Returning to Nature. Post-carbon Utopias in Svalbard, Norway

While industrial closures in past decades were legitimized through an emphasis on economic motives, current closures are often framed within an emphasis on ‘green transition’, that is, through prefigurative discourses about post-carbon futures. This article discusses how the prefigurative transition framework reshapes the industrialization narrative, seeking to bridge the anthropology of energy and theories of performance. By paying attention to how ‘proclaimed transition’ is envisioned, narrated, and performed, the article explores the ways in which transition in Svalbard is spectacularly dramatized by the dismantling of the Svea coal mines, accompanied by the ‘returning to nature’ of the area. The article analyzes this ‘returning’ as a social drama of our anthropogenic times, demonstrating how landscape and nature are made key entities in performances of post-carbon utopia(s).publishedVersio

The Principal-Agent Problem in Finance: Performance Clauses in Shipping Charterparties : The misalignment of incentives for performance between shipowners and charterers regarding ‘Good weather conditions’ in time charter contracts

This study investigates how definitions of ‘Good weather conditions’ influence speed and fuel consumption claims in dry bulk shipping time charter contracts. Using observed weather data, we simulate various definitions to model the relationship between ‘Good weather conditions’ and the expected number of good weather days. We examine the four key parameters defining a ‘Good weather day’ through a random forest model and assess the financial implications of varying these definitions through a case study. The analysis shows that charterparties tend to define the threshold for what is considered ‘Good weather conditions’ too strict in relation to the intended threshold for weather so heavy that the warranted vessel speed and fuel consumption cannot be reasonably expected. Further, the results show that whether to allow for periods where the vessel is negatively influenced by currents (that is, a negative current factor) or not has the largest impact on the expected number of good weather days. Additionally, results suggest that a 2.4 m significant wave height limit is the optimal limit to use when intending to describe Douglas sea state 3 in conjunction with Beaufort limit 4. Alternatively, results show that a combined sea and swell limit of 3.25 m can resemble the same definition of weather conditions; however, we argue that the significant wave height is more precise in its ability to describe the weather that affects a vessel’s performance. Further, a case study suggests that the increasing practice of including the ‘no extrapolation’ wording in present charterparties significantly influences the financial implications of claims for underperformance. This trend makes the definition of ‘Good weather conditions’ even more critical for claim potential. The study points to a misalignment of incentives between charterers and shipowners when setting good weather definitions in time charter contracts. This misalignment represents a principal-agent problem and can lead to speculative behaviour and less effective clauses. We argue that a more objective definition of good weather in performance clauses is more efficient for both shipowners, charterers, and the environment.nhhma

GntR family of regulators in Mycobacterium smegmatis: a sequence and structure based characterization

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Mycobacterium smegmatis </it>is fast growing non-pathogenic mycobacteria. This organism has been widely used as a model organism to study the biology of other virulent and extremely slow growing species like <it>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</it>. Based on the homology of the N-terminal DNA binding domain, the recently sequenced genome of <it>M. smegmatis </it>has been shown to possess several putative GntR regulators. A striking characteristic feature of this family of regulators is that they possess a conserved N-terminal DNA binding domain and a diverse C-terminal domain involved in the effector binding and/or oligomerization. Since the physiological role of these regulators is critically dependent upon effector binding and operator sites, we have analysed and classified these regulators into their specific subfamilies and identified their potential binding sites.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The sequence analysis of <it>M. smegmatis </it>putative GntRs has revealed that FadR, HutC, MocR and the YtrA-like regulators are encoded by 45, 8, 8 and 1 genes respectively. Further out of 45 FadR-like regulators, 19 were classified into the FadR group and 26 into the VanR group. All these proteins showed similar secondary structural elements specific to their respective subfamilies except MSMEG_3959, which showed additional secondary structural elements. Using the reciprocal BLAST searches, we further identified the orthologs of these regulators in <it>Bacillus subtilis </it>and other mycobacteria. Since the expression of many regulators is auto-regulatory, we have identified potential operator sites for a number of these GntR regulators by analyzing the upstream sequences.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study helps in extending the annotation of <it>M. smegmatis </it>GntR proteins. It identifies the GntR regulators of <it>M. smegmatis </it>that could serve as a model for studying orthologous regulators from virulent as well as other saprophytic mycobacteria. This study also sheds some light on the nucleotide preferences in the target-motifs of GntRs thus providing important leads for initiating the experimental characterization of these proteins, construction of the gene regulatory network for these regulators and an understanding of the influence of these proteins on the physiology of the mycobacteria.</p

Who is the Norwegian junior school band conductor? A quantitative sample survey among Norwegian junior school band conductors.

