Feasibility of Thorium Fuel Cycles in a Very High Temperature Pebble-Bed Hybrid System

Nuclear energy presents key challenges to be successful as a sustainable energy source. Currently, the viability of the use thorium-based fuel cycles in an innovative nuclear energy generation system is being investigated in order to solve these key challenges. In this work, the feasibility of three thorium-based fuel cycles (232Th-233U, 232Th-239Pu, and 232Th-U) in a hybrid system formed by a Very High Temperature Pebble-Bed Reactor (VHTR) and two Pebble-Bed Accelerator Driven Systems (ADSs) was evaluated using parameters related to the neutronic behavior such as nuclear fuel breeding, minor actinide stockpile, the energetic contribution of each fissile isotope, and the radiotoxicity of the long lived wastes. These parameters were used to compare the fuel cycles using the well-known MCNPX ver. 2.6e computational code. The results obtained confirm that the 232Th-233U fuel cycle is the best cycle for minimizing the production of plutonium isotopes and minor actinides. Moreover, the inclusion of the second stage in the ADSs demonstrated the possibility of extending the burnup cycle duration and reducing the radiotoxicity of the discharged fuel from the VHTR.Received: 09 February 2015; Revised: 12 May 2015; Accepted: 20 May 201

Effects of vessel traffic on relative abundance and behaviour of cetaceans : the case of the bottlenose dolphins in the Archipelago de La Maddalena, north-western Mediterranean sea

Acknowledgements This study was part of the Tursiops Project of the Dolphin Research Centre of Caprera, La Maddalena. Financial and logistical support was provided by the Centro Turistico Studentesco (CTS) and by the National Park of the Archipelago de La Maddalena. We thank the Natural Reserve of Bocche di Bonifacio for the support provided during data collection. The authors thank the numerous volunteers of the Caprera Dolphin Research Centre and especially Marco Ferraro, Mirko Ugo, Angela Pira and Maurizio Piras whose assistance during field observation and skills as a boat driver were invaluable.Peer reviewedPostprin

« La Tragédie du roi Christophe » du point de vue de l’histoire d’Haïti

This paper presents a multilingual study on, per single post of microblog text, (a) how much can be said, (b) how much is written in terms of characters and bytes, and (c) how much is said in terms of information content in posts by different organizations in different languages. Focusing on three different languages (English, Chinese, and Japanese), this research analyses Weibo and Twitter accounts of major embassies and news agencies. We first establish our criterion for quantifying \how much can be said" in a digital text based on the openly available Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the translated subtitles from TED talks. These parallel corpora allow us to determine the number of characters and bits needed to represent the same content in different languages and character encodings. We then derive the amount of information that is actually contained in microblog posts authored by selected accounts on Weibo and Twitter. Our results confirm that languages with larger character sets such as Chinese and Japanese contain more information per character than English, but the actual information content contained within a microblog text varies depending on both the type of organization and the language of the post. We conclude with a discussion on the design implications of microblog text limits for different languages

Interaction between bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) and trammel nets in the Archipelago de La Maddalena, Italy

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State recognition for ‘contested languages’: a comparative study of Sardinian and Asturian, 1992–2010

While the idea of a named language as a separate and discrete identity is a political and social construct, in the cases of Sardinian and Asturian doubts over their respective ‘languageness’ have real material consequences, particularly in relation to language policy decisions at the state level. The Asturian example highlights how its lack of official status means that it is either ignored or subjected to repeated challenges to its status as a language variety deserving of recognition and support, reflecting how ‘official language’ in the Spanish context is often understood in practice as synonymous with the theoretically broader category of ‘language’. In contrast, the recent state recognition of Sardinian speakers as a linguistic minority in Italy (Law 482/1999) illustrates how legal recognition served to overcome existing obstacles to the implementation of regional language policy measures. At the same time, the limited subsequent effects of this Law, particularly in the sphere of education, are a reminder of the shortcomings of top-down policies which fail to engage with the local language practices and attitudes of the communities of speakers recognized. The contrastive focus of this article thus acknowledges the continued material consequences of top-down language classification, while highlighting its inadequacies as a language policy mechanism which reinforces artificial distinctions between speech varieties and speakers deserving of recognition

Monogenic variants in dystonia: an exome-wide sequencing study

Background Dystonia is a clinically and genetically heterogeneous condition that occurs in isolation (isolated dystonia), in combination with other movement disorders (combined dystonia), or in the context of multisymptomatic phenotypes (isolated or combined dystonia with other neurological involvement). However, our understanding of its aetiology is still incomplete. We aimed to elucidate the monogenic causes for the major clinical categories of dystonia. Methods For this exome-wide sequencing study, study participants were identified at 33 movement-disorder and neuropaediatric specialty centres in Austria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, and Switzerland. Each individual with dystonia was diagnosed in accordance with the dystonia consensus definition. Index cases were eligible for this study if they had no previous genetic diagnosis and no indication of an acquired cause of their illness. The second criterion was not applied to a subset of participants with a working clinical diagnosis of dystonic cerebral palsy. Genomic DNA was extracted from blood of participants and whole-exome sequenced. To find causative variants in known disorder-associated genes, all variants were filtered, and unreported variants were classified according to American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics guidelines. All considered variants were reviewed in expert round-table sessions to validate their clinical significance. Variants that survived filtering and interpretation procedures were defined as diagnostic variants. In the cases that went undiagnosed, candidate dystonia-causing genes were prioritised in a stepwise workflow. Findings We sequenced the exomes of 764 individuals with dystonia and 346 healthy parents who were recruited between June 1, 2015, and July 31, 2019. We identified causative or probable causative variants in 135 (19%) of 728 families, involving 78 distinct monogenic disorders. We observed a larger proportion of individuals with diagnostic variants in those with dystonia (either isolated or combined) with coexisting non-movement disorder-related neurological symptoms (100 [45%] of 222;excepting cases with evidence of perinatal brain injury) than in those with combined (19 [19%] of 98) or isolated (16 [4%] of 388) dystonia. Across all categories of dystonia, 104 (65%) of the 160 detected variants affected genes which are associated with neurodevelopmental disorders. We found diagnostic variants in 11 genes not previously linked to dystonia, and propose a predictive clinical score that could guide the implementation of exome sequencing in routine diagnostics. In cases without perinatal sentinel events, genomic alterations contributed substantively to the diagnosis of dystonic cerebral palsy. In 15 families, we delineated 12 candidate genes. These include IMPDH2, encoding a key purine biosynthetic enzyme, for which robust evidence existed for its involvement in a neurodevelopmental disorder with dystonia. We identified six variants in IMPDH2, collected from four independent cohorts, that were predicted to be deleterious de-novo variants and expected to result in deregulation of purine metabolism. Interpretation In this study, we have determined the role of monogenic variants across the range of dystonic disorders, providing guidance for the introduction of personalised care strategies and fostering follow-up pathophysiological explorations

International equity portfolio investment and enforcement of insider trading laws: a cross-country analysis

In this study, we examine the effects of stringent insider trading laws’ enforcement, institutions and stock market development on international equity portfolio allocation using data from 44 countries over the period 2001-2015. Our results suggest that stringent insider trading laws and their enforcement exert a positive and significant impact on international portfolio investment allocation. Further analysis indicates that the interaction between a country’s institutional quality, stock market development and enforcement of insider trading laws have a positive and significant effect on international equity portfolio allocation. The findings of this study have implications for the design of portfolio investment trading strategies and contribute to the literature on foreign equity investment decisions