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78,103,288 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher%20Institute%20of%20Demographic%20Studies%20and%20Research%20%28Damascus%29 | The Higher Institute of Demographic Studies and Research is an educational institution located in Al-Baramkeh district of Damascus, the capital of Syria.
Established in 2003, the institute aims to qualify national cadres with advanced academic degrees in demographic sciences that address societal needs and labor market requirements.
History
The institute was founded in 2003 to address the growing demand for skilled professionals in demographic studies. It focuses on training and qualification in demographic and developmental sciences, child protection from abuse and neglect, and alternative care, alongside conducting scientific studies and research related to demographics.
Programs and Degrees
The institute offers several academic degrees in demographic sciences, including:
Diploma in Demographic Sciences.
Graduate Diploma in Demographic Sciences.
Master’s degree in Demographic Sciences.
Doctorate in Demographic Sciences.
Controversies
In January 2021, the institute faced controversy regarding the acceptance lists for its master's program. A decision to revoke the initial acceptance lists, which included a significant number of female candidates, was made without prior notice, raising concerns about transparency and fairness in the admissions process.
See also
Education in Syria
List of universities in Syria
References
Universities in Syria
Research institutes in Syria
Educational institutions established in 2003
Demography | Higher Institute of Demographic Studies and Research (Damascus) | [
"Environmental_science"
] | 231 | [
"Demography",
"Environmental social science"
] |
78,103,298 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2MASS%20J11151597%2B1937266 | 2MASS J11151597+1937266 (also called 2MASS J1115+1937) is a young isolated planetary-mass object that is surrounded by a planetary disk.
2MASS J1115+1937 was discovered in 2017 in the LaTE-MoVeRS survey (Late-Type Extension to the Motion Verified Red Stars), which combined 2MASS, SDSS and WISE data to search for faint moving stars. The spectral fit showed that it is an L dwarf, with low gravity. A spectral type of L2γ was assigned for 2MASS J1115+1937. This work did not find a match with any known stellar associations and suggested it might have been ejected from such an association in the past. Infrared spectroscopy from the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility was published in 2018. This team found a spectral type of L2γ (±1) and an age of 5–45 Million years (Myr). The upper age limit is determined by the maximum age at which low-mass stars accrete material (see Peter Pan disk), but 2MASS J1115+1937 could be younger than this upper limit. Using this age range the team found a mass range of 7 to 21 . Additional follow-up was presented in 2024 with the Very Large Telescope (VLT), UVES instrument. The mass remains uncertain, but using the pre-shock velocity ( km/s) the team found a mass of .
The near-infrared spectrum shows water vapor (H2O), carbon monoxide (CO), iron hydride (FeH), sodium (Na) and potassium (K). The optical spectrum shows hydrogen and helium emission. It also shows possibly metal absorption lines of calcium (Ca), iron (Fe), titanium (Ti) and chromium (Cr).
The accretion disk
The discovery team showed that the SDSS spectrum contained a number of hydrogen emission lines and the H-alpha emission line was broadened, showing signs of accretion. The team found that the neutral potassium line was weaker than other low gravity dwarfs, which is seen as either an even lower gravity or material blocking this part of the atmosphere. Additionally a higher than normal WISE W3 (about 10 μm) flux indicates the presence of dust around the object. In a follow-up paper, the team interpreted the hydrogen emission as either magnetic activity and/or weak accretion. The team also found emission due to neutral helium (He), which is another sign of accretion. Observations with the VLT confirmed the ongoing accretion and the infrared excess. The team identified additional hydrogen emission lines and found asymmetric line profiles. The H-alpha flux decreased by about 7% between 2007 and 2012, and then increased by about 20% between 2012 and 2023. This is seen as a variable accretion rate. The mass accretion rate was estimated to be × 10−8 /year (about the mass of 3 Juno per year).
Ruled out stellar companion
It was suggested that 2MASS J1115+1937 co-moves with 2MASS J11131089+2110086 (2MASS J1113+2110) based on similar proper motion and radial velocity. Due to newly released Gaia astrometry, especially the difference in parallax, another team ruled out that the two 2MASS objects are a physical pair. The team does however consider it possible that the pair has a similar dynamical origin. Maybe the two objects belong to an unknown stellar group.
See also
Other free-floating planetary-mass objects with disks (all more distant than 2MASS J1115+1937)
OTS 44, one of the first discovered planetary-mass objects
Cha 110913−773444
J1407b, could also orbit a star
KPNO-Tau 12
Other planetary-mass objects with disks that bound to a star
SR 12c
Delorme 1 (AB)b
2M1207b
PDS 70c, first circumplanetary disk
References
Rogue planets
L-type brown dwarfs
Leo (constellation)
Circumstellar disks | 2MASS J11151597+1937266 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 859 | [
"Leo (constellation)",
"Constellations"
] |
78,103,499 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom%20Leinster | Thomas "Tom" Stephen Hampden Leinster (born 1971) is a British mathematician, known for his work on category theory.
Education and career
Leinster graduated in 2000 with a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. His Ph.D. thesis Operads in Higher-Dimensional Category Theory was supervised by Martin Hyland. After teaching at the University of Glasgow, Leinster became, and is now, a professor at the University of Edinburgh. He published textbooks on category theory and higher categories and operads. In the 2010s, he was mainly concerned with a generalization of the Euler characteristic in category theory, the magnitude. He also considered such generalizations in metric spaces with application in biology (measurement of biodiversity).
Award and honour
Leinster groups (i.e., finite groups whose order is equal to the sum of the orders of their normal subgroups) are named in his honour. He received the 2019 Chauvenet Prize for Rethinking Set Theory (based upon an axiomatization published in 1964 by F. William Lawvere). He is a frequent author and moderator for the academic group blog n-Category Café, where topics from mathematics, science and philosophy are discussed, often from the perspective of category theory. International media attention resulted from a 2014 article by Leinster in the New Scientist. Leinster's article called, on the basis of ethics, for mathematicians to refuse to work for intelligence agencies. In German-speaking countries, this was reported by, among others, Der Spiegel and Zeit Online.
Selected publications
References
External links
Homepage, University of Edinburgh (with many links to publications, talks, & notes)
Tom Leinster in the database zbMATH
1971 births
Living people
20th-century British mathematicians
21st-century British mathematicians
British bloggers
Category theorists
Alumni of the University of Cambridge
Academics of the University of Edinburgh | Tom Leinster | [
"Mathematics"
] | 375 | [
"Category theorists",
"Mathematical structures",
"Category theory"
] |
78,103,543 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis-Charles%20Cisinski | Denis-Charles Cisinski (born March 10, 1976) is a mathematician focussing on higher category theory, homotopy theory, K-theory and algebraic geometry. In 2001, Cisinski model structures on topoi were introduced and later named after him. Since 2016, Denis-Charles Cisinski works at the Universität Regensburg.
Research
Denis-Charles Cisinski obtained his PhD in 2002 at the Paris Diderot University with a thesis supervised by Georges Maltsiniotis and titled Les préfaisceaux comme modèles des types d'homotopie (Presheaves as models for homotopy types). It was expanded and released as a book in 2006, further developing the theory from Pursuing Stacks by Alexander Grothendieck. In 2015, Denis-Charles Cisinski gave a talk at the Séminaire Nicolas Bourbaki summarizing the current state of research titled Catégories supérieures et théorie des topos (Higher categories and theory of toposes).
Publications
Books
Scripts
References
External links
Homepage
Denis-Charles Cisinski on nLab
Catégories supérieures et théorie des topos on YouTube (French)
Category theorists
Living people
1976 births | Denis-Charles Cisinski | [
"Mathematics"
] | 246 | [
"Category theorists",
"Mathematical structures",
"Category theory"
] |
78,103,776 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPD%20Duo | GPD Duo is a dual-screen AMD-powered laptop created by GamePad Digital (GPD), crowdfunded via Indiegogo. It has two 13.3-inch OLED screens.
References
GPD products
Indiegogo projects
Notebooks
Computer-related introductions in 2024 | GPD Duo | [
"Technology"
] | 62 | [
"Computing stubs"
] |
78,106,210 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LR105 | The LR105 is a liquid-fuel rocket engine that served as the sustainer engine for the Atlas rocket family. Developed by Rocketdyne in 1957 as the S-4, it is called a sustainer engine because it continues firing after the LR89 booster engines have been jettisoned, providing thrust during the ascent phase.
Description
The LR105 is a liquid-propellant engine using RP-1/LOX. The engine operates on a gas-generator cycle, where a small portion of the propellant is burned in a gas generator to drive the turbopumps, which supply the engine with fuel and oxidizer.
The engine was designed to be throttleable, meaning its thrust could be adjusted during flight to optimize performance. The LR105 also features regenerative cooling, where RP-1 fuel is circulated through cooling channels in the engine's nozzle and combustion chamber before being injected into the combustion process, preventing overheating and improving efficiency.
Versions
The LR105 engine underwent several upgrades over its operational life, leading to multiple variants:
See also
Rocketdyne LR89
Rocketdyne LR101
SM-65 Atlas
Rocketdyne
References
Rocket engines using kerosene propellant
Rocketdyne engines
Rocket engines using the pressure-fed cycle
Rocket engines of the United States
Atlas (rocket family) | LR105 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 283 | [
"Rocketry stubs",
"Astronomy stubs"
] |
78,106,359 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methenamine/sodium%20salicylate | Methenamine/sodium salicylate, sold under the brand name Cystex among others, is a combination drug comprising methenamine and sodium salicylate. Methenamine serves as a urinary antiseptic and antibacterial agent, while sodium salicylate is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) and analgesic. The combination is used for the treatment and prevention of urinary tract infection (UTI) symptoms.
Medical uses
Methenamine, whether used alone or in combination with sodium salicylate, is considered an alternative to antibiotics for the treatment and prevention of UTIs and related symptoms. Unlike antibiotics, methenamine does not contribute to the risk of bacterial resistance.
Available forms
The drug is available over-the-counter (OTC), including in the United States, and is typically taken by mouth three times per day.
Methenamine/sodium salicylate is marketed under several brand names, including Cystex Urinary Pain Relief, AZO Urinary Tract Defense, Uro-Pain Dual Action, and CVS Antibacterial Plus Urinary Pain Relief. Some formulations also include phenazopyridine and are marketed as products like the All-In-One UTI Emergency Kit.
Comparison with methenamine
Methenamine is also available as a prescription drug and is used alone to prevent recurrent UTIs. Clinical evidence supports its efficacy for this indication. Prescription methenamine is usually administered as the hippuric acid or mandelic acid salt, while the OTC methenamine/sodium salicylate formulation uses methenamine as the free base.
Compared to prescription methenamine, the OTC combination formulation contains lower doses of methenamine. This OTC version has been studied less extensively, and limited clinical data are available to guide its use.
See also
Boric acid
References
Combination drugs
Analgesics
Antimicrobials
Antiseptics
Bactericides
Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs
Prodrugs | Methenamine/sodium salicylate | [
"Chemistry",
"Biology"
] | 426 | [
"Antimicrobials",
"Prodrugs",
"Bactericides",
"Chemicals in medicine",
"Biocides"
] |
78,106,437 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LUZP2 | Leucine zipper protein 2 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the LUZP2 gene. There are no orthologs in invertebrates, but many in vertebrates. It is a transcription factor found in eukaryotes.
Gene
The LUZP2 gene is found on the short arm of chromosome 11 at position 11p14.3. It is located on the plus strand.
The gene contains 23 introns, and can produce 11 alternatively spliced mRNAs.
Protein structure
LUZP2 encodes a leucine zipper protein that is 346 amino acids in length, and has a molecular weight of ~39 kDa. This protein is secreted, and is found mostly expressed within the brain and spinal cord.
The protein contains a signal peptide, 3 glycosylation sites, a leucine zipper region, and a disordered region. It also contains 3 highly conserved "QLKE" amino acid repeats.
Leucine zipper
The leucine zipper motif is located on positions 164-192 of the protein, and contains 4 conserved lysine and 4 conserved leucine residues. Leucine zippers usually facilitate protein-protein interactions and contain many amphipathic helices that form a left-handed dimeric coiled-coil structure. They also often contain leucine residues spaced 7 amino acids apart.
Abundance
Protein Abundance
LUZP2 protein is present in higher amounts than most proteins, but is more abundant in the cerebral cortex and brain. Immunohistochemical staining using anti-LUZP2 rabbit antibodies shows it to be present in low levels in the pancreas and high in the cerebral cortex. Interestingly, it is present in high levels in neuronal projections, suggesting it could have some role in the development of the vertebral nervous system.
In situ hybridization
Based on in situ hybridization studies, LUZP2 mRNA is expressed at low levels throughout the brain, but more highly concentrated in the regions of the forebrain, the thalamus, and the hypothalamus. LUZP2 is also least expressed in the cerebellum compared to other structures.
Clinical findings
Based on a data mining study investigating low-grade Gliomas, LUZP2 downregulation was found to be associated with higher-grade tumors, suggesting that LUZP2 expression decreased as tumors became more aggressive. Low LUZP2 expression was also associated with worse overall survival in patients with low-grade gliomas across multiple cohorts.
This gene has also been found deleted in some patients with Wilms tumor-aniridia-ganomalies-mental retardation (WAGR) syndrome.
Evolution
LUZP2 has many orthologs in vertebrates. It is highly conserved in mammals, birds, and reptiles.
LUZP2 is expected to have first appeared in cartilaginous fish around 462 million years ago, and is evolving at an intermediate rate, slower than fibrinogen alpha, but faster than cytochrome c.
Possible Interactions
LUZP2 mostly interacts with proteins found the nucleus. Proteins that showed the most promising interactions with LUZP2 include the serine/threonine kinase TNIK, GAS2, and CBX5.
References
Genes on human chromosome 11
Proteins | LUZP2 | [
"Chemistry"
] | 673 | [
"Proteins",
"Biomolecules by chemical classification",
"Molecular biology"
] |
78,106,994 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central%20groupoid | In abstract algebra, a central groupoid is an algebraic structure defined by a binary operation on a set of elements that satisfies the equation
As an example, the operation on points in the Euclidean plane, defined by recombining their Cartesian coordinates as
is a central groupoid. The same type of recombination defines a central groupoid over the ordered pairs of elements from any set, called a natural central groupoid.
As an algebraic structure with a single binary operation, a central groupoid is a special kind of magma or groupoid. Because central groupoids are defined by an equational identity, they form a variety of algebras in which the free objects are called free central groupoids. Free central groupoids are infinite, and have no idempotent elements. Finite central groupoids, including the natural central groupoids over finite sets, always have a square number of elements, whose square root is the number of idempotent elements.
Equivalent definitions
A central groupoid consists of a set of elements and a binary operation on this set that satisfies the equation
for all elements , , and .
Central groupoids can be defined equivalently in terms of central digraphs. These are directed graphs in which, each ordered pair of vertices (not necessarily distinct) form the start and end vertex of a three-vertex directed walk. That is, for each and there must exist a unique vertex such that and are directed edges. From any central digraph, one can define a central groupoid in which for each directed path . Conversely, for any central groupoid we can define a central digraph by letting the set of vertices be the elements of the groupoid, and saying there is an edge whenever there exists with .
A third equivalent definition of central groupoids involves (0,1)-matrices with the property that is a matrix of ones. These are exactly the directed adjacency matrices of the graphs that define central groupoids.
Special cases
Finite
Every finite central groupoid has a square number of elements. If the number of elements is , then there are exactly idempotent elements (elements with the property that ). In the corresponding central digraph, each idempotent vertex has a self-loop. The remaining vertices each belong to a unique 2-cycle. In the matrix view of central groupoids, the idempotent elements form the 1s on the main diagonal of a matrix representing the groupoid. Each row and column of the matrix also contains exactly 1s. The spectrum of the matrix is .
The numbers of central groupoids on labeled elements, or equivalently, (0,1)-matrices of dimension whose square is the all-ones matrix, for , are
1, 12, 1330560 .
Finding these numbers, for general values of , was stated as an open problem by Alan J. Hoffman in 1967.
Free
As with any variety of algebras, the central groupoids have free objects, the free central groupoids. The free central groupoid, for a given set of generating elements, can be defined as having elements that are equivalence classes of finite expressions, under an equivalence relation in which two expressions are equivalent when they can be transformed into each other by repeatedly applying the defining equation of a central groupoid. Unlike finite central groupoids, the free central groupoids have no idempotent elements. The problem of testing the equivalence of expressions for a free central groupoid was one of the motivating examples in the discovery of the Knuth–Bendix completion algorithm for constructing a term rewriting system that solves this problem.
The resulting rewriting system consists of the rules
where any subexpression matching the left side of any of these rules is transformed into the right side, until no more matching subexpressions remain. Two expressions are equivalent if they are transformed in this way into the same expression as each other.
Natural
A natural central groupoid has as its elements the ordered pairs of values in some defining set. Its binary operation recombines these pairs as
For instance, if the defining set is the set of real numbers, this operation defines a product on points in the Euclidean plane, described by their Cartesian coordinates. If the defining set is finite, then so is the resulting natural central groupoid.
Natural central groupoids are characterized among the central groupoids by obeying another equation,
for all elements and .
See also
Friendship graph, an undirected graph with the property that each two distinct vertices are endpoints of a unique three-vertex path
Semicentral bigroupoid, a generalization of central groupoids with two binary operations, used to characterize one-dimensional reversible cellular automata
References
Non-associative algebras
Directed graphs
Matrices | Central groupoid | [
"Mathematics"
] | 968 | [
"Matrices (mathematics)",
"Mathematical objects"
] |
78,108,293 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%204869 | NGC 4869 is an elliptical galaxy located in the constellation of Coma Berenices. It is located 343 million light years from Earth. The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel in April 1785 but also observed by both John Herschel and Heinrich d'Arrest, in March 1827 and May 1863 respectively. It is a member of the Coma Cluster with a small companion galaxy at a position angle of 325°.
Characteristics
NGC 4869 is classified as a radio galaxy with a faint radio core with two oppositely directed radio jets and a lengthy low-surface brightness tail. It has an estimated γ-ray luminosity of Lγ ≤ 4 x 1039 erg s−1 like NGC 4874. There is also an elongated absorption feature in the galaxy, possibly representing an edge on disk.
