159 research outputs found

    Honeaite, a new gold-thallium-telluride from the Eastern Goldfields, Yilgarn Craton, Western Australia

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    Honeaite, ideal formula Au3TlTe2, is a new mineral from the late Archaean Karonie gold deposit, Eastern Goldfields province, Western Australia. Honeaite is found with native gold, tellurobismuthite, petzite, hessite, calaverite, melonite, mattagamite, frohbergite, altaite, pyrrhotite and molybdenite. These minerals are concentrated in microvughs and microfractures mainly within areas of prehnite alteration of amphibolite. The mineralisation appears to have been deposited under greenschistfacies conditions at lower temperatures than most gold deposits in the Eastern Goldfields. Single-crystal X-ray studies identified the structure of honeaite as orthorhombic, space group Pbcm, and unit cell parameters a = 8.9671(4) Å, b = 8.8758(4) Å, c = 7.8419(5) Å, V = 624.14(6) Å3 (Z = 4). The strongest reflections of the calculated powder X-ray diffraction pattern are [d in Å (I rel)(hkl)]: 2.938(100)(022), 2.905 (39,8)(322, 411), 2.989 (31)(300), 2.833 (23)(310), 1.853 (17)(332). Electron-microprobe analysis (EDS mode) gave (wt%) Au 56.33, Tl 19.68, Te 24.30, total 100.31, leading to an empirical formula (based on 2 Te apfu) of Au3.00Tl1.01Te2.00. Honeaite is black with a metallic lustre and no observed cleavage. The calculated density is 11.18 g/cm3. In reflected plane-polarized light it is slightly bluish grey. Between crossed polars it is weakly anisotropic with dark brown to dark blue rotation tints. Reflectance values in air and in oil are given. Honeaite is named after the late Russell M. Honea (1929–2002).© 2016 E. Schweizerbart'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, D-70176 Stuttgart. This document is the author's final accepted version of the journal article. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it

    A review of Websites and Mobile Applications for People with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Towards Shared Guidelines

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    Many studies show the effective positive impact of using computer technologies to support the lives of users with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), for simplifying interaction with other people, for organising daily activities, for improving relation with family and friends. Despite that, only a restricted part of the current websites is accessible for people with ASD. In this paper, we discuss a set of guidelines that should be followed by designers while developing websites or mobile applications for users with ASD. We review many of the existing websites and applications in order to check which comply with all, or parts of these guidelines. We finally highlight current common limitations and address new challenging research directions. \ua9 ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering 2017

    Predicting the Antigenic Structure of the Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 Influenza Virus Hemagglutinin

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    The pandemic influenza virus (2009 H1N1) was recently introduced into the human population. The hemagglutinin (HA) gene of 2009 H1N1 is derived from “classical swine H1N1” virus, which likely shares a common ancestor with the human H1N1 virus that caused the pandemic in 1918, whose descendant viruses are still circulating in the human population with highly altered antigenicity of HA. However, information on the structural basis to compare the HA antigenicity among 2009 H1N1, the 1918 pandemic, and seasonal human H1N1 viruses has been lacking. By homology modeling of the HA structure, here we show that HAs of 2009 H1N1 and the 1918 pandemic virus share a significant number of amino acid residues in known antigenic sites, suggesting the existence of common epitopes for neutralizing antibodies cross-reactive to both HAs. It was noted that the early human H1N1 viruses isolated in the 1930s–1940s still harbored some of the original epitopes that are also found in 2009 H1N1. Interestingly, while 2009 H1N1 HA lacks the multiple N-glycosylations that have been found to be associated with an antigenic change of the human H1N1 virus during the early epidemic of this virus, 2009 H1N1 HA still retains unique three-codon motifs, some of which became N-glycosylation sites via a single nucleotide mutation in the human H1N1 virus. We thus hypothesize that the 2009 H1N1 HA antigenic sites involving the conserved amino acids will soon be targeted by antibody-mediated selection pressure in humans. Indeed, amino acid substitutions predicted here are occurring in the recent 2009 H1N1 variants. The present study suggests that antibodies elicited by natural infection with the 1918 pandemic or its early descendant viruses play a role in specific immunity against 2009 H1N1, and provides an insight into future likely antigenic changes in the evolutionary process of 2009 H1N1 in the human population

    Measurements of neutrino oscillation in appearance and disappearance channels by the T2K experiment with 6.6 x 10(20) protons on target

