4',5',6',7'-Tetrachlorospiro[cyclohex-2-ene-1,2'-indan]-1',3'-dione

The title compound, C₁₄H₈Cl₄O₂, has been isolated following irradiation of a dichloromethane solution of N-acetyltetrachlorophthalimide and cyclohexene. The structure refinement is slightly compromised by the disorder over two positions of equal occupancy of a methylene groupβ to the spiro C atom

(1RS,2SR,7RS,8RS)-N-Benzoyltricyclo[6.2.2.0²,⁷]dodeca-9,11-diene-1,10-dicarboximide

The title 1,4-photoadduct, C₂₁H₁₉NO₃, was formed on irradiation of N-benzoylphthalimide in dichloromethane containing cyclohexene. The bond lengths and angles are generally within the normal ranges. A notable feature of the molecule is the presence within it of four contiguous chiral centres

Assessing the needs of older people in urban settings : integration of emotive, physiological and built environment data

Design of the built environment for navigability and walkability is an increasingly important aspect of urban planning. This focus derives in part from increasing interest in lifestyles and behaviours including level of physical activity and health outcomes. Geographical Information Systems and virtual realities are playing a significant role in advancing this agenda: examples exist of integrating qualitative data (words about or visual images of places) and quantitative data (numerical descriptions of places). However there remain opportunities for exploring alternative ways of linking different types of data (physiological measurements, emotional response, street walkability and urban design quality) to address issues of urban planning and renewal. Using a case study approach this paper explores the application of geographic information science and systems to participatory approaches in built environment planning with the aim of exploring older people’s response to an unfamiliar urban environment. It examines different ways of combining temporally and spatial referenced qualitative and quantitative data. The participants in the study were a group of 44 older people (60+) from Swansea, Wales, who viewed a filmed walking route around Colchester, England. Whilst viewing the film they gave an oral commentary and physiological readings were made, which have been integrated with primary data collected on the built environment along the walking route. Proximity and inverse distance weighting approaches for combining these datasets produce complementary results in respect of older people’s physiological and emotive response to variation in the walkability and design quality of a walking route through an unfamiliar town centre. The results reveal participants experienced an elevated average heart close to Colchester Town railway station and expressed a comparatively negative emotional response to this location. Conversely participants experienced lower average heart rate, indicating reduced stress, in Brook Street where the overall Urban Design Quality score was relatively low

2-Benzoylspiro[1H-isoindole-1,3'-isochromene]-1',3,4'(2H,3'H)-trione

The title compound, C₂₃H₁₃NO₅, was isolated following irradiation of N-benzoylphthalimide in toluene. The bond lengths and angles are typical of a molecule of this kind, but the molecule itself is of some interest. The most challenging aspect of the refinement was to devise a model to cater for disorder in one part of the molecule

Trail laying during tandem-running recruitment in the ant Temnothorax albipennis

Tandem running is a recruitment strategy whereby one ant leads a single naïve nest mate to a resource. While tandem running progresses towards the goal, the leader ant and the follower ant maintain contact mainly by tactile signals. In this paper, we investigated whether they also deposit chemical signals on the ground during tandem running. We filmed tandem-running ants and analysed the position of the gasters of leaders and followers. Our results show that leader ants are more likely to press their gasters down to the substrate compared to follower ants, single ants and transporter ants. Forward tandem-run leaders (those moving towards a new nest site) performed such trail-marking procedures three times more often than reverse tandem leaders (those moving towards an old nest site). That leader ants marked the trails more often during forward tandem runs may suggest that it is more important to maintain the bond with the follower ant on forward tandem runs than on reverse tandem runs. Marked trails on the ground may serve as a safety line that improves both the efficiency of tandem runs and their completion rates. © 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Expanding the scope of the crystallization-driven self-assembly of polylactide-containing polymers

We report the crystallization-driven self-assembly of diblock copolymers bearing a poly(L-lactide) block into cylindrical micelles. Three different hydrophilic corona-forming blocks have been employed: poly(4-acryloyl morpholine) (P4AM), poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) and poly(N,N-dimethylacrylamide) (PDMA). Optimization of the experimental conditions to improve the dispersities of the resultant cylinders through variation of the solvent ratio, the polymer concentration, and the addition speed of the selective solvent is reported. The last parameter has been shown to play a crucial role in the homogeneity of the initial solution, which leads to a pure cylindrical phase with a narrow distribution of length. The hydrophilic characters of the polymers have been shown to direct the length of the resultant cylinders, with the most hydrophilic corona block leading to the shortest cylinders