NGC 4869 contains a narrow angle tailed radio source. The source is found lying towards the central region of the Coma Cluster by 111 kpc. It shows a mean fractional polarization of 18% at 4.535 GHz and 21% at 8.465 GHz and a large-scale structure that is almost 200 kpc. A characteristic feature of the source, is a sharp bend towards a north direction at 3’5 from the host galaxy's position.
According to a Chandra X-ray image of NGC 4869, a straight collimated jet is seen flaring when traversing a surface brightness edge.
Supermassive black hole
The supermassive black hole in NGC 4869 is estimated to be 1.32 x 108 Mʘ (108.12 Mʘ) based on a study made by Jong-Hak Woo and Urry in 2002.
References
External links
NGC 4869 on SIMBAD
4869
Coma Berenices
Radio galaxies
Astronomical objects discovered in 1785
Discoveries by William Herschel
044587
+05-31-065
Coma Cluster
Elliptical galaxies | NGC 4869 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 383 | [
"Coma Berenices",
"Constellations"
] |
78,108,819 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%206338 | NGC 6338 is a large lenticular galaxy located in the constellation Draco. It is located at an estimated distance of 392 million light years from Earth and was discovered by William Herschel in 1789. According to Herschel, he mentioned, "the object is faint, small and round with a little brighter middle."
Characteristics
NGC 6338 is the brightest cluster galaxy in the NGC 6338 group, shown merging with another galaxy group. It forms a pair with MCG +10-24-117. It has an ellipsoidal appearance based on findings of a stellar component revolving around a major axis. NGC 6338 is also more luminous compared to other members with estimated absolute magnitudes of MB = -22.2 and MV = -21.92. NGC 6338 also contains a central bright source when seen in X-rays. A double nucleus is present in NGC 6338.
The nucleus of NGC 6338 is active and it is classified both a LINER as well as a Fanaroff-Riley class type 0 radio galaxy. The most accepted theory for this energy source for active galactic nuclei is the presence of an accretion disk around a giant black hole. Furthermore, NGC 6338 has both young and old radio lobes, with radiative ages of 200 and 50 million years old. It also has a small parsec-scale radio jet with radio emission in its core. There are also X-ray cavities located both northeast and southwest of the galaxy's nucleus.
Based on narrow band imaging taken with Hubble Space Telescope, NGC 6338 contains Hα emission originating from two compact clouds in its galactic center and three filaments along its minor axis. The filaments have a projected outward extension of ~ 13.5" and a total Hα flux of 1.78 x 10−14 erg s−1 cm−2.
References
External links
NCG 6338 on SIMBAD
6338
Lenticular galaxies
Draco (constellation)
059947
Astronomical objects discovered in 1789
Discoveries by William Herschel
Radio galaxies
LINER galaxies
Blazars
Active galaxies
10784
+10-24-116 | NGC 6338 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 433 | [
"Constellations",
"Draco (constellation)"
] |
78,110,357 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LR89 | The Rocketdyne LR89 was a liquid-fueled rocket engine developed in the 1950s by Rocketdyne, a division of North American Aviation. It was designed to serve as a booster engine the Atlas rocket family. The LR89 was a liquid oxygen (LOX) and RP-1 (kerosene) engine.
It was used in configurations where it worked alongside the LR105 sustainer engine to enhance thrust in the first stage of the Atlas, being jettisoned when the vehicle weight had been considerably reduced due to propellant consumption.
Description
The LR89 was part of a family of engines that Rocketdyne developed to power the first American ICBMs and satellite launch vehicles. It was a gas-generator cycle engine, in which a portion of the fuel and oxidizer is burned to drive a turbine, which powers the fuel pumps, and featured a hypergolic igniter.
Versions
The LR89 engine underwent several upgrades throughout its operational life, resulting in multiple versions:
Atlas stage
The LR89 powered the first Atlas stage, in different configurations:
MA-1 (booster only): two XLR89-1 booster engines and two LR101 vernier engines. Used on Atlas A;
MA-1: two XLR89-1 booster engines, an LR105-3 sustainer, and two LR101 vernier engines. Used on Atlas B and Atlas C missiles;
MA-2: two XLR89-5 booster engines, an LR105-5 sustainer, and two LR101 vernier engines. Used on Atlas D and Atlas LV-3B;
MA-3: two LR89-5 booster engines, an LR105-5 sustainer, and two LR101 vernier engines. Used on Atlas E, Atlas F and Atlas E/F;
MA-5: two LR89-7 booster engines, an LR105-5 sustainer, and two LR101 vernier engines. Used on Atlas SLV3, Atlas H, Atlas LV3C, Atlas G and Atlas I.
See also
Rocketdyne LR105
Rocketdyne LR101
SM-65 Atlas
Rocketdyne
References
Rocket engines using kerosene propellant
Rocketdyne engines
Rocket engines of the United States
Atlas (rocket family) | LR89 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 499 | [
"Rocketry stubs",
"Astronomy stubs"
] |
78,110,406 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta3a | Ta3a (Delta-myrmicitoxin-Ta3a) is a vertebrate-selective neurotoxin found in the venom of the African ant species Tetramorium africanum. It is known to cause intense, long-lasting pain by targeting voltage-gated sodium channels in peripheral sensory neurons. Ta3a strongly reduces sodium channel inactivation, leading to heightened neuronal excitability.
Chemistry
Ta3a belongs to the aculeatoxin family of peptides, found in the venom of Hymenoptera. It is a 29-residue peptide, which is predicted to have an alpha-helical structure (amino acid sequence: LAPIFALLLLSGLFSLPALQHYIEKNYIN).
Ta3a is similar to poneratoxin, a voltage-gated sodium channel toxin found in the ant species Paraponera clavata, as well as to other uncharacterised peptides from various other ant species.
Target
Ta3a targets voltage-gated sodium channels such as Nav1.6, Nav1.7 and Nav1.8, which are involved in peripheral pain signaling. The half-maximal effective concentration (EC50) of Ta3a for the human Nav1.7 channel is 30 ± 9 nM. Nav1.6 is similarly sensitive to Ta3a with an EC50 of 25 ± 2 nM, while Nav1.8 is less sensitive with an EC50 of 331 ± 58 nM.
Mode of action
Ant venom Nav toxins are distinct from other Nav modulators, but their effects more closely resemble those caused by small hydrophobic alkaloids. These peptides bind to the S2 voltage-sensing domain of Nav channels in their "activated" conformation, thereby maintaining channel activity. Ta3a exerts a significant regulatory effect on voltage-gated sodium channels, and its interaction with the Nav1.7 subtype was the one studied in more detail. Ta3a prolongs the duration that the channels remains active and increases the likelihood of the channels being open. Additionally, Ta3a shifts the activation of Nav1.7 to more negative (hyperpolarized) potentials, allowing Nav1.7 channels to remain active for extended periods even in the absence of strong depolarising stimuli. These prolonged, non-inactivating currents cause significant changes in the cell's membrane potential, due to the continuous sodium influx. Such prolonged sodium channel activation also permits sodium currents to persist at negative membrane potentials.
Toxicity
The hallmark of Ta3a toxicity is acute pain, which is the most immediate and prominent symptom of Ta3a exposure. This is due to the excessive activation of the Nav channels, which play a crucial role in pain transmission by enhancing the propagation of nerve signals, particularly pain-related signals.
Treatment
Since Ta3a primarily exerts its effects by overactivating the Nav channels, sodium channel blockers represent a potential therapeutic approach. For instance, tetrodotoxin (TTX), a sodium channel blocker, has been shown to effectively inhibit the persistent currents induced by Ta3a in experimental settings. However, no studies have yet been conducted on specific treatment methods for Ta3a poisoning.
References
Insect toxins
Sodium channel openers
Neurotoxins
Ion channel toxins | Ta3a | [
"Chemistry"
] | 701 | [
"Neurochemistry",
"Neurotoxins"
] |
78,110,411 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KOI-2700b | KOI-2700b is a confirmed exoplanet that orbits the K-type main-sequence star KIC 8639908, located about distant. It orbits the star very rapidly, with an orbital period of , at a distance of just . This, along with its small mass, is causing it to evaporate and lose material, which leaves a comet-like tail of dust stretching from the planet.
Physical properties
Dust tail
The most noteworthy characteristic of the planet is a tail of dust that follows it, spanning about a quarter of its orbit. The tail is formed from escaped material from the surface, much like that of a comet, providing a rare insight into the composition and formation of exoplanets. In the case of KOI-2700b, the tail most likely consists of fayalite (Fe2SiO4) and/or corundum (Al2O3). A composition of pure iron, graphite, or silicon carbide has been ruled out.
The tail leaves a distinct print on the light curves of the star. Specifically, the dips caused by the transiting planet change in depth from transit to transit, and are asymmetrical, first falling sharply and then recovering more gradually. In addition, The star appears to brighten slightly before transit, which can be explained by the dust grains causing forward scatter.
In addition to the dust tail, a cloud of partially ionized sodium vapor may surround the planet, extending to a size comparable to that of the host star (~0.54 ).
Mass and radius
The precise mass and radius of the planet are unknown, but it is expected to be very small and rocky, as a mass of ≲0.03 is required for the release of detectable amounts of dust, and in all likelihood, planets larger than roughly half the radius of Earth do not emit a dust tail whatsoever. Thus, the discovery paper points out that the modelled upper limits for the mass (0.86 ) and radius (1.06 ) are likely far larger than the actual values, and the planet may be closer to the Moon (0.27 ) in size. Indeed, further research indicates that its true radius likely lies somewhere between 0.1–0.3 , smaller than Mercury (0.36 ).
The planet is losing mass at a roughly estimated rate of around 2 lunar masses (0.0246 ) per billion years, that is 6,000 metric tons per second, and not below 0.007 per 1 Gyr.
Host star
The planet orbits a faint 15th-magnitude star named KIC 8639908, which is located at right ascension and declination (J2000), in the northern constellation of Lyra. It is currently in the main sequence with a spectral type of K5, a mass of 0.546 , and a radius of 0.540 . At an effective temperature of , it radiates 8.9% the luminosity of the Sun from its photosphere. The star is very metal-poor, possessing a metallicity of −0.7, meaning it only has one-fifth the iron content of the Sun.
Similarities have been noted between it and Kepler-1520, a K4V-type star that hosts another disintegrating exoplanet with a comet-like tail.
See also
List of smallest exoplanets
Ultra-short period planets
Other disintegrating rocky planets with comet-like tails:
Kepler-1520b (KIC 12557548 b)
K2-22b (EPIC 201637175 b)
BD+05 4868 (TIC 466376085 b)
Footnotes
References
Exoplanets discovered in 2014
Transiting exoplanets
Lyra
Kepler objects of interest
Exoplanets discovered by the Kepler space telescope
Sub-Earth exoplanets | KOI-2700b | [
"Astronomy"
] | 798 | [
"Lyra",
"Constellations"
] |
78,110,876 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseus-Taurus%20Shell | The Perseus-Taurus Shell is a near-spherical cavity in the interstellar medium, 500 light-years wide, located in the Perseus-Taurus constellations.
A team from the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics led by Catherine Zucker and Shmuel Bialy discovered the structure in 2021. Scientists believe that it appeared
following the explosions of ancient supernovae.
Molecular clouds surround the sphere-shape cavity.
References
Superbubbles | Perseus-Taurus Shell | [
"Astronomy"
] | 94 | [
"Astronomy stubs"
] |
78,111,408 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang%20Baumjohann | Wolfgang Baumjohann (born August 9, 1950) is an Austrian astrophysicist and academic. He was the director of the Institute of Space Research at the Austrian Academy of Sciences from 2004 to 2021.
Education and career
Baumjohann studied physics and geophysics at Münster University from 1969 to 1975, earning his doctorate in 1981 and working as a research assistant there until 1983. He became director of the Institute of Space Research in Graz in 2004, succeeding Hans Sünkel. He had joined the institute in 2001 as Riedler's successor and was also an adjunct professor at Munich University and an honorary professor at Graz University of Technology.
He received the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art award, in 2007.
In April 2022, Baumjohann was elected to the position of president of the Mathematical and Natural Sciences Class within the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
References
Astrophysicists
Academic staff of the Graz University of Technology
Academic staff of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
1950 births
Recipients of the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class
Members of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
Members of Academia Europaea
Fellows of the American Geophysical Union
Living people | Wolfgang Baumjohann | [
"Physics"
] | 238 | [
"Astrophysicists",
"Astrophysics"
] |
78,112,018 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gengo%20Matsui | Gengo Matsui ( 松井源吾, Matsui Gengo) (1920-1996) was a prominent Japanese structural engineer and professor at Waseda University. Throughout his career, he collaborated with several renowned Japanese architects including Kiyonori Kikutake (1928–2011), Kisho Kurokawa (1934–2007), Toyo Ito (born 1941), and Shigeru Ban (born 1957).
Gengo Matsui was active both in academia and in practice through his research lab at Waseda University and through his structural design office O.R.S., namely. He is best known for the structural design of several iconic buildings of Japanese metabolism like the Nakagin Capsule Tower (1972), the Osaka Expo Tower (1970), and the Miyakonojo Civic Center (1966). The ability to work at different scales and using different materials allowed Matsui creating a dense network of interdisciplinary collaborations and a wide range of different projects. In the early 1960s, his experiments with reinforced concrete also in collaboration with the architect Kikutake led to the patenting of the void slab system in Japan, a novel cast-in-situ slab system still largely used today in Japan. Towards the end of his career, Matsui engaged with Shigeru Ban's paper architecture series, developing design solutions in such a way to activate cardboard elements as actual load-bearing elements. Matsui also engaged in research related to wood joinery and modular steel structures, such as Toyo Ito's Silver Hut or Kikutake's Osaka Expo Tower.
Among architects and collaborators, Matsui was known for consistently using photoelasticity to understand and explain the behavior of structures. He used photoelastic experiments both as a visual tool to investigate force flows within structural members as well as a tool to communicate structural design ideas to architects.
After Matsui retired from Waseda University, the Matsui Gengo Prize for structural design was established. A total of 15 honorable contributions to the field of structural design were awarded with the Matsui Gengo Prize between 1991 and 2005. Among the winners were the Irish structural engineer Peter Rice for his work on the Kansai International Airport (awarded in 1995) and the British Sri Lankan engineer Cecil Balmond for his work on the Ito-Balmond Serpentine Pavilion (awarded in 2003).
List of works
Administrative building of Izumo Shrine, Shimane, 1963
Tatebayashi City Hall (1963)
Hotel Tokoen (1964)
Toku’un-ji Temple Ossuary (1965)
Pacific Hotel Chigasaki, Kanagawa, 1966
Miyakonojo Civic Hall, Miyazaki, 1966. Demolished.
Waseda University Faculty of Science and Engineering Building No. 51 (1967)
Expo Tower, Expo '70, Osaka, 1969
Nakagin Capsule Tower (1972 - Demolished in 2022)
BIGBOX Takadanobaba (1973)
Setagaya Museum of Art (1985)
Edo-Tokyo Museum, Tokyo, 1993
Publications
In English:
Matsui, G. (1977). Introduction to Structural Design in Architecture.
Sumiyoshi, T., & Matsui, G. (1989). Wood joints in classical Japanese Architecture. Kajima Institute Publishing Co., Ltd.
Matsui, G. (1990). Structural Design in Japanese Architecture. The Gengo Matsui's Works Editing Committee.
Matsui, G. (1990). Fringes: A visual approach to the understanding of structures. Kajima Institute Publishing Co., Ltd.
References
1920 births
1996 deaths
20th-century Japanese engineers
Structural engineers | Gengo Matsui | [
"Engineering"
] | 730 | [
"Structural engineering",
"Structural engineers"
] |
66,419,420 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KELT-1 | KELT-1 is a F-type main-sequence star. Its surface temperature is 6518 K. It is similar to the Sun in its concentration of heavy elements, with a metallicity Fe/H index of 0.008, but is much younger at an age of 1.75 billion years. The star is rotating very rapidly.
A red dwarf stellar companion at a projected separation of 154 AU was detected in 2012, simultaneously with a planetary companion.
Planetary system
The star was found to be orbited by a low-mass brown dwarf or giant planet in 2012.
The atmosphere of the brown dwarf KELT-1b has been extensively measured from space- and ground-based observatories by a team of astronomers led by Thomas Beatty. They found that KELT-1b has an equilibrium temperature of 2422 K, but features a very strong contrast between measured dayside and nightside temperatures. Dayside temperature appears to be 3340 K, while nightside temperature is 1173 K. The excess dayside temperature may be an artifact arising from highly reflective (dayside albedo reaching 0.5, which is unusual for hot planets and brown dwarfs) rock-vapor clouds. Also, the brightest band is shifted eastward from the subsolar point by 18.3°.
KELT-1b's density of 22.1 g/cm3 is the highest among well characterized planets.
The planetary orbit is well aligned with the equatorial plane of the star, with the misalignment angle equal to 2°. Despite the short orbital period, orbital decay of KELT-1b has not been detected as of 2018.
See also
List of exoplanet extremes
References
Andromeda (constellation)
Binary stars
Planetary systems with one confirmed planet
Planetary transit variables
F-type main-sequence stars
J00012691+3923017
Brown dwarfs
TIC objects | KELT-1 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 381 | [
"Andromeda (constellation)",
"Constellations"
] |
66,422,158 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black%20in%20AI | Black in AI, formally called the Black in AI Workshop, is a technology research organization and affinity group, founded by computer scientists Timnit Gebru and Rediet Abebe in 2017. It started as a conference workshop, later pivoting into an organization. Black in AI increases the presence and inclusion of Black people in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) by creating space for sharing ideas, fostering collaborations, mentorship, and advocacy.
History
Black in AI was created in 2017 to address issues of lack of diversity in AI workshops, and was started as its own workshop within the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) conference. Because of algorithmic bias, ethical issues, and underrepresentation of Black people in AI roles; there has been an ongoing need for unity within the AI community to have focus on these issues. Black in AI has strived to continue the progress of improving the presence of people of color in the field of artificial intelligence.
In 2018 and 2019, the Black in AI workshop had many immigration visa issues to Canada, which spurred the conference to be planned for 2020 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. On December 7, 2020, Black in AI held its fourth annual workshop and first virtual workshop (due to the COVID-19 pandemic).
