Politics, cultural heterogeneity and support for European Union membership in Turkey

This study analyses factors related to attitudes toward European Union (EU) accession, taking into account political affiliation, religious and ethnic identity, fear of foreign threat, utilitarian considerations, along with a number of other variables through a survey conducted among Turkish citizens in general and also among various Alevi communities. The results show that Alevi identity, in contrast to Kurdish background, was strongly indicative of positive attitudes toward the EU. Furthermore, in conjunction with existing literature on EU integration, political party affiliation, utilitarian concerns and fear of foreigners were associated with attitudes toward membership among all groups, while religiosity was not a significant determinant of attitudes toward the EU. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

VR/AR and hearing research: current examples and future challenges

A well-known issue in clinical audiology and hearing research is the level of abstraction of traditional experimental assessments and methods, which lack ecological validity and differ significantly from real-life experiences, often resulting in unreliable outcomes. Attempts to deal with this matter by, for example, performing experiments in real-life contexts, can be problematic due to the difficulty of accurately identifying control-specific parameters and events. Virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) have the potential to provide dynamic and immersive audiovisual experiences that are at the same time realistic and highly controllable. Several successful attempts have been made to create and validate VR-based implementations of standard audiological and linguistic tests, as well as to design procedures and technologies to assess meaningful and ecologically-valid data. Similarly, new viewpoints on auditory perception have been provided by looking at hearing training and auditory sensory augmentation, aiming at improving perceptual skills in tasks such as speech understanding and sound-source localisation. In this contribution, we bring together researchers active in this domain. We briefly describe experiments they have designed, and jointly identify challenges that are still open and common approaches to tackle the

Structural analysis of the starfish SALMFamide neuropeptides S1 and S2: The N-terminal region of S2 facilitates self-association

The neuropeptides S1 (GFNSALMFamide) and S2 (SGPYSFNSGLTFamide), which share sequence similarity, were discovered in the starfish Asterias rubens and are prototypical members of the SALMFamide family of neuropeptides in echinoderms. SALMFamide neuropeptides act as muscle relaxants and both S1 and S2 cause relaxation of cardiac stomach and tube foot preparations in vitro but S2 is an order of magnitude more potent than S1. Here we investigated a structural basis for this difference in potency using spectroscopic techniques. Circular dichroism spectroscopy showed that S1 does not have a defined structure in aqueous solution and this was supported by 2D nuclear magnetic resonance experiments. In contrast, we found that S2 has a well-defined conformation in aqueous solution. However, the conformation of S2 was concentration dependent, with increasing concentration inducing a transition from an unstructured to a structured conformation. Interestingly, this property of S2 was not observed in an N-terminally truncated analogue of S2 (short S2 or SS2; SFNSGLTFamide). Collectively, the data obtained indicate that the N-terminal region of S2 facilitates peptide self-association at high concentrations, which may have relevance to the biosynthesis and/or bioactivity of S2 in vivo

Novel strategies to enhance vaccine immunity against coccidioidomycosis

Coccidioidomycosis is a potentially life-threatening respiratory mycosis endemic to the Americas and caused by inhalation of spores produced by the molds Coccidioides immitis and C. posadasii

Synthesis and structural characterization of a mimetic membrane-anchored prion protein

During pathogenesis of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) an abnormal form (PrPSc) of the host encoded prion protein (PrPC) accumulates in insoluble fibrils and plaques. The two forms of PrP appear to have identical covalent structures, but differ in secondary and tertiary structure. Both PrPC and PrPSc have glycosylphospatidylinositol (GPI) anchors through which the protein is tethered to cell membranes. Membrane attachment has been suggested to play a role in the conversion of PrPC to PrPSc, but the majority of in vitro studies of the function, structure, folding and stability of PrP use recombinant protein lacking the GPI anchor. In order to study the effects of membranes on the structure of PrP, we synthesized a GPI anchor mimetic (GPIm), which we have covalently coupled to a genetically engineered cysteine residue at the C-terminus of recombinant PrP. The lipid anchor places the protein at the same distance from the membrane as does the naturally occurring GPI anchor. We demonstrate that PrP coupled to GPIm (PrP-GPIm) inserts into model lipid membranes and that structural information can be obtained from this membrane-anchored PrP. We show that the structure of PrP-GPIm reconstituted in phosphatidylcholine and raft membranes resembles that of PrP, without a GPI anchor, in solution. The results provide experimental evidence in support of previous suggestions that NMR structures of soluble, anchor-free forms of PrP represent the structure of cellular, membrane-anchored PrP. The availability of a lipid-anchored construct of PrP provides a unique model to investigate the effects of different lipid environments on the structure and conversion mechanisms of PrP