Dual effect of thiol addition on fluorescent polymeric micelles: ON-to-OFF emissive switch and morphology transition

YesThe morphology transition from micelles to vesicles of a solution-state self-assembled block copolymer, containing a fluorescent dye at the core–shell interface, has been induced by an addition–elimination reaction using a thiol, and has been shown to be coupled to a simultaneous ON-to-OFF switch in particle fluorescence.EPSRC and the IAS at the University of Warwic

The pregnant man: race, difference and subjectivity in Alan Paton’s Kalahari writing

In South African imaginative writing and scholarly research, there is currently an extensive and wide-ranging interest in the ‘Bushman’, either as a tragic figure of colonial history, as a contested site of misrepresentation, or even as an exemplary model of environmental consciousness. Writing and research about ‘Bushmen’ has not only become pervasive in the academy, but also a site of controversy and theoretical contestation. It is in this context that this paper investigates the meaning and significance of ‘Bushmen’ for Alan Paton, one of South Africa’s most well-known writers. Paton’s writing is not usually associated with ‘Bushman’ studies, yet this article shows that the ‘Bushman’ became a highly charged and ambivalent figure in his imagination. Paton’s problematic ideas are contextualised more carefully by looking at the broader context of South African letters. The article initially analyses Paton’s representation of ‘Bushmen’ in his Lost City of the Kalahari travel narrative (1956, published in 2005. Pietermaritzburg: KZN Press), and also discusses unpublished archival photographs. A study of the figure of the ‘Bushman’ throughout the entire corpus of his writing, ranging from early journalism to late autobiography, allows us to trace the shift of his views, enabling us to reflect not only on Paton’s thinking about racial otherness, but also gauge the extent to which his encounter with the Kalahari Bushmen destabilised his sense of self, finally also preventing the publication of the travelogueDepartment of HE and Training approved lis

Complementary landmarks facilitate ant navigation

© 2018 The Authors Visual landmarks are important navigational aids to many animals, and when more than one is available their juxtaposition can convey valuable new information to a navigator about progress toward a goal, depending on the landmarks’ comparative distinctiveness. We investigated the effect of presenting rock ant colonies (Temnothorax albipennis) with identical horizontal landmarks either side of their route, versus one horizontal landmark paired with a sloping landmark, as they navigated to a new nest site. Our findings suggest that ants can obtain more navigational information from a combination of dissimilar landmarks: the average tortuosity of the route taken between old and new nests was significantly lower when a horizontal landmark was paired with a monotonically downward sloping landmark (the paths were more direct). The impact on available navigational information from the similarity or dissimilarity of nearby landmarks is likely made through more distinctive visual panoramas, and could be an influential factor in individual and collective animal decision-making about which routes are followed. Furthermore, the effect of landmark complementarity may be relevant to a wide range of species, including other insects or birds, and highlights the possibility that there is an intrinsic difference in the informational content of natural vs. artificial environments

Migration control: A distance compensation strategy in ants

©The Author(s) 2016. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com. Migratory behaviour forms an intrinsic part of the life histories of many organisms but is often a high-risk process. Consequently, varied strategies have evolved to negate such risks, but empirical data relating to their functioning are limited. In this study, we use the model system of the househunting ant Temnothorax albipennis to demonstrate a key strategy that can shorten migration exposure times in a group of social insects. Colonies of these ants frequently migrate to new nest sites, and due to the nature of their habitat, the distances over which they do so are variable, leading to fluctuating potential costs dependent on migration parameters. We show that colonies of this species facultatively alter the dynamics of a migration and so compensate for the distance over which a given migration occurs. Specifically, they achieve this by modulating the rate of ‘tandem running’, in which workers teach each other the route to a new nest site. Using this method, colonies are able to engage a larger number of individuals in the migration process when the distance to be traversed is greater, and furthermore, the system appears to be based on perceived encounter rate at the individual level. This form of decentralised control highlights the adaptive nature of a behaviour of ecological importance, and indicates that the key to its robustness lies in the use of simple rules. Additionally, our results suggest that such coordinated group reactions are central to achieving the high levels of ecological success seen in many eusocial organisms