Foreland Magmatism during the Arabia–Eurasia Collision: Pliocene–Quaternary Activity of the Karacadağ Volcanic Complex, SW Turkey

Pliocene to Quaternary magmatism in the Karacadağ Volcanic Complex in SE Turkey occurred in the foreland region of the Arabia–Eurasia collision and can be divided into two phases. The earlier Karacadağ phase formed a north–south-trending volcanic ridge that erupted three groups of lavas. The same range of mantle sources contributed to the younger Ovabağ phase lavas, which were erupted from monogenetic cones to the east of the Karacadağ fissure. As at several other intraplate localities across the northern Arabian Plate this magmatism represents mixtures of melt from shallow, isotopically enriched mantle and from deeper, more depleted mantle. The deep source is similar to the depleted mantle invoked for other northern Arabian intraplate volcanic fields but at Karacadağ this source contained phlogopite. This source could be located in the shallow convecting mantle or may represent a metasomatic layer in the base of the lithosphere. There is no evidence for a contribution from the Afar mantle plume, as has been proposed elsewhere in northern Arabia. Melting during the Karacadağ and Ovabağ phases could have resulted from a combination of upwelling beneath weak or thinned lithosphere and restricted local extension of that weakened lithosphere as it collided with Eurasia. Tension associated with the collision focused magma of the Karacadağ phase into the elongate shield volcano of Mt. Karacadağ. The northern end of the fissure accommodated more extensive differentiation of magma, with isolated cases of crustal contamination, consistent with greater stress in the lithosphere closest to the collision. Most magma batches of the Karacadağ and Ovabağ phases differentiated by fractional crystallization at ∼5 MPa, near the boundary between the upper and lower crust. Magma batches dominated by melt from garnet lherzolite show evidence for restricted amounts of differentiation at ∼22·5 MPa, which is close to the base of the lithospheric mantle

A Methodology for daylight optimisation of high-rise buildings in the dense urban district using overhang length and glazing type variables with surrogate modelling

Urbanization and population growth lead to the construction of higher buildings in the 21st century. This causes an increment on energy consumption as the amount of constructed floor areas is rising steadily. Integrating daylight performance in building design supports reducing the energy consumption and satisfying occupants' comfort. This study presents a methodology to optimise the daylight performance of a high-rise building located in a dense urban district. The purpose is to deal with optimisation problems by dividing the high-rise building into five zones from the ground level to the sky level, to achieve better daylight performance. Therefore, the study covers five optimization problems. Overhang length and glazing type are considered to optimise spatial Daylight Autonomy (sDA) and Annual Sunlight Exposure (ASE). A total of 500 samples in each zone are collected to develop surrogate models. A self-adaptive differential evolution algorithm is used to obtain near-optimal results for each zone. The developed surrogate models can estimate the metrics with minimum 98.25% R2 which is calculated from neural network prediction and Diva simulations. In the case study, the proposed methodology improves daylight performance of the high-rise building, decreasing ASE by approx. 27.6% and increasing the sDA values by around 88.2% in the dense urban district. - Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.We would like to thank Cemre Cubukcuoglu for the collaborative work while implementing the optimisation algorithm. M. Fatih Tasgetiren, who is partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51435009), acknowledges the HUST project in Wuhan.Scopu

Development and Quality of Life in Turkey: How Globalization, Religion, and Economic Growth Influence Individual Well-being

Recently, scholars have been calling attention to the macro-social and institutional structures shaping development and welfare. In this study we offer a socio-temporally situated understanding of quality of life (QOL) in a developing country setting and investigate the effects of macro structures on consumer well-being. Specifically, we focus on neoliberal development (led by the business sector, rather than led or directed by the government) and examine how a neoliberal transformation of the marketplace affects consumers’ QOL perceptions. The context of our research is Turkey, a developing country that has been an avid follower of neoliberal policies since the 1990s. We focus on three key macro-social developments that have been shaping Turkish society in the past decades – globalization, religion, and economic growth – and seek to understand how these forces influence consumers’ satisfaction with life. Our study contributes to the literature on development and QOL by first, showing the moderating effect of income, and second, introducing faith and global brands as important variables in conceptualizing QOL. © 2015, © The Author(s) 2015

Characterisation of psoriasis susceptibility locus 6 (PSORS6) in patients with early onset psoriasis and evidence for interaction with PSORS1