In 2021, Black in AI, alongside the groups Queer in AI and Widening NLP, released a public statement refusing funding from Google in an act of protest of Google's treatment of Timnit Gebru, Margaret Mitchell, and April Christina Curley in the events that occurred in December 2020.
Founders
Rediet Abebe is an Ethiopian computer scientist who specializes in algorithms and artificial intelligence. She is a Computer Science Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. She was previously a Junior Fellow at Harvard's Society of Fellows. She was the first Black woman to receive a Ph.D. in computer science at Cornell University. She "designs and analyzes algorithms, discrete optimizations, network-based, [and] computational strategies to increase access to opportunity for historically disadvantaged populations," according to her web bio.
Timnit Gebru was born in Ethiopia and moved to the United States at the age of fifteen. She got her B.S. and M.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford University, as well as a PhD from the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, where she studied computer vision under Fei-Fei Li. She formerly worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft Research in the Fairness Accountability Transparency, and Ethics (FATE) division. She's also worked with Apple, where she assisted in the development of signal-processing algorithms for the original iPad.
Grants
Black in AI received grants and support from private foundations like MacArthur Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation. The organization received $10,000 in 2018 for its annual workshop and $150,000 in 2019 for its long-term organizational planning.
In 2020, during the pandemic, the organization received a grant of $300,000 by MacArthur Foundation in order to provide broad organizational support.
In 2022, Rockefeller Foundation announced $300,000 to fight prejudice in artificial intelligence (AI) across the globe and incorporate equity into this rapidly expanding field.
Programs
"Black in AI works in academics, advocacy, entrepreneurship, financial support, and summer research programs."
The Black in AI Academic Program is a resource for Black junior researchers applying to graduate schools, navigating graduate school, and transitioning into the postgraduate employment market. They provide online education sessions, offer scholarships to cover application fees, pair participants with peer and senior mentors, and distribute crowdsourced papers that simplify the application process. They also undertake research projects to investigate and highlight the difficulties that Black young researchers face, as well as push for structural reforms to eliminate these barriers and build equitable research settings. Moses Namara is a Facebook Research Fellow at Clemson University and a PhD candidate in Human-Centered Computing (HCC). He is the mentor for the new Black in AI Academic Program.
During the graduate school admissions season in 2021, Black in AI served more than 200 potential graduate program candidates in some capacity. Furthermore, the organization's study identified greater problems encountered by Black graduate school candidates, such as the high cost of graduate school admissions examinations (GREs), which are known to be biased against those from low-income backgrounds. Black in AI's attempts to encourage institutions to eliminate the obstacles were supported by the findings.
Black in AI is also developing a program to help and connect Black tech startups with investors.
Black in AI also mentors early-career Black AI academics and is forming relationships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities to extend its academic program.
In 2021, Black in AI launched two summer research programs, one for undergraduate internships and another for unconstrained research mentorship, including one aimed explicitly at empowering Black women's AI research projects.
Conferences and workshops
At NeurIPS 2017, the first Black in AI event took place in December 8, 2017 in Long Beach, California. The goal was to bring together experts in the area to share ideas and debate efforts aimed at increasing the participation of Black people in artificial intelligence, both for diversity and to avoid data bias. Black AI researchers had the opportunity to share their work at the workshop's oral and poster sessions.
The second workshop was hosted in Montréal, Canada, on December 7, 2018. According to AI experts, visa issues stymie efforts to make their area more inclusive, making technology that discriminates or disadvantages individuals who aren't white or Western less likely. Hundreds of participants who were supposed to attend or present work at the Black in AI session on Friday were unable to fly to Canada; many of the participants were from African countries.
The third workshop was held in NeurIPS 2019, one of the premier machine learning conferences Vancouver, Canada. The workshop was able to give travel scholarships and visa support to hundreds of academics who would not have been able to attend NeurIPS without the help of sponsors. For instance, Ramon Vilarino of the University of Sao Paulo, who presented a poster at the conference on his study of geographical and racial prejudice in credit scoring in Brazil, would not have been able to attend NeurIPS without the help of Black in AI.
Twenty-four academics from Africa and South America were denied visas to attend this session during the conference, according to Victor Silva, the workshop organizer. He noted that, less than a month before the conference, 40 applicants from both continents had been given visas but that more than 70 applications were still waiting. For the second year in a row, visa restrictions have stopped several African scholars from attending the 2018 meeting in Montreal.
The AAAI announced the first Black in AI lunch, which was held in conjunction with AAAI-19. The lunch was hosted on Tuesday, January 29, 2019. This event was intended to promote networking, discussion of various AI career options, and the exchange of ideas in order to boost the number of Black researchers in the area.
The fourth Black in AI workshop, which was held in conjunction with NeurIPS 2020, took place the week of December 7, 2020. The workshop was scheduled to take place in Vancouver, British Columbia. Due to the pandemic, the session was held for the first time in a virtual format. Victor Silva, an AI4Society student, served as the event's chair.
The fifth annual Black in AI workshop was also held virtually in 2021. Oral presentations, guest keynote speakers, a combined poster session with other affinity groups, sponsored sessions, and startup showcases was all featured. The goal of the session was to raise the visibility of black scholars at NeurIPS.
See also
African-American women in computer science
Algorithmic bias
Data for Black Lives
Ethics of artificial intelligence
Data Science Africa
References
External links
Machine learning researchers
Diversity in computing
Ethics of science and technology
Data activism
Organizations based in Santa Clara County, California
Information ethics
2017 establishments in California
Politics and technology | Black in AI | [
"Technology"
] | 1,618 | [
"Diversity in computing",
"Data activism",
"Computing and society",
"Data",
"Ethics of science and technology",
"Information ethics"
] |
66,422,282 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockfall%20protection%20embankment | A rockfall protection embankment is an earthwork built in elevation with respect to the ground to intercept falling rock fragments before elements at risk such as roads and buildings are reached.
This term is widely used in the rockfall community but the terms bunds and walls are sometimes used as alternatives.
Comparison with other passive mitigation structures
Rockfall protection embankments belong to the family of passive rockfall protection structures, comprising flexible barriers or galleries in particular. They are intended for rockfalls with kinetic energies up to tens of megajoules and are preferred over flexible barriers when the design impact is higher than 5000 kJ. Their declared advantages over other passive rockfall mitigation structures are low maintenance costs and reduced visual impact. Nevertheless, they are not appropriate on steep slopes and their construction generally requires extensive space and accessibility for heavy vehicles.
History
The very first use of rockfall protection embankments dates back to the 1950s. Originally, embankments were mainly made from compacted natural soil and were designed for rather low-impact-energy events. Most often, embankments were trapezoidal in cross-sectional shape, some-times with a rockery facing. Ground-reinforced embankments were developed in the 1980s in view of increasing the height of embankments as well as their face inclination and impact strength.
Nowadays, there exist a wide variety of designs. Embankments may in particular differ by their cross-section shape and by their constitutive materials, such as rockery, geotextiles, geogrids, recycled tires, wire mesh or gabion cages. Most common structures are ground compacted embankments with a rockery facing, while more impressive ones consist of earth-reinforced embankments (with height sometimes exceeding 10 meters). A French specificity also consists in using interconnected soil-filled recycled tires as facing material only or as both core and facing materials.
Recent developments concern embankments with reduced foot-print (slenderness ratio higher than 1), or associating different structural components or fills for improving the global structure impact strength and/or energy dissipative capacities.
Design principles
Most often, rockfall protection embankments are erected at the toe of slopes, close to the elements at risk. The typical ranges for their height and length are and respectively. In the vast majority of cases, a ditch is associated to the embankment for containing the intercepted rock fragments.
The ability of an embankment in properly acting on rockfall propagation depends on its height and on its uphill face inclination. The embankment height is defined based on the rock block passing height at the embankment location, estimated from trajectory simulation numerical tools. A low vertical batter of the face prevents from block over-rolling.
In addition to issues related to rockfall trajectory control and classical geotechnical issues (e.g. external stability), rockfall protection embankments are designed to withstand the localized dynamic loading resulting from the interception of the fast-moving boulders (rock fragments with up to tens of tons mass sometimes exceeding in translational velocity). Different approaches may be used to assess their impact strength, including numerical simulations.
See also
Rockfall
Traffic barrier
References
Road infrastructure
Protective barriers
Transportation engineering | Rockfall protection embankment | [
"Engineering"
] | 639 | [
"Civil engineering",
"Transportation engineering",
"Industrial engineering"
] |
66,422,842 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogenated%20MDI | Hydrogenated MDI (H12MDI or 4,4′-diisocyanato dicyclohexylmethane) is an organic compound in the class known as isocyanates. More specifically, it is an aliphatic diisocyanate. It is a water white liquid at room temperature and is manufactured in relatively small quantities. It is also known as 4,4'-methylenedi(cyclohexyl isocyanate) or methylene bis(4-cyclohexylisocyanate) and has the formula CH2[(C6H10)NCO]2.
Manufacture
The product is manufactured by hydrogenation of methylene diphenyl diisocyanate. It may also be manufactured by phosgenation of 4,4-Diaminodicyclohexylmethane.
Uses
Aliphatic diisocyanates are not used in the production of polyurethane foam as the cost is too high and foam is very much a commodity. It is used in special applications for polyurethane, such as enamel coatings which are resistant to abrasion and degradation from ultraviolet light. There are also multiple patents where prepolymers based on it are used in golf ball production. It is available commercially under the tradename of Desmodur W from Covestro - formerly Bayer Material Science. It is used as a reactive building block for the preparation of other chemical products such as isocyanate terminated prepolymers and other urethane polymers. The isocyanate groups can undergo addition reactions at room temperature with compounds which contain active hydrogens especially amines and polyols. Polyurethane resins based on this diisocyanate have good flexibility and mechanical strength. The polymers formed tend to have abrasion and hydrolysis resistance as well as retaining gloss and physical properties upon weathering. The resins based on this material are useful in coatings for flooring, roofing, maintenance and adhesives, and sealants. They find use in the coatings, adhesives, sealants and elastomers (CASE) applications. A prepolymer made from H12MDI and incorporating dimethylol propionic acid can also be converted to light stable polyurethane dispersions.
See also
Hexamethylene diisocyanate
Methylene diphenyl diisocyanate
Toluene diisocyanate
Isophorone diisocyanate
References
Isocyanates
Monomers
Cyclohexanes
Organic compounds | Hydrogenated MDI | [
"Chemistry",
"Materials_science"
] | 540 | [
"Isocyanates",
"Functional groups",
"Organic compounds",
"Polymer chemistry",
"Monomers"
] |
66,423,508 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20laboratory%20biosecurity%20incidents | This list of laboratory biosecurity incidents includes accidental laboratory-acquired infections and laboratory releases of lethal pathogens, containment failures in or during transport of lethal pathogens, and incidents of exposure of lethal pathogens to laboratory personnel, improper disposal of contaminated waste, and/or the escape of laboratory animals. The list is grouped by the year in which the accident or incident occurred and does not include every reported laboratory-acquired infection.
See also
Biological hazard
Biosafety level
Laboratory safety
List of anthrax outbreaks
Select agent
Cambridge Working Group
External links
A Review of Laboratory-Acquired Infections in the Asia-Pacific: Understanding Risk and the Need for Improved Biosafety for Veterinary and Zoonotic Diseases
Laboratory-Acquired Infection (LAI) Database
Survey of laboratory-acquired infections around the world in biosafety level 3 and 4 laboratories
Notes
References
Biosecurity
Biosecurity incidents
Occupational safety and health | List of laboratory biosecurity incidents | [
"Environmental_science"
] | 186 | [
"Toxicology",
"Biosecurity"
] |
66,425,109 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironomycin | Ironomycin is a derivative of salinomycin and potent small molecule against persister cancer stem cells, that is under preclinical evaluation by SideROS for the treatment of cancer. Ironomycin was shown to induce ferroptosis in breast cancer cell lines and its mechanism of action involves the targeting of lysosomal iron.
Pre-clinical research
Ironomycin kills breast cancer stem cells in mice, and is more potent in vitro and in vivo than its parent anti-bacterial natural product salinomycin. Ironomycin and to a lesser extend salinomycin targeted cancer stem cells responsible for metastasis and relapse.
The mechanism of action by which ironomycin and salinomycin kill cancer stem cells involves lysosomal iron sequestration, leading to the production of reactive oxygen species, lysosome membrane permeabilization and ferroptosis in breast cancer. While mesenchymal breast cancer cells are vulnerable to ferroptosis, ironomycin and salinomycin can trigger cell death independently of ferroptosis in other cancer cell types.
These candidate drugs abolished the capacity of HMLER CD24low to form colonies at low concentrations and ironomycin prevented these cells from developing tumorsphere in suspension, a well-established characteristic of cancer stem cells, at a low dose (ie. 30 nM). This effect on cancer stem cells have been shown in vivo where ironomycin decreased tumour-seeding capacity of tumour cells (breast PDX), more efficiently that salinomycin and Docetaxel. CD44 mediating iron endocytosis prevails in the mesenchymal state of cancer cells, and iron operates as a metal catalyst to demethylate repressive histone (H3K9) that govern the expression of mesenchymal genes.
The ability of ironomycin to kill both cancer stem cells and drug-resistant cancer cells (persister) may provide a therapeutic advantage in treating cancer. Ironomycin is the preclinical development pipeline of the biotech company SideROS for the treatment of drug resistance cancers such as acute myeloid leukemia, triple negative breast cancer, pancreatic cancer and non-hodgkin lymphoma.
Synthesis
A team from ICSN has developed the chemical synthesis of salinomycin analogs, including ironomycin, which are more potent than salinomycin. Ironomycin is synthesized in two steps from salinomycin sodium salt: (1) a chemoselective allylic oxidation and (2) a chemo- and diastereoselective reductive amination at C20 leading to the alkyne derivative ironomycin.
See also
Salinomycin which is the sourcing material of ironomycin synthesis, is much less potent in vitro against persister cancer cells
Targeted therapy
References
Ionophores
Polyketides
Spiro compounds
Secondary amino acids
Propargyl compounds | Ironomycin | [
"Chemistry"
] | 616 | [
"Biomolecules by chemical classification",
"Natural products",
"Organic compounds",
"Polyketides",
"Spiro compounds"
] |
66,425,715 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid%20bracing | In the mathematics of structural rigidity, grid bracing is a problem of adding cross bracing to a rectangular grid to make it into a rigid structure. If a two-dimensional grid structure is made with rigid rods, connected at their ends by flexible hinges, then it will be free to flex into positions in which the rods are no longer at right angles. Cross-bracing the structure by adding more rods across the diagonals of its rectangular or square cells can make it rigid.
The problem can be translated into graph theory by constructing a graph in which the graph vertices represent rows and columns of the grid, and each edge represents a cross-braced cell in a given row and column. The grid is rigid if and only if the resulting graph is a connected graph. Every minimal system of cross-braces that makes the grid rigid corresponds to a spanning tree of a complete bipartite graph.
The graph-theoretic solution to the grid bracing problem has been generalized to double bracing, in which the grid should remain rigid even if one cross-brace fails, and to tension bracing, in which the diagonals of a grid are braced by wires and strings that can crumple to a shorter length but cannot be stretched to be longer. For double bracing, the rigid solutions correspond to biconnected graphs; for tension bracing, they correspond to strongly connected graphs. In both cases, the minimal solutions correspond to Hamiltonian cycles.
Problem statement
The problem considers a framework in the form of a rectangular grid or square grid, with rows and columns of rectangles or squares squares. The grid has edges, each of which has unit length and is considered to be a rigid rod, free to move continuously within the Euclidean plane but unable to change its length. These rods are attached to each other by flexible joints at the vertices of the grid. A valid
continuous motion of this framework is a way of continuously varying the placement of its edges and joints into the plane in such a way that they keep the same lengths and the same attachments, but without requiring them to stay at right angles. Instead, each cell of the grid may be deformed to form a parallelogram or rhombus, and the whole grid may form an irregular structure with a different shape for each of its faces, as shown in the figure.
Unlike squares, triangles made of rigid rods and flexible joints cannot change their shapes: any two triangles with sides of the same lengths must be congruent (this is the SSS postulate). If a rectangle or square is cross-braced by adding one of its diagonals as another rigid bar, the diagonal divides it into two triangles which similarly cannot change shape, so the square must remain square through any continuous motion of the cross-braced framework. (The same framework could also be placed in the plane in a different way, by folding its two triangles onto each other over their shared diagonal, but this folded placement cannot be obtained by a continuous motion.) Thus, if all cells of the given grid are cross-braced, the grid cannot change shape; its only continuous motions would be to rotate it or translate it as a single rigid body. However, this method of making the grid rigid, by adding cross-braces to all its cells, uses many more cross-braces than necessary. The grid bracing problem asks for a description of the minimal sets of cross-braces that have the same effect, of making the whole framework rigid.
Graph theoretic solution
As originally observed, the grid bracing problem can be translated into a problem in graph theory by considering an undirected bipartite graph that has a vertex for each row and column of the given grid, and an edge for each cross-braced rectangle or square of the grid. They proved that the cross-braced grid is rigid if and only if this bipartite graph is connected. It follows that the minimal cross-bracings of the grid correspond to the trees connecting all vertices in the graph, and that they have exactly cross-braced squares. Any overbraced but rigid cross-bracing (with more than this number of cross-braced cells) can be reduced to a minimal cross-bracing by finding a spanning tree of its graph.
More generally, suppose that a cross-braced grid is not rigid. Then the number of degrees of freedom in its family of shapes equals the number of connected components of the bipartite graph, minus one. If a partially braced grid is to be made rigid by cross-bracing more cells, the minimum number of additional cells that need to be cross-braced is this number of degrees of freedom. A solution with this number of cells can be obtained by adding this number of edges to the bipartite graph, connecting pairs of its connected components so that after the addition there is only one remaining component.
Variations
Double bracing
Another version of the problem asks for a "double bracing", a set of cross-braces that is sufficiently redundant that it will stay rigid even if one of the diagonals is removed. This version allows both diagonals of a single square to be used, but it is not required to do so.
In the same bipartite graph view used to solve the bracing problem, a double bracing of a grid corresponds to an undirected bipartite multigraph that is connected and bridgeless, meaning that every edge belongs to at least one cycle. The minimum number of diagonals needed for a double bracing is .
