Model, Model on the Screen, What's the Cost of Going Green?

How much a policy is expected to cost and who bears the brunt of that cost play a significant role in the debates that shape regulations. We do not have a good track record of predicting costs and their ultimate distribution, but systematic reviews of past assessments have identified some of the factors that lead to errors. A wide range of expected costs of climate policy have been hotly debated, but all are likely to be wrong. This does not mean that we should continue a debate using ill-informed analyses. On the contrary, we need early small experiments to shed light on key unknowns. Environmental stewardship is a long-term challenge and an adaptive regulatory approach promises to inform policy targets and improve controls through sequential regulatory phases that promote: innovation, flexibility and diffusion of best technologies.cost estimation, climate policy, modeling, adaptive management

A basic introduction to ultrastable optical cavities for laser stabilization

We give a simple introduction to the properties and use of ultrastable optical cavities, which are increasingly common in atomic and molecular physics laboratories for stabilizing the frequency of lasers to linewidths at the kHz level or below. Although the physics of Fabry-Perot interferometers is part of standard optics curricula, the specificities of ultrastable optical cavities, such as their high finesse, fixed length, and the need to operate under vacuum, can make their use appear relatively challenging to newcomers. Our aim in this work is to bridge the gap between generic knowledge about Fabry-Perot resonators and the specialized literature about ultrastable cavities. The intended audience includes students setting up an ultrastable cavity in a research laboratory for the first time and instructors designing advanced laboratory courses on optics and laser stabilization techniques.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, tutorial article to appear in Am. J . Phy

Molecular Studies of TNF-alpha and IL-6 Gene Expression Upon FcgammaRI Activation

The high affinity Fc receptor for IgG, FcgammaRI, is expressed constitutively on the surface of macrophages and monocytes and plays a crucial role in the co-ordination of the humoral and cellular arms of the human immune system. The activation of the receptor by aggregation at the cell surface leads to recruitment of accessory signalling molecules the activation of a wide range of responses including antibody-directed cell cytotoxicity. However, the nature of the response is dependent on the differentiation state of the cell. It has been previously reported that in the monocyte-like U937 cell line when the cell is differentiated to a more macrophage-like phenotype a molecular switch causes an absolute change in the signal cascade that FcgammaRI initiates. However the effects of this switch on levels of gene expression in the nucleus have not been investigated. The work presented here details the development of two complementary assay systems to measure the levels of expression of the cytokines TNF-alpha and IL-6 in response to the activation of FcgammaRI in monocytes and macrophages. A competitive RT-PCR assay was developed to measure levels of mRNA in the cell and a reporter gene assay was developed to study in more detail the promoter sequences of the two genes. Both assays were shown to work in principle using the TNF-alpha mRNA and gene promoter, and transfection experiments utilising the TNF-alpha promoter coupled to a reporter gene showed a change in expression in response to induced cell differentiation. Although the work proceeded no further than this stage, it provided two valuable tools for further examination of the novel mechanism FcgammaRI employs to control gene expression

Global and regional assessment of Neogene climate and palaeoceanography using dinoflagellate cysts

The Neogene Period (23.03–2.59 Ma) has been referred to as ‘the making of the Modern world’, which eventually, via a relatively consistent cooling trend, culminated in the present day climate conditions on Earth. Researching the Neogene provides important information for understanding how modern patterns of atmospheric and oceanic circulation developed, and how sensitive they are to environmental change. Climate and environmental parameter proxies are used to investigate past changes, and dinoflagellate cysts have great potential as their distribution can be limited by temperature, salinity, nutrient availability and sea ice cover. This project aims to use dinoflagellate cysts to study the evolution of the oceans over the Neogene and to further develop the potential of the climate proxy. This is achieved by collating all of the previously published literature on Neogene dinoflagellate cysts into a database and analysing the data on global and regional scales. This study allows for the first global synthesis, using dinoflagellate cysts, of changes that took place during the Neogene. It was found that, on a global scale, the distribution of Neogene dinoflagellate cysts was strongly controlled by temperature and can be correlated to the previously established cooling trend of the Neogene. However, short term climate changes superimposed on the overall cooling trend of the Neogene, cannot be observed. Changes to marine gateways have been shown to affect the composition of dinoflagellate cyst assemblages regionally, and caused allopatric speciation. New primary data from Cyprus demonstrates an increase in diversity in the Pliocene, which differs to the regional diversity. This reveals the importance of the difference between local and regional signals, and why it is important to understand, and to thoroughly explore, the datasets used in a global compilation