International audiencePsoriasis is a genetically complex, chronic inflammatory skin disease. We have previously identified a susceptibility locus on chromosome 19p13 (PSORS6). In a follow-up linkage disequilibrium (LD) study in an independent family based cohort, we found evidence for association to a newly discovered microsatellite at this locus (D19SPS21, p < 5.3*10-5). An LD-based association scan in 300 trios revealed association to several single SNPs in one LD block. When we stratified this cohort for carrying the PSORS1 risk allele at the HLA-C locus, evidence for association became much stronger at single SNP and haplotype levels (p-values between 1.0*10-4 and 8.0*10-4). In a replication study of 1,114 patients and 937 control individuals, evidence for association was also observed after stratification to the PSORS1 risk allele. In both study groups, logistic regression showed evidence for interaction between the risk alleles at PSORS1 and PSORS6. Best p-values for rs12459358 in both study groups remained significant after correction for multiple testing. The associated LD block did not comprise any known genes. Interestingly, an adjacent gene, MUC16, coding for a large glycosylated protein expressed in epithelia and of unknown function, could be shown to be also expressed in tissues relevant for pathogenesis of psoriasis such as skin and thymus. Immunohistochemical analyses of skin revealed focal staining for MUC16 in suprabasal epidermal cells. Further functional studies are required to clarify its potential role in psoriasis and identify the causal variant(s) at this locus. Our data establish PSORS6 as a confirmed psoriasis susceptibility locus showing interaction with PSORS1

Cytotoxic and bioactive properties of different color tulip flowers and degradation kinetic of tulip flower anthocyanins

This study was conducted to determine the potential use of anthocyanin-based extracts (ABEs) of wasted tulip flowers as food/drug colorants. For this aim, wasted tulip flowers were samples and analyzed for their bioactive properties and cytotoxicity. Total phenolic contents of the extracts of the claret red (126.55. mg of gallic acid equivalent (GAE)/g dry extract) and orange-red (113.76. mg GAE/g dry extract) flowers were the higher than those of the other tulip flowers. Total anthocyanin levels of the violet, orange-red, claret red and pink tulip flower extracts were determined as 265.04, 236.49, 839.08 and 404.45. mg pelargonidin 3-glucoside/kg dry extract, respectively and these levels were higher than those of the other flowers. The extracts were more effective for the inhibition of Listeria monocytogenes, Staphylococcus aureus and Yersinia enterocolitica compared to other tested bacteria. Additionally, the cytotoxic effects of five different tulip flower extracts on human breast adenocarcinoma (MCF-7) cell line were investigated. The results showed that the orange red, pink and violet extracts had no cytotoxic activity against MCF-7 cell lines while yellow and claret red extracts appeared to be toxic for the cells. Overall, the extracts of tulip flowers with different colors possess remarkable bioactive and cytotoxic properties. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd

Preliminary Multiphysics Analyses of HFIR LEU Fuel Conversion using COMSOL

The research documented herein was performed by several individuals across multiple organizations. We have previously acknowledged our funding for the project, but another common thread among the authors of this document, and hence the research performed, is the analysis tool COMSOL. The research has been divided into categories to allow the COMSOL analysis to be performed independently to the extent possible. As will be seen herein, the research has progressed to the point where it is expected that next year (2011) a large fraction of the research will require collaboration of our efforts as we progress almost exclusively into three-dimensional (3D) analysis. To the extent possible, we have tried to segregate the development effort into two-dimensional (2D) analysis in order to arrive at techniques and methodology that can be extended to 3D models in a timely manner. The Research Reactors Division (RRD) of ORNL has contracted with the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) Mechanical, Aerospace and Biomedical Engineering Department (MABE) to perform a significant fraction of this research. This group has been chosen due to their expertise and long-term commitment in using COMSOL and also because the participating students are able to work onsite on a part-time basis due to the close proximity of UTK with the ORNL campus. The UTK research has been governed by a statement of work (SOW) which clearly defines the specific tasks reported herein on the perspective areas of research. Ph.D. student Isaac T. Bodey has focused on heat transfer, fluid flow, modeling, and meshing issues and has been aided by his major professor Dr. Rao V. Arimilli and is the primary contributor to Section 2 of this report. Ph.D student Franklin G. Curtis has been focusing exclusively on fluid-structure interaction (FSI) due to the mechanical forces acting on the plate caused by the flow and has also been aided by his major professor Dr. Kivanc Ekici and is the primary contributor to Section 4 of this report. The HFIR LEU conversion project has also obtained the services of Dr. Prashant K. Jain of the Reactor & Nuclear Systems Division (RNSD) of ORNL. Prashant has quickly adapted to the COMSOL tools and has been focusing on thermal-structure interaction (TSI) issues and development of alternative 3D model approaches that could yield faster-running solutions. Prashant is the primary contributor to Section 5 of the report. And finally, while incorporating findings from all members of the COMSOL team (i.e., the team) and contributing as the senior COMSOL leader and advocate, Dr. James D. Freels has focused on the 3D model development, cluster deployment, and has contributed primarily to Section 3 and overall integration of this report. The team has migrated to the current release of COMSOL at version 4.1 for all the work described in this report, except where stated otherwise. Just as in the performance of the research, each of the respective sections has been originally authored by the respective authors. Therefore, the reader will observe a contrast in writing style throughout this document