In the special case of grids with equal numbers of rows and columns, the only double bracings of this minimum size are Hamiltonian cycles. Hamiltonian cycles are easy to find in the complete bipartite graphs representing the bracing problem, but finding them in other bipartite graphs is NP-complete. Because of this, finding the smallest double braced subset of a larger bracing is NP-hard. However, it is possible to approximate this smallest double braced subset to within a constant approximation ratio.
Tension bracing
An analogous theory, using directed graphs, was discovered by for tension bracing, in which squares are braced by wires or strings (which cannot expand past their initial length, but can bend or collapse to a shorter length) instead of by rigid rods. To make a single square rigid by tension bracing, it is necessary to brace both of its diagonals, instead of just one diagonal.
One can represent a tension bracing by a bipartite graph, which has an edge directed from a row vertex to a column vertex if the shared square of that row and column is braced by the positively-sloped diagonal, and an edge from a column vertex to a row vertex if the shared square is braced by the negatively-sloped diagonal. The braced structure is rigid if and only if the resulting graph is strongly connected. As for double bracing, the smallest tension bracings (equivalently, the strongly connected graphs with as few edges as possible) in grids with equally many rows and columns are Hamiltonian cycles. For grids in which exactly one of the two bracing options is available for each cell, a smallest bracing can be found in polynomial time.
If a given set of braces is insufficient, additional bracing needs to be added, corresponding in the graph view to adding edges that connect together the strongly connected components of a graph. In this way problem of finding a minimal set of additional braces to add can be seen as an instance of strong connectivity augmentation, and can be solved in linear time. According to Robbins' theorem, the undirected graphs that can be made strongly connected by directing their edges are exactly the bridgeless graphs; reinterpreting this theorem in terms of grid bracing, a bracing by rigid rods forms a double bracing if and only if each of its rods can be replaced by a single wire (possibly on the other diagonal of its square) to form a rigid tension bracing.
References
External links
Mathematics of rigidity
Spanning tree
Application-specific graphs | Grid bracing | [
"Physics"
] | 1,600 | [
"Mathematics of rigidity",
"Mechanics"
] |
66,425,729 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong%20connectivity%20augmentation | Strong connectivity augmentation is a computational problem in the mathematical study of graph algorithms, in which the input is a directed graph and the goal of the problem is to add a small number of edges, or a set of edges with small total weight, so that the added edges make the graph into a strongly connected graph.
The strong connectivity augmentation problem was formulated by . They showed that a weighted version of the problem is NP-complete, but the unweighted problem can be solved in linear time. Subsequent research has considered the approximation ratio and parameterized complexity of the weighted problem.
Unweighted version
In the unweighted strong connectivity augmentation problem, the input is a directed graph and the goal is to add as few edges as possible to it to make the result into a strongly connected graph. The algorithm for the unweighted case by Eswaran and Tarjan considers the condensation of the given directed graph, a directed acyclic graph that has one vertex per strongly connected component of the given graph. Letting denote the number of source vertices in the condensation (strongly connected components with at least one outgoing edge but no incoming edges), denote the number of sink vertices in the condensation (strongly connected components with incoming but no outgoing edges), and denote the number of isolated vertices in the condensation (strongly connected components with neither incoming nor outgoing edges), they observe that the number of edges to be added is necessarily at least . This follows because edges need to be added to provide an incoming edge for each source or isolated vertex, and symmetrically at least edges need to be added to provide an outgoing edge for each sink or isolated vertex. Their algorithm for the problem finds a set of exactly edges to add to the graph to make it strongly connected.
Their algorithm uses a depth-first search on the condensation to find a collection of pairs of sources and sinks, with the following properties:
The source of each pair can reach the sink of the pair by a path in the given graph.
Every source that is not in one of the pairs can reach a sink in one of the pairs.
Every sink that is not in one of the pairs can be reached from a source in one of the pairs.
A minor error in the part of their algorithm that finds the pairs of sources and sinks was later found and corrected.
Once these pairs have been found, one can obtain a strong connectivity augmentation by adding three sets of edges:
The first set of edges connects the pairs and the isolated vertices of the condensation into a single cycle, consisting of one edge per pair or isolated vertex.
The second set of edges each connect one of the remaining sinks to one of the remaining sources (chosen arbitrarily). This links both the source and the sink to the cycle of pairs and isolated vertices at a cost of one edge per source-sink pair.
Once the previous two sets of edges have either exhausted all sources or exhausted all sinks, the third set of edges links each remaining source or sink to this cycle by adding one more edge per source or sink.
The total number of edges in these three sets is .
Weighted and parameterized version
The weighted version of the problem, in which each edge that might be added has a given weight and the goal is to choose a set of added edges of minimum weight that makes the given graph strongly connected, is NP-complete. An approximation algorithm with approximation ratio 2 was provided by . A parameterized and weighted version of the problem, in which one must add at most edges of minimum total weight to make the given graph strongly connected, is fixed-parameter tractable.
Bipartite version and grid bracing application
If a square grid is made of rigid rods (the edges of the grid) connected to each other by flexible joints at the edges of the grid, then the overall structure can bend in many ways rather than remaining square. The grid bracing problem asks how to stabilize such a structure by adding additional cross bracing within some of its squares. This problem can be modeled using graph theory, by making a bipartite graph with a vertex for each row or column of squares in the grid, and an edge between two of these vertices when a square in a given row and column is cross-braced. If the cross-bracing within each square makes that completely rigid, then this graph is undirected, and represents a rigid structure if and only if it is a connected graph. However, if squares are only partially braced (for instance by connecting two opposite corners by a string or wire that prevents expansive motion but does not prevent contractive motion), then the graph is directed, and represents a rigid structure if and only if it is a strongly connected graph.
An associated strong connectivity augmentation problem asks how to add more partial bracing to a grid that already has partial bracing in some of its squares. The existing partial bracing can be represented as a directed graph,
and the additional partial bracing to be added should form a strong connectivity augmentation of that graph. In order to be able to translate a solution to the strong connectivity augmentation problem back to a solution of the original bracing problem, an extra restriction is required: each added edge must respect the bipartition of the original graph, and only connect row vertices with column vertices rather than attempting to connect rows to rows or columns to columns. This restricted version of the strong connectivity augmentation problem can again be solved in linear time.
References
Computational problems in graph theory
Graph connectivity
Directed graphs
NP-complete problems | Strong connectivity augmentation | [
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66,426,614 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deployment%20of%20COVID-19%20vaccines | , 13.53billion COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered worldwide, with 70.6 percent of the global population having received at least one dose. While 4.19million vaccines were then being administered daily, only 22.3 percent of people in low-income countries had received at least a first vaccine by September 2022, according to official reports from national health agencies, which are collated by Our World in Data.
During a pandemic on the rapid timeline and scale of COVID-19 cases in 2020, international organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) and Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), vaccine developers, governments, and industry evaluated the distribution of the eventual vaccine(s). Individual countries producing a vaccine may be persuaded to favor the highest bidder for manufacturing or provide first-class service to their own country. Experts emphasize that licensed vaccines should be available and affordable for people at the frontlines of healthcare and in most need.
In April 2020, it was reported that the UK agreed to work with 20 other countries and global organizations, including France, Germany, and Italy, to find a vaccine and share the results, and that UK citizens would not get preferential access to any new COVID‑19 vaccines developed by taxpayer-funded UK universities. Several companies planned to initially manufacture a vaccine at artificially low prices, then increase prices for profitability later if annual vaccinations are needed and as countries build stock for future needs.
The WHO had set out the target to vaccinate 40% of the population of all countries by the end of 2021 and 70% by mid-2022, but many countries missed the 40% target at the end of 2021.
Distribution
Note about table in this section: Number and percentage of people who have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine (unless noted otherwise). May include vaccination of non-citizens, which can push totals beyond 100% of the local population. Table is updated daily by a bot.
Phased distribution
Many countries have implemented phased distribution plans that prioritize those at highest risk of complications such as the elderly and those at high risk of exposure and transmission such as healthcare workers.
In the United States, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) voted in December 2020, that the first doses of the vaccine should be prioritized for healthcare workers and residents and staff of nursing homes. ACIP recommended that the second phase of distribution (Phase 1b) include persons aged ≥75 years and non-healthcare frontline essential workers such as those employed in grocery stores, restaurants, military, law enforcement, fire departments, retail, sanitation, schools, public transportation, self-storage, hotels, warehousing, and news media. However, states control the final plans for prioritization, distribution, and logistics of vaccinating everyone as supply becomes available.
The European Union began phased vaccine rollout on 27 December 2020. Each member state is managing distribution with a common focus on prioritizing healthcare workers, people at high risk of exposure, the elderly, and those with serious health conditions.
The COVID‑19 vaccination programme in the United Kingdom prioritized elder care facility residents and carers, followed by healthcare workers and those over 80 years of age. Subsequent phases are based largely on age, declining from 75 years in 5-year increments.
Some countries used accelerated dose 1 plans with extended dose 2 intervals after the first dose in order to extend vaccination to as many people as possible until vaccine availability improved. Data suggests that people who have recovered from COVID-19 may only require a single dose of an mRNA vaccine to reach full two dose immunity.
Mixed series
The use of the different vaccines in a two-shot regimen is not widespread; there is no data on the efficacy of mixed series for COVID-19 vaccines but such series are not expected to be unsafe or ineffective. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends the use of a mixed series only in exceptional circumstances, such as where a second dose of the same vaccine cannot be delivered in a reasonable timeframe. In Canada, authorities were investigating the effectiveness of a mixed series and ultimately recommended the use of a first shot consisting of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, followed by one of the mRNA vaccines. In June 2021, German authorities recommended using mRNA vaccines as a second shot after an AstraZeneca shot in younger people as a precaution to avoid a rare blood clotting side effect associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine. Thailand began mixing-and-matching doses of the AstraZeneca and Sinovac vaccines in July 2021 amid concerns about the Sinovac vaccine's long-term protection.
Equitable access
During 2020, as the COVID‑19 pandemic escalated globally and vaccine development intensified, the World Health Organization (WHO) COVAX facility adopted the motto "No one is safe unless everyone is safe" to emphasize the need for equitable vaccination. The facility set a goal of supplying COVID‑19 vaccines to nearly 100 low-to-middle income countries that could not afford them. COVAX sought to fundraise to purchase and deliver vaccines to participating countries in proportion to their populations. On 18 December 2020, the facility announced agreements with vaccine manufacturers to supply 1.3billion doses for 92 low-middle income countries in the first half of 2021.
Yet, by mid-December, some 16 countries representing only 14% of the world's population had preordered more than 10billion vaccine doses or about 51% of the available world supply. Specifically, Canada, Australia, and Japan having only 1% of the world's COVID‑19 cases had collectively reserved some 1billion vaccine doses, while the COVAX facility had reserved only a few hundred million doses. At the Group of Seven summit in June 2021, the United States promised to distribute 500million vaccine doses internationally; this distribution began on 17 August.
Preorders from rich countries were made during 2020 with 13 different vaccine manufacturers, whereas those for low-to-middle income countries were made primarily for the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, which is lowest in cost and has no special refrigeration needs.
The CEPI, the WHO, and charitable vaccine organizations, such as the Gates Foundation and GAVI, raised over during the first half of 2020, to fund vaccine development and preparedness for vaccinations, particularly for children in under-developed countries. CEPI, which was created to monitor fair distribution of infectious disease vaccines to low- and middle-income countries, has recommended considering manufacturing capacity, financing and purchasing, and releasing vaccine developers from liability. Despite opposition from some vaccine manufacturers, CEPI revised its February 2020 equitable access policy to apply specifically to its COVID‑19 vaccine funding:
"prices for vaccines will be set as low as possible for territories that are or may be affected by an outbreak of a disease for which CEPI funding was used to develop a vaccine;
"information, know-how and materials related to vaccine development must be shared with (or transferred to) CEPI" so that it can assume responsibility for vaccine development if a company discontinues expenditures for a promising vaccine candidate;
CEPI would have access to, and possible management of, intellectual property rights (i.e., patents) for promising vaccines;
"CEPI would receive a share of financial benefits that might accrue from CEPI-sponsored vaccine development, to re-invest in support of its mission to provide global public health benefit"; and
data transparency among development partners should maintain the WHO Statement on Public Disclosure of Clinical Trial Results, and require results to be published in open-access publications.
International groups, such as the Centre for Artistic Activism and Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, advocate for equitable access. Scientists have encouraged collaboration between the WHO, CEPI, corporations, and governments to ensure that vaccines are distributed in an evidence-based manner based on infection risk and to prioritize healthcare workers, vulnerable populations, and children.
By mid-March 2021, 67 countries, mostly in Africa and the Middle East, had not yet reported any vaccinations. Countries that had begun vaccinations were generally prioritizing populations such as health workers or the elderly. It has also been suggested that elective surgery recipients should be prioritized since a patient recovering from surgery would be more vulnerable than average. Some expressed concern over the short shelf-life of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, which expire within hours after being removed from the freezer; they argued that, once the vaccine is unfrozen, it is better to apply these doses to anyone who can be found rather than discard the doses.
As of March 2021, the United States had ordered twice the necessary doses to cover its own population, but it remained unclear when it might share surplus doses with other countries. In April 2021, Vanity Fair reported that it would be difficult to share surplus doses with other countries because the U.S. government had expressly agreed in its contracts with vaccine manufacturers to use doses only in the United States and its territories. The manufacturers requested this clause because most other countries do not have liability protections for vaccines as expansive as the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act.
In late November 2021 the World Health Organization published, "it is vitally important that inequities in access to COVID-19 vaccines are urgently addressed to ensure that vulnerable groups everywhere, including health workers and older persons, receive their first and second doses, alongside equitable access to treatment and diagnostics." Inequalities in vaccine distribution facilitate the emergence of new variants like SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant.
Concerns
Concerns were raised that wealthy countries may receive their vaccines in 2020–21 while developing countries may be excluded from vaccinations until 2023–24. Data from April 2021 comports with this expectation since 25% of the population in high income countries have been vaccinated compared to only 0.2% in low income countries.
The head of the World Health Organization said on 4 August 2021 that rich countries had administered about 100 doses per 100 people while poor countries had administered only about 1.5 doses for every 100 people, and therefore, in his estimation, it was important to prioritize vaccination in poor countries before offering booster vaccines in rich countries. The WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghedreyesus raised concerns about rich countries hoarding vaccines at the expense of citizens in poorer nations who wait for vaccines to either become available or are donated. The WHO Regional Office of Africa highlighted vaccine discard in African countries, after Nigeria destroyed about 1 million donated doses of AstraZeneca vaccine after being donated with only a few weeks till expiration. Other countries such as Malawi, and South Sudan have either destroyed expired or close to expiring vaccines or paused donated shipments due to expiration concerns.
Discarding
It is estimated that least 215 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines purchased by EU countries have been discarded as per 2023, based on vaccine prices reported in the media.
Intellectual property
The first polio vaccine was never patented; some have argued that similar treatment of an effective COVID‑19 vaccine could enable fair distribution.
Initially, negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) on the issue of waiving patent rights were blocked for months by resistance by the US, Switzerland, Norway, and the EU. Initially one observer considered the US position unlikely to change, but as of April 2021 the US administration was discussing the issue and then reversed course and announced its support for a patent waiver for COVID-19 vaccines on 5 May 2021. 400 non-profit organizations and 115 members of the European Commission have signed a letter urging the United States and Europe to side with the WTO members in the global south.
Debate
Some question if patent waiver proposals formulated for small molecule drugs can be applied to complex biologics like vaccines. One vaccine production expert argued that "there is an unrecognized gap in understanding ... nearly all of the people who are providing views on the value of removing patent protections have zero experience in vaccine development and manufacturing." Indeed, most of the advocacy in favor of patent waivers has come from the public health community (which has drawn inspiration from the history of raucous HIV/AIDS activism in the 1980s and 1990s), while most members of the vaccinology community (i.e., actual experts on development and production of vaccines) have effectively refused to lend their credibility to such proposals by either remaining silent or refusing to take any position.
Small molecule drugs are easy to copy and can be quickly brought to market by generic drug manufacturers who are not required to run their own full-scale clinical trials because they can piggyback on regulatory approvals obtained by original drug manufacturers. In contrast, "there is no such thing as generic vaccines". The manufacturer of each independently developed vaccine (including a purported copy of an existing vaccine) must run its own clinical trials to establish safety and efficacy. Independent copying of an existing first-generation vaccine is so hard that the resulting second-generation vaccine is often a significant improvement over the first-generation technology and is itself patentable.
Although Moderna has stated that it will not seek enforcement of its patents during the pandemic, a patent waiver (voluntary or involuntary) would not force a vaccine manufacturer to disclose the complete knowledge (i.e., know-how) for making a vaccine, which is not found in patents. The World Health Organization (WHO) has promoted the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool to facilitate disclosures, but participation is voluntary and none of the vaccine manufacturers have joined. Without access to the original vaccine manufacturer's know-how, reverse engineering the manufacturing process is difficult and expensive with no guarantee of success. Even if a third party succeeds, they must prove that fact to the satisfaction of regulatory authorities. For small molecule drugs, proving bioequivalence of a generic drug to the original drug costs only about US$1 to $2million; but for biologics, proving biosimilarity of a third-party product to the original product requires clinical trials, with costs ranging from US$100 to $250million. One financial analyst specializing in pharmaceuticals estimated that it would take a minimum of two years after patent waiver for the first independent reproductions of a COVID-19 vaccine to reach the market, which may be too long to have any net impact on global public health. While discussing the idea of "open source" COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing, Bill Gates said: "There's not a single additional vaccine that would have come out of that .... no free IP would have improved anything related to this pandemic." His foundation has instead helped other countries reach licensing deals as in the case of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine being produced by India's Serum Institute. Another concern, raised by Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, is that allowing unauthorized third-party vaccine production would severely disrupt vaccine developers' efforts to ramp up vaccine production when original developers and third-party producers all end up competing for the same scarce raw materials.
