Mechanical properties of zeolitic metal-organic frameworks: Mechanically flexible topologies and stabilization against structural collapse

We report the low elastic modulus of a zeolitic MOF, along with stabilization against structural collapse by filling with solvent.This is the author-accepted manuscript. It is under embargo for 12 months after publication. The final version of this article is published by RSC in CrystEngComm and can be found here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/c4ce02145

Impacts of Co-Solvent Flushing on Microbial Populations Capable of Degrading Trichloroethylene

With increased application of co-solvent flushing technologies for removal of nonaqueous phase liquids from groundwater aquifers, concern over the effects of the solvent on native microorganisms and their ability to degrade residual contaminant has also arisen. This study assessed the impact of ethanol flushing on the numbers and activity potentials of trichloroethylene (TCE)-degrading microbial populations present in aquifer soils taken immediately after and 2 years after ethanol flushing of a former dry cleaners site. Polymerase chain reaction analysis revealed soluble methane monooxygenase genes in methanotrophic enrichments, and 16S rRNA analysis identified Methylocystis parvus with 98% similarity, further indicating the presence of a type II methanotroph. Dissimilatory sulfite reductase genes in sulfate-reducing enrichments prepared were also observed. Ethanol flushing was simulated in columns packed with uncontaminated soils from the dry cleaners site that were dosed with TCE at concentrations observed in the field; after flushing, the columns were subjected to a continuous flow of 500 pore volumes of groundwater per week. Total acridine orange direct cell counts of the flushed and nonflushed soils decreased over the 15-week testing period, but after 5 weeks, the flushed soils maintained higher cell counts than the nonflushed soils. Inhibition of methanogenesis by sulfate reduction was observed in all column soils, as was increasing removal of total methane by soils incubated under methanotrophic conditions. These results showed that impacts of ethanol were not as severe as anticipated and imply that ethanol may mitigate the toxicity of TCE to the microorganisms

The selective conversion of D-limonene to p,alpha-dimethylstyrene

Reaction conditions to facilitate the conversion of D-limonene selectively to p,α-dimethylstyrene (DMS) are described, in order to subsequently produce polymeric materials from biomass sourced from food waste. Limonene was dehydrogenated with several palladium catalysts and different solvents and bases, with copper chloride as oxidant at temperatures of 70–120 °C. Reaction conditions were identified using Pd(OAc)2 for the selective formation of only DMS from limonene in 2–5 hours, enabling the facile separation of DMS from unreacted starting material by vacuum distillation

Decadal changes of the Western Arabian sea ecosystem

Historical data from oceanographic expeditions and remotely sensed data on outgoing longwave radiation, temperature, wind speed and ocean color in the western Arabian Sea (1950–2010) were used to investigate decadal trends in the physical and biochemical properties of the upper 300 m. 72 % of the 29,043 vertical profiles retrieved originated from USA and UK expeditions. Increasing outgoing longwave radiation, surface air temperatures and sea surface temperature were identified on decadal timescales. These were well correlated with decreasing wind speeds associated with a reduced Siberian High atmospheric anomaly. Shoaling of the oxycline and nitracline was observed as well as acidification of the upper 300 m. These physical and chemical changes were accompanied by declining chlorophyll-a concentrations, vertical macrofaunal habitat compression, declining sardine landings and an increase of fish kill incidents along the Omani coast

Mobile-based and open-source case detection and infectious disease outbreak management systems: a review [version 1; peer review: awaiting peer review]

In this paper we perform a rapid review of existing mobile-based, open-source systems for infectious disease outbreak data collection and management. Our inclusion criteria were designed to match the PANDORA-ID-NET consortium’s goals for capacity building in sub-Saharan Africa, and to reflect the lessons learned from the 2014–16 West African Ebola outbreak. We found eight candidate systems that satisfy some or most of these criteria, but only one (SORMAS) fulfils all of them. In addition, we outline a number of desirable features that are not currently present in most outbreak management systems

Maximum thermal limits of coral reef damselfishes are size dependent and resilient to near-future ocean acidification

