The Good, the Bad, and the News: Twenty Years of the Egyptian Media

The second of two issues, this volume covers aspects of Egyptian society. Contributors include: Donald Cole, Soraya Altorki, Asef Bayat, Eric Denis, Enid Hill, Ziad Bahaeddin, Malak Rouchdy, Linda Herrera, Jim Napoli, Hussein Amin, Mahmoud al-Lozy, Cynthia Nelson, and Shahnaz Rouse.https://fount.aucegypt.edu/faculty_book_chapters/1987/thumbnail.jp

Heatwaves: an invisible risk in UK policy and research

In 2019, a heatwave – an unusual extended period of hot weather – broke the UK’s highest recorded temperature of 38.7 °C set in 2003. Of concern is that for summer 2019, this resulted in 892 excess deaths. With the intensity and frequency of UK heatwaves projected to increase, and summer temperatures predicted to be 5 °C hotter by 2070, urgent action is needed to prepare for, and adapt to, the changes now and to come. Yet it remains unclear what actions are needed and by whom. In response, a systematic literature review of UK heatwaves peer-reviewed publications, inclusive of keyword criteria (total papers returned = 183), was conducted to understand what lessons have been learnt and what needs to happen next. Our research shows that heatwaves remain largely an invisible risk in the UK. Communication over what UK residents should do, the support needed to make changes, and their capacity to enact those changes, is often lacking. In turn, there is an inherent bias where research focuses too narrowly on the health and building sectors over other critical sectors, such as agriculture. An increased amount of action and leadership is therefore necessary from the UK government to address this

Interplay between Affinity and Valency in Effector Cell Degranulation: A Model System with Polcalcin Allergens and Human Patient-Derived IgE Antibodies.

This is the accepted, uncopyedited version of the manuscript. The definitive version was published in The Journal of Immunology August 28, 2019, ji1900509; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4049/jimmunol.1900509Originally published in The Journal of Immunology. Bucaite G, Kang-Pettinger T, Moreira J, et al. Interplay between Affinity and Valency in Effector Cell Degranulation: A Model System with Polcalcin Allergens and Human Patient-Derived IgE Antibodies. J Immunol. 2019;203(7):1693-1700. doi:10.4049/jimmunol.1900509 The American Association of Immunologists, Inc.An allergic reaction is rapidly generated when allergens bind and cross-link IgE bound to its receptor FcεRI on effector cells, resulting in cell degranulation and release of proinflammatory mediators. The extent of effector cell activation is linked to allergen affinity, oligomeric state, valency, and spacing of IgE-binding epitopes on the allergen. Whereas most of these observations come from studies using synthetic allergens, in this study we have used Timothy grass pollen allergen Phl p 7 and birch pollen allergen Bet v 4 to study these effects. Despite the high homology of these polcalcin family allergens, Phl p 7 and Bet v 4 display different binding characteristics toward two human patient-derived polcalcin-specific IgE Abs. We have used native polcalcin dimers and engineered multimeric allergens to test the effects of affinity and oligomeric state on IgE binding and effector cell activation. Our results indicate that polcalcin multimers are required to stimulate high levels of effector cell degranulation when using the humanized RBL-SX38 cell model and that multivalency can overcome the need for high-affinity interactions.This work was supported by Medical Research Council Grant G1100090. G.B. was supported by a studentship from the King’s Bioscience Institute and by the Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Charity Prize Ph.D. Program in Biomedical and Translational Science. We acknowledge the support of the Centre for Biomolecular Spectroscopy, King’s College London, established with a Capital Award from the Wellcome Trust (Grant 085944)

Quantum state engineering assisted by entanglement

We suggest a general scheme for quantum state engineering based on conditional measurements carried out on entangled twin-beam of radiation. Realistic detection schemes such as {\sc on/off} photodetection, homodyne detection and joint measurement of two-mode quadratures are analyzed in details. Imperfections of the apparatuses, such as nonunit quantum efficiency and finite resolution, are taken into account. We show that conditional {\sc on/off} photodetection provides a reliable scheme to verify nonclassicality, whereas conditional homodyning represents a tunable and robust source of squeezed light. We also describe optical teleportation as a conditional measurement, and evaluate the degrading effects of finite amount of entanglement, decoherence due to losses, and nonunit quantum efficiency.Comment: Some pics with low resolution. Originals at http://www.qubit.i

The \u3cem\u3eChlamydomonas\u3c/em\u3e Genome Reveals the Evolution of Key Animal and Plant Functions

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is a unicellular green alga whose lineage diverged from land plants over 1 billion years ago. It is a model system for studying chloroplast-based photosynthesis, as well as the structure, assembly, and function of eukaryotic flagella (cilia), which were inherited from the common ancestor of plants and animals, but lost in land plants. We sequenced the ∼120-megabase nuclear genome of Chlamydomonas and performed comparative phylogenomic analyses, identifying genes encoding uncharacterized proteins that are likely associated with the function and biogenesis of chloroplasts or eukaryotic flagella. Analyses of the Chlamydomonas genome advance our understanding of the ancestral eukaryotic cell, reveal previously unknown genes associated with photosynthetic and flagellar functions, and establish links between ciliopathy and the composition and function of flagella

Dark sectors 2016 Workshop: community report

This report, based on the Dark Sectors workshop at SLAC in April 2016, summarizes the scientific importance of searches for dark sector dark matter and forces at masses beneath the weak-scale, the status of this broad international field, the important milestones motivating future exploration, and promising experimental opportunities to reach these milestones over the next 5-10 years

US Cosmic Visions: New Ideas in Dark Matter 2017: Community Report

This white paper summarizes the workshop "U.S. Cosmic Visions: New Ideas in Dark Matter" held at University of Maryland on March 23-25, 2017.Comment: 102 pages + reference

Pronounced Shape Change Induced by Quasiparticle Alignment

Mean lifetimes of high-spin states of 74Kr have been determined using the Doppler-shift attenuation method. The high-spin states were studied using the 40Ca(40Ca,α2p) reaction at a beam energy of 160 MeV with the GASP γ-ray spectrometer. The ground-state band and negative parity side band show the presence of three different configurations in terms of transitional quadrupole deformations. A dramatic shape change was found along the ground-state band after the S-band crossing. The deduced quadrupole deformation changes are well reproduced by cranked Woods-Saxon Strutinsky calculations