Intestinal Beta-carotene absorption and cleavage in men: response of Beta-carotene and retinyl esters in the triglyceride-rich lipoprotein fraction after a single oral dose of Beta-carotene 1-3

Postprandial response curves of β-carotene and retinyl esters in a triglyceride-rich lipoprotein (TRL) fraction were evaluated as a potential measure of β-carotene uptake and cleavage. β-Carotene, retinyl ester, and triglyceride concentrations in the TRI, fraction (density < 1.006 kg/L) and plasma were measured in 10 men for 8 or 16 h after an oral dose of 15 mg β- carotene. The β-carotene response, unlike the triglyceride and retinyl ester response, can be evaluated in the TRL fraction but not in plasma. Intraindividual variations in the triglyceride-adjusted response of β- carotene and retinyl palmitate in TRL fractions were 23% and 20% and interindividual variations were 42% and 36%, respectively. A low β-carotene response was associated with a high ratio between retinyl palmitate and β- carotene responses (r = -0.56, P = 0.013). In conclusion, the measurement of β-carotene and retinyl esters in the TRL fraction after a dose of β- carotene with a vitamin A-free meal may be an appropriate method to study β- carotene uptake and cleavag

The Twitter parliamentarian database: Analyzing Twitter politics across 26 countries

This article introduces the Twitter Parliamentarian Database (TPD), a multi-source and manually validated database of parliamentarians on Twitter. The TPD includes parliamentarians from all European Free Trade Association countries where over 45% of parliamentarians are on Twitter as well as a selection of English-speaking countries. The database is designed to move beyond the one-off nature of most Twitter-based research and in the direction of systematic and rigorous comparative and transnational analysis. The TPD incorporates, in addition to data collected through Twitter\u27s streaming API and governmental websites, data from the Manifesto Project Database; the Electoral System Design Database; the ParlGov database; and the Chapel Hill Expert Survey. By compiling these different data sources it becomes possible to compare different countries, political parties, political party families, and different kinds of democracies. To illustrate the opportunities for comparative and transnational analysis that the TPD opens up, we ask: What are the differences between countries in parliamentarian Twitter interactions? How do political parties differ in their use of hashtags and what is their common ground? What is the structure of interaction between parliamentarians in the transnational debate? Alongside some interesting similarities, we find striking cross-party and particularly cross-national differences in how parliamentarians engage in politics on the social media platform

Point defect concentrations in metastable Fe-C alloys

Point defect species and concentrations in metastable Fe-C alloys are determined using density functional theory and a constrained free-energy functional. Carbon interstitials dominate unless iron vacancies are in significant excess, whereas excess carbon causes greatly enhances vacancy concentration. Our predictions are amenable to experimental verification; they provide a baseline for rationalizing complex microstructures known in hardened and tempered steels, and by extension other technological materials created by or subjected to extreme environments