This is why some conclude that voluntary technology transfers are the superior option for producing more doses—since the transferor's active assistance can help the transferee bypass time-consuming clinical trials by taking advantage of existing approvals for the transferor's vaccine—and others describe patent waiver proposals as "more symbolic than practical". Derek Lowe has characterized the U.S. government's May 2021 announcement of support for patent waiver proposals as "almost as much of a PR move as anything else". By November 2021, the prospects for approval of such proposals (which by WTO tradition must be unanimous) looked increasingly remote; participants criticized the United States for not working to bridge the gap between supporters and opponents. Meanwhile, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has rejected the dichotomy between waiving patents and initiating technology transfers by including both measures as part of a list of four steps towards increasing vaccine production. He pointed out that the TRIPS agreement signed by all members of the WTO already allows for an emergency waiver of intellectual property rights in countries with free manufacturing capacities.
Several observers have noted that the vaccine patent waiver debate involves an issue expected to outlast the COVID-19 pandemic: who will control the broader technology of RNA therapeutics. Howard Dean has accused Narendra Modi of trying to gain access to such technology by promoting the "disingenuous" claim that patent waivers will accelerate vaccine production. Josh Rogin has pointed out that control of mRNA technology has "national security implications" for the United States, and that its development was initially funded by U.S. taxpayers through DARPA for that reason.
Central to the debate is whether profits from strong intellectual property rights are necessary to ensure that someone will conduct the applied research which turns promising laboratory experiments into marketable drugs and vaccines. Such research is dauntingly expensive (on average, $3billion per successful drug) and nearly always fails (only 12 percent of drugs which enter clinical trials ultimately obtain FDA approval), and "governments have neither the money nor the risk tolerance to take over the role of businesses in developing pharmacy-ready medicines". Moderna co-founder Robert S. Langer has argued that early private investors deserve "a lot of credit" for its successful COVID-19 vaccine since they "put the money in way before" the U.S. federal government got involved, and thereby laid the foundation for the company's success many years later.
The risk of waiving patents for COVID-19 vaccines is that it sets a precedent which may discourage the private sector from future investments in vaccines and other lifesaving technologies, and in turn, future technologies not yet developed will never come to market when the public sector fails to pick up the slack. As one financial analyst explained: "It would be intensively counterproductive, in the extreme, because what it would say to the industry is: 'Don't work on anything that we really care about, because if you do, we're just going to take it away from you. The "most depressing" worst-case outcome is that pharmaceutical firms give up on saving lives and focus on inventing quality of life treatments which are more profitable and less likely to be expropriated; the most notorious examples of such treatments are Pfizer's Viagra and Allergan's Botox. The "threat of losing developers is real" in the vaccine sector, which had withered away to only a handful of companies by the turn of the 21st century and by 2021 had only recently begun to grow again. However, Peter Bach has argued that whether this risk might be worth it deserves to be frankly debated: "If this action allows for more access and more people to have their lives saved today in 2021 and the consequence is down the road we may not have some new gene therapy for 100 kids, then that's the trade-off worth discussing".
Sovereignty
Favored distribution of vaccines within one or a few select countries, called "vaccine sovereignty", is a criticism of some of the vaccine development partnerships, such as for the AstraZeneca-University of Oxford vaccine candidate, concerning whether there may be prioritized distribution first within the UK and to the "highest bidder" – the United States, which made an advance payment of to secure 300million vaccine doses for Americans, even before the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine or a Sanofi vaccine was proved safe or effective. Concerns exist about whether some countries producing vaccines may impose protectionist controls by export restrictions that would stockpile a COVID‑19 vaccine for their own population.
The Chinese government pledged in May 2020, that a successful Chinese vaccine would become a "global, public good", implying enough doses would be manufactured for both national and global distribution. Unlike mRNA vaccines, which have to be stored at subzero temperatures, inactivated vaccines from Sinovac and Sinopharm require ordinary refrigeration and may have more appeal in developing countries. In November 2021, the Chinese government pledged to donate in 2022 a further 600 million vaccine doses to Africa, and supply another 400 million through other routes including production by Chinese companies in Africa.
In June 2020, the Serum Institute of India (SII) – a major manufacturer of global vaccines – reached a licensing agreement with AstraZeneca to make 1billion doses of vaccine for low-and-middle income countries, of which half of the doses would go to India. Similar preferential homeland distribution may exist if a vaccine is manufactured in Australia.
Illegal distribution
In the United States, the vaccine distribution line, while varying by state, has placed healthcare workers and senior citizens high on the list for COVID-19 vaccination, while less essential workers are secondary recipients. Due to the long process of distribution, some individuals tried to secure a more favorable position on the vaccination list, such as by bribery or making donations to hospitals. In response, state governments imposed large fines and other penalties for violation of federal vaccine distribution guidelines. A COVID-19 vaccine black market enabled some individuals to buy illegal early access to a vaccine.
By mid-February 2021, China had arrested 80 people involved in vaccine contraband, and the Colombian government intercepted a freezer with 70 doses of a Chinese-manufactured vaccine that a traveler brought with her into the airport without any accompanying paperwork.
Vaccine tourism
In the later half of February 2021, it was reported that wealthy and influential people from Canada and European countries flew to the United Arab Emirates to secure early access to the vaccine. The UAE promoted Dubai as a vaccine holiday hub for the wealthy, who could pay a large sum of money to get inoculated before they became eligible for vaccination in their home countries. Some Canadians who maintained second homes in the United States were able to get vaccines earlier.
As restrictions on vaccine eligibility were lowered in the United States, wealthier individuals from other countries with slower vaccination rates were reportedly travelling to the United States to be vaccinated. The U.S. state of Alaska announced in April 2021 that it would intentionally offer free vaccinations to tourists at major Alaskan airports starting 1 June 2021. In an effort to guard against vaccine tourism, Greece restricted its eligibility to those with a social security number. However, this had the effect of excluding part of the elderly or immigrant population as well as some Greek citizens who worked abroad before the pandemic.
In the European Union, several travel agencies offered "vaccine vacations". The Maldives also offered vaccines as part of holiday travel packages.
Cost
An effective vaccine for COVID‑19 could save trillions of dollars in global economic impact, according to economists Arnab Acharya and Sanjay Reddy who advocate suspending patent protections for vaccines temporarily and compensating the affected companies. Any price tag in the billions would therefore look small in comparison. In early stages of the pandemic, it was not known if it would be possible to create a safe, reliable and affordable vaccine for this virus, and it was not known exactly how much the vaccine development could cost. Even with several vaccines on the market, the antigenicity changes in new variants of the virus mean that the billions of dollars could still be invested without success.
Before an effective vaccine was developed, it was clear that billions of doses would need to be manufactured and distributed worldwide. In April 2020, the Gates Foundation estimated that manufacturing and distribution could cost as much as . Gates also admitted "Ideally, there would be global agreement about who should get the vaccine first, but given how many competing interests there are, this is unlikely to happen". From Phase I clinical trials, 84–90% of vaccine candidates fail to make it to final approval during development, and from Phase III, 25.7% failthe investment by a manufacturer in a vaccine candidate may exceed and end with millions of useless doses given advanced manufacturing agreements. In the case of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, 97% of this came from taxpayer money.
As of November 2020, companies subsidized under the United States' Operation Warp Speed program have set initial pricing at to per dose, in line with the influenza vaccine. In December 2020, a Belgian politician briefly published the confidential prices agreed between vaccine producers and the EU:
Supply chain
Deploying a COVID‑19 vaccine may require worldwide transport and tracking of 10–19billion vial doses, an effort readily becoming the largest supply chain challenge in history. As of September 2020, supply chain and logistics experts expressed concern that international and national networks for distributing a licensed vaccine were not ready for the volume and urgency, due mainly to deterioration of resources during 2020 pandemic lockdowns and downsizing that degraded supply capabilities. Globally, supplies critical to vaccine research and development are increasingly scarce due to international competition or national sequestration.
Addressing the worldwide challenge faced by coordinating numerous organizations – the COVAX partnership, global pharmaceutical companies, contract vaccine manufacturers, inter- and intranational transport, vaccine storage facilities, and health organizations in individual countries – Seth Berkley, chief executive of GAVI, stated: "Delivering billions of doses of vaccine to the entire world efficiently will involve hugely complex logistical and programmatic obstacles all the way along the supply chain."
As an example highlighting the immensity of the challenge, the International Air Transport Association stated that 8,000 Boeing 747 cargo planes, equipped for precision vaccine cold storage, would be needed to transport one dose for the entire population in the more than 200 countries experiencing the COVID‑19 pandemic. GAVI states that "with a fast-moving pandemic, no one is safe, unless everyone is safe."
In contrast to the multibillion-dollar investment in vaccine technologies and early-stage clinical research, the post-licensing supply chain for a vaccine has not received the same planning, coordination, security or investment. A major concern is that resources for vaccine distribution in low- to middle-income countries, particularly for vaccinating children, are inadequate or non-existent, but could be improved with cost efficiencies if procurement and distribution were centralized regionally or nationally. In September, the COVAX partnership included 172 countries coordinating plans to optimize the supply chain for a COVID‑19 vaccine, and the United Nations Children's Fund joined with COVAX to prepare the financing and supply chain for vaccinations of children in 92 developing countries. As of 2023, more than 1.6 billion COVAX doses have been provided to poor nations, assisting in the vaccination of 52% of their population, compared to a global average of 64%.
Logistics
Logistics vaccination services assure necessary equipment, staff, and supply of licensed vaccines across international borders. Central logistics include vaccine handling and monitoring, cold chain management, and safety of distribution within the vaccination network. The purpose of the COVAX facility is to centralize and equitably administer logistics resources among participating countries, merging manufacturing, transport, and overall supply chain infrastructure. Included are logistics tools for vaccine forecasting and needs estimation, in-country vaccine management, potential for wastage, and stock management.
Other logistics factors conducted internationally during distribution of a COVID‑19 vaccine may include:
visibility and traceability by barcodes for each vaccine vial
sharing of supplier audits
sharing of chain of custody for a vaccine vial from manufacturer to the individual being vaccinated
use of vaccine temperature monitoring tools
temperature stability testing and assurance
new packaging and delivery technologies
stockpiling
coordination of supplies within each country (personal protective equipment, diluent, syringes, needles, rubber stoppers, refrigeration fuel or power sources, waste-handling, among others)
communications technology
environmental impacts in each country
A logistics shortage in any one step may derail the whole supply chain, according to one vaccine developer. If the vaccine supply chain fails, the economic and human costs of the pandemic may be extended for years.
Manufacturing capacity
By August 2020, when only a few vaccine candidates were in Phase III trials and were many months away from establishing safety and efficacy, numerous governments pre-ordered more than 2billion doses at a cost of more than . Pre-orders from the British government for 2021 were for five vaccine doses per person, a number dispiriting to organizations like the WHO and GAVI which are promoting fair and equitable access worldwide, especially for developing countries. In September, CEPI was financially supporting basic and clinical research for nine vaccine candidates, with nine more in evaluation, under financing commitments to manufacture 2billion doses of three licensed vaccines by the end of 2021. Before 2022, 7–10billion COVID‑19 vaccine doses may be manufactured worldwide, but the sizable pre-orders by affluent countries – called "vaccine nationalism" – threaten vaccine availability for poorer nations.
The RNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech are unusually difficult to produce because they rely upon encapsulation of mRNA in lipid nanoparticles, a novel technology which has never been scaled up before for mass production. As of February 2021, this was thought to be the primary bottleneck in the manufacturing of such vaccines. In November 2021, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel claimed that the company had a backlog of tens of millions of doses of its vaccine destined for Africa because COVAX or individual governments could not take delivery. He cited delays with dose administration, a shortage of refrigerator space, and delays getting customs documents.
Vaccines must be handled and transported according to international regulations, be maintained at controlled temperatures that vary across vaccine technologies, and be used for immunization before deterioration in storage. The scale of the COVID‑19 vaccine supply chain is expected to be vast to ensure delivery worldwide to vulnerable populations. Priorities for preparing facilities for such distribution include temperature-controlled facilities and equipment, optimizing infrastructure, training immunization staff, and rigorous monitoring. RFID technologies are being implemented to track and authenticate a vaccine dose from the manufacturer along the entire supply chain to the vaccination.
In September 2020, Grand River Aseptic Manufacturing agreed with Johnson & Johnson to support the manufacture of its vaccine candidate, including technology transfer and fill and finish manufacturing. In October 2020, it was announced that the Moderna vaccine candidate will be manufactured in Visp, Switzerland by its partner Lonza Group, which plans to produce the first doses in December 2020. The newly built 2,000-square-metre facility will ramp up production to 300million doses annually. The ingredient will be shipped frozen at −70°C to Spain's Laboratorios Farmacéuticos Rovi SA for the final stage of manufacturing. Lonza's site in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, aimed to start making vaccine ingredients exclusively for the U.S. by November 2020. Compounding the concerns over massive pre-orders by wealthy countries, manufacturing capacity is also limited by the fact that most vaccines are patented by companies in those countries. India and South Africa proposed a waiver to the TRIPS Agreement which would remove exclusivity agreements as a barrier to setting up new facilities but the measure is being blocked by the G7.
Cold chain
Different vaccines have different shipping and handling requirements. For example, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID‑19 vaccine must be shipped and stored between , must be used within five days of thawing, and has a minimum order of 975 doses, making it unlikely to be rolled out in settings other than large, well-equipped hospitals. The Moderna vaccine vials require storage above and between . Once refrigerated, the Moderna vaccine can be kept between for up to 30 days.
Vaccines (and adjuvants) are inherently unstable during temperature changes, requiring cold chain management throughout the entire supply chain, typically at temperatures of . Because COVID‑19 vaccine technologies are varied among several novel technologies, there are new challenges for cold chain management, with some vaccines that are stable while frozen but liable to heat, while others should not be frozen at all, and some are stable across temperatures. Failure to maintain cold chain temperature stability results in damage that can reduce or even eliminate vaccine efficacy. Sinopharm and Sinovac's vaccines are examples of inactivated vaccines which can be transported using existing cold chain systems at .
modRNA vaccine technologies in development may be more difficult to manufacture at scale and control degradation, requiring ultracold storage and transport. As examples, Moderna's RNA vaccine candidate requires cold chain management just above freezing temperatures between with limited storage duration (30 days), but the Pfizer-BioNTech RNA candidate requires storage between , or colder throughout deployment until vaccination. In February 2021, Pfizer and BioNTech asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to update the emergency use authorization (EUA) to permit the vaccine to be stored at between for up to two weeks before use. , Walvax is conducting Phase III trials for its mRNA vaccine which could be stored at room temperature for six months.
After a vaccine vial is punctured to administer a dose, it is viable for only six hours, then must be discarded, requiring attention to local management of cold storage and vaccination processes. Because the COVID‑19 vaccine will likely be in short supply for many locations during early deployment, vaccination staff will have to avoid spoilage and waste, which typically are as much as 30% of the supply. The cold chain is further challenged by the type of local transportation for the vaccines in rural communities, such as by motorcycle or delivery drone, need for booster doses, use of diluents, and access to vulnerable populations, such as healthcare staff, children and the elderly.
Air and land transport
Coordination of international air cargo is an essential component of time- and temperature-sensitive distribution of COVID‑19 vaccines, but, as of September 2020, the air freight network is not prepared for multinational deployment. "Safely delivering COVID‑19 vaccines will be the mission of the century for the global air cargo industry. But it won't happen without careful advance planning. And the time for that is now. We urge governments to take the lead in facilitating cooperation across the logistics chain so that the facilities, security arrangements and border processes are ready for the mammoth and complex task ahead," said IATA's Director General and CEO, Alexandre de Juniac, in September 2020.
For the severe reduction in passenger air traffic during 2020, airlines downsized personnel, trimmed destination networks, and put aircraft into long-term storage. As the lead agencies for procurement and supply of the COVID‑19 vaccine within the WHO COVAX facility, GAVI and UNICEF are preparing for the largest and fastest vaccine deployment ever, necessitating international air freight collaboration, customs and border control, and possibly as many as 8,000 cargo planes to deliver just one vaccine dose to multiple countries.
Two of the first approved vaccines, Pfizer and BioNTech's Pfizer-BioNTech COVID‑19 vaccine and Moderna's mRNA-1273, must be kept cold during transport. Keeping the temperatures sufficiently low is accomplished with specially-designed containers and dry ice, but dry ice is only allowed in limited quantities on airplanes as the gases released via sublimation may be toxic. In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) limits the amount of dry ice on a Boeing 777-224 to , but it temporarily allowed United Airlines to transport up to —nearly 1million doses—between Brussels and Chicago. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tasked McKesson Corporation with vaccine distribution in the U.S.; the company handled all major vaccines except Pfizer's. American Airlines, Boeing, and Delta Air Lines are also working to increase dry ice transportation capacity, and American, Delta, and United each operate their own cold storage networks in the US. FedEx and UPS have installed ultra-cold freezers at air cargo hubs in Europe and North America, and UPS can manufacture of dry ice per hour.
Security and corruption
Medicines are the world's largest fraud market, worth some $200billion per year, making the widespread demand for a COVID‑19 vaccine vulnerable to counterfeit, theft, scams, and cyberattacks throughout the supply chain. The vaccine has been referred to as "the most valuable asset on earth"; Interpol called it "liquid gold" and warned of an "onslaught of all types of criminal activity". Anticorruption, transparency, and accountability safeguards are being established to reduce and eliminate corruption of COVID‑19 vaccine supplies. Absence of harmonized regulatory frameworks among countries, including low technical capacity, constrained access, and ineffective capability to identify and track genuine vs. counterfeit vaccines, may be life-threatening for vaccine recipients, and would potentially perpetuate the COVID‑19 pandemic. Tracking system technologies for packaging are being used by manufacturers to trace vaccine vials across the supply chain, and to use digital and biometric tools to assure security for vaccination teams. In December 2020, Interpol warned that organized crime could infiltrate the vaccine supply chain, steal product through physical means, and data theft, or even offer counterfeit vaccine kits. Further, vaccines which require constant freezing temperatures are also susceptible to sabotage.
GPS devices will be used in the United States to track the vaccines. In Colorado, the vaccine shipments will be escorted by Colorado State Patrol officers from Denver International Airport to the state's eight distribution points; the exact plans are confidential and law enforcement will "maintain a low-key profile".
