The Solid Waste Management System of Jaipur: An Overview and Analysis

Jaipur’s rapid development has resulted in its infrastructure lagging behind population and industrial growth, which is especially evident in the unsightly and unsanitary piles of solid waste (garbage) on the roads. This project took a broad system approach to understand Jaipur’s solid waste management system. It investigated how the system is carried out, some obstacles to its success, and the role of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). The findings indicate that there is a multiple-tiered hierarchical system. The system involves a formal sector comprised of female and male sweepers, permanent and impermanent workers, and an informal sector of ragpickers and door-todoor collectors, door-to-door recyclers, NGOs, and private companies. The main problems to implementation of the system include lack of citizen awareness and commitment, no segregation of waste, corruption, technology, and funding. PPPs can help fund larger projects as well as offer expertise, but often the ventures are unprofitable, which discourages companies from undertaking them. Many new projects and regulations such as a new scientific landfill, a composting service, and stricter penalties for littering and dirtying the city are currently underway, which should greatly improve Jaipur’s cleanliness

TRIQS: A Toolbox for Research on Interacting Quantum Systems

We present the TRIQS library, a Toolbox for Research on Interacting Quantum Systems. It is an open-source, computational physics library providing a framework for the quick development of applications in the field of many-body quantum physics, and in particular, strongly-correlated electronic systems. It supplies components to develop codes in a modern, concise and efficient way: e.g. Green's function containers, a generic Monte Carlo class, and simple interfaces to HDF5. TRIQS is a C++/Python library that can be used from either language. It is distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPLv3). State-of-the-art applications based on the library, such as modern quantum many-body solvers and interfaces between density-functional-theory codes and dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) codes are distributed along with it.Comment: 27 page

Influences of Maternal Vulnerability and Antidepressant Treatment during Pregnancy on the Developing Offspring

Maternal vulnerability to adversity has long-term impact on the developing child. About 20% of the pregnant women suffer from affective disorders. Fetal exposure to maternal adversity may lead to detrimental consequences later in life. Maternal affective disorders are increasingly treated with antidepressants, especially selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). However, the long-term consequences for the offspring after exposure to this medication are unclear. The interplay between maternal adversity and SSRI treatment has been under investigation and here we discuss how maternal adversity and SSRIs are able to shape offspring development. Specifically, we will discuss animal models addressing behavioral outcomes to understand how the prenatal environment influences the health of the developing child across the life span

Diversity and temporal dynamics of the epiphytic bacterial communities associated with the canopy-forming seaweed Cystoseira cornpressa (Esper) Gerloff and Nizamuddin

Canopy-forming seaweed species of the genus Cystoseira form diverse and productive habitats along temperate rocky coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. Despite numerous studies on the rich macrofauna and flora associated with Cystoseira spp., there is little knowledge about the epiphytic bacteria. We analyzed bacterial populations associated with canopies of Cystoseira compressa, over an annual vegetative cycle (May-October), and their relationships with the bacterial populations in the surrounding seawater, at intertidal rocky shores in Vasto (Chieti - Italy). The bacterial diversity was assessed using Illumina Miseq sequences of V1-V3 hypervariable regions of 16S rRNA gene. C. compressa bacterial community was dominated by sequences of Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes, Verrucomicrobia, Actinobacteria and Cyanobacteria especially of the Rhodobacteriaceae, Flavobacteriaceae, Sapropiraceae, Verrucomicrobiaceae and Phyllobacteriaceae families. Seawater libraries were also dominated by Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes sequences, especially of the Candidatus Pelagibacter (SAR11) and Rhodobacteriaceae families, but were shown to be clearly distinct from C. compressa libraries with only few species in common between the two habitats. We observed a clear successional pattern in the epiphytic bacteria of C. compressa over time. These variations were characterized by gradual addition of OTUs (Verrucomicrobia, Actinobacteria and SR1) to the community over a growing season, indicative of a temporal gradient, rather than a radical reorganization of the bacterial community. Moreover, we also found an increase in abundance over time of Rhodobacteraceae, comprising six potential pathogenic genera, Ruegeria, Nautella, Aquimarina, Loktanella, Saprospira and Phaeobacter which seemed to be associated to aged thalli of C. compressa. These bacteria could have the potential to affect the health and ecology of the algae, suggesting the hypothesis of a possible, but still unexplored, role of the microbial communities in contributing to the extensive ongoing declines of populations of Cystoseira spp. in the Mediterranean Sea

Novel deletions causing pseudoxanthoma elasticum underscore the genomic instability of the ABCC6 region

Mutations in ABCC6 cause pseudoxanthoma elasticum (PXE), a heritable disease that affects elastic fibers. Thus far, >200 mutations have been characterized by various PCR-based techniques (primarily direct sequencing), identifying up to 90% of PXE-causing alleles. This study wanted to assess the importance of deletions and insertions in the ABCC6 genomic region, which is known to have a high recombinational potential. To detect ABCC6 deletions/insertions, which can be missed by direct sequencing, multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA) was applied in PXE patients with an incomplete genotype. MLPA was performed in 35 PXE patients with at least one unidentified mutant allele after exonic sequencing and exclusion of the recurrent exon 23-29 deletion. Six multi-exon deletions and four single-exon deletions were detected. Using MLPA in addition to sequencing, we expanded the ABCC6 mutation spectrum with 9 novel deletions and characterized 25% of unidentified disease alleles. Our results further illustrate the instability of the ABCC6 genomic region and stress the importance of screening for deletions in the molecular diagnosis of PXE. Journal of Human Genetics (2010) 55, 112-117; doi: 10.1038/jhg.2009.132; published online 15 January 201

Mechanical magnetometry of Cobalt nanospheres deposited by focused electron beam at the tip of ultra-soft cantilevers

Using focused-electron-beam-induced deposition, Cobalt magnetic nanospheres with diameter ranging between 100 nm and 300 nm are grown at the tip of ultra-soft cantilevers. By monitoring the mechanical resonance frequency of the cantilever as a function of the applied magnetic field, the hysteresis curve of these individual nanospheres are measured. This enables to evaluate their saturation magnetization, found to be around 430 emu/cm^3 independently of the size of the particle, and to infer that the magnetic vortex state is the equilibrium configuration of these nanospheres at remanence

Shear layers in two-stage compound channels investigated with LS-PIV

Flow experiments are conducted in a two-stage compound open-channel, with varying intensity of the velocity difference between the main channel (deep part) and the floodplain (shallower part), using a large-scale free surface PIV technique (LS-PIV). For all investigated flows, a shear layer develops at the interface between main channel and floodplain, characterised by a peak of turbulent shear stress. Yet, two different kinds of shear layer could be identified. The first kind is characterised by the presence of large-scale quasi-periodic structures of Kelvin-Helmholtz type which are growing in downstream direction, whereas the second kind is characterised by smaller-scale vortical structures without quasi-periodicity and which do not grow in downstream direction. The shear parameter λ=(U$_2$−U$_1$)/(U$_2$+U$_1$), where U$_1$ and U$_2$ are defined as the velocities outside the shear layer, is identified as a key parameter to distinguish between these two types of shear layers, supporting a result from Proust et al. (Water Resour Res 53: 3387–3406, 2017). A physical interpretation of the λ-criterion is proposed, based on the inhibiting effect of ambient turbulence (the turbulence level outside the shear layer) on the emergence of Kelvin-Helmholtz structures. Accordingly, the threshold value of λ, above which large-scale structures can develop, is dependent on the level of the ambient turbulence. Despite their very different behaviours, the two types of shear layer have the same efficiency to generate turbulent shear stress for a given velocity difference across the shear layer, except for λ-values close to the threshold value

Price formation and optimal trading in intraday electricity markets with a major player

We study price formation in intraday electricity markets in the presence of intermittent renewable generation. We consider the setting where a major producer may interact strategically with a large number of small producers. Using stochastic control theory we identify the optimal strategies of agents with market impact and exhibit the Nash equilibrium in closed form in the asymptotic framework of mean field games with a major player. This is a companion paper to [F\'eron, Tankov, and Tinsi, Price formation and optimal trading in intraday electricity markets, arXiv:2009.04786, 2020], where a similar model is developed in the setting of identical agents