Theoretical models predict that ocean acidification, caused by increased dissolved CO2, will reduce the maximum thermal limits of fishes, thereby increasing their vulnerability to rising ocean temperatures and transient heatwaves. Here, we test this prediction in three species of damselfishes on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Maximum thermal limits were quantified using critical thermal maxima (CTmax) tests following acclimation to either present-day or end-of-century levels of CO2 for coral reef environments (∼500 or ∼1,000 µatm, respectively). While species differed significantly in their thermal limits, whereby Dischistodus perspicillatus exhibited greater CTmax (37.88±0.03oC; N=47) than Dascyllus aruanus (37.68±0.02oC; N=85) and Acanthochromis polyacanthus (36.58±0.02oC; N=63), end-of-century CO2 had no effect (D. aruanus) or a slightly positive effect (increase in CTmax of 0.16oC in D. perspicillatus and 0.21oC in A. polyacanthus) on CTmax. Contrary to expectations, smaller individuals were equally as resilient to CO2 as larger conspecifics, and CTmax was higher at smaller body sizes in two species. These findings suggest that ocean acidification will not impair the maximum thermal limits of reef fishes, and they highlight the critical role of experimental biology in testing predictions of theoretical models forecasting the consequences of environmental change

On the scent of sexual attraction

A study in the current issue of BMC Biology has identified a mouse major urinary protein as a pheromone that attracts female mice to male urine marks and induces a learned attraction to the volatile urinary odor of the producer. See research article http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/8/7

Evaluating how agent methodologies support the specification of the normative environment through the development process

