A Day in Lockdown (A COVID-19 Response Comic)

"A Day in Lockdown" is a COVID-19 Response four-page comic depicting a day in the life of a family with a child with a disability during the first UK Lockdown in 2020. This comic was developed between February and April 2021 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The comic was co-designed with a print comic book format in mind but intended for free digital distribution as a PDF. Co-designed and edited by Francisco de la Mora, Dr Ernesto Priego and Stuart Scott, with art and story by Francisco de la Mora, "A Day in Lockdown" is part of a series of comics resulting from autoethnographic, participatory narrative co-design methods and produced as an output of the City Interaction Lab, Centre for Human-Computer Interaction Design, City, University of London. A motivation for these COVID-19 Response comics was the April 2020 creative brief from the United Nations, particularly addressing the “Key Messages”, including "physical distancing" and “kindness contagion” (United Nations 2020). The work on these COVID-19 Response comics has been led by Dr Ernesto Priego, researcher at the Centre for Human-Computer Interaction Design at City, University of London. As a comic, "A Day in Lockdown" is idiosyncratic and subjective; it is based on the personal experience of a London family during the first lockdown, and it does not intend to represent everyone's experiences nor to make any generalisations. Principles of biographical and documentary comics and autofiction were followed, and ethical guidelines were followed within the iterative participatory design process, including reader-testing and the incorporation of their feedback throughout the life cycle of the project

Un día en cuarentena (un cómic en respuesta a COVID-19)

Spanish translation of "A Day in Lockdown" is a COVID-19 Response four-page comic depicting a day in the life of a family with a child with a disability during the first UK Lockdown in 2020. "Un día en cuarentena" es la traducción al español de "A Day in Lockdown", un cómic de cuatro páginas de COVID-19 Response que describe un día en la vida de una familia con un niño con discapacidad durante el primer confinamiento (lockdown) del Reino Unido en 2020. Este cómic se desarrolló entre febrero y abril de 2021 en respuesta a la pandemia de COVID-19. El cómic fue co-diseñado con un formato de cómic impreso en mente, pero destinado a la distribución digital gratuita como PDF. Co-diseñado y editado por Francisco de la Mora, Dr. Ernesto Priego y Stuart Scott, con arte e historia de Francisco de la Mora, "Un día en cuarentena" es parte de una serie de cómics resultantes de la aplicación de métodos participativos de co-diseño narrativo autoetnográfico y producido por el City Interaction Lab, Center for Human-Computer Interaction Design, City, Universidad de Londres. Una motivación para estos cómics de respuesta COVID-19 fue la convocatoria para creativos de las Naciones Unidas publicada en de abril de 2020, que abordó en particular "Mensajes clave" como el "distanciamiento físico" y el "contagio de bondad" (Naciones Unidas 2020). Como cómic, "Un día en cuarentena" es idiosincrásico y subjetivo; se basa en la experiencia personal de una familia radicada en Londres durante el primer confinamiento o "lockdown" y no pretende representar las experiencias de todos ni hacer generalizaciones. Se siguieron los principios del cómic biográfico y documental y la autoficción, y se siguieron pautas éticas dentro del proceso de diseño participativo iterativo, que incluyó la evaluación por parte de lectores y la incorporación de sus comentarios a lo largo del ciclo de vida del proyecto

Une journée de confinement (une bande dessinée en réponse au COVID-19)

La traduction française de "A Day in Lockdown". Une journée de confinementest une bande dessinée de quatre pages en réponse à COVID-19 décrivant une journée dans la vie d'une famille avec un enfant handicapé lors du premier lockdown au Royaume-Uni en 2020

Effect of organic and inorganic passivation in quantum-dot-sensitized solar cells

The effect of semiconductor passivation on quantum-dot-sensitized solar cells (QDSCs) has been systematically characterized for CdS and CdS/ZnS. We have found that passivation strongly depends on the passivation agent, obtaining an enhancement of the solar cell efficiency for compounds containing amine and thiol groups and, in contrast, a decrease in performance for passivating agents with acid groups. Passivation can induce a change in the position of TiO2 conduction band and also in the recombination rate and nature, reflected in a change in the β parameter. Especially interesting is the finding that β, and consequently the fill factor can be increased with the passivation treatment. Applying this strategy, record cells of 4.65% efficiency for PbS-based QDSCs have been produced.This work was supported by the Institute of Nanotechnologies for Clean Energies (INCE), funded by the Generalitat Valenciana under Project ISIC/2012/008. We thank the following agencies for support of this research: Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia under project HOPE CSD2007-00007, Generalitat Valenciana (ISIC/2012/008), and Universitat Jaume I project 12I361.01/1. We acknowledge projects CYTED-Nanoenergía, PAPIIT-IN106912 (UNAM-México), and CONACyT-153270 (México) for financial support. M.S.F. acknowledges the fellowship given by CONACyT-México. Funding from National Research Foundation (NRF) Singapore is also kindly acknowledged (CRP Award No. NRF-CRP4-2008-03)

The influence of Ga+^+-irradiation on the transport properties of mesoscopic conducting thin films