Peripheral businesses may also be affected. An IBM security analyst told The New York Times that petrochemical companies are being targeted by hackers due to their central role in producing dry ice.
On 21 May 2020, the FDA made public the cease-and-desist notice it had sent to North Coast Biologics, a Seattle-based company that had been selling a purported "nCoV19 spike protein vaccine". On 21 January 2021, its founder, Johnny Stine, was arrested on a federal warrant charging him with introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce, a misdemeanor. Stine pleaded guilty in August 2021. On 8 March 2022, he was sentenced to five years' probation and ordered to pay $246,986 in restitution.
National infrastructure
The WHO has implemented an "Effective Vaccine Management" system, which includes constructing priorities to prepare national and subnational personnel and facilities for vaccine distribution, including:
Trained staff to handle time- and temperature-sensitive vaccines
Robust monitoring capabilities to ensure optimal vaccine storage and transport
Temperature-controlled facilities and equipment
Traceability
Security
Border processes for efficient handling and customs clearance within individual countries may include:
Facilitating flight and landing permits
Exempting flight crews from quarantine requirements
Facilitating flexible operations for efficient national deployment
Granting arrival priority to maintain vaccine temperature requirements
Tailored vaccination strategies
During a pandemic wave, rapid vaccination of those driving virus dissemination (the socially active) and vaccination of those at highest risk (the elderly, often socially less active) are two desirable goals that are at odds in the setting of limited vaccine supply. However, the recent study (published in 2022) on the national COVID-19 vaccination schedules in 29 countries (EU, UK, and Israel) shows that all researched schedules prioritized criteria referring to higher risk (being over 65 years old and/or having coexisting health conditions) over the criteria referring to virus dissemination (occupation and/or housing conditions). Postponing a second vaccine dose (the first is more important for avoiding a severe disease course) to allow faster access to the first dose for more persons has been chosen as deployment strategies in some countries. Using a reduced mRNA vaccine dose in the younger, who have a lower disease risk, a stronger immune response to the vaccination but are key drivers of pandemic waves, may allow reaching more persons faster, with vaccination strategy models predicting a significant reduction of nation-wide case load and deaths. On the other side, protection of some groups, e.g. the elderly or the immunosuppressed may require additional booster doses. Concerns regarding the impact of vaccination in pregnancy, compounded through miss information disseminated through numerous sources including social media platforms, led to poor uptake in this group, despite evidence COVID-19 vaccination has no detrimental impact on live birth or miscarriage.
Liability
On 4 February 2020, US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar published a notice of declaration under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act for medical countermeasures against COVID‑19, covering "any vaccine, used to treat, diagnose, cure, prevent, or mitigate COVID‑19, or the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 or a virus mutating therefrom", and stating that the declaration precludes "liability claims alleging negligence by a manufacturer in creating a vaccine, or negligence by a health care provider in prescribing the wrong dose, absent willful misconduct". The declaration is effective in the United States through 1 October 2024.
In the European Union, the COVID‑19 vaccines are licensed under a Conditional Marketing Authorisation which does not exempt manufacturers from civil and administrative liability claims. While the purchasing contracts with vaccine manufacturers remain secret, the manufacturers remain liable even for side-effects not known at the time of licensure.
Pfizer has been criticised for demanding far-reaching liability waivers and other guarantees from countries such as Argentina and Brazil, which go beyond what was expected from other countries such as the US (above).
See also
Notes
References
COVID-19 pandemic by country
McKesson Corporation
Virus research | Deployment of COVID-19 vaccines | [
"Biology"
] | 8,610 | [
"Viruses",
"Virus research"
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66,426,813 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20COVID-19%20vaccine%20development | SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2), the virus that causes COVID-19, was isolated in late 2019. Its genetic sequence was published on 11 January 2020, triggering an urgent international response to prepare for an outbreak and hasten the development of a preventive COVID-19 vaccine. Since 2020, vaccine development has been expedited via unprecedented collaboration in the multinational pharmaceutical industry and between governments. By June 2020, tens of billions of dollars were invested by corporations, governments, international health organizations, and university research groups to develop dozens of vaccine candidates and prepare for global vaccination programs to immunize against COVID‑19 infection. According to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the geographic distribution of COVID‑19 vaccine development shows North American entities to have about 40% of the activity, compared to 30% in Asia and Australia, 26% in Europe, and a few projects in South America and Africa.
In February 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it did not expect a vaccine against SARS‑CoV‑2 to become available in less than 18 months. Virologist Paul Offit commented that, in hindsight, the development of a safe and effective vaccine within 11 months was a remarkable feat. The rapidly growing infection rate of COVID‑19 worldwide during 2020 stimulated international alliances and government efforts to urgently organize resources to make multiple vaccines on shortened timelines, with four vaccine candidates entering human evaluation in March (see ).
On 24 June 2020, China approved the CanSino vaccine for limited use in the military and two inactivated virus vaccines for emergency use in high-risk occupations. On 11 August 2020, Russia announced the approval of its Sputnik V vaccine for emergency use, though one month later only small amounts of the vaccine had been distributed for use outside of the phase 3 trial.
The Pfizer–BioNTech partnership submitted an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the mRNA vaccine BNT162b2 (active ingredient tozinameran) on 20 November 2020. On 2 December 2020, the United Kingdom's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) gave temporary regulatory approval for the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine, becoming the first country to approve the vaccine and the first country in the Western world to approve the use of any COVID‑19 vaccine. As of 21 December 2020, many countries and the European Union had authorized or approved the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID‑19 vaccine. Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates granted emergency marketing authorization for the Sinopharm BIBP vaccine. On 11 December 2020, the FDA granted an EUA for the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID‑19 vaccine. A week later, they granted an EUA for mRNA-1273 (active ingredient elasomeran), the Moderna vaccine.
On 31 March 2021, the Russian government announced that they had registered the first COVID‑19 vaccine for animals. Named Carnivac-Cov, it is an inactivated vaccine for carnivorous animals, including pets, aimed at preventing mutations that occur during the interspecies transmission of SARS-CoV-2.
In October 2022, China began administering an oral vaccine developed by CanSino Biologics using its adenovirus model.
Despite the availability of mRNA and viral vector vaccines, worldwide vaccine equity has not been achieved. The ongoing development and use of whole inactivated virus (WIV) and protein-based vaccines has been recommended, especially for use in developing countries, to dampen further waves of the pandemic.
Planning and investment
Since 2020, vaccine development has been expedited via unprecedented collaboration in the multinational pharmaceutical industry and between governments. According to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the geographic distribution of COVID‑19 vaccine development puts North American entities having about 40% of the activity compared to 30% in Asia and Australia, 26% in Europe, and a few projects in South America and Africa.
Commitment to first-in-human testing of a vaccine candidate represents a substantial capital cost for vaccine developers, estimated to be from million to million for a typical PhaseI trial program, but possibly as much as million. For comparison, during the Ebola virus epidemic of 2013–16, there were 37 vaccine candidates in urgent development with only one becoming a licensed vaccine at a total cost to confirm efficacy in PhaseII–III trials of about billion.
International organizations
Access to COVID‑19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator
National governments
Canada announced million in funding for 96 vaccine research projects at Canadian companies and universities, with plans to establish a "vaccine bank" that could be used if another coronavirus outbreak occurs. A further investment of billion was added to support clinical trials and develop manufacturing and supply chains for vaccines. On 4May, the Canadian government committed million to the WHO's live streaming effort to raise billion for COVID‑19 vaccines and preparedness.
China provided low-rate loans to a vaccine developer through its central bank and "quickly made land available for the company" to build production plants. As of June 2020, six of the eleven COVID‑19 vaccine candidates in early-stage human testing were developed by Chinese organizations. Three Chinese vaccine companies and research institutes are supported by the government for financing research, conducting clinical trials, and manufacturing the most promising vaccine candidates, prioritizing rapid evidence of efficacy over safety. On 18 May, China had pledged billion to support overall efforts by the WHO for programs against COVID‑19. On 22 July, China announced plans to provide a US$1 billion loan to make its vaccine accessible for Latin America and the Caribbean. On 24 August, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced it would provide Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam priority access to the vaccine once it was distributed.
Great Britain formed a COVID‑19 vaccine task force in April 2020, to stimulate local efforts for accelerated development of a vaccine through collaborations of industry, universities, and government agencies. It encompassed every phase of development from research to manufacturing. The vaccine development initiatives at the University of Oxford and Imperial College of London were financed with million.
In the United States, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a federal agency funding disease-fighting technology, announced investments of nearly billion to support American COVID‑19 vaccine development and manufacture of the most promising candidates. On 16 April, BARDA made a million investment in vaccine developer Moderna and its partner, Johnson & Johnson. BARDA has earmarked an additional billion for development. It will have a role in other programs for development of six to eight vaccine candidates destined for clinical study into 2021 by companies such as Sanofi Pasteur and Regeneron. On 15 May, the government announced funding for a fast-track program called Operation Warp Speed to place multiple vaccine candidates into clinical trials by the fall of 2020 and manufacture 300million doses of a licensed vaccine by January 2021. The project's chief advisor is Moncef Slaoui and its chief operating officer is General Gustave Perna. In June, the Warp Speed team said it would work with seven companies developing vaccine candidates: Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Pfizer, the University of Oxford in collaboration with AstraZeneca, and two others, although Pfizer later stated that "all the investment for R&D was made by Pfizer at risk."
Pharmaceutical companies
Large pharmaceutical companies with experience in making vaccines at scale, including Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), formed alliances with biotechnology companies, governments, and universities to accelerate progression to an effective vaccine. To combine financial and manufacturing capabilities for a pandemic with adjuvanted vaccine technology, GSK joined with Sanofi in an uncommon partnership of multinational companies to support accelerated vaccine development.
By June 2020, tens of billions of dollars were invested by corporations, governments, international health organizations, and university research groups to develop dozens of vaccine candidates and prepare for global vaccination programs to immunize against COVID‑19 infection. The corporate investment and need to generate value for public shareholders raised concerns about a "market-based approach" in vaccine development, costly pricing of eventual licensed vaccines, preferred access for distribution first to affluent countries, and sparse or no distribution to where the pandemic is most aggressive, as predicted for densely-populated, impoverished countries unable to afford vaccinations. The collaboration of the University of Oxford with AstraZeneca (a global pharmaceutical company based in the UK) raised concerns about price and sharing of eventual profits from international vaccine sales, arising from whether the British government and university as public partners had commercialization rights. AstraZeneca stated that initial pricing of its vaccine would not include a profit margin for the company while the pandemic was still expanding.
In June, AstraZeneca made a deal allowing CEPI and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance to manufacture and distribute 300 million doses if its Oxford vaccine candidate proved to be safe and effective, reportedly increasing the company's total production capacity to over 2 billion doses per year. Commercialization of pandemic vaccines is a high-risk business venture, potentially losing billions of dollars in development and pre-market manufacturing costs if the candidate vaccines fail to be safe and effective. Pfizer indicated it was not interested in a government partnership, considering it to be a "third party" slowing progress. Further, there are concerns that rapid-development programslike Operation Warp Speedare choosing candidates mainly for their manufacturing advantages rather than optimal safety and efficacy.
Development
CEPI classifies development stages for vaccines as "exploratory" (planning and designing a candidate, having no evaluation in vivo), "preclinical" (in vivo evaluation with preparation for manufacturing a compound to test in humans), or initiation of PhaseI safety studies in healthy people. Some 321 total vaccine candidates were in development as either confirmed projects in clinical trials or in early-stage "exploratory" or "preclinical" development, as of September.
Early development
After a coronavirus was isolated in December 2019, its genetic sequence was published on 11 January 2020, triggering an urgent international response to prepare for an outbreak and hasten development of a preventive vaccine.
In February 2020, the WHO said it did not expect a vaccine against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative virus, to become available in less than 18 months. The rapidly growing infection rate of COVID‑19 worldwide during 2020 stimulated international alliances and government efforts to urgently organize resources to make multiple vaccines on shortened timelines, with four vaccine candidates entering human evaluation in March (see the table of clinical trials started in 2020, below).
By April 2020, "almost 80 companies and institutes in 19 countries" were working on this virtual gold rush. Also in April, CEPI estimated that as many as six of the vaccine candidates against COVID‑19 should be chosen by international coalitions for development through PhaseII–III trials, and three should be streamlined through regulatory and quality assurance for eventual licensing at a total cost of at least billion. Another analysis estimates ten candidates will need simultaneous initial development, before a select few are chosen for the final path to licensing.
Cyber-espionage efforts
In July 2020, the UK's National Cyber Security Centre, the Canadian Communications Security Establishment, and the U.S.'s Homeland Security Department Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the National Security Agency (NSA) issued a joint statement saying that Russian state-backed hackers, specifically Cozy Bear (APT29) were attempting to steal COVID‑19 treatment and vaccine research from academic and pharmaceutical institutions in other countries. Russia denied the claim, but has a history of cyber-espionage and cyberattacks on foreign targets. In November 2020, Microsoft reported that the Russian state-sponsored hacking group Fancy Bear (APT28) and North Korean state-sponsored hacking groups nicknamed "Zinc" and "Cerium" had been implicated in recent cyberattacks against researchers developing a COVID-19 vaccine (including in Canada, France, India, South Korea, and the U.S.) as well as against the World Health Organization, and that the cyberattackers had used both brute force and phishing techniques to compromise computer systems. Microsoft reported that at least nine healthcare institutions were targeted, and that some attempts were successful. In February 2021, South Korean's National Intelligence Service gave a closed-door briefing to members of the South Korean parliament about North Korean efforts to steal COVID-19 vaccine technology from Pfizer.
Preclinical research
In April 2020, the WHO issued a statement representing dozens of vaccine scientists around the world, pledging collaboration to speed development of a vaccine against COVID‑19. The WHO coalition is encouraging international cooperation between organizations developing vaccine candidates, national regulatory and policy agencies, financial contributors, public health associations, and governments, for eventual manufacturing of a successful vaccine in quantities sufficient to supply all affected regions, particularly low-resource countries.
Industry analysis of past vaccine development shows failure rates of 84–90%. Because COVID‑19 is a novel virus target with properties still being discovered and requiring innovative vaccine technologies and development strategies, the risks associated with developing a successful vaccine across all steps of preclinical and clinical research are high.
To assess the potential for vaccine efficacy, unprecedented computer simulations and new COVID‑19-specific animal models are being developed multinationally. Of the confirmed active vaccine candidates, about 70% are being developed by private companies, with the remaining projects under development by academic, government coalitions, and health organizations. Historically, the probability of success for an infectious disease vaccine candidate to pass preclinical barriers and reach PhaseI of human testing is 41–57%.
Challenges
The rapid development and urgency of producing a vaccine for the COVID‑19 pandemic may increase the risks and failure rate of delivering a safe, effective vaccine. One study found that between 2006 and 2015, the success rate of obtaining approval from PhaseI to successful PhaseIII trials was 16.2% for vaccines, and CEPI indicates a potential success rate of only 10% for vaccine candidates in 2020 development.
Research at universities is obstructed by physical distancing and closing of laboratories.
Biosafety
Early research to assess vaccine efficacy using COVID‑19-specific animal models, such as ACE2-transgenic mice, other laboratory animals, and non-human primates, indicates a need for biosafety-level3 containment measures for handling live viruses, and international coordination to ensure standardized safety procedures.
Antibody-dependent enhancement
Although the quality and quantity of antibody production by a potential vaccine is intended to neutralize the COVID‑19 infection, a vaccine may have an unintended opposite effect by causing antibody-dependent disease enhancement (ADE), which increases the virus attachment to its target cells and might trigger a cytokine storm if a vaccinated person is later attacked by the virus. The vaccine technology platform (for example, viral vector vaccine, spike (S) protein vaccine or protein subunit vaccine), vaccine dose, timing of repeat vaccinations for the possible recurrence of COVID‑19 infection, and elderly age are factors determining the risk and extent of ADE. The antibody response to a vaccine is a variable of vaccine technologies in development, including whether the vaccine has precision in its mechanism, and choice of the route for how it is given (intramuscular, intradermal, oral, or nasal).
Prior to the pandemic, ADE was observed in animal studies of laboratory rodents with vaccines for SARS-CoV, the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Researchers therefore emphasized the need to carefully assess the potential for ADE to occur with COVID-19.
However, there have been no observed incidences with vaccines for COVID-19 in trials with nonhuman primates, in clinical trials with humans, or following the widespread use of approved vaccines.
Trials
In April 2020, the WHO published an "R&D Blueprint (for the) novel Coronavirus" (Blueprint). The Blueprint documented a "large, international, multi-site, individually randomized controlled clinical trial" to allow "the concurrent evaluation of the benefits and risks of each promising candidate vaccine within 3–6 months of it being made available for the trial." The Blueprint listed a Global Target Product Profile (TPP) for COVID‑19, identifying favorable attributes of safe and effective vaccines under two broad categories: "vaccines for the long-term protection of people at higher risk of COVID‑19, such as healthcare workers", and other vaccines to provide rapid-response immunity for new outbreaks. The international TPP team was formed to 1) assess the development of the most promising candidate vaccines; 2) map candidate vaccines and their clinical trial worldwide, publishing a frequently-updated "landscape" of vaccines in development; 3) rapidly evaluate and screen for the most promising candidate vaccines simultaneously before they are tested in humans; and 4) design and coordinate a multiple-site, international randomized controlled trialthe "Solidarity trial" for vaccinesto enable simultaneous evaluation of the benefits and risks of different vaccine candidates under clinical trials in countries where there are high rates of COVID‑19 disease, ensuring fast interpretation and sharing of results around the world. The WHO vaccine coalition will prioritize which vaccines should go into Phase II and III clinical trials, and determine harmonized PhaseIII protocols for all vaccines achieving the pivotal trial stage.
PhaseI trials test primarily for safety and preliminary dosing in a few dozen healthy subjects, while PhaseII trialsfollowing success in PhaseIevaluate immunogenicity, dose levels (efficacy based on biomarkers) and adverse effects of the candidate vaccine, typically in hundreds of people. A PhaseI–II trial consists of preliminary safety and immunogenicity testing, is typically randomized, placebo-controlled, while determining more precise, effective doses. PhaseIII trials typically involve more participants at multiple sites, include a control group, and test effectiveness of the vaccine to prevent the disease (an "interventional" or pivotal trial), while monitoring for adverse effects at the optimal dose. Definition of vaccine safety, efficacy, and clinical endpoints in a PhaseIII trial may vary between the trials of different companies, such as defining the degree of side effects, infection or amount of transmission, and whether the vaccine prevents moderate or severe COVID‑19 infection. Phase III trials of AstraZeneca's intervention started 28 August 2020 and ended 5 March 2021.
In January 2022 'Moderna' and 'Pfizer' both started trials of vaccine tailored to immunize against the Omicron variant.
Enrollment of participants
Vaccine developers have to invest resources internationally to find enough participants for PhaseII–III clinical trials when the virus has proved to be a "moving target" of changing transmission rate across and within countries, forcing companies to compete for trial participants. As an example in June, the Chinese vaccine developer Sinovac formed alliances in Malaysia, Canada, the UK, and Brazil among its plans to recruit trial participants and manufacture enough vaccine doses for a possible PhaseIII study in Brazil where COVID‑19 transmission was accelerating during June. As the COVID‑19 pandemic within China became more isolated and controlled, Chinese vaccine developers sought international relationships to conduct advanced human studies in several countries, creating competition for trial participants with other manufacturers and the international Solidarity trial organized by the WHO. In addition to competition over recruiting participants, clinical trial organizers may encounter people unwilling to be vaccinated due to vaccine hesitancy or disbelieving the science of the vaccine technology and its ability to prevent infection.
Having an insufficient number of skilled team members to administer vaccinations may hinder clinical trials that must overcome risks for trial failure, such as recruiting participants in rural or low-density geographic regions, and variations of age, race, ethnicity, or underlying medical conditions.
Eligibility criteria for AstraZeneca's Phase III trial included: Ages, 18 to 130 Years, All Sexes, and Healthy Volunteers. Inclusion Criteria specified, Increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection and medically stable. Exclusion criteria included; 1) confirmed or suspected immunosuppressive or immunodeficient state, 2) significant disease, disorder, or finding, and 3) Prior or concomitant vaccine therapy for COVID‑19.
Adaptive design for the Solidarity trial
A clinical trial design in progress may be modified as an "adaptive design" if accumulating data in the trial provide early insights about positive or negative efficacy of the treatment. The WHO Solidarity trial of multiple vaccines in clinical studies during 2020, will apply adaptive design to rapidly alter trial parameters across all study sites as results emerge. Candidate vaccines may be added to the Solidarity trial as they become available if priority criteria are met, while vaccine candidates showing poor evidence of safety or efficacy compared to placebo or other vaccines will be dropped from the international trial.
Adaptive designs within ongoing PhaseII–III clinical trials on candidate vaccines may shorten trial durations and use fewer subjects, possibly expediting decisions for early termination or success, avoiding duplication of research efforts, and enhancing coordination of design changes for the Solidarity trial across its international locations.
Proposed challenge studies
Challenge studies are a type of clinical trial involving the intentional exposure of the test subject to the condition tested, an approach that can significantly accelerate vaccine development. Human challenge studies may be ethically controversial because they involve exposing test subjects to dangers beyond those posed by potential side effects of the substance being tested. Challenge studies have been used for diseases less deadly than COVID‑19 infection, such as common influenza, typhoid fever, cholera, and malaria. The World Health Organization developed a guidance document with criteria for conducting COVID‑19 challenge studies in healthy people, including scientific and ethical evaluation, public consultation and coordination, selection and informed consent of the participants, and monitoring by independent experts. Beginning in January 2021, dozens of young adult volunteers will be deliberately infected with COVID‑19 in a challenge trial conducted in a London hospital under management by the British government COVID‑19 Vaccine Taskforce. Once an infection dose of COVID‑19 is identified, two or more of the candidate COVID‑19 vaccines will be tested for effectiveness in preventing infection.
Authorizations and licensure
At the beginning of the COVID‑19 pandemic in 2020, the WHO issued a guideline as an Emergency Use Listing of new vaccines, a process derived from the 2013–16 Ebola epidemic. It required that a vaccine candidate developed for a life-threatening emergency be manufactured using GMP and that it complete development according to WHO prequalification procedures.
Even as new vaccines are developed during the COVID‑19 pandemic, licensure of COVID‑19 vaccine candidates requires submission of a full dossier of information on development and manufacturing quality. In the UK and the EU, companies may use a "rolling review process", supplying data as they become available during Phase III trials, rather than developing the full documentation over months or years at the end of clinical research, as is typical. This rolling process allows the UK's regulator (MHRA) and the European Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use to evaluate clinical data in real time, enabling a promising vaccine candidate to be approved on a rapid timeline by both the UK's MHRA and the European Medicines Agency (EMA). A rolling review process for the Moderna vaccine candidate was initiated in October by Health Canada and the EMA, and in November in Canada for the Pfizer-BioNTech candidate.
Early authorizations in China and Russia
On 24 June 2020, China approved the CanSino vaccine for limited use in the military and two inactivated virus vaccines for emergency use in high-risk occupations. On 11 August 2020, Russia announced the approval of its Sputnik V vaccine for emergency use, though one month later only small amounts of the vaccine had been distributed for use outside of the phase 3 trial. In September, the United Arab Emirates approved emergency use of the Sinopharm BIBP vaccine for healthcare workers, followed by similar emergency use approval from Bahrain in November.
First authorizations of RNA vaccines
In the United States, an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) is "a mechanism to facilitate the availability and use of medical countermeasures, including vaccines, during public health emergencies, such as the current COVID‑19 pandemic." Once an EUA is issued by the FDA, the vaccine developer is expected to continue the Phase III clinical trial to finalize safety and efficacy data, leading to application for licensure (approval) in the United States. In mid-2020, concerns that the FDA might grant a vaccine EUA before full evidence from a Phase III clinical trial was available raised broad concerns about the potential for lowered standards in the face of political pressure. On 8 September 2020, nine leading pharmaceutical companies involved in COVID‑19 vaccine research signed a letter, pledging that they would submit their vaccines for emergency use authorization only after Phase III trials had demonstrated safety and efficacy.
The Pfizer-BioNTech partnership submitted an EUA request to the FDA for the mRNA vaccine BNT162b2 (active ingredient tozinameran) on 20 November 2020. On 2 December 2020, the United Kingdom's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) gave temporary regulatory approval for the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine, becoming the first country to approve this vaccine and the first country in the Western world to approve the use of any COVID‑19 vaccine. On 8 December 2020, 90-year-old Margaret Keenan received the vaccine at University Hospital Coventry, becoming the first person known to be vaccinated outside of a trial, as the UK's vaccination programme began. However, other vaccines had been given earlier in Russia. On 11 December 2020, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. On 19 December 2020, the Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products (Swissmedic) approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for regular use, two months after receiving the application. This was the first authorization by a stringent regulatory authority under a standard procedure for any COVID‑19 vaccine. On 23 December, a 90-year-old Lucerne resident became the first person to receive the vaccine in continental Europe.
As of December 2020, many countries and the European Union have authorized or approved the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID‑19 vaccine. Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates granted emergency marketing authorization for the Sinopharm BIBP vaccine. In the United Kingdom, 138,000 people had received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID‑19 vaccine Comirnaty by 16 December, during the first week of the UK vaccination programme. On 18 December 2020, the US FDA granted an EUA for mRNA-1273, the Moderna vaccine. Vaccine manufacturers are awaiting full approvals to name their vaccines.
Moderna submitted a request for an EUA for mRNA-1273 to the FDA on 30 November 2020. On 18 December 2020, the FDA granted an EUA for the Moderna vaccine.
United Kingdom
The UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) gave the first approval to the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine on 30 December 2020, as its second vaccine to enter the national rollout under a conditional and temporary authorization to supply.
Australia
In October 2020, the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) granted provisional determinations to AstraZeneca Pty Ltd in relation to its COVID‑19 vaccine, ChAdOx1-S [recombinant] and to Pfizer Australia Pty Ltd in relation to its COVID‑19 vaccine, BNT162b2 [mRNA]. Janssen Cilag Pty Ltd was granted a provisional determination in relation to its COVID‑19 vaccine, Ad26.COV2.S, in November 2020.
On 24 January 2021, the TGA granted provisional approval to Pfizer Australia Pty Ltd for Comirnaty.
On 24 June 2021, the TGA granted provisional determination to Moderna Australia Pty Ltd for Elasomeran.
European Union
In October 2020, the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) started 'rolling reviews' of the vaccines known as COVID‑19 Vaccine AstraZeneca (ChAdOx1-SARS-CoV-2) and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID‑19 Vaccine (BNT162b2). The EMA released an update on the status of its rolling review of the COVID‑19 Vaccine AstraZeneca in December 2020, after the UK granted a temporary authorization of supply for the vaccine.
In November 2020, the EMA published a safety monitoring plan and guidance on risk management planning (RMP) for COVID‑19 vaccines. The plan outlines how relevant new information emerging after the authorization and uptake of COVID‑19 vaccines in the pandemic situation will be collected and promptly reviewed. All RMPs for COVID‑19 vaccines will be published on the EMA's website. The EMA published guidance for developers of potential COVID‑19 vaccines on the clinical evidence to include in marketing authorization applications.
In November 2020, the CHMP started a rolling review of the Moderna vaccine for COVID‑19 known as mRNA-1273.
In December 2020, the EMA received application for conditional marketing authorizations (CMA) for the mRNA vaccines BNT162b2 and mRNA1273 (Moderna Covid‑19 vaccine). The assessments of the vaccines are scheduled to proceed under accelerated timelines with the possibility of opinions issued within weeks.
In December 2020, the CHMP started a rolling review of the Ad26.COV2.S COVID‑19 vaccine from Janssen-Cilag International N.V.
On 21 December 2020, the CHMP recommended granting a conditional marketing authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID‑19 vaccine, Comirnaty (active ingredient tozinameran), developed by BioNTech and Pfizer. The recommendation was accepted by the European Commission the same day.
On 6 January 2021, the CHMP recommended granting a conditional marketing authorization for COVID-19 Vaccine Moderna and the recommendation was accepted by the European Commission the same day.
In January 2021, the EMA received an application for conditional marketing authorization (CMA) for the COVID‑19 vaccine known as COVID‑19 Vaccine AstraZeneca, developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University. On 29 January 2021, the CHMP recommended granting the conditional marketing authorization and the recommendation was accepted by the European Commission the same day.
In February 2021, the CHMP started a rolling review of NVX-CoV2373, a COVID‑19 vaccine being developed by Novavax CZ AS (a subsidiary of Novavax, Inc.) and a rolling review of CVnCoV, a COVID‑19 vaccine being developed by CureVac AG.
In February 2021, the EMA announced that they are developing vaccine guidance to address the virus variants.
In February 2021, the EMA received an application for conditional marketing authorization (CMA) for the COVID-19 Vaccine Janssen developed by Janssen-Cilag International N.V. The EMA recommended a conditional marketing authorization of the COVID-19 Vaccine Janssen on 11 March 2021, and it was accepted by the European Commission the same day.
In March 2021, the CHMP started a rolling review of Sputnik V (Gam-COVID-Vac). The EU applicant is R-Pharm Germany GmbH.
In May 2021, the CMMP started evaluating the use of Comirnaty to include young people aged 12 to 15, and it started a rolling review of Sinovac COVID-19 Vaccine. The EU applicant for Sinovac is Life'On S.r.l.
References
Further reading
External links
Virus research | History of COVID-19 vaccine development | [
"Biology"
] | 6,631 | [
"Viruses",
"Virus research"
] |
66,427,978 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD%20197037 | HD 197037 is a binary star system. Its primary or visible star, HD 197037 A, is a F-type main-sequence star. Its surface temperature is 6150 K. HD 197037 A is depleted in heavy elements compared to the Sun, with a metallicity Fe/H index of −0.16, but is younger at an age of 3.408 billion years.
A multiplicity survey detected a red dwarf stellar companion HD 197037 B in 2016, at a projected separation of 121 AU. The existence of other stellar companions at projected separations from 1.62 to 45.26 AU was excluded.
Planetary system
In 2012 one planet, named HD 197037 Ab, was discovered on a wide, eccentric orbit by the radial velocity method.
Another planet in the system was initially suspected, but the radial velocity signal was later attributed to the stellar companion HD 197037 B.
References
Cygnus (constellation)
Planetary transit variables
F-type main-sequence stars
Planetary systems with one confirmed planet
J20393296+4214549
BD+41 3845
101948
197037
Binary stars
M-type main-sequence stars | HD 197037 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 235 | [
"Cygnus (constellation)",
"Constellations"
] |
66,429,777 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD%2077338 | HD 77338 is a star with a close orbiting exoplanet companion in the southern constellation of Pyxis. It is too dim to be visible with the naked eye, having an apparent visual magnitude of 8.63. The system is located at a distance of 149 light years, and it is drifting further away with a heliocentric radial velocity of 8.2 km/s.
The spectrum of this star presents as a K-type subgiant with a stellar classification of K0 IV. This indicates the star has exhausted the supply of hydrogen at its core and has begun to evolve away from the main sequence. It has 94% of the mass of the Sun and 97% of the Sun's girth. The star is spinning with a rotation period of roughly 33 days. It is radiating 71% of the luminosity of the Sun from its photosphere at an effective temperature of 5,315 K.
HD 77338 is enriched in its concentration of elements more massive than helium compared to the Sun, with a metallicity of 0.16, but is much older at an age of 9.5 billion years. It is unusually enriched in heavy elements for a star of its age. The anomalously high abundance of ions of manganese may indicate the star has recently passed through the common shell stage (engulfed a planet).
Planetary system
In 2012, a planet, named HD 77338b, was discovered by the radial velocity method on a tight orbit with uncertain eccentricity. Its equilibrium temperature is 954.8 K.
References
K-type subgiants
Planetary systems with one confirmed planet
Pyxis
J09011248-2531371
CD-25 6797
077338
044291 | HD 77338 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 360 | [
"Pyxis",
"Constellations"
] |
66,429,821 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lim%20Hyesook | Lim Hye-sook (; born 1963) is a Korean electronics engineering professor at Ewha Womans University served as Minister of Science and ICT under President Moon Jae-in from May 2021 to 2021. Lim was the first woman to lead the country's science ministry.
Education
Lim earned her bachelor’s and master's degrees in engineering from the Department of Control and Instrumentation at Seoul National University and a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
Career
Before joining academia, Lim worked at Samsung-HP joint venture after finishing her undergraduate studies and Bell Labs and Cisco Systems after her doctorate studies.
Lim began her teaching career at Ewha Womans University in 2002 receiving full tenure in 2011. Lim took various roles at the University serving as the head of its Department of Electronics Engineering from 2005 to 2007, the associate dean of its School of Engineering from 2009 to 2011 and the dean of its College of Engineering from 2018 to 2020. Lim also sat as the Associate VP for academic affairs of the University from 2012 to 2014.
In Moon's press conference shortly after his special address marking his fourth year in office, Moon explained the reason for her nomination that increasing women's workforce participation is one of prominent solutions in nurturing much-needed professionals in innovative economy sectors such as semiconductor, AI and digital economy and he expects Lim to set one of precedents for them.
In 2020, Lim was elected chair of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers - the first woman in its over-70-year history.
In May 2021, Lim signed the Artemis Accord on behalf of the Ministry and the government officially joining moon exploration project with nine other countries.
Lim was previously Moon's Chairperson of one of the Ministry's child agencies, the National Research Council of Science and Technology, which oversees 25 government-funded research institutes in the field such as Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute and Korea Aerospace Research Institute. Lim was the youngest and the first woman to lead the council.
Awards
Science and Technology Medal by the government of South Korea (2020)
Stars in Computer Networking and Communications by N2Women (2019)
Woman Scientist/Engineer of the Year Award by then-Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (2014)
2025 class of IEEE Fellows
References
Living people
1963 births
Seoul National University alumni
University of Texas at Austin alumni
Academic staff of Ewha Womans University
Electronics engineers
Science and ICT ministers of South Korea
Women government ministers of South Korea
South Korean women academics
21st-century South Korean women scientists
South Korean women engineers
Fellows of the IEEE | Lim Hyesook | [
"Engineering"
] | 525 | [
"Electronics engineers",
"Electronic engineering"
] |
66,430,015 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20tardigrades%20of%20South%20Africa | The list of tardigrades of South Africa is a list of species that form a part of the phylum Tardigrada of the fauna of South Africa. The list follows the SANBI listing.
Where common names are given, they are not necessarily the only common names in use for the species.