Masteroppgave i musikk- og ensembleledelse - Nord universitet, 202

iCR: a web tool to identify conserved targets of a regulatory protein across the multiple related prokaryotic species

Gene regulatory circuits are often commonly shared between two closely related organisms. Our web tool iCR (identify Conserved target of a Regulon) makes use of this fact and identify conserved targets of a regulatory protein. iCR is a special refined extension of our previous tool PredictRegulon- that predicts genome wide, the potential binding sites and target operons of a regulatory protein in a single user selected genome. Like PredictRegulon, the iCR accepts known binding sites of a regulatory protein as ungapped multiple sequence alignment and provides the potential binding sites. However important differences are that the user can select more than one genome at a time and the output reports the genes that are common in two or more species. In order to achieve this, iCR makes use of Cluster of Orthologous Group (COG) indices for the genes. This tool analyses the upstream region of all user-selected prokaryote genome and gives the output based on conservation target orthologs. iCR also reports the Functional class codes based on COG classification for the encoded proteins of downstream genes which helps user understand the nature of the co-regulated genes at the result page itself. iCR is freely accessible at

NeMedPlant: a database of therapeutic applications and chemical constituents of medicinal plants from north-east region of India

The North-East region of India is one of the twelve mega biodiversity region, containing many rare and endangered species. A curated database of medicinal and aromatic plants from the regions called NeMedPlant is developed. The database contains traditional, scientific and medicinal information about plants and their active constituents, obtained from scholarly literature and local sources. The database is cross-linked with major biochemical databases and analytical tools. The integrated database provides resource for investigations into hitherto unexplored medicinal plants and serves to speed up the discovery of natural productsbased drugs

MycoRRdb: A Database of Computationally Identified Regulatory Regions within Intergenic Sequences in Mycobacterial Genomes

The identification of regulatory regions for a gene is an important step towards deciphering the gene regulation. Regulatory regions tend to be conserved under evolution that facilitates the application of comparative genomics to identify such regions. The present study is an attempt to make use of this attribute to identify regulatory regions in the Mycobacterium species followed by the development of a database, MycoRRdb. It consist the regulatory regions identified within the intergenic distances of 25 mycobacterial species. MycoRRdb allows to retrieve the identified intergenic regulatory elements in the mycobacterial genomes. In addition to the predicted motifs, it also allows user to retrieve the Reciprocal Best BLAST Hits across the mycobacterial genomes. It is a useful resource to understand the transcriptional regulatory mechanism of mycobacterial species. This database is first of its kind which specifically addresses cis-regulatory regions and also comprehensive to the mycobacterial species. Database URL: http://mycorrdb.uohbif.in

Global analyses of TetR family transcriptional regulators in mycobacteria indicates conservation across species and diversity in regulated functions

BACKGROUND: Mycobacteria inhabit diverse niches and display high metabolic versatility. They can colonise both humans and animals and are also able to survive in the environment. In order to succeed, response to environmental cues via transcriptional regulation is required. In this study we focused on the TetR family of transcriptional regulators (TFTRs) in mycobacteria. RESULTS: We used InterPro to classify the entire complement of transcriptional regulators in 10 mycobacterial species and these analyses showed that TFTRs are the most abundant family of regulators in all species. We identified those TFTRs that are conserved across all species analysed and those that are unique to the pathogens included in the analysis. We examined genomic contexts of 663 of the conserved TFTRs and observed that the majority of TFTRs are separated by 200 bp or less from divergently oriented genes. Analyses of divergent genes indicated that the TFTRs control diverse biochemical functions not limited to efflux pumps. TFTRs typically bind to palindromic motifs and we identified 11 highly significant novel motifs in the upstream regions of divergently oriented TFTRs. The C-terminal ligand binding domain from the TFTR complement in M. tuberculosis showed great diversity in amino acid sequence but with an overall architecture common to other TFTRs. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that mycobacteria depend on TFTRs for the transcriptional control of a number of metabolic functions yet the physiological role of the majority of these regulators remain unknown. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-015-1696-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users