based electrolytes to form a more stable SEI.1,14,23,26–30 There have also been reports of the use of oxalate salts enabling the cycling of PC based electrolytes due to better SEI formation.30 The presence of the oxalate group in the anode thus may enable the use of EC free electrolytes and electrolytes with non-carbonate solvents. The investigation of LiDFOB has been expanded to include carbonate free electrolyte formulations. Esters and lactones are an interesting alternative to carbonate solvents. Linear esters have been studied as co-solvents due to the high dielectric constants and low freezing points which have been reported to improve the low temperature performance of lithium ion batteries,15 while lactones such as γ-butyrolactone (GBL) have high dielectric constants5 and a very wide liquid temperature range (−43.5 to 204°C). However, the use of GBL as a primary solvent in lithium ion battery electrolytes has been plagued by problems with the stability of the anode SEI.5 Despite the issues with GBL as a solvent in carbonate based electrolytes, GBL has been studied with LiBOB based electrolytes due to the limited solubility of LiBOB in carbonates.18,31 In order to investigate the use of novel electrolyte formulations for lithium ion batteries, a comparative study of three electrolytes has been conducted; a standard LiPF6 electrolyte in 1:1:1 EC/ dimethyl carbonate (DMC)/ diethyl carbonate (DEC) was tested against 1 M LiDFOB in 1:1:1 EC/DMC/DEC and 1 M LiDFOB in 1:1 GBL/MB (MB is methyl butyrate)

A proof of uniqueness of the Gurarii space

We present a short and elementary proof of isometric uniqueness of the Gurarii space.Comment: 6 pages, some improvements incorporate

The Crystal Structure of Recombinant Human Neutrophil-activating Peptide-2 (M6L) at 1.9-Å Resolution

Neutrophil-activating peptide-2 (NAP-2) is a 70-residue carboxyl-terminal fragment of platelet basic protein, which is found in the a-granules of human platelets. NAP-2, which belongs to the CXC family of chemokines that includes Interleukin-B and platelet factor 4, binds to the interleukin-8 type II receptor and induces a rise in cytosolic calcium, chemotaxis of neutrophils, and exocytosis. Crystals of recombinant NAP-2 in which the single methionine at position 6 was replaced by leucine to facilitate expression belong to space group PI (unit cell parameters a = 40.8, b = 43.8, and c = 44.7 A and a = 98.4°, fl = 120.3°, and \u27Y = 92.8°), with 4 molecules of NAP-2 (Mr = 7600) in the asymmetric unit. The molecular replacement solution calculated with bovine platelet factor 4 as the starting model was refined using rigid body refinement, manual fitting in solvent-leveled electron density maps, simulated annealing, and restrained least squares to an R-factor of 0.188 for 2 fT data between 7.0- and 1.9-A resolution. The final refined crystal structure includes 265 solvent molecules. The overall tertiary structure, which is similar to that of platelet factor 4 and interleukin-8, includes an extended amino-terminal loop, three strands of antiparallel fl-sheet arranged in a Greek key fold, and one a-helix at the carboxyl terminus. The Ghr-Leu-Arg sequence that is critical for receptor binding is fully defined by electron density and exhibits multiple conformations

Differential expression of interferon responsive genes in rodent models of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy disease

BACKGROUND: The pathological hallmarks of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) diseases are the deposition of a misfolded form of a host-encoded protein (PrP(res)), marked astrocytosis, microglial activation and spongiosis. The development of powerful gene based technologies has permitted increased levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines to be demonstrated. However, due to the use of assays of differing sensitivities and typically the analysis of a single model system it remained unclear whether this was a general feature of these diseases or to what extent different model systems and routes of infection influenced the relative levels of expression. Similarly, it was not clear whether the elevated levels of cytokines observed in the brain were accompanied by similar increases in other tissues that accumulate PrP(res), such as the spleen. RESULTS: The level of expression of the three interferon responsive genes, Eif2ak2, 2'5'-OAS, and Mx2, was measured in the brains of Syrian hamsters infected with scrapie 263K, VM mice infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy and C57BL/6 mice infected with the scrapie strain ME7. Glial fibrillary acidic expression confirmed the occurrence of astrocytosis in all models. When infected intracranially all three models showed a similar pattern of increased expression of the interferon responsive genes at the onset of clinical symptoms. At the terminal stage of the disease the level and pattern of expression of the three genes was mostly unchanged in the mouse models. In contrast, in hamsters infected by either the intracranial or intraperitoneal routes, both the level of expression and the expression of the three genes relative to one another was altered. Increased interferon responsive gene expression was not observed in a transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer's disease or the spleens of C57BL/6 mice infected with ME7. Concurrent increases in TNFα, TNFR1, Fas/ApoI receptor, and caspase 8 expression in ME7 infected C57BL/6 mice were observed. CONCLUSION: The identification of increased interferon responsive gene expression in the brains of three rodent models of TSE disease at two different stages of disease progression suggest that this may be a general feature of the disease in rodents. In addition, it was determined that the increased interferon responsive gene expression was confined to the CNS and that the TSE model system and the route of infection influenced the pattern and extent of the increased expression. The concurrent increase in initiators of Eif2ak2 mediated apoptotic pathways in C57BL/6 mice infected with ME7 suggested one mechanism by which increased interferon responsive gene expression may enhance disease progression