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    111 pages, 45 figures, submitted to Physical Review D. Minor revisions to text following referee comments111 pages, 45 figures, submitted to Physical Review D. Minor revisions to text following referee comments111 pages, 45 figures, submitted to Physical Review D. Minor revisions to text following referee commentsWe thank the J-PARC staff for superb accelerator performance and the CERN NA61/SHINE Collaboration for providing valuable particle production data. We acknowledge the support of MEXT, Japan; NSERC, NRC, and CFI, Canada; CEA and CNRS/IN2P3, France; DFG, Germany; INFN, Italy; National Science Centre (NCN), Poland; RSF, RFBR and MES, Russia; MINECO and ERDF funds, Spain; SNSF and SER, Switzerland; STFC, UK; and the U. S. Deparment of Energy, USA. We also thank CERN for the UA1/NOMAD magnet, DESY for the HERA-B magnet mover system, NII for SINET4, the WestGrid and SciNet consortia in Compute Canada, GridPP, UK, and the Emerald High Performance Computing facility in the Centre for Innovation, UK. In addition, participation of individual researchers and institutions has been further supported by funds from ERC (FP7), EU; JSPS, Japan; Royal Society, UK; and DOE Early Career program, USA

    Progressive dry-core-wet-rim hydration trend in a nested-ring topology of protein binding interfaces

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    <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Water is an integral part of protein complexes. It shapes protein binding sites by filling cavities and it bridges local contacts by hydrogen bonds. However, water molecules are usually not included in protein interface models in the past, and few distribution profiles of water molecules in protein binding interfaces are known.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this work, we use a tripartite protein-water-protein interface model and a nested-ring atom re-organization method to detect hydration trends and patterns from an interface data set which involves immobilized interfacial water molecules. This data set consists of 206 obligate interfaces, 160 non-obligate interfaces, and 522 crystal packing contacts. The two types of biological interfaces are found to be drier than the crystal packing interfaces in our data, agreeable to a hydration pattern reported earlier although the previous definition of immobilized water is pure distance-based. The biological interfaces in our data set are also found to be subject to stronger water exclusion in their formation. To study the overall hydration trend in protein binding interfaces, atoms at the same burial level in each tripartite protein-water-protein interface are organized into a ring. The rings of an interface are then ordered with the core atoms placed at the middle of the structure to form a nested-ring topology. We find that water molecules on the rings of an interface are generally configured in a dry-core-wet-rim pattern with a progressive level-wise solvation towards to the rim of the interface. This solvation trend becomes even sharper when counterexamples are separated.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Immobilized water molecules are regularly organized in protein binding interfaces and they should be carefully considered in the studies of protein hydration mechanisms.</p

    Biodiversity, traditional medicine and public health: where do they meet?

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    Given the increased use of traditional medicines, possibilities that would ensure its successful integration into a public health framework should be explored. This paper discusses some of the links between biodiversity and traditional medicine, and addresses their implications to public health. We explore the importance of biodiversity and ecosystem services to global and human health, the risks which human impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity present to human health and welfare

    Upregulated Genes In Sporadic, Idiopathic Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension

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    BACKGROUND: To elucidate further the pathogenesis of sporadic, idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH) and identify potential therapeutic avenues, differential gene expression in IPAH was examined by suppression subtractive hybridisation (SSH). METHODS: Peripheral lung samples were obtained immediately after removal from patients undergoing lung transplant for IPAH without familial disease, and control tissues consisted of similarly sampled pieces of donor lungs not utilised during transplantation. Pools of lung mRNA from IPAH cases containing plexiform lesions and normal donor lungs were used to generate the tester and driver cDNA libraries, respectively. A subtracted IPAH cDNA library was made by SSH. Clones isolated from this subtracted library were examined for up regulated expression in IPAH using dot blot arrays of positive colony PCR products using both pooled cDNA libraries as probes. Clones verified as being upregulated were sequenced. For two genes the increase in expression was verified by northern blotting and data analysed using Student's unpaired two-tailed t-test. RESULTS: We present preliminary findings concerning candidate genes upregulated in IPAH. Twenty-seven upregulated genes were identified out of 192 clones examined. Upregulation in individual cases of IPAH was shown by northern blot for tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-3 and decorin (P < 0.01) compared with the housekeeping gene glyceraldehydes-3-phosphate dehydrogenase. CONCLUSION: Four of the up regulated genes, magic roundabout, hevin, thrombomodulin and sucrose non-fermenting protein-related kinase-1 are expressed specifically by endothelial cells and one, muscleblind-1, by muscle cells, suggesting that they may be associated with plexiform lesions and hypertrophic arterial wall remodelling, respectively
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