[EN] Due to the increase in collaborative work and the decentralization of processes in many domains, there is an expanding demand for large-scale, flexible and adaptive software systems to support the interactions of people and institutions distributed in heterogeneous environments. Commonly, these software applications should follow specific regulations meaning the actors using them are bound by rights, duties and restrictions. Since this normative environment determines the final design of the software system, it should be considered as an important issue during the design of the system. Some agent-oriented software engineering methodologies deal with the development of normative systems (systems that have a normative environment) by integrating the analysis of the normative environment of a system in the development process. This paper analyses to what extent these methodologies support the analysis and formalisation of the normative environment and highlights some open issues of the topic.This work is partially supported by the PROMETEOII/2013/019, TIN2012-36586-C03-01, FP7-29493, TIN2011-27652-C03-00, CSD2007-00022 projects, and the CASES project within the 7th European Community Framework Program under the grant agreement No 294931.Garcia Marques, ME.; Miles, S.; Luck, M.; Giret Boggino, AS. (2014). Evaluating how agent methodologies support the specification of the normative environment through the development process. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems. 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10458-014-9275-zS120Cossentino, M., Hilaire, V., Molesini, A., & Seidita, V. (Eds.). (2014). Handbook on agent-oriented design processes (Vol. VIII, 569 p. 508 illus.). Berlin: Springer.Akbari, O. (2010). A survey of agent-oriented software engineering paradigm: Towards its industrial acceptance. 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Verhagen (Eds.), Normative multi-agent systems, number 09121 in Dagstuhl seminar proceedings.Boella, G., Torre, L., & Verhagen, H. (2006). Introduction to normative multiagent systems. Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, 12(2–3), 71–79.Bogdanovych, A., Esteva, M., Simoff, S., Sierra, C., & Berger, H. (2008). A methodology for developing multiagent systems as 3d electronic institutions. In M. Luck & L. Padgham (Eds.), Agent-Oriented Software Engineering VIII (Vol. 4951, pp. 103–117). Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Berlin: Springer.Boissier, O., Padget, J., Dignum, V., Lindemann, G., Matson, E., Ossowski, S., Sichman, J., & Vazquez-Salceda, J. (2006). Coordination, organizations, institutions and norms in multi-agent systems. LNCS (LNAI) (Vol. 3913).Bordini, R. H., Fisher, M., Visser, W., & Wooldridge, M. (2006). Verifying multi-agent programs by model checking. In Autonomous agents and multi-agent systems (Vol. 12, pp. 239–256). Hingham, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers.Botti, V., Garrido, A., Giret, A., & Noriega, P. (2011). The role of MAS as a decision support tool in a water-rights market. In Post-proceedings workshops AAMAS2011 (Vol. 7068, pp. 35–49). Berlin: Springer.Breaux, T. (2009). Exercising due diligence in legal requirements acquisition: A tool-supported, frame-based approach. In Proceedings of the IEEE international requirements engineering conference (pp. 225–230).Breaux, T. D., & Baumer, D. L. (2011). Legally reasonable security requirements: A 10-year ftc retrospective. Computers and Security, 30(4), 178–193.Breaux, T. D., Vail, M. W., & Anton, A. I. (2006). Towards regulatory compliance: Extracting rights and obligations to align requirements with regulations. In Proceedings of the 14th IEEE international requirements engineering conference, RE ’06 (pp. 46–55). Washington, DC: IEEE Computer Society.Bresciani, P., Perini, A., Giorgini, P., Giunchiglia, F., & Mylopoulos, J. (2004). 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Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Vol. 3913, pp. 99–113). Springer. Berlin.Criado, N., Argente, E., Garrido, A., Gimeno, J. A., Igual, F., Botti, V., Noriega, P., & Giret, A. (2011). Norm enforceability in Electronic Institutions? In Coordination, organizations, institutions, and norms in agent systems VI (Vol. 6541, pp. 250–267). Springer.Dellarocas, C., & Klein, M. (2001). Contractual agent societies. In R. Conte & C. Dellarocas (Eds.), Social order in multiagent systems (Vol. 2, pp. 113–133)., Multiagent Systems, Artificial Societies, and Simulated Organizations New York: Springer.DeLoach, S. A. (2008). Developing a multiagent conference management system using the o-mase process framework. In Proceedings of the international conference on agent-oriented software engineering VIII (pp. 168–181).DeLoach, S. A., & Garcia-Ojeda, J. C. (2010). O-mase; a customisable approach to designing and building complex, adaptive multi-agent systems. International Journal of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering, 4(3), 244–280.DeLoach, S. A., Padgham, L., Perini, A., Susi, A., & Thangarajah, J. (2009). Using three aose toolkits to develop a sample design. International Journal Agent-Oriented Software Engineering, 3, 416–476.Dignum, F., Dignum, V., Thangarajah, J., Padgham, L., & Winikoff, M. (2007). Open agent systems? Eighth international workshop on agent oriented software engineering (AOSE) in AAMAS07.Dignum, V. (2003). A model for organizational interaction:based on agents, founded in logic. PhD thesis, Utrecht University.Dignum, V., Meyer, J., Dignum, F., & Weigand, H. (2003). Formal specification of interaction in agent societies. Formal approaches to agent-based systems (Vol. 2699).Dignum, V., Vazquez-Salceda, J., & Dignum, F. (2005). Omni: Introducing social structure, norms and ontologies into agent organizations. In R. Bordini, M. Dastani, J. Dix, & A. Seghrouchni (Eds.)Programming multi-agent systems. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Vol. 3346, pp. 181–198). Berlin: Springer.d’Inverno, M., Luck, M., Noriega, P., Rodriguez-Aguilar, J., & Sierra, C. (2012). Communicating open systems, 186, 38–94.Elsenbroich, C., & Gilbert, N. (2014). Agent-based modelling. In Modelling norms (pp. 65–84). Dordrecht: Springer.Esteva, M., Rosell, B., Rodriguez, J. A., & Arcos, J. L. (2004). AMELI: An agent-based middleware for electronic institutions. In AAMAS04 (pp. 236–243).Fenech, S., Pace, G. J., & Schneider, G. (2009). Automatic conflict detection on contracts. In Proceedings of the 6th international colloquium on theoretical aspects of computing, ICTAC ’09 (pp. 200–214).Garbay, C., Badeig, F., & Caelen, J. (2012). Normative multi-agent approach to support collaborative work in distributed tangible environments. In Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on computer supported cooperative work companion, CSCW ’12 (pp. 83–86). New York, NY: ACM.Garcia, E., Giret, A., & Botti, V. (2011). Regulated open multi-agent systems based on contracts. In Information Systems Development (pp. 243–255).Garcia, E., Tyson, G., Miles, S., Luck, M., Taweel, A., Staa, T. V., & Delaney, B. (2012). An analysis of agent-oriented engineering of e-health systems. In 13th international eorkshop on sgent-oriented software engineering (AOSE-AAMAS).Garcia, E., Tyson, G., Miles, S., Luck, M., Taweel, A., Staa, T. V., and Delaney, B. (2013). Analysing the Suitability of Multiagent Methodologies for e-Health Systems. In Agent-Oriented Software Engineering XIII, volume 7852, pages 134–150. Springer-Verlag.Garrido, A., Giret, A., Botti, V., & Noriega, P. (2013). mWater, a case study for modeling virtual markets. In New perspectives on agreement technologies (Vol. Law, Gover, pp. 563–579). Springer.Gteau, B., Boissier, O., & Khadraoui, D. (2006). Multi-agent-based support for electronic contracting in virtual enterprises. IFAC Symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing (INCOM), 150(3), 73–91.Hollander, C. D., & Wu, A. S. (2011). The current state of normative agent-based systems. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 14(2), 6.Hsieh, F.-S. (2005). Automated negotiation based on contract net and petri net. In E-commerce and web technologies. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Vol. 3590, pp. 148–157).Kollingbaum, M., Jureta, I. J., Vasconcelos, W., & Sycara, K. (2008). Automated requirements-driven definition of norms for the regulation of behavior in multi-agent systems. In Proceedings of the AISB 2008 workshop on behaviour regulation in multi-agent systems, Aberdeen, Scotland, U.K., April 2008.Li, T., Balke, T., Vos, M., Satoh, K., & Padget, J. (2013). Detecting conflicts in legal systems. In Y. Motomura, A. Butler, & D. Bekki (Eds.), New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence (Vol. 7856, pp. 174–189)., Lecture Notes in Computer Science Berlin Heidelberg: Springer.Lomuscio, A., Qu, H., & Solanki, M. (2010) Towards verifying contract regulated service composition. Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (pp. 1–29).Lopez, F., Luck, M., & d’Inverno, M. (2006). A normative framework for agent-based systems. Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, 12, 227–250.Lpez, F. y, Luck, M., & dInverno, M. (2006). A normative framework for agent-based systems. Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, 12(2–3), 227–250.Mader, P., & Egyed, A. (2012). Assessing the effect of requirements traceability for software maintenance. In 28th IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM) (pp. 171–180), Sept 2012.Mao, X., & Yu, E. (2005). Organizational and social concepts in agent oriented software engineering. In AOSE IV. 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New York, NY: ACM.Pace, G., Prisacariu, C., & Schneider, G. (2007). Model checking contracts a case study. In Automated technology for verification and analysis. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Vol. 4762, pp. 82–97).Rotolo, A., & van der Torre, L. (2011). Rules, agents and norms: Guidelines for rule-based normative multi-agent systems. RuleML Europe, 6826, 52–66.Saeki, M., & Kaiya, H. (2008). Supporting the elicitation of requirements compliant with regulations. In CAiSE ’08 (pp. 228–242).Siena, A., Mylopoulos, J., Perini, A., & Susi, A. (2009). Designing law-compliant software requirements. In Proceedings of the 28th international conference on conceptual modeling, ER ’09 (pp. 472–486).Singh, M. P. Commitments in multiagent systems: Some history, some confusions, some controversies, some prospects.Solaiman, E., Molina-Jimenez, C., & Shrivastav, S. (2003). Model checking correctness properties of electronic contracts. In Service-oriented computing—ICSOC 2003. 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Dietary garlic and hip osteoarthritis: evidence of a protective effect and putative mechanism of action

