New Alliances in Post-Brexit Europe: Does the New Hanseatic League Revive Nordic Political Cooperation?

As Brexit removes the Nordic countries’ most powerful ally from the EU, what does this imply for their approach to European affairs? The literature on small states within the EU suggests that they can counterbalance limited bargaining capacities by entering two types of alliances: strategic partnerships with bigger member states and institutionalised cooperation on a regional basis. Against this backdrop we ask whether, by significantly raising the costs of non-cooperation for Nordic governments, the Brexit referendum has triggered a revival of Nordic political cooperation. We scrutinise this conjecture by analysing Nordic strategies of coalition-building on EU financial and budgetary policy, specifically looking at attempts to reform Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union and proposals to strengthen the EU’s fiscal powers. We find that Nordic governments have successfully collaborated on these issues in the context of new alliances such as the ‘New Hanseatic League’ or the ‘Frugal Four.’ Yet, their coalition-building strategies rely on relatively loose and issue-specific alliances rather than an institutionalisation of Nordic political cooperation, implying that this revival of Nordic political cooperation hardly involves the institutions of ‘official’ Nordic cooperation. We argue that this reflects lasting differences among the Nordics’ approach to the EU as well as electorates’ scepticism about supranational institution-building, implying that ‘reluctant Europeans’ are often also ‘reluctant Scandinavians.

Mitochondrial Haplotypes suggest Genetic Component for Habitat Preference in Blue Crabs

Atlantic blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus) are ecologically and commercially fundamental. Life stages are punctuated with migration. Adults and juveniles live in estuaries and sounds. Larval stages develop in the coastal ocean. Juvenile and adult crabs occupy habitats from high salinities to fresh water. We determined whether maturing juvenile and adult blue crab habitat use is reflected in mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase 1 haplotypes. High salinity crabs had lower haplotype diversity (0.7260 ± .03900) compared to spawning crabs (0.9841 ± .00021) and low salinity crabs (0.94154 ± .00118). Significant pairwise differences in haplotypes were found between high salinity and spawning crabs (Nm = 0.26018, p < 0.001), and between high salinity and low salinity crabs (Nm = 0.19482, p < 0.001) indicating a lack of gene flow. Crabs from high salinity had highly significant genetic differentiation compared to spawning crabs (Fst = 0.11830, p < 0.001) and low salinity crabs (Fst = 0.09689, p < 0.001). Results support the hypothesis that genetics influence habitat selection. Crab larvae mix in the coastal ocean but occupy specific habitats upon return to sounds and estuaries. These findings have implications for the management of fisheries

Prevalence of infection with human herpesvirus 8/Kaposi's sarcoma herpesvirus in rural South Africa

Objective. To determine prevalence of infection with human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8)/Kaposi's sarcoma herpesvirus (KSHY) and to gain some insight into possible transmission dynamics of this novel virus in South Africa.Methods. Stored, anonymous serum from 50 patients with a ~ sexually transmitted disease (STD), 50 adult medical ward _. patients (25 male, 25 female), and 36 paediatric ward patients in Hlabisa Hospital, KwaZulu-Natal, was screened by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for antibodies to the small capsid-related protein encoded by HHV-8/KSHY orf65. Antibodies to the latency-associated nuclear antigen (LANA) were measured by immunofluorescence, and sera that were reactive in the ELISA but negative by immunofluorescence were re-tested by Western blot against the recombinant orf65 protein to exclude nonspecific reactivity.Results. Overall, 47 patients tested positive (34.6%), 76 tested negative (55.9%) and 13 (95%) had indeterminate results. Among those with a definite result, prevalence was similar among males (47.2%) and females (52.8%) and increased in later adulthood « 18 months 375%,19 -120 months 385%, 15 - 34 years 32.1%, 35 - 69 years 62.8%). Prevalence was highest among medical patients (58-1%); among those with an STD it was 31.1% (P = 0-01), and among children it was 22.8% (P = 0.001). When age-adjusted, prevalence among medical patients (23.7%) was similar to that among patients with an STD.Conclusion. Prevalence of HHV-8/KSHY is high in this setting and transmission appears to be occurring in childhood as well as among adults. Larger  population-based studies are required to detail the transmission dynamics of HHSV8/KSHv

Quantitative Proteomics Analysis of Lytic KSHV Infection in Human Endothelial Cells Reveals Targets of Viral Immune Modulation.

Kaposi's sarcoma herpesvirus (KSHV) is an oncogenic human virus and the leading cause of mortality in HIV infection. KSHV reactivation from latent- to lytic-stage infection initiates a cascade of viral gene expression. Here we show how these changes remodel the host cell proteome to enable viral replication. By undertaking a systematic and unbiased analysis of changes to the endothelial cell proteome following KSHV reactivation, we quantify >7,000 cellular proteins and 71 viral proteins and provide a temporal profile of protein changes during the course of lytic KSHV infection. Lytic KSHV induces >2-fold downregulation of 291 cellular proteins, including PKR, the key cellular sensor of double-stranded RNA. Despite the multiple episomes per cell, CRISPR-Cas9 efficiently targets KSHV genomes. A complementary KSHV genome-wide CRISPR genetic screen identifies K5 as the viral gene responsible for the downregulation of two KSHV targets, Nectin-2 and CD155, ligands of the NK cell DNAM-1 receptor.Horizon 2020/grant agreement no. 656511 Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft – SFB900/3 – 158989968; project C1

