Sound as Material for Eco-technogenesis

This paper delineates the conceptual outcomes from a two-week intensive cross-disciplinary conversation between an art historian, an interaction designer, and an artist/engineer. With the aim of applying the concept of technogenesis to an exploration of sound as material for art and design, we consider sound as a material force within an ecosystem. Through this lens, sound produced by either life- or technological-forms allows us to consider the ecological impact and potential meanings of generated sound. Drawing on biosemiotics, we propose that the co-evolution of sound, technology, and environments, what we call eco-technogenesis, demands relational, and thus ethical, thinking. The rowdy krause, an autonomous sonic agent, designed by Kadish to identify and inhabit an acoustic niche within an ecosystem, serves as a case study for thinking through eco-technogenesis

The Policy Dystopia Model:an interpretive analysis of tobacco industry political activity

BACKGROUND: Tobacco industry interference has been identified as the greatest obstacle to the implementation of evidence-based measures to reduce tobacco use. Understanding and addressing industry interference in public health policy-making is therefore crucial. Existing conceptualisations of corporate political activity (CPA) are embedded in a business perspective and do not attend to CPA's social and public health costs; most have not drawn on the unique resource represented by internal tobacco industry documents. Building on this literature, including systematic reviews, we develop a critically informed conceptual model of tobacco industry political activity. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We thematically analysed published papers included in two systematic reviews examining tobacco industry influence on taxation and marketing of tobacco; we included 45 of 46 papers in the former category and 20 of 48 papers in the latter (n = 65). We used a grounded theory approach to build taxonomies of "discursive" (argument-based) and "instrumental" (action-based) industry strategies and from these devised the Policy Dystopia Model, which shows that the industry, working through different constituencies, constructs a metanarrative to argue that proposed policies will lead to a dysfunctional future of policy failure and widely dispersed adverse social and economic consequences. Simultaneously, it uses diverse, interlocking insider and outsider instrumental strategies to disseminate this narrative and enhance its persuasiveness in order to secure its preferred policy outcomes. Limitations are that many papers were historical (some dating back to the 1970s) and focused on high-income regions. CONCLUSIONS: The model provides an evidence-based, accessible way of understanding diverse corporate political strategies. It should enable public health actors and officials to preempt these strategies and develop realistic assessments of the industry's claims

Determinants of Regioselectivity and Chemoselectivity in Fosfomycin Resistance Protein FosA from QM/MM Calculations

FosA is a manganese-dependent enzyme that utilizes a Mn²⁺ ion to catalyze the inactivation of the fosfomycin antibiotic by glutathione (GSH) addition. We report a theoretical study on the catalytic mechanism and the factors governing the regioselectivity and chemoselectivity of FosA. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations on the uncatalyzed reaction give high barriers and almost no regioselectivity even when adding two water molecules to assist the proton transfer. According to quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) calculations on the full solvated protein, the enzyme-catalyzed glutathione addition reaction involves two major chemical steps that both proceed in the sextet state: proton transfer from the GSH thiol group to the Tyr39 anion and nucleophilic attack by the GSH thiolate leading to epoxide ring-opening. The second step is rate-limiting and is facilitated by the presence of the high-spin Mn²⁺ ion that functions as a Lewis acid and stabilizes the leaving oxyanion through direct coordination. The barrier for C1 attack is computed to be 8.9 kcal/mol lower than that for C2 attack, in agreement with the experimentally observed regioselectivity of the enzyme. Further QM/MM calculations on the alternative water attack predict a concerted mechanism for this reaction, where the deprotonation of water, nucleophilic attack, and epoxide ring-opening take place via the same transition state. The calculated barrier is 8.3 kcal/mol higher than that for GSH attack, in line with the observed chemoselectivity of the enzyme, which manages to catalyze the addition of GSH in the presence of water molecules around its active site. The catalytic efficiency, regioselectivity, and chemoselectivity of FosA are rationalized in terms of the influence of the active-site protein environment and the different stabilization of the distorted substrates in the relevant transition states

EFFECT OF METHIONINE, NORLEUCINE, AND LYSINE DERIVATIVES ON CEPHALOSPORIN C FORMATION IN CHEMICALLY DEFINED MEDIA

Demain , A. L. (Merck Sharp &amp; Dohme Research Laboratories, Rahway, N.J.), Joanne F. Newkirk, and D. Hendlin . Effect of methionine, norleucine, and lysine derivatives on cephalosporin C formation in chemically defined media. J. Bacteriol. 85: 339–344. 1963.—Chemically defined media were developed for production of cephalosporin C by Cephalosporium sp. In such media, the requirement for methionine can be satisfied by norleucine. Further stimulation of antibiotic production was obtained with the lysine derivatives ε- N -acetyl- l -lysine and ε-aminocaproic acid but not with lysine itself. Also inactive were α-aminoadipic and ketoadipic acids. Other lysine derivatives were found to inhibit cephalosporin C production at 0.01 m . The final medium supported the production of approximately 0.5 g of cephalosporin C per liter of medium. </jats:p

PRODUCTION OF EXTRACELLULAR GUANOSINE-5'-MONOPHOSPHATE BY <i>BACILLUS SUBTILIS</i>

Demain, A. L. (Merck Sharp &amp; Dohme Research Laboratories, Rahway, N.J.), I. M. Miller, and D. Hendlin . Production of extracellular guanosine-5'-monophosphate by Bacillus subtilis . J. Bacteriol. 88: 991–995. 1964.—Wild-type Bacillus subtilis colonies were found to feed purineless mutants. A strain with high feeding capacity was selected for study, with a guanineless mutant of B. subtilis used as the assay organism. The factor was excreted during its growth phase in a complex medium containing starch and soybean meal extract. Nutritional studies led to the development of a defined medium to be used for biochemical studies and to aid in the isolation of the factor. Starch was replaced by maltose and the soybean meal extract by Mn ++ . Production of the factor was sensitive to the pH of the medium during growth. Practically its entire extracellular accumulation occurred before visible lysis. The factor was identified as guanosine-5'-monophosphate derived by extracellular enzymatic hydrolysis of excreted ribonucleic acid. </jats:p