Background Patterns of food intake and prevalent osteoarthritis of the hand, hip, and knee were studied using the twin design to limit the effect of confounding factors. Compounds found in associated food groups were further studied in vitro. Methods Cross-sectional study conducted in a large population-based volunteer cohort of twins. Food intake was evaluated using the Food Frequency Questionnaire; OA was determined using plain radiographs. Analyses were adjusted for age, BMI and physical activity. Subsequent in vitro studies examined the effects of allium-derived compounds on the expression of matrix-degrading proteases in SW1353 chondrosarcoma cells. Results Data were available, depending on phenotype, for 654-1082 of 1086 female twins (median age 58.9 years; range 46-77). Trends in dietary analysis revealed a specific pattern of dietary intake, that high in fruit and vegetables, showed an inverse association with hip OA (p = 0.022). Consumption of 'non-citrus fruit' (p = 0.015) and 'alliums' (p = 0.029) had the strongest protective effect. Alliums contain diallyl disulphide which was shown to abrogate cytokine-induced matrix metalloproteinase expression. Conclusions Studies of diet are notorious for their confounding by lifestyle effects. While taking account of BMI, the data show an independent effect of a diet high in fruit and vegetables, suggesting it to be protective against radiographic hip OA. Furthermore, diallyl disulphide, a compound found in garlic and other alliums, represses the expression of matrix-degrading proteases in chondrocyte-like cells, providing a potential mechanism of action