Green Bitcoin: Global Sound Money

Modern societies have adopted government-issued fiat currencies many of which exist today mainly in the form of digits in credit and bank accounts. Fiat currencies are controlled by central banks for economic stimulation and stabilization. Boom-and-bust cycles are created. The volatility of the cycle has become increasingly extreme. Social inequality due to the concentration of wealth is prevalent worldwide. As such, restoring sound money, which provides stored value over time, has become a pressing issue. Currently, cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are in their infancy and may someday qualify as sound money. Bitcoin today is considered as a digital asset for storing value. But Bitcoin has problems. The first issue of the current Bitcoin network is its high energy consumption consensus mechanism. The second is the cryptographic primitives which are unsafe against post-quantum (PQ) attacks. We aim to propose Green Bitcoin which addresses both issues. To save energy in consensus mechanism, we introduce a post-quantum secure (self-election) verifiable coin-toss function and novel PQ secure proof-of-computation primitives. It is expected to reduce the rate of energy consumption more than 90 percent of the current Bitcoin network. The elliptic curve cryptography will be replaced with PQ-safe versions. The Green Bitcoin protocol will help Bitcoin evolve into a post-quantum secure network.Comment: 16 page

Production-scale LLW and RMW solidification system operational testing at Argonne National Laboratory-East (ANL-E)

Argonne National Laboratory-East (ANL-E) has begun production-scale testing of a low-level waste and radioactive mixed waste solidification system. This system will be used to treat low-level and mixed radioactive waste to meet land burial requirements. The system can use any of several types of solidification media, including a chemically bonded phosphate ceramic developed by ANL-E scientists. The final waste product will consist of a solidified mass in a standard 208-liter drum. The system uses commercial equipment and incorporates several unique process control features to ensure proper treatment. This paper will discuss the waste types requiring treatment, the system configuration, and operation results for these waste streams

Physical, antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of chitosan cinnamon leaf oil films as affected by oleic acid

The physical, antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of chitosan (CH)-cinnamon leaf essential oil (C) films, containing or not oleic acid (OA), were evaluated. The addition of OA led an increase in surface charge and particle size of the film-forming dispersions. This is in agreement with a greater CH adsorption on the droplets containing OA and the entrapment of C compounds in the non-polar core of the OA molecule associations. OA contributed to a better retention of C in the film during its drying, diminished the changes in colour parameters provoked by C addition and reduced the film transparency. Water vapour permeability of CH films was reduced by OA incorporation while it increased when they contained only C. Every film containing C showed antioxidant and antifungal properties, depending on the C content (the higher the C content, the greater the effect). OA reduced the antifungal effectiveness of C containing films in line with its encapsulating effect on C compounds. All the coatings were effective in extending the shelf-life of cold-stored strawberries, mainly when CH was combined with C at the ratio 1: 0.5.The authors acknowledge the financial support provided by Universitat Politecnica de Valencia (UPPTE/2012/183) and Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (AGL2010-20694). Author A. Perdones acknowledges Universitat Politecnica de Valencia for a doctoral grant.Perdones Montero, Á.; Vargas, M.; Atarés Huerta, LM.; Chiralt Boix, MA. (2014). Physical, antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of chitosan cinnamon leaf oil films as affected by oleic acid. Food Hydrocolloids. 36:256-264. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodhyd.2013.10.003S2562643

Pre-Clinical Assessment of Novel Multivalent MSP3 Malaria Vaccine Constructs

BACKGROUND: MSP3 has been shown to induce protection against malaria in African children. The characterization of a family of Plasmodium falciparum merozoite surface protein 3 (MSP3) antigens sharing a similar structural organization, simultaneously expressed on the merozoite surface and targeted by a cross-reactive network of protective antibodies, is intriguing and offers new perspectives for the development of subunit vaccines against malaria. METHODS: Eight recombinant polyproteins containing carefully selected regions of this family covalently linked in different combinations were all efficiently produced in Escherichia coli. The polyproteins consisted of one monovalent, one bivalent, one trivalent, two tetravalents, one hexavalent construct, and two tetravalents incorporating coiled-coil repeats regions from LSA3 and p27 vaccine candidates. RESULTS: All eight polyproteins induced a strong and homogeneous antibody response in mice of three distinct genotypes, with a dominance of cytophilic IgG subclasses, lasting up to six months after the last immunization. Vaccine-induced antibodies exerted a strong monocyte-mediated in vitro inhibition of P. falciparum growth. Naturally acquired antibodies from individuals living in an endemic area of Senegal recognized the polyproteins with a reactivity mainly constituted of cytophilic IgG subclasses. CONCLUSIONS: Combination of genetically conserved and antigenically related MSP3 proteins provides promising subunit vaccine constructs, with improved features as compared to the first generation construct employed in clinical trials (MSP3-LSP). These multivalent MSP3 vaccine constructs expand the epitope display of MSP3 family proteins, and lead to the efficient induction of a wider range of antibody subclasses, even in genetically different mice. These findings are promising for future immunization of genetically diverse human populations