The makewaves tsunami tests and their relevance to tsunami engineering and risk management

MAKEWAVES is an international multi-partner collaborative project bringing together nine academic institutions and two commercial consultancies. The objective of the collaboration is to develop experimental data and associated numerical modelling on tsunami inundation and interaction with boulders, buildings, natural and engineered barriers, towards the development of new internationally accepted guidance for structural codes and standards. Using a pneumatic tsunami simulator (TS) developed jointly by HR Wallingford and UCL the team conducted experiments between November 2022 and April 2023 within a highly instrumented 100m long flume. The TS is capable of simulating realistic trough and crest-led tsunami waves at 1:50, including traces from the The TS is capable of generating very long trough and crest-led waves, and can reproduce at 1:50 scale waves from real life events such as the Mercator trace from the 2004 Indian Ocean event and the and 2011 Tohoku tsunamis. The TS capability has been further extended to include bore-waves. The characteristics of the waves are controlled by adjusting the flow rate and total volume of water drawn in and discharged by the TS. The experimental campaign is was subdivided into discrete research areas, each aimed at furthering knowledge on how different tsunami wave characteristics affect their interaction with manmade and natural structures environments. These include tests aimed at understanding: (1) how roughness representative of coastal forests and mangroves affects tsunami inundation characteristics, (2) how tsunami interact with boulders (3) the effectiveness of offshore breakwaters as tsunami barriers (4) how structural loads and foundation scour are affected by building permeability. This paper presents an overview of the tests conducted and some of the important early observations made that are relevant to future engineering standards and to tsunami disaster management

Analysis of warm prestress data

Loading a cracked structure at elevated temperature, or warm prestressing (WPS), enhances its fracture resistance at a lower temperature. Five data sets, comprising 119 unclad pressure vessel steel specimens, were combined to derive correlations for WPS-enhanced fracture toughness (K{sub Ifrac}) in the absence of ductile tearing. New WPS test results for 27 surface flawed specimens, eight subclad flawed specimens, and five strain-aged specimens are discussed. K{sub Ifrac} exceeded non-WPS fracture toughness, K{sub Ic}, for all experiments. The WPS data showed that no specimens failed while K was decreasing, and that at least an additional seven percent additional reloading from the minimum value of applied K{sub I} took place prior to final fracture. The data included complete and partial unloading after WPS prior to final fracture. Crack tip 3-dimensional elastic-plastic finite element (3DEPFE) analysis was performed to support statistical analysis of the data. Regression models were compared with the Chell WPS model. Crack tip 3DEPFE analysis indicated that partially unloaded and completely unloaded data should be treated separately, and that the amount of unloading is unimportant for partially unloaded data. The regression models, which use K{sub I} at WPS (K{sub Iwps}) and K{sub Ic} as independent variables, better represented the WPS benefit than did the more complicated Chell model. An adequate accounting was made for constraint in the WPS experiments. The subclad flaw data support the use of the partial unload regression model, provided that some care is taken to represent the effect of intact cladding if present. The effect of strain aging at or below 260 C (500 F) on WPS benefit was of no consequence for the pressure vessel steels and WPS temperatures used to derive the regression models. The presence of ductile tearing precludes the use of the regression models. The regression model for partial unloading accurately predicted the behavior of full scale pressure vessel WPS experiments. All but one of the 174 experiments considered lie above the lower 2{sigma} estimate of the regressions. The experiments all supported Type I WPS, i.e., there was no fracture during cooling until reloading occurred. However, the regression equations apply to the reload, and are inapplicable to Type I WPS

Additive manufacturing of inorganic scintillator-based particle detectors

Inorganic scintillators are widely used for scientific, industrial and medical applications. The development of 3D printing with inorganic scintillators would allow fast creation of detector prototypes for registration of ionizing radiation, such as alpha and beta, gamma particles in thin layers of active material and soft X-ray radiation. This article reports on the technical work and scientific achievements that aimed at developing a new inorganic scintillation filament to be used for the 3D printing of composite scintillator materials: study and definition of the scintillator composition; development of the methods for the inorganic scintillator filament production and further implementation in the available 3D printing technologies; study of impact of the different 3D printing modes on the material scintillation characteristics. Also, 3D printed scintillators can be used for creation of combined detectors for high-energy physics.Comment: 14 pages, 16 figure