Mapping Societal Risk. Main report

Het RIVM heeft in samenwerking met TNO twee methoden uitgewerkt om in een bepaald gebied de kans op een ongeval met een groot aantal slachtoffers (het groepsrisico) inzichtelijker te maken. Uitgangspunt is een zogeheten gebiedsgerichte benadering. Het groepsrisico wordt veroorzaakt door de aanwezige gevaarlijke stoffen in een gebied, zoals bij bedrijven en tijdens het transport ervan. De nieuwe benadering maakt het groepsrisico op een kaart inzichtelijk. In de oorspronkelijke, wetenschappelijke weergave in een grafiek ontbreekt dit overzicht. De methoden geven het groepsrisico (GR) weer op twee kaarten: de GR-gebiedskaart en de GR-bijdragekaart. De GR-gebiedskaart geeft inzicht in de grootte van het groepsrisico in een bepaald gebied. De GR-bijdragekaart zoomt in op de deelgebieden die het meeste bijdragen aan het groepsrisico. De twee kaarten zijn een aanvulling op de oorspronkelijke weergave, die het groepsrisico in een grafiek weergeeft. De kaarten worden bij voorkeur samen gebruikt bij het maken van beleid, zoals vergunningaanvragen of bestemmingsplannen. Daarnaast kunnen de kaarten worden ingezet bij de ontwikkeling van veiligheidsbeleid en de verantwoording van het groepsrisico door overheden. De methoden zijn in drie casussen getoetst op hun bruikbaarheid. Een voorbeeld is het vervoer van gevaarlijke stoffen over het spoor in Dordrecht. De resultaten van het onderzoek zijn in workshops voorgelegd aan betrokken partijen. Het onderzoek is in twee rapporten weergegeven. Het hoofdrapport beschrijft hoe je de methoden kunt toepassen. Het toelichtende rapport gaat in op de onderzoeksmethode.In collaboration with TNO, RIVM has elaborated two methods aimed at providing improved insight into the risk of a large number of individuals (societal risk) being involved in an accident in a certain area. The basic principle of these methods is the so-called area-specific approach in which societal risk is caused by hazardous materials present at a location, such as at industrial complexes or on units of a transportation system. By presenting societal risk on a map, this new approach provides increased insight, which was lacking in the graphical representation of the original, scientific presentation. Both methods present societal risk (SR) on a map: the SR-area map and the SR-contribution map. The SR-area map shows the level of the societal risk in a specified area; the SR-contribution map zooms in on the locations that contribute most to the societal risk. Both maps are supplements to the original presentation, which represents societal risk in graphical form. The maps are preferably used together when applied to policy-making, such as licence requests and land use planning. They can also be used by the appropriate governmental authorities for developing safety policy and in the justification process for policy-making on societal risk. The methods have been validated for usefulness in three case-studies, one of which is the transportation of hazardous materials by rail through the city of Dordrecht. The results of the study have been presented to all concerned parties. The study is described in two reports. The main report describes the usefulness of the methods. The explanatory report delves more deeply into the research methods used.VRO

Mapping Societal Risk. Explanatory report

Het RIVM heeft in samenwerking met TNO twee methoden uitgewerkt om in een bepaald gebied de kans op een ongeval met een groot aantal slachtoffers (het groepsrisico) inzichtelijker te maken. Uitgangspunt is een zogeheten gebiedsgerichte benadering. Het groepsrisico wordt veroorzaakt door de aanwezige gevaarlijke stoffen in een gebied, zoals bij bedrijven en tijdens het transport ervan. De nieuwe benadering maakt het groepsrisico op een kaart inzichtelijk. In de oorspronkelijke, wetenschappelijke weergave in een grafiek ontbreekt dit overzicht. De methoden geven het groepsrisico (GR) weer op twee kaarten: de GR-gebiedskaart en de GR-bijdragekaart. De GR-gebiedskaart geeft inzicht in de grootte van het groepsrisico in een bepaald gebied. De GR-bijdragekaart zoomt in op de deelgebieden die het meeste bijdragen aan het groepsrisico. De twee kaarten zijn een aanvulling op de oorspronkelijke weergave, die het groepsrisico in een grafiek weergeeft. De kaarten worden bij voorkeur samen gebruikt bij het maken van beleid, zoals vergunningaanvragen of bestemmingsplannen. Daarnaast kunnen de kaarten worden ingezet bij de ontwikkeling van veiligheidsbeleid en de verantwoording van het groepsrisico door overheden. De methoden zijn in drie casussen getoetst op hun bruikbaarheid. Een voorbeeld is het vervoer van gevaarlijke stoffen over het spoor in Dordrecht. De resultaten van het onderzoek zijn in workshops voorgelegd aan betrokken partijen. Het onderzoek is in twee rapporten weergegeven. Het hoofdrapport beschrijft hoe je de methoden kunt toepassen. Het toelichtende rapport gaat in op de onderzoeksmethode.In collaboration with TNO, RIVM has elaborated two methods aimed at providing improved insight into the risk of a large number of individuals (societal risk) being involved in an accident in a certain area. The basic principle of these methods is the so-called area-specific approach in which societal risk is caused by hazardous materials present at a location, such as at industrial complexes or on units of a transportation system. By presenting societal risk on a map, this new approach provides increased insight, which was lacking in the graphical representation of the original, scientific presentation. Both methods present societal risk (SR) on a map: the SR-area map and the SR-contribution map. The SR-area map shows the level of the societal risk in a specified area; the SR-contribution map zooms in on the locations that contribute most to the societal risk. Both maps are supplements to the original presentation, which represents societal risk in graphical form. The maps are preferably used together when applied to policy-making, such as licence requests and land use planning. They can also be used by the appropriate governmental authorities for developing safety policy and in the justification process for policy-making on societal risk. The methods have been validated for usefulness in three case-studies, one of which is the transportation of hazardous materials by rail through the city of Dordrecht. The results of the study have been presented to all concerned parties. The study is described in two reports. The main report describes the usefulness of the methods. The explanatory report delves more deeply into the research methods used.VRO