Identifying older diabetic patients at risk of poor glycemic control

BACKGROUND: Optimal glycemic control prevents the onset of diabetes complications. Identifying diabetic patients at risk of poor glycemic control could help promoting dedicated interventions. The purpose of this study was to identify predictors of poor short-term and long-term glycemic control in older diabetic in-patients. METHODS: A total of 1354 older diabetic in-patients consecutively enrolled in a multicenter study formed the training population (retrospective arm); 264 patients consecutively admitted to a ward of general medicine formed the testing population (prospective arm). Glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) was measured on admission and one year after the discharge in the testing population. Independent correlates of a discharge glycemia ≥ 140 mg/dl in the training population were assessed by logistic regression analysis and a clinical prediction rule was developed. The ability of the prediction rule and that of admission HbA1c to predict discharge glycemia ≥ 140 mg/dl and HbA1c > 7% one year after discharge was assessed in the testing population. RESULTS: Selected admission variables (diastolic arterial pressure < 80 mmHg, glycemia = 143–218 mg/dl, glycemia > 218 mg/dl, history of insulinic or combined hypoglycemic therapy, Charlson's index > 2) were combined to obtain a score predicting a discharge fasting glycemia ≥ 140 mg/dl in the training population. A modified score was obtained by adding 1 if admission HbA1c exceeded 7.8%. The modified score was the best predictor of both discharge glycemia ≥ 140 mg/dl (sensitivity = 79%, specificity = 63%) and 1 year HbA1c > 7% (sensitivity = 72%, specificity = 71%) in the testing population. CONCLUSION: A simple clinical prediction rule might help identify older diabetic in-patients at risk of both short and long term poor glycemic control

First order metamagnetic transition in CeFe2_2 based pseudobinary alloys

We present results of dc magnetisation study showing that the low temperature antiferromagnetic state in various CeFe$_2$-based pseudobinary alloys can be transformed into ferromagnetic state through a magnetic field induced phase transition. We highlight the presence of hysteresis and phase coexistence across this metamagnetic transition and argue that the observed phase transition is of first order in nature.Comment: 11 pages of text and 9 figures ; to appear in Journal of Physics: Condens. Matte

Solution and crystal structures of a C-terminal fragment of the neuronal isoform of the polypyrimidine tract binding protein (nPTB)

The eukaryotic polypyrimidine tract binding protein (PTB) serves primarily as a regulator of alternative splicing of messenger RNA, but is also co-opted to other roles such as RNA localisation and translation initiation from internal ribosome entry sites. The neuronal paralogue of PTB (nPTB) is 75% identical in amino acid sequence with PTB. Although the two proteins have broadly similar RNA binding specificities and effects on RNA splicing, differential expression of PTB and nPTB can lead to the generation of alternatively spliced mRNAs. RNA binding by PTB and nPTB is mediated by four RNA recognition motifs (RRMs). We present here the crystal and solution structures of the C-terminal domain of nPTB (nPTB34) which contains RRMs 3 and 4. As expected the structures are similar to each other and to the solution structure of the equivalent fragment from PTB (PTB34). The result confirms that, as found for PTB, RRMs 3 and 4 of nPTB interact with one another to form a stable unit that presents the RNA-binding surfaces of the component RRMs on opposite sides that face away from each other. The major differences between PTB34 and nPTB34 arise from amino acid side chain substitutions on the exposed β-sheet surfaces and adjoining loops of each RRM, which are likely to modulate interactions with RNA

Context Factors and the Performance of Mobile Individuals in Research Teams

This article studies how workforce composition is related to a firm’s success in introducing radical innovations. Pre-vious studies have argued that teams composed of individuals with diverse backgrounds are able to perform moreinformation processing and make deeper use of the information, which is important to accomplish complex tasks.We suggest that this argument can be extended to the level of the aggregate workforce of high-technology firms. Inparticular, we argue that ethnic and higher education diversity within the workforce is associated with superior per-formance in radical innovation. Using a sample of 3,888 Swedish firms, this article demonstrates that having greaterworkforce diversity in terms of both ethnic background and educational disciplinary background is positively corre-lated to the share of a firm’s turnover generated by radical innovation. Having more external collaborations does,however, seem to reduce the importance of educational background diversity. The impact of ethnic diversity is notaffected by external collaboration. These findings hold after using alternative measures of dependent and indepen-dent variables, alternative sample sizes, and alternative estimation techniques. The research findings presented inthis article would seem to have immediate and important practical implications. They would suggest that companiesmay pursue recruitment policies inspired by greater ethnic and disciplinary diversity as a way to boost the innova-tiveness of the organ ization. From a managerial perspective, it may be conc luded tha t workforce disciplinary diver-sity could be potentially replaced by more external links, while ethnic diversity could not

Lead-free piezoceramics - Where to move on?

Lead-free piezoceramics aiming at replacing the market-dominant lead-based ones have been extensively searched for more than a decade worldwide. Some noteworthy outcomes such as the advent of commercial products for certain applications have been reported, but the goal, i.e., the invention of a lead-free piezocermic, the performance of which is equivalent or even superior to that of PZT-based piezoceramics, does not seem to be fulfilled yet. Nevertheless, the academic effort already seems to be culminated, waiting for a guideline to a future research direction. We believe that a driving force for a restoration of this research field needs to be found elsewhere, for example, intimate collaborations with related industries. For this to be effectively realized, it would be helpful for academic side to understand the interests and demands of the industry side as well as to provide the industry with new scientific insights that would eventually lead to new applications. Therefore, this review covers some of the issues that are to be studied further and deeper, so-to-speak, lessons from the history of piezoceramics, and some technical issues that could be useful in better understanding the industry demands. As well, the efforts made in the industry side will be briefly introduced for the academic people to catch up with the recent trends and to be guided for setting up their future research direction effectively.ope

Phytochemicals as antibiotic alternatives to promote growth and enhance host health

There are heightened concerns globally on emerging drug-resistant superbugs and the lack of new antibiotics for treating human and animal diseases. For the agricultural industry, there is an urgent need to develop strategies to replace antibiotics for food-producing animals, especially poultry and livestock. The 2nd International Symposium on Alternatives to Antibiotics was held at the World Organization for Animal Health in Paris, France, December 12-15, 2016 to discuss recent scientific developments on strategic antibiotic-free management plans, to evaluate regional differences in policies regarding the reduction of antibiotics in animal agriculture and to develop antibiotic alternatives to combat the global increase in antibiotic resistance. More than 270 participants from academia, government research institutions, regulatory agencies, and private animal industries from >25 different countries came together to discuss recent research and promising novel technologies that could provide alternatives to antibiotics for use in animal health and production; assess challenges associated with their commercialization; and devise actionable strategies to facilitate the development of alternatives to antibiotic growth promoters (AGPs) without hampering animal production. The 3-day meeting consisted of four scientific sessions including vaccines, microbial products, phytochemicals, immune-related products, and innovative drugs, chemicals and enzymes, followed by the last session on regulation and funding. Each session was followed by an expert panel discussion that included industry representatives and session speakers. The session on phytochemicals included talks describing recent research achievements, with examples of successful agricultural use of various phytochemicals as antibiotic alternatives and their mode of action in major agricultural animals (poultry, swine and ruminants). Scientists from industry and academia and government research institutes shared their experience in developing and applying potential antibiotic-alternative phytochemicals commercially to reduce AGPs and to develop a sustainable animal production system in the absence of antibiotics.Fil: Lillehoj, Hyun. United States Department of Agriculture. Agricultural Research Service; ArgentinaFil: Liu, Yanhong. University of California; Estados UnidosFil: Calsamiglia, Sergio. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; EspañaFil: Fernandez Miyakawa, Mariano Enrique. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Veterinarias y Agronómicas. Instituto de Patobiología; ArgentinaFil: Chi, Fang. Amlan International; Estados UnidosFil: Cravens, Ron L.. Amlan International; Estados UnidosFil: Oh, Sungtaek. United States Department of Agriculture. Agricultural Research Service; ArgentinaFil: Gay, Cyril G.. United States Department of Agriculture. Agricultural Research Service; Argentin