3,771 research outputs found
The environmental "trade balance" between Scotland and the rest of the UK : an inter-regional input-output and SAM analysis
We use an inter-regional input-output (IO) and social accounting matrix (SAM) pollution attribution framework to serve as a platform for sub-national environmental attribution and trade balance analysis. While the existence of significant data problems mean that the quantitative results of this study should be regarded as provisional, the inter-regional economy-environment IO and SAM framework for Scotland and the rest of the UK (RUK) allows an illustrative analysis of some very important issues. There are two key findings. The first is that there are large environmental spillovers between the regions of the UK. This has implications in terms of the devolution of responsibility for achieving targets for reductions in emissions levels and the need for policy co-ordination between the UK national and devolved governments. The second finding is that whilst Scotland runs an economic trade deficit with RUK, the environmental trade balance relationship for the main greenhouse gas, CO2, runs in the opposite direction. In other words, the findings of this study suggest the existence of a CO2 trade surplus between Scotland and the rest of the UK. This suggests that Scotland is bearing a net loss in terms of pollutants as a result of inter-union trade. However, if Scotland can carry out key activities, such as electricity generation, using less polluting technology, it is better for the UK as a whole if this type of relationship exists. Thus, the environmental trade balance is an important part of the devolution settlement
Who pollutes in Scotland? A prelude to an analysis of sustainability policies in a devolved context
The notion of sustainable development has begun to figure prominently in the regional, as well as the national, policy concerns of many industrialized countries. Indicators have typically been used to monitor changes in economic, environmental and social variables to show whether economic development is on a sustainable path. This paper focuses on pollution in Scotland and analyses the sustainability policies in a devolved political context
Nodule Biomass of the Nitrogen-fixing Alien Myrica faya Ait. in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park
Myricafaya forms a nitrogen-fixing symbiosis in which fixation
takes place in specialized root nodules. The biomass of these nodules was greater
in open-grown than shaded individuals of Myricafaya, and was greater in large
than small individuals. All Myricafaya examined, including seedlings and those
growing epiphytically, had active nodules. Nitrogen fixation by invading Myrica
faya could alter patterns of primary succession in Hawaii Volcanoes National
Park
Effect of nonnegativity on estimation errors in one-qubit state tomography with finite data
We analyze the behavior of estimation errors evaluated by two loss functions,
the Hilbert-Schmidt distance and infidelity, in one-qubit state tomography with
finite data. We show numerically that there can be a large gap between the
estimation errors and those predicted by an asymptotic analysis. The origin of
this discrepancy is the existence of the boundary in the state space imposed by
the requirement that density matrices be nonnegative (positive semidefinite).
We derive an explicit form of a function reproducing the behavior of the
estimation errors with high accuracy by introducing two approximations: a
Gaussian approximation of the multinomial distributions of outcomes, and
linearizing the boundary. This function gives us an intuition for the behavior
of the expected losses for finite data sets. We show that this function can be
used to determine the amount of data necessary for the estimation to be treated
reliably with the asymptotic theory. We give an explicit expression for this
amount, which exhibits strong sensitivity to the true quantum state as well as
the choice of measurement.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, One figure (FIG. 1) is added to the previous
version, and some typos are correcte
Primordial magnetic field and spectral distortion of cosmic background radiation
The role played by a primordial magnetic field during the pre-recombination
epoch is analysed through the cyclotron radiation (due to the free electrons)
it might produce in the primordial plasma. We discuss the constraint implied by
the measurement or lack thereof COBE on this primordial field.Comment: to appear in International Journal of Mod. Phy
Establishment and operation of a Good Manufacturing Practice-compliant allogeneic Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-specific cytotoxic cell bank for the treatment of EBV-associated lymphoproliferative disease
Funded by Wellcome Trust Translational Award SNBTSPeer reviewedPublisher PD
A Submillimeter HCN Laser in IRC+10216
We report the detection of a strong submillimeter wavelength HCN laser line