Hearing What You Cannot See: Acoustic Vehicle Detection Around Corners

This work proposes to use passive acoustic perception as an additional sensing modality for intelligent vehicles. We demonstrate that approaching vehicles behind blind corners can be detected by sound before such vehicles enter in line-of-sight. We have equipped a research vehicle with a roof-mounted microphone array, and show on data collected with this sensor setup that wall reflections provide information on the presence and direction of occluded approaching vehicles. A novel method is presented to classify if and from what direction a vehicle is approaching before it is visible, using as input Direction-of-Arrival features that can be efficiently computed from the streaming microphone array data. Since the local geometry around the ego-vehicle affects the perceived patterns, we systematically study several environment types, and investigate generalization across these environments. With a static ego-vehicle, an accuracy of 0.92 is achieved on the hidden vehicle classification task. Compared to a state-of-the-art visual detector, Faster R-CNN, our pipeline achieves the same accuracy more than one second ahead, providing crucial reaction time for the situations we study. While the ego-vehicle is driving, we demonstrate positive results on acoustic detection, still achieving an accuracy of 0.84 within one environment type. We further study failure cases across environments to identify future research directions.Comment: Accepted to IEEE Robotics & Automation Letters (2021), DOI: 10.1109/LRA.2021.3062254. Code, Data & Video: https://github.com/tudelft-iv/occluded_vehicle_acoustic_detectio

Genome-wide association analysis of the anthocyanin and carotenoid contents of rose petals

Petal color is one of the key characteristics determining the attractiveness and therefore the commercial value of an ornamental crop. Here, we present the first genome-wide association study for the important ornamental crop rose, focusing on the anthocyanin and carotenoid contents in petals of 96 diverse tetraploid garden rose genotypes. Cultivated roses display a vast phenotypic and genetic diversity and are therefore ideal targets for association genetics. For marker analysis, we used a recently designed Axiom SNP chip comprising 68,000 SNPs with additionally 281 SSRs, 400 AFLPs and 246 markers from candidate genes. An analysis of the structure of the rose population revealed three subpopulations with most of the genetic variation between individual genotypes rather than between clusters and with a high average proportion of heterozygous loci. The mapping of markers significantly associated with anthocyanin and carotenoid content to the related Fragaria and Prunus genomes revealed clusters of associated markers indicating five genomic regions associated with the total anthocyanin content and two large clusters associated with the carotenoid content. Among the marker clusters associated with the phenotypes, we found several candidate genes with known functions in either the anthocyanin or the carotenoid biosynthesis pathways. Among others, we identified a glutathione-S-transferase, 4CL, an auxin response factor and F3’H as candidate genes affecting anthocyanin concentration, and CCD4 and Zeaxanthine epoxidase as candidates affecting the concentration of carotenoids. These markers are starting points for future validation experiments in independent populations as well as for functional genomic studies to identify the causal factors for the observed color phenotypes. Furthermore, validated markers may be interesting tools for marker-assisted selection in commercial breeding programmes in that they provide the tools to identify superior parental combinations that combine several associated markers in higher dosages.BMWi/ZI

Flip Graphs of Degree-Bounded (Pseudo-)Triangulations

We study flip graphs of triangulations whose maximum vertex degree is bounded by a constant $k$. In particular, we consider triangulations of sets of $n$ points in convex position in the plane and prove that their flip graph is connected if and only if $k > 6$; the diameter of the flip graph is $O(n^2)$. We also show that, for general point sets, flip graphs of pointed pseudo-triangulations can be disconnected for $k \leq 9$, and flip graphs of triangulations can be disconnected for any $k$. Additionally, we consider a relaxed version of the original problem. We allow the violation of the degree bound $k$ by a small constant. Any two triangulations with maximum degree at most $k$ of a convex point set are connected in the flip graph by a path of length $O(n \log n)$, where every intermediate triangulation has maximum degree at most $k+4$.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures, acknowledgments update

New Types of Off-Diagonal Long Range Order in Spin-Chains

We discuss new possibilities for Off-Diagonal Long Range Order (ODLRO) in spin chains involving operators which add or delete sites from the chain. For the Heisenberg and Inverse Square Exchange models we give strong numerical evidence for the hidden ODLRO conjectured by Anderson \cite{pwa_conj}. We find a similar ODLRO for the XY model (or equivalently for free fermions in one spatial dimension) which we can demonstrate rigorously, as well as numerically. A connection to the singlet pair correlations in one dimensional models of interacting electrons is made and briefly discussed.Comment: 13 pages, Revtex v3.0, 2 PostScript figures include

Realistic Electron-Electron Interaction in a Quantum Wire

The form of an effective electron-electron interaction in a quantum wire with a large static dielectric constant is determined and the resulting properties of the electron liquid in such a one-dimensional system are described. The exchange and correlation energies are evaluated and a possibility of a paramagnetic-ferromagnetic phase transition in the ground state of such a system is discussed. Low-energy excitations are briefly described.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure