Start to end simulations of the ERL prototype at Daresbury Laboratory

Daresbury Laboratory is currently building an Energy Recovery Linac Prototype (ERLP) that will serve as a research and development facility for the study of beam dynamics and accelerator technology important to the design and construction of the proposed 4th Generation Light Source (4GLS) project. Two major objectives of the ERLP are the demonstration of energy recovery and of energy recovery from a beam disrupted by an FEL interaction as supplied by an infrared oscillator system. In this paper we present start-to-end simulations of the ERLP including such an FEL interaction. The beam dynamics in the highbrightness injector, which consists of a DC photocathode Gun and a superconducting booster, have been modelled using the particle tracking code ASTRA. After the booster the particles have been tracked with the code elegant. The 3D code GENESIS 1.3 was used to model the FEL interaction with the electron beam at 35 MeV. A brief summary of impedance and wakefield calculations for the whole machine is also given

Geometric representations for minimalist grammars

We reformulate minimalist grammars as partial functions on term algebras for strings and trees. Using filler/role bindings and tensor product representations, we construct homomorphisms for these data structures into geometric vector spaces. We prove that the structure-building functions as well as simple processors for minimalist languages can be realized by piecewise linear operators in representation space. We also propose harmony, i.e. the distance of an intermediate processing step from the final well-formed state in representation space, as a measure of processing complexity. Finally, we illustrate our findings by means of two particular arithmetic and fractal representations.Comment: 43 pages, 4 figure

Disease biomarkers in cerebrospinal fluid of patients with first-onset psychosis

BACKGROUND: Psychosis is a severe mental condition that is characterized by a loss of contact with reality and is typically associated with hallucinations and delusional beliefs. There are numerous psychiatric conditions that present with psychotic symptoms, most importantly schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder, and some forms of severe depression referred to as psychotic depression. The pathological mechanisms resulting in psychotic symptoms are not understood, nor is it understood whether the various psychotic illnesses are the result of similar biochemical disturbances. The identification of biological markers (so-called biomarkers) of psychosis is a fundamental step towards a better understanding of the pathogenesis of psychosis and holds the potential for more objective testing methods. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Surface-enhanced laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry was employed to profile proteins and peptides in a total of 179 cerebrospinal fluid samples (58 schizophrenia patients, 16 patients with depression, five patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder, ten patients with Alzheimer disease, and 90 controls). Our results show a highly significant differential distribution of samples from healthy volunteers away from drug-naïve patients with first-onset paranoid schizophrenia. The key alterations were the up-regulation of a 40-amino acid VGF-derived peptide, the down-regulation of transthyretin at approximately 4 kDa, and a peptide cluster at approximately 6,800-7,300 Da (which is likely to be influenced by the doubly charged ions of the transthyretin protein cluster). These schizophrenia-specific protein/peptide changes were replicated in an independent sample set. Both experiments achieved a specificity of 95% and a sensitivity of 80% or 88% in the initial study and in a subsequent validation study, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that the application of modern proteomics techniques, particularly mass spectrometric approaches, holds the potential to advance the understanding of the biochemical basis of psychiatric disorders and may in turn allow for the development of diagnostics and improved therapeutics. Further studies are required to validate the clinical effectiveness and disease specificity of the identified biomarkers

Low percentage of clinically relevant pistachio nut and mango co-sensitisation in cashew nut sensitised children

Background: Cashew nut, pistachio nut and mango belong to the Anacardiaceae family and are botanically related. Therefore, cashew nut sensitised children are frequently advised to eliminate cashew nuts and pistachio nuts from their diet. The ‘Improvement of Diagnostic mEthods for ALlergy assessment (IDEAL trial number NTR3572) study showed that cashew nut sensitised children were co-sensitised to pistachio nut in 98% of cases and to mango in 21% of cases. The aim of this follow-up study to IDEAL is to assess the clinical relevance of co-sensitisation to pistachio nut and mango in cashew nut sensitised children. Methods: Children were recruited from the study: ‘Improvement of Diagnostic mEthods for ALlergy assessment (IDEAL trial number NTR3572). Inclusion criterion for the IDEAL study was sensitization to cashew nut as demonstrated by either SPT or sIgE, and a clinical history of reactions to cashew nuts or no previous (known) exposure. Sensitized children who were tolerant to cashew nuts were excluded. Inclusion criterion for this IDEAL follow-up study was co-sensitization to pistachio nut, regardless the result of the DBPCFC with cashew nut. In this follow-up study a double-blind placebo-controlled food challenge with pistachio nut and an open food challenge with mango were performed. Results: Twenty-nine children (mean age of 11.6 years, 62% male) were included. Pistachio nut sensitisation was clinically relevant in only 34% of cashew-sensitised children and only 31% of cashew challenge positive children. None of the children was challenge positive to mango. Conclusion: Although co-sensitisation between cashew nut and pistachio nut was observed in 98%, pistachio nut sensitisation was only clinically relevant in 34% of the children. Therefore, a challenge test with pistachio nut is recommended in children with cashew nut and pistachio nut sensitisation.</p