at a frequency near 805 GHz toward the carbon star IRC+10216. This line, the
J=9-8 rotational transition within the (04(0)0) vibrationally excited state, is
one of a series of HCN laser lines that were first detected in the laboratory
in the early days of laser spectroscopy. Since its lower energy level is 4200 K
above the ground state, the laser emission must arise from the inner part of
IRC+10216's circumstellar envelope. To better characterize this environment, we
observed other, thermally emitting, vibrationally excited HCN lines and find
that they, like the laser line, arise in a region of temperature approximately
1000 K that is located within the dust formation radius; this conclusion is
supported by the linewidth of the laser. The (04(0)0), J=9-8 laser might be
chemically pumped and may be the only known laser (or maser) that is excited
both in the laboratory and in space by a similar mechanism.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure
Molecular identification of different trypanosome species and subspecies in tsetse flies of northern Nigeria
Background:
Animal African Trypanosomiasis (AAT) is caused by several species of trypanosomes including Trypanosoma congolense, T. vivax, T. godfreyi, T. simiae and T. brucei. Two of the subspecies of T. brucei also cause Human African Trypanosomiasis. Although some of them can be mechanically transmitted by biting flies; these trypanosomes are all transmitted by tsetse flies which are the cyclical vectors of Trypanosoma congolense, T. godfreyi, T. simiae and T. brucei. We present here the first report assessing the prevalence of trypanosomes in tsetse flies in Nigeria using molecular tools.
Methods:
488 tsetse flies of three species, Glossina palpalis palpalis, G. tachinoides and G. morsitans submorsitans were collected from Wuya, Niger State and Yankari National Park, Bauchi State in 2012. Trypanosomes were detected and identified using an ITS1 PCR assay on DNA purified from the âhead plus proboscisâ (Hâ+âP) and abdomen (ABD) parts of each fly.
Results:
T. vivax and T. congolense Savannah were the major parasites detected. Trypanosomes prevalence was 7.1 % in G. p. palpalis, 11.9 % in G. tachinoides and 13.5 % in G. m. submorsitans. Prevalences of T. congolense Savannah ranged from 2.5 to 6.7 % and of T. vivax were approximately 4.5 %. Trypanosoma congolense Forest, T. godfreyi and T. simiae were also detected in the site of Yankari. The main biological and ecological determinants of trypanosome prevalence were the fly sex, with more trypanosomes found in females than males, and the site, with T. congolense subspp. being more abundant in Yankari than in Wuya. As expected, the trypanosome species diversity was higher in Yankari National Park than in the more agricultural site of Wuya where vertebrate host species diversity is lower.
Conclusions:
Our results show that T. congolense Savannah and T. vivax are the main species of parasite potentially causing AAT in the two study sites and that Yankari National Park is a potential reservoir of trypanosomes both in terms of parasite abundance and species diversity
Adaptive experimental design for one-qubit state estimation with finite data based on a statistical update criterion
We consider 1-qubit mixed quantum state estimation by adaptively updating
measurements according to previously obtained outcomes and measurement
settings. Updates are determined by the average-variance-optimality
(A-optimality) criterion, known in the classical theory of experimental design
and applied here to quantum state estimation. In general, A-optimization is a
nonlinear minimization problem; however, we find an analytic solution for
1-qubit state estimation using projective measurements, reducing computational
effort. We compare numerically two adaptive and two nonadaptive schemes for
finite data sets and show that the A-optimality criterion gives more precise
estimates than standard quantum tomography.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure
Fmoc solid phase synthesis of polyamides containing pyrrole and imidazole amino acids
Polyamides containing N-methylimidazole (Im) and N-methylpyrrole (Py) amino acids are synthetic ligands that have an affinity and specificity for DNA comparable to those of many naturally occurring DNA binding proteins. A machine-assisted Fmoc solid phase synthesis of polyamides has been optimized to afford high stepwise coupling yields (>99%). Two monomer building blocks, Fmoc-Py acid and Fmoc-Im acid, were prepared in multigram scale. Cleavage by aminolysis followed by HPLC purification affords up to 200 mg quantities of polyamide with purities and yields greater than or equal to those reported using Boc chemistry. A broader set of reaction conditions will increase the number and complexity of minor groove binding polyamides which may be prepared and help ensure compatibility with many commercially available peptide synthesizers
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