We studied the influence of 30keV Ga$^+$-ions -- commonly used in focused ion beam (FIB) devices -- on the transport properties of thin crystalline graphite flake, La$_{0.7}$Ca$_{0.3}$MnO$_3$ and Co thin films. The changes of the electrical resistance were measured in-situ during irradiation and also the temperature and magnetic field dependence before and after irradiation. Our results show that the transport properties of these materials strongly change at Ga$^+$ fluences much below those used for patterning and ion beam induced deposition (IBID), limiting seriously the use of FIB when the intrinsic properties of the materials of interest are of importance. We present a method that can be used to protect the sample as well as to produce selectively irradiation-induced changes.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures, will be published in Nanotechnology 201

A Bright, Slow Cryogenic Molecular Beam Source for Free Radicals

We demonstrate and characterize a cryogenic buffer gas-cooled molecular beam source capable of producing bright beams of free radicals and refractory species. Details of the beam properties (brightness, forward velocity distribution, transverse velocity spread, rotational and vibrational temperatures) are measured under varying conditions for the molecular species SrF. Under typical conditions we produce a beam of brightness 1.2 x 10^11 molecules/sr/pulse in the rovibrational ground state, with 140 m/s forward velocity and a rotational temperature of approximately 1 K. This source compares favorably to other methods for producing beams of free radicals and refractory species for many types of experiments. We provide details of construction that may be helpful for others attempting to use this method.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figure

El mazateco de Oaxaca

El proyecto analiza la variación y el cambio en la fonología, léxico, morfología y sintaxis del mazateco que se habla en las Regiones de la Cuenca y la Cañada (Santo Domingo del Río, Xalapa de Díaz, Huautla de Jiménez y Santa María Asunción) del estado de Oaxaca de la República Mexican

Targeting Mycobacterium tuberculosis Biotin Protein Ligase (MtBPL) with Nucleoside-Based Bisubstrate Adenylation Inhibitors

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), responsible for both latent and symptomatic tuberculosis (TB), remains the second leading cause of mortality among infectious diseases worldwide. Mycobacterial biotin protein ligase (MtBPL) is an essential enzyme in Mtb and regulates lipid metabolism through the post-translational biotinylation of acyl coenzyme A carboxylases. We report the synthesis and evaluation of a systematic series of potent nucleoside-based inhibitors of MtBPL that contain modifications to the ribofuranosyl ring of the nucleoside. All compounds were characterized by isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) and shown to bind potently with KDs ≤ 2 nM. Additionally, we obtained high-resolution cocrystal structures for a majority of the compounds. Despite fairly uniform biochemical potency, the whole-cell Mtb activity varied greatly with minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) ranging from 0.78 to >100 μM. Cellular accumulation studies showed a nearly 10-fold enhancement in accumulation of a C-2'-α analogue over the corresponding C-2'-β analogue, consistent with their differential whole-cell activity

A novel HPV 16 L1-based chimeric virus-like particle containing E6 and E7 seroreactive epitopes permits highly specific detection of antibodies in patients with CIN 1 and HPV-16 infection

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The presence of IgG antibodies to HPV-16 L1-virus like particles (VLPs) in serum has been reported as a result of persistent exposure to the virus and as a marker of disease progression. However, detection of VLP-specific antibodies in sera does not always indicate a malignant lesion as positive results may also be due to a nonmalignant viral infection. Furthermore, malignant lesions are associated with an increased antibody titer for E6 and E7 proteins. The aim of this study was to develop an ELISA using a novel chimeric virus-like particle (cVLP) encoding an L1 protein fused with a string of HPV-16 E6 and E7 seroreactive epitopes to its C-terminus to be used for detection of HPV-16 specific antibodies in patients with cervical intraepithelial lesion grade 1 (CIN 1).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The sera of 30 patients with CIN 1 who also tested positive for HPV-16 DNA and of 30 age-matched normal donors negative for HPV infection were tested for the presence of IgG antibodies specific for either VLP-L1 (HPV-16 L1), gVLP (derived from Gardasil), or cVLP by ELISA. The cVLP-reactive sera yielded two distinct groups of results: (H) reactivity levels that presented very strong cVLP-specific titers, and (L) reactivity levels with significantly lower titers similar to those obtained with VLP-L1 and gVLP antigens. Additionally, the sera that presented the higher cVLP titers closely matched those that had significantly stronger reactivity to E6 and E7 epitopes. Interestingly, the samples with the highest titers corresponded to patients with the higher numbers of sexual partners and pregnancies. On the other hand only 4 out of the 12 sera that harbored antibodies with VLP neutralizing ability corresponded to the group with high cVLP antibody titers.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We report for the first time that chimeric particles containing HPV-16 L1 protein fused with E6 and E7 seroreactive epitopes enable much better detection of IgG antibodies in the sera of CIN 1 patients positive for HPV-16 infection than those obtained with VLPs containing only the HPV-16 L1 protein. We also found that the sera with higher cVLP antibody titers corresponded to patients with more sexual partners and pregnancies, and not always with to those with a high neutralizing activity. This novel assay could help in the development of a tool to evaluate cervical cancer risk.</p