Jugend im sozialistischen Großbetrieb (Großerhebung): Bd. 1: Hauptergebnisse, Probleme, Folgerungen

Der vorliegende Bericht enthält die Ergebnisse der ersten Großerhebung, die das Zentralinstitut für Jugendforschung Leipzig über die Entwicklung junger Arbeiter in einem Betrieb der chemischen Industrie in der Stadt Schwedt durchgeführt hat. Ziel der Untersuchung war die Analyse der Rolle und Bedingungen sozialistischer Arbeitskollektive für die Persönlichkeitsentwicklung junger Facharbeiter der chemischen Industrie "unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Tätigkeit der Leiter bei der Gestaltung des entwickelten gesellschaftlichen Systems des Sozialismus und der Durchsetzung der wissenschaftlich-technischen Revolution". Es wurden 405 junge Facharbeiter im Alter von 18 bis 26 Jahren und 169 Facharbeiter über 26 Jahre befragt. In der Untersuchung wurde die Einstellung junger Arbeiter zu den Bedingungen erfaßt, die sich aus der Errichtung des "gesellschaftlichen Systems des Sozialismus und der Durchführung der wissenschaftlich-technischen Revolution" ergeben, und es wurde überprüft, inwieweit sich diese Bedingungen des Produktions- und Reproduktionsprozesses auf die Einstellung und Verhaltensweisen der jungen Arbeiter auswirken. Dazu diente die Ermittlung der Stellung der jungen Arbeiter "in den Arbeitskollektiven und deren erzieherischer und persönlichkeitsbildender Einfluß" auf die Jugendlichen. Die Befragung hat ergeben, daß die Mehrheit der jungen Arbeiter politisch-ideologisch dem Marxismus-Leninismus und ihrem Staat verbunden ist. Die Befragten sind von der positiven Entwicklung der DDR-Volkswirtschaft überzeugt. Ihre Einstellung zur Arbeit wird als positiv erachtet, sowie ihre Einstellung zur FDJ. Bei der Gruppe der 21- bis 24jährigen zeigt sich, daß diese in vielen Einstellungs- und Verhaltensbereichen weniger positiv als die jüngeren Jugendlichen bzw. die über 26 Jahre alten Arbeitnehmer urteilen. (psz

Development of mobile sensors for estimation of grain qualities and contaminants to enhance nutrition and safety of grain-products in developing countries; current status

The governments of several developing countries responded to their population “malnutrition crisis” (P.Webb et al., 2018), among others, by promotion of crops of high nutritional value and their enhanced usage for food products formulations (e.g. “Millet Mission” in India or “Blending Policy” in Kenya). Simultaneously, several CGIAR crop improvement programs-initiated the development of nutritionally enhanced crop cultivars (e.g. ICRISAT, CIAT, IIT). In developing countries, the promotion of novel cultivars is generally a slow and tedious process, especially if the improved grain (quantity or quality) doesn’t ultimately result in the economic incentives (e.g. the market price). Thus far, there is no economic advantage directly linked to the trade of bio-fortified crop cultivars in developing countries which does prevents their accelerated adoption. This may change if/once the necessary information on a crops value is enabled

CSF Metabolic and Proteomic Profiles in Patients Prodromal for Psychosis

BACKGROUND: The initial prodromal state of psychosis (IPS) is defined as an early disease stage prior to the onset of overt psychosis characterized by sub-threshold or more unspecific psychiatric symptoms. Little is known regarding the biochemical changes during this period. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We investigated the metabolic/proteomic profiles of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of first-onset drug naïve paranoid schizophrenia patients (n = 54) and individuals presenting with initial prodromal symptoms (n = 24), alongside healthy volunteers (n = 70) using proton nuclear magnetic resonance ((1)H-NMR) spectroscopy and surface enhanced laser desorption ionization (SELDI) mass spectrometry, respectively. Partial least square discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) showed that 36%/29% of IPS patients displayed proteomic/metabolic profiles characteristic of first-onset, drug naïve schizophrenia, i.e., changes in levels of glucose and lactate as well as changes in a VGF-derived peptide (VGF23-62) and transthyretin protein concentrations. However, only 29% (n = 7) of the investigated IPS patients (who to date have been followed up for up to three years) have so far received a diagnosis of schizophrenia. The presence of biochemical alterations in the IPS group did not correlate with the risk to develop schizophrenia. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our results imply that schizophrenia-related biochemical disease processes can be traced in CSF of prodromal patients. However, the biochemical disturbances identified in IPS patients, at least when measured at a single time point, may not be sufficient to predict clinical outcome

The Price of Land and the Process of Expropriation

This paper applies a game theoretic model to situations in which the Dutch government expropriates land from some farmers in order to create a new public project. The model is a version of a finite period bargaining model with asymmetric information and one-sided offers. It is shown that the model can explain some casual observations as the fact that usually, but not always, the government and the farmers settle by agreement