The Myxococcus xanthus Two-Component System CorSR Regulates Expression of a Gene Cluster Involved in Maintaining Copper Tolerance during Growth and Development

Myxococcus xanthus is a soil-dwelling member of the δ–Proteobacteria that exhibits a complex developmental cycle upon starvation. Development comprises aggregation and differentiation into environmentally resistant myxospores in an environment that includes fluctuations in metal ion concentrations. While copper is essential for M. xanthus cells because several housekeeping enzymes use it as a cofactor, high copper concentrations are toxic. These opposing effects force cells to maintain a tight copper homeostasis. A plethora of paralogous genes involved in copper detoxification, all of which are differentially regulated, have been reported in M. xanthus. The use of in-frame deletion mutants and fusions with the reporter gene lacZ has allowed the identification of a two-component system, CorSR, that modulates the expression of an operon termed curA consisting of nine genes whose expression slowly increases after metal addition, reaching a plateau. Transcriptional regulation of this operon is complex because transcription can be initiated at different promoters and by different types of regulators. These genes confer copper tolerance during growth and development. Copper induces carotenoid production in a ΔcorSR mutant at lower concentrations than with the wild-type strain due to lack of expression of a gene product resembling subunit III of cbb3-type cytochrome c oxidase. This data may explain why copper induces carotenoid biosynthesis at suboptimal rather than optimal growth conditions in wild-type strains.This work has been funded by the Spanish Government (grants CSD2009-00006 and BFU2012-33248, 70% funded by FEDER). This work was also supported by the National Institute of General Medical Science of the National Institutes of Health under award number R01GM095826 to LJS, and by the National Science Foundation under award number MCB0742976 to LJS. JMD and JP received a fellowship from Junta de Andalucía to do some work at University of Georgia

ABCB1 (MDR1) polymorphisms and ovarian cancer progression and survival: A comprehensive analysis from the Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium and The Cancer Genome Atlas

&lt;b&gt;Objective&lt;/b&gt; &lt;i&gt;ABCB1&lt;/i&gt; encodes the multi-drug efflux pump P-glycoprotein (P-gp) and has been implicated in multi-drug resistance. We comprehensively evaluated this gene and flanking regions for an association with clinical outcome in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC).&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;b&gt;Methods&lt;/b&gt; The best candidates from fine-mapping analysis of 21 &lt;i&gt;ABCB1&lt;/i&gt; SNPs tagging C1236T (rs1128503), G2677T/A (rs2032582), and C3435T (rs1045642) were analysed in 4616 European invasive EOC patients from thirteen Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium (OCAC) studies and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Additionally we analysed 1,562 imputed SNPs around ABCB1 in patients receiving cytoreductive surgery and either ‘standard’ first-line paclitaxel–carboplatin chemotherapy (n = 1158) or any first-line chemotherapy regimen (n = 2867). We also evaluated ABCB1 expression in primary tumours from 143 EOC patients.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;b&gt;Result&lt;/b&gt; Fine-mapping revealed that rs1128503, rs2032582, and rs1045642 were the best candidates in optimally debulked patients. However, we observed no significant association between any SNP and either progression-free survival or overall survival in analysis of data from 14 studies. There was a marginal association between rs1128503 and overall survival in patients with nil residual disease (HR 0.88, 95% CI 0.77–1.01; p = 0.07). In contrast, &lt;i&gt;ABCB1&lt;/i&gt; expression in the primary tumour may confer worse prognosis in patients with sub-optimally debulked tumours.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;b&gt;Conclusion&lt;/b&gt; Our study represents the largest analysis of &lt;i&gt;ABCB1&lt;/i&gt; SNPs and EOC progression and survival to date, but has not identified additional signals, or validated reported associations with progression-free survival for rs1128503, rs2032582, and rs1045642. However, we cannot rule out the possibility of a subtle effect of rs1128503, or other SNPs linked to it, on overall survival.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt