UNCLOS III: A Flawed Treaty

In this Article, the author argues that UNCLOS III is a fatally flawed document that is inimical to the interests of the United States. He argues that the proposed seabed provisions violate philosophical, as well as practical interests, and legitimizes principles that would have an adverse impact on future international negotiations. The author proposes several amendments to the Draft Convention, and argues that only a treaty which recognizes that free market seabed mining and commercial exchange exploit no one will increase the prospects for free exchange, free trade, economic prosperity, and even world peace

It Is Time to Temper Our Excessive Interventionism

Threats today are very different from what they once were. Nuclear threats can be deterred or warded off; such conventional threats as exist are primarily to American allies—and the allies can handle them. Terrorism will require entirely different forces and responses. But the United States persists in an outmoded Cold War–era, interventionist posture that no longer fits the world environment

Atmospheric occurrence of particle-associated nitrotriphenylenes via gas-phase radical-initiated reactions observed in South Osaka, Japan

Nitrotriphenylenes (NTPs), which include the highly mutagenic isomer 2-nitrotriphenylene (2-NTP), have been detected in airborne particles. From a public hygienic point of view, it is necessary to study the environmental occurrence of NTPs in detail. In this study, concentrations of five nitrated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (nitro-PAHs) including NTPs in airborne particles and of nitrogen oxides (NOx; NO+NO₂) and carbon monoxide (CO), at a location in South Osaka, Japan, were measured at 3 h intervals. It was found that the diurnal variations in the concentrations of 1-nitropyrene (1-NP), NOx, and CO were similar, being high early in the morning and late in the evening. This finding indicates that the occurrence of 1-NP is affected significantly by primary emissions, particularly by automotive emissions. The concentration change in 1-nitrotriphenylene was similar to that of 2-nitropyrene produced by an atmospheric OH radicalinitiated reaction. On the contrary, the variations in the concentrations of 2-nitrofluoranthene (2-NF) and 2-NTP were significantly different from those of the other nitro-PAHs, i.e., their concentrations increased during the nighttime, suggesting that neither 2-NF nor 2-NTP was emitted from the primary sources, but were formed via the NO₃ radicalinitiated nitration of the parent fluoranthene and triphenylene (TP) in the atmosphere. Based on the ambient concentration of 2-NTP and the reported rate constant for the reaction of TP with NO3 radicals, the yield of 2-NTP from the gas-phase NO₃ radical-initiated reaction of TP was estimated to be 23%

Interaction between concentric Tubes in DWCNTs

A detailed investigation of the Raman response of the inner tube radial breathing modes (RBMs) in double-wall carbon nanotubes is reported. It revealed that the number of observed RBMs is two to three times larger than the number of possible tubes in the studied frequency range. This unexpected increase in Raman lines is attributed to a splitting of the inner tube response. It is shown to originate from the possibility that one type of inner tube may form in different types of outer tubes and the fact that the inner tube RBM frequency depends on the diameter of the enclosing tube. Finally, a comparison of the inner tube RBMs and the RBMs of tubes in bundles gave clear evidence that the interaction in a bundle is stronger than the interaction between inner and outer tubes.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Eur. Phys. J.

Intensification of a multi-product perfusion platform through medium and process development

Integrated Continuous Biomanufacturing (ICB) provides many important strategic advantages for therapeutic protein production through process intensification, simplification and integration. The success of this technology will be significantly enhanced by the platform’s ability to push towards high productivity in conjunction with minimizing the associated perfusion rate, resulting in dramatic reductions in cost of good manufactured. We have previously demonstrated that an in-house chemically defined medium can support cell densities exceeding 100 million viable cells/mL in 10L perfusion bioreactors with an average productivity of 2 g/L/day. Further optimization utilizing high throughput technology specifically tailored to improve cell specific productivity (SPR) resulted in an intensified medium that is capable of achieving greater than 2X increase in SPR while maintaining low cell specific perfusion rate (CSPR). When combined with process knowledge and efforts to improve shear protection in a high oxygen demand environment, we were able to achieve 4 g/L/day volumetric productivity of an IgG for over 30 days in a state of control. In this talk, recent case studies on the application of this intensified perfusion platform to cell lines producing different classes of biologics will be described, effects on product quality will be illustrated, and engineering and economic considerations for commercial scale will be discusse

Scale-down high-throughput perfusion development with ambr 250

The ambr® 250 bioreactor system (Sartorius Stedim) has become a useful tool for CHO cell culture process development, increasing throughput and decreasing development timelines. The ambr® 250 provides the ability to independently run up to 24 single-use fed-batch bioreactors through the use of an automated liquid handling platform. Growing interest in intensified perfusion processes for continuous biomanufacturing has created a need for an equivalent high throughput small scale system for perfusion. Thus far, only discrete models and semi-continuous approaches have been available to mimic perfusion processes at small scale. With the development of the ambr® 250 perfusion system, truly continuous medium exchange and cell retention at the 200mL scale has been achieved. Primary criteria for evaluating the applicability of the ambr® 250 perfusion system to modeling larger scale intensified perfusion processes include viable cell density and volumetric productivity. We have demonstrated the development system can support growth of CHO cell cultures in excess of 90 million cells per milliliter with IgG volumetric productivity greater than 3 g/L/day. These results are comparable to data obtained at the 10L scale. Sustainability of culture, impact on product quality, and potential use for applications ranging from clone selection to scale-down modeling will be discussed

Encapsulating C59N azafullerene derivatives inside single-wall carbon nanotubes

Filling of single-wall carbon nanotubes with C59N azafullerene derivatives is reported from toluene solvent at ambient temperature. The filling is characterized by high resolution transmission electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. The filling efficiency is the same as for C60 fullerenes and the tube-azafullerene interaction is similar to the tube-C60 interaction. Vacuum annealing of the encapsulated azafullerene results in the growth of inner tubes, however no spectroscopic signature of nitrogen built in the inner walls is detected.Comment: To appear in Carbo