Enhancement of quasiparticle recombination in Ta and Al superconductors by implantation of magnetic and nonmagnetic atoms

The quasiparticle recombination time in superconducting films, consisting of the standard electron-phonon interaction and a yet to be identified low temperature process, is studied for different densities of magnetic and nonmagnetic atoms. For both Ta and Al, implanted with Mn, Ta and Al, we observe an increase of the recombination rate. We conclude that the enhancement of recombination is not due to the magnetic moment, but arises from an enhancement of disorder.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Anomalous crossover between thermal and shot noise in macroscopic diffusive conductors

We predict the existence of an anomalous crossover between thermal and shot noise in macroscopic diffusive conductors. We first show that, besides thermal noise, these systems may also exhibit shot noise due to fluctuations of the total number of carriers in the system. Then we show that at increasing currents the crossover between the two noise behaviors is anomalous, in the sense that the low frequency current spectral density displays a region with a superlinear dependence on the current up to a cubic law. The anomaly is due to the non-trivial coupling in the presence of the long range Coulomb interaction among the three time scales relevant to the phenomenon, namely, diffusion, transit and dielectric relaxation time.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Effects of Different Production Systems on the Nutrient Density of Beef

As concerns regarding beef production systems on human health and animal welfare become more apparent, consumer interest in pasture-raised livestock has been steadily on the rise in the US. Such interest has increasingly led to questions about potential nutritional composition differences in beef from different production systems, such as grass-fed beef and grain-fed beef. The goal of this work was to conduct untargeted metabolomics analysis on a broad range of samples from the US beef supply chain to provide insight into how different finishing systems impact the beef metabolome and nutrient density. Here, we found that 191 out of 802 profiled compounds were different between grass-fed and grain-fed ribeye steaks (all, p \u3c 0.05), with phytochemicals, vitamins, lipid, and amino acid metabolites emerging as the most discriminatory metabolite classes. On average, phytochemicals were 1.7-fold higher in grass-fed beef compared to grain-fed beef (p \u3c 0.05) with considerable variation (4.4-fold) amongst individual farms, particularly within grass-fed beef systems. Alpha-tocopherol was 2-fold elevated in grass-fed beef, while nicotinamide was 1.3-fold elevated in grain-fed beef, respectively (p \u3c 0.05). We also observed that 4- hydroxy-nonenal-glutathione, a common marker of oxidative stress, was 2.7-fold elevated in grain-fed beef samples (p \u3c 0.05), with a 20-fold variation across individual farms. Future work will identify the source(s) of variation and best practices in beef systems to improve beef nutrient density and animal metabolic health

Sustainable and self-regulating out-of-oven manufacturing of FRPs with integrated multifunctional capabilities

With the ever increasing demand for energy reduction to stimulate sustainable development, new energy efficient manufacturing processes for advanced fibre-reinforced plastics (FRPs) are of great interest to overcome limitations of conventional autoclave or oven based manufacturing processes such as high energy consumption and size restrictions. Herein, a highly energy efficient and safe out-of-oven curing method is presented by integrating a pyroresistive surface layer with intrinsic self-regulating heating capabilities, into a composite laminate. This surface layer consists of a nanocomposite film based on graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) and possesses self-regulating Joule heating capabilities, which can be used to cure epoxy based composites at a desired temperature without the risk of over-heating. Moreover, the thermoplastic nature of the surface layer enables easy fabrication with good flexibility for complex shapes. Compared to state-of-the-art out-of-autoclave oven curing, the proposed out-of-oven Joule heating approach consumed only 1% of the energy required for curing, with no effect on mechanical performance and glass transition temperature (Tg) of the final composite. Moreover, the integration of the self-regulating heating layer offers additional functionalities to the cured composites, like strain or damage sensing as well as the potential of de-icing without affecting the internal structure and performance of the laminate. The presented smart heating layer provides a novel solution for sustainable manufacturing as well as real-time structural health monitoring (SHM) throughout the components’ life for multifunctional composite applications in the field of renewable wind energy and aerospace