Racializing discourses in comic books : an examination of Marvel Comics The Punisher (2014)

1 online resource (73 p.) : col. ill.Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (p. 70-73).This study examines The Punisher (2014), Issues 1 through 12. I ask what are the ways that hegemonic racialized representations are presented to readers of the comic? And how are the themes of crime and national identity represented in a way that reinforces racialized views? In my examination of the comic I have come across a number of themes.What I focus on are the ways that the comic book contributes to a racialized discourse through looking at how the characters are represented by the clothing they wear, the languages they speak, and the spaces they occupy. I also look at how war references are used when talked about marking racialized characters as foreign invaders and non-racialized characters as sentinels of justice. Continuing the discussion on the racialization of crime I contrast the stated motivations for committing crime for racialized and non-racialized characters. I discovered that overall, through my analysis The Punisher (2014) stands out as a pop culture site of racialized discourse

A metamorphic inorganic framework that can be switched between eight single-crystalline states

The design of highly flexible framework materials requires organic linkers, whereas inorganic materials are more robust but inflexible. Here, by using linkable inorganic rings made up of tungsten oxide (P8W48O184) building blocks, we synthesized an inorganic single crystal material that can undergo at least eight different crystal-to-crystal transformations, with gigantic crystal volume contraction and expansion changes ranging from −2,170 to +1,720 Å3 with no reduction in crystallinity. Not only does this material undergo the largest single crystal-to-single crystal volume transformation thus far reported (to the best of our knowledge), the system also shows conformational flexibility while maintaining robustness over several cycles in the reversible uptake and release of guest molecules switching the crystal between different metamorphic states. This material combines the robustness of inorganic materials with the flexibility of organic frameworks, thereby challenging the notion that flexible materials with robustness are mutually exclusive

Blastomyces dermatitidis

The systemic fungal infection, blastomycosis, which infects both humans and animals has presented a diagnostic challenge for clinicians for many years. The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic sensitivity of Blastomyces dermatitidis yeast lysate antigens with respect to antibody detection in dogs with blastomycosis. Lysate antigens were prepared from B. dermatitidis isolates T-58 and T-66 (dogs, Tennessee) and WI-R and WI-J (dogs, Wisconsin). Based on results obtained from a preliminary comparative study, five combinations of these isolates and one individual isolate were tested against 92 serum specimens from dogs with culture-proven or histologically-confirmed blastomycosis, using the indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Mean absorbance values obtained from the sera ranged from 0.905 with the individual T-58 antigen to 1.760 using an antigen combination (T-58 + T-66 + WI-R). All of the 6 antigenic preparations were able to detect antibody in the serum specimens, but the antigen combinations detected antibody to a higher degree than the individual antigen. This study provides evidence that combinations of the yeast lysate reagents seem to be more efficacious for antibody detection in dog sera, but our laboratory is continuing to evaluate antigen lysate combinations for detection of antibodies in blastomycosis

FASER: ForwArd Search ExpeRiment at the LHC

FASER, the ForwArd Search ExpeRiment, is a proposed experiment dedicated to searching for light, extremely weakly-interacting particles at the LHC. Such particles may be produced in the LHC's high-energy collisions in large numbers in the far-forward region and then travel long distances through concrete and rock without interacting. They may then decay to visible particles in FASER, which is placed 480 m downstream of the ATLAS interaction point. In this work, we describe the FASER program. In its first stage, FASER is an extremely compact and inexpensive detector, sensitive to decays in a cylindrical region of radius R = 10 cm and length L = 1.5 m. FASER is planned to be constructed and installed in Long Shutdown 2 and will collect data during Run 3 of the 14 TeV LHC from 2021-23. If FASER is successful, FASER 2, a much larger successor with roughly R ~ 1 m and L ~ 5 m, could be constructed in Long Shutdown 3 and collect data during the HL-LHC era from 2026-35. FASER and FASER 2 have the potential to discover dark photons, dark Higgs bosons, heavy neutral leptons, axion-like particles, and many other long-lived particles, as well as provide new information about neutrinos, with potentially far-ranging implications for particle physics and cosmology. We describe the current status, anticipated challenges, and discovery prospects of the FASER program.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, submitted as Input to the European Particle Physics Strategy Update 2018-2020 and draws on FASER's Letter of Intent, Technical Proposal, and physics case documents (arXiv:1811.10243, arXiv:1812.09139, and arXiv:1811.12522