Class Heterotardigrada
Order Echiniscoidea
Family Echiniscidae
Genus Echiniscus:
Echiniscus africanus Murray, 1907
Echiniscus arctomys Ehrenberg, 1853
Echiniscus crassispinosus Murray, 1907
Echiniscus duboisi Richters, 1902
Echiniscus longispinosus Murray, 1907
Echlniscus perarmatus Murray, 1907
Echiuiscus pusae Marcus, 1928
Genus Pseudechiniscus:
Pseudechiniscus bispinosus (Murray, 1907)
Pseudechiniscus jiroveci Bartos, 1963
Pseudechiniscus suillus Ehrenberg, 1853), syn. Echiniscus mutabilis Murray, 1905, Pseudechiniscus suillus suillus (Ehrenberg, 1853)
Class Eutardigrada
Order Parachela
Family Hypsibiidae
Genus Doryphoribius:
Doryphoribius flavus (Iharos, 1966), syn. Doryphoribius citrinus, (Maucci, 1972), Hypsibius citrinus Maucci, 1973
Genus Hypsibius:
Hypsibius convergens (Urbanowicz, 1925), syn. Macrobiotus convergens Urbanowicz, 1925
Hypsibius dujardini (Doyère, 1840), syn. Hypsibius lacustris (Doyère, 1851), Macrobiotus dujardin Doyère, 1840, Macrobiotus dujardini Doyère, 1840, Macrobiotus samoanus Richters, 1908
Hypsibius maculatus (Iharos, 1969)
Genus Isohypsibius:
Isohypsibius deconincki Pilato, 1971
Isohypsibius nodosus (Murray, 1907), syn. Hypsibius nodosus (Murray, 1907), Macrobiotus nodosus Murray, 1907
Isohypsibius sattleri (Richters, 1902), syn. Hypsibius bakonyiensis Iharos, 1964, Hypsibius sattleri (Richters, 1902), Isohypsibius bakonyiensis (Iharos, 1964), Macrobiotus sattleri Richters, 1902
Genus Ramazzottius:
Ramazzottius szeptycki (Dastych, 1980), syn. Hypsibius szeptycki Dastych, 1980, Ramazzottius szepticki (Dastych, 1980)
Ramazzottius theroni Dastych, 1983
Genus Diphascon:
Diphascon scoticum Murray, 1905, syn. Adropion scoticum Murray, 1905, Hypsibius scoticus (Murray, 1905)
Diphascon zaniewi Kaczmarek & Michalczyk, 2004
Genus Paradiphascon:
Paradiphascon manningi Dastych, 1992
Genus Astatumen:
Astatumen trinacriae (Arcidiacono, 1962), syn. Astatumen ramazzottii (Iharos, 1966), Itaquascon ramazzottii Iharos, 1966, Itaquascon trinacriae Arcidiacono, 1962
Family Calohypsibiidae
Genus Haplomacrobiotus:
Haplomacrobiotus seductor Pilato & Beasley, 1987
Family Macrobiotidae
Genus Calcarobiotus:
Calcarobiotus filmeri Dastych, 1993
Calcarobiotus occultus Dastych, 1993
Genus Macrobiotus:
Macrobiotus drakensbergi Dastych, 1993
Macrobiotus echinogenitus Richters, 1904
Macrobiotus furciger Murray, 1906, syn. Macrobiotus furciger Murray, 1907
Macrobiotus hufelandi C.A.S. Schultze, 1834, syn. Macrobiotus eminens Ehrenberg, 1895, Macrobiotus hufelandii C.A.S. Schultze, 1834, Macrobiotus interruptus Della Valle, 1914
Macrobiotus nuragicus Pilato & Sperlinga, 1975
Macrobiotus richtersi Murray, 1911
Macrobiotus iharosi Pilato, Binda & Catanzaro, 1991
Macrobiotus crassidens (Murray, 1907)
Genus Minibiotus:
Minibiotus hufelandioides (Murray, 1910), syn. Macrobiotus hufelandioides Murray, 1910
Minibiotus intermedius (Plate, 1888), syn. Macrobiotus intermedius Plate, 1889, Macrobiotus intermedius intermedius]] Plate, 1889
Order Apochela
Family Milnesiidae
Genus Milnesium:
Milnesium tardigradum Doyère, 1840, syn. Arcrophanes schlagintweitii Ehrenberg, 1859, Arctiscon tardigradum Schrank, 1803
References
Invertebrates of South Africa
Tardigrades
Lists of invertebrates | List of tardigrades of South Africa | [
"Biology"
] | 1,136 | [
"Tardigrades",
"Space-flown life"
] |
66,430,244 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger%20S.%20Gottlieb | Roger S. Gottlieb (born October 20, 1946) is professor of philosophy and Paris Fletcher Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He has written and edited 21 books, including two Nautilus Book Awards winners, and over 150 papers on philosophy, political theory, environmental ethics, religious studies, religious environmentalism, religious life, contemporary spirituality, the Holocaust, and disability. He is internationally known for his work as a leading analyst and exponent of religious environmentalism, for his passionate and moving account of spirituality in an age of environmental crisis, and for his innovative and humane description of the role of religion in a democratic society.
Gottlieb has edited six academic book series (which have collectively published more than 50 titles), serves on the editorial boards of several academic journals. He is contributing editor to Tikkun magazine, and has appeared online on Patheos, Huffington, Grist, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Real Clear Religion, and many others. His writings have appeared in top academic journals (such as The Journal of Philosophy, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Conservation Biology, and Ethics); in popular publications (such as E Magazine online, The Boston Globe, and Orion Afield); and in anthologies of Jewish writing, environmental ethics, religious life, spirituality, the Holocaust, and disability; and in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Life
Roger S. Gottlieb was born on October 20, 1946, in White Plains, New York, where he grew up in a middle-class suburban family. He graduated from White Plains High School in 1964. From there he went on to Brandeis University intending to become a psychologist, but after one course found it "unbelievably dull" and soon became hooked on philosophy. He earned a BA (Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Special Honors) in philosophy in 1968 and a Ph.D. 1975.
He was a visiting assistant professor from 1974 to 1977 at University of Connecticut and 1978 to 1980 at Tufts University. In 1980–1981, he was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, and in 1981 was hired as a professor of philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute where he was granted tenure in 1985, and appointed Paris Fletcher Distinguished Professor from 1995 to 1997. Since 2006, he has also been a visiting professor of Jewish studies at Wake Forest University divinity school.
Gottlieb lives in Boston with his wife, noted psychotherapist and author Miriam Greenspan, and shares in the care of his daughters, Anna and Esther. Their first child (a son) was born with brain damage, living only five days without coming home from the hospital. Three years later they had a third child, Esther, who was born with multiple handicaps. Gottlieb recounts how these events had a profound impact on him and forced him to grow spiritually. The spiritual and political dimensions of his relation to Esther, who has multiple disabilities, forms part of Chapter 8 of Joining Hands.
Gottlieb is affiliated with the Jewish Renewal movement. His brother is Dovid Gottlieb (a Haredi Rabbi).
Professional associations
American Philosophical Association
American Academy of Religion
steering committee, Religion and Ecology Section, 1994–97, 2009–12
steering committee, Religion and Disability Section, 2002-2007
Sustainability Task Force
International Society for the Study of Environmental Ethics
American Political Science Association
Philosophical Society for the Study of Genocide and the Holocaust (co-founder)
Radical Philosophy Association
Interdisciplinary Environmental Association
Selected works
History and Subjectivity: The Transformation of Marxist Theory. Temple University Press, 1987; Humanities Press Paperback edition, 1993.
An Anthology of Western Marxism: From Lukacs and Gramsci to Socialist-Feminism. Oxford University Press, 1989.
Thinking the Unthinkable: Meanings of the Holocaust. Paulist Press, 1990.
Marxism 1844-1990: Origins, Betrayal, Rebirth. Routledge, 1992.
The Ecological Community: Environmental Challenges for Philosophy, Politics, and Morality. Routledge, 1996.
A Spirituality of Resistance: Finding a Peaceful Heart and Protecting the Earth. Crossroad, 1999; Paperback edition, with a new ‘Afterword.’ Rowman and Littlefield, 2003.
Joining Hands: Religion and Politics Together for Social Change. Westview Press, 2002, Paperback edition, 2004.
Liberating Faith: Religious Voices for Justice, Peace, and Ecological Wisdom. Rowman and Littlefield, 2003.
This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environment. Second Edition. Routledge, 2003.
A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and our Planet’s Future. Oxford University Press, 2006; paperback edition, with a new preface, 2009.
The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Ecology. Oxford University Press, 2006; paperback, 2010.
Religion and the Environment, Volumes 1-IV. Routledge, 2010
Engaging Voices: Tales of Morality and Meaning in an Age of Global Warming. Baylor University Press, 2011.
Spirituality: What It Is and Why It Matters. Oxford University Press, 2012.
Political and Spiritual: Essays on Religion, Environment, Disability, and Justice. Rowman and Littlefield, 2015.
Morality and the Environmental Crisis. Cambridge University Press, 2019.
See also
Deep ecology
Ecospirituality
Ecotheology
Environmental communication
Environmental education
Environmental sociology
Environmental studies
Environmental theology
Human ecology
Judaism and environmentalism
List of environmental philosophers
List of political theorists
Political ecology
Stewardship
Notes
References
Further reading
These contain details about his main works & ideas (that should be added to article at some point):
"Gottlieb, Roger S. 1946- ." Contemporary Authors.. Encyclopedia.com.
Bio page on university site
External links
Official website
On academia.edu
On ResearchGate
Bio page on university site
1946 births
20th-century American educators
20th-century American essayists
20th-century American philosophers
21st-century American educators
21st-century American essayists
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American philosophers
21st-century American short story writers
Activists from Boston
Activists from New York (state)
American ethicists
American male essayists
American male non-fiction writers
American non-fiction environmental writers
American philosophy academics
American religion academics
American spiritual writers
Brandeis University alumni
Ecotheology
Educators from New York (state)
Environmental ethicists
Environmental fiction writers
Environmental philosophers
Environmental studies scholars
Jewish American academics
Jewish American activists
Jewish American essayists
Jewish ethicists
Jewish American non-fiction writers
Jewish American short story writers
Judaic scholars
Jewish socialists
Living people
North American environmentalists
People from White Plains, New York
Philosophers from Massachusetts
Philosophers from New York (state)
Philosophers of Judaism
Philosophers of religion
Philosophy writers
Religious studies scholars
American political philosophers
Tufts University faculty
Wake Forest University faculty
White Plains High School alumni
Worcester Polytechnic Institute faculty
Writers from Boston
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers | Roger S. Gottlieb | [
"Environmental_science"
] | 1,365 | [
"Environmental ethicists",
"Environmental ethics"
] |
67,927,208 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew%20Webster%20%28sociologist%29 | Andrew Webster (1951–2021) was an English sociologist who was a professor of sociology at the University of York, where he established the Science and Technology Studies research unit. He studied the sociocultural and economic implications of introducing biomedical technologies, including stem cell research and regenerative medicine, into clinical settings.
Education
Webster received the Bachelor of Science degree in social sciences at the Polytechnic of the South Bank in 1974. He went on to study the sociology of science at the University of York, and received the Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1981.
Career
Webster worked at the Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology (now Anglia Ruskin University) until 1999, when he became a faculty member at the University of York. He founded the Science and Technology Studies Unit (SATSU) in 1988 and continued directing the research unit at the University of York until 2017. He has held international visiting fellowships at several universities, including Australian National University, the University of Gothenburg and the University of Sydney. From 2004 to 2009, Webster headed the Department of Sociology at York, and he was the Dean of Social Sciences from 2009 to 2013.
In 2007, Webster was elected as Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. He received the annual 4S Mentoring Award from the Society for Social Studies of Science in 2017. The award committee wrote that "Webster's mentoring has not only focused on supporting individual students but also creating institutional environments for them," and credited him with helping SATSU become a Marie Curie training site.
Webster has received funding from UK and international agencies to study how biomedical technologies such as stem cell research and regenerative medicine emerge and are adopted in clinical settings, as well as the sociocultural and economic implications of those technologies. He has been a member of several policy steering committees of the Medical Research Council, including the UK Stem Cell Bank Steering Committee and the Medical Ethics Committee. His research includes the study of "institutional readiness", examining the challenges that health care systems face when introducing regenerative medicine. The concept was adopted by advanced therapy treatment centres in the UK's National Health Service in order to identify the capacities they need to adopt the new techniques.
Selected publications
References
1951 births
2021 deaths
Academics of Anglia Ruskin University
Academics of the University of York
Alumni of London South Bank University
Alumni of the University of York
English sociologists
Stem cell researchers | Andrew Webster (sociologist) | [
"Biology"
] | 467 | [
"Stem cell researchers",
"Stem cell research"
] |
67,928,037 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2C-B-aminorex | 2C-B-aminorex (2C-B-AR) is a recreational designer drug with psychedelic effects. It is a substituted aminorex derivative which was first identified in Sweden in June 2019. Structurally, it is a hybrid of 4-bromo-2,5-dimethoxyphenethylamine (2C-B) and aminorex.
See also
2C-B
2C-B-PP
BOB (psychedelic)
4,4'-DMAR
4'-Fluoro-4-methylaminorex
4B-MAR
4C-MAR
List of aminorex analogues
References
Aminorexes
4-Bromophenyl compounds
Designer drugs
2-Methoxyphenyl compounds
Methoxy compounds | 2C-B-aminorex | [
"Chemistry"
] | 157 | [
"Pharmacology",
"Pharmacology stubs",
"Medicinal chemistry stubs"
] |
67,928,627 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle%20Jerk%20%28play%29 | Circle Jerk is a 2020 American multimedia play by Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley. The play was originally produced by Fake Friends Theater and Media Company, Caroline Gart, and Jeremy O. Harris. It was directed by Rory Pelsue. It featured dramaturgy by Ariel Sibert and performances from the authors and Catherine María Rodríguez.
Summary
It’s winter on Gaymen Island, a summer retreat for the homosexual rich and famous. This off-season, two White gay internet trolls hatch a plot to take back what’s wrongfully theirs. Cancelations, meme schemes, and political and erotica flip flops abound as three actors playing nine parts, play out this chaotic live-streamed descent into the high-energy, quick-change, low-brow pit of the internet.
Accolades
It was a finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It won a Special Citation at the 2023 Obie Awards.
See also
Internet culture
Alt-right
Doomscrolling
References
External links
The Queer Review
Homepage
Trailer
LGBTQ-related plays
Works about the Internet
2020 plays | Circle Jerk (play) | [
"Technology"
] | 220 | [
"Works about the Internet",
"Works about computing"
] |
67,929,406 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAM227B | FAM227B is a protein that in humans is encoded by FAM227B gene. FAM227B stands for family with sequence similarity 227 member B and encodes protein FAM227B of the same name. Its aliases include C15orf33, MGC57432 and FLJ23800.
Gene
FAM227B is located at 15q21.2 and contains 24 exons. The current size determined for FAM227B is 293,961 base pairs (NCBI). Neighbors of FAM227B on chromosome fifteen include: “ribosomal protein L15 pseudogene”, “galactokinase 2”, “RNA, 7SL, cytoplasmic 307, pseudogene”, “signal peptide peptidase like 2A pseudogene”, “fibroblast growth factor 7”, “uncharacterized LOC105370811”, “DTW domain containing 1”, and “ring finger protein, LIM domain interacting pseudogene 3”.
Transcript
There are 30 isoforms of FAM227B and one paralog, FAM227A. The conserved domains in these isoforms (as well as the paralog) are of various sizes and encode the protein FWWh (pfam14922) of unknown function, which all contain the distinctive motif FWW with a hydrophobic residue h. The main isoform used for analysis of FAM227B is isoform 1 (NM_152647.3). The next most reliable isoform of FAM227B is isoform 2 ( NM_001330293.2). The second isoform is shorter and has a distinct C-terminus.
Below are cartoons depicting the different lengths and cutting patterns of the isoforms*:
*The cartoons do not precisely depict differences between all the isoforms, but instead act as a simple depiction of a larger pattern between the isoforms.
Protein
The primary sequence for FAM227B is isoform 1 with accession number: NP_689860.2. It is 508 amino acids long. There are 30 isoforms. The molecular weight is 59.9kD and the isoelectric point is predicted to be high, around 10. Compared to other proteins in humans, FAM227B has high abundance of Phenylalanine and Glycine and low abundance levels of Valine. The protein is predicted to be in the nuclear region of the cell. There is a bipartite nuclear localization signal at RKLERYGEFLKKYHKKK, and three other nuclearization signals at HKKK, KKKK, and PKKTKIK. There is also a vacuolar targeting motif at TLPI. An FWWh region, where h signifies hydrophobic, runs from amino acids 135-296 in Homo sapiens FAM227B isoform 1. The function of this region is still unknown.
Secondary structure
The secondary structure is predicted to be made up of alpha helices mainly and coiled coils
Post translational modifications
Phosphorylation is the main post-translational modification predicted for FAM227B due to its predicted localization to the nucleus. There are many experimentally predicted phosphorylation sites, the most highly rated included in the conceptual translation. Glycosylation sites and SUMOylation sites were also predicted.
Expression
FAM227B is most highly expressed in the testis at 1.983 +/- 0.404 RPKM, in the kidney at 1.408 +/- 0.152 RPKM, in the adrenal at 1.177 +/- 0.088 RPKM, and in the thyroid 1.133 +/- 0.165 RPKM. It is also expressed to a lesser degree in the appendix, bone marrow, brain, colon, duodenum, endometrium, esophagus, fat, gall bladder, heart, liver, lung, lymph node, ovary, pancreas, placenta, prostate, salivary gland, skin, small intestine, spleen, stomach, and urinary bladder
Function
Currently, the function of FAM227B has not been characterized
Protein-protein interactions
RNF123 was found to be an interacting protein of FAM227B through Affinity Capture – MS. RAB3A was found to be an interacting protein of FAM227B through tandem affinity purification.
Subcellular localization
Current studies have determined the location of this gene to be in the nuclear region of the cell.
Homology and evolution
Paralogs: FAM227A
Orthologs: FAM227B is present in Deuterostomia and Protostomia, dating as far back as porifera. FAM227B is not present in choanoflagellates, and gene alignment sequences have shown that FAM227B is a rapidly evolving gene due to its evolution trajectory compared to cytochrome c and fibrinogen alpha.
Clinical significance
The location of FAM227B, 15q21.2, was found to be associated with oral cancer. The 15q21.2 locus is mentioned in other literature as well. FGF7 is a neighbour of FAM227B in the 15q21.2 locus (rs10519227), and encodes for the fibroblast growth factor, which is involved in processes such as embryonic development, cell growth, tissue repair, tumor growth, invasion, and morphogenesis. FGF works as a signal for thyroid gland development, and an SNP on intron 2 of FGF7 has been associated with thyroid growth/goiter growth. This association was only significant at the genome level in males. It was found that the abnormal goiter growth is likely due to variant signals that cause increased levels of TSH. FAM227B was found to be related to at least some of the 48 significant DMRs (differentially methylated regions) between HF (high fertile) and LF (low fertile) groups in the genome of spermatozoa from boar animal model. FAM227B was found to be upregulated in LOXL2 knockdown. Knocking down LOXL2 results in lower levels of H3K4ox, resulting in chromatin decompaction, thus continuing activation of DNA damage response. This results in anticancer agents being more effective against cancerous cell lines. FAM227B was found to be a genetic risk variant in breast cancer. FAM227B was differentially expressed in prostrate genes of Esr2 knockout rats compared to wildtype rats. Esr2 is involved in anti-proliferation and differentiation. FAM227B was part of 20 upregulated genes in chorionic girdle during trophoblast development in horses. Protein FAM227B was differentially expressed in cardiovascular disease. FAM227B was found to be a candidate causal gene for lung cancer. FAM227B has a predicted p53 binding site.
References
Protein biochemistry | FAM227B | [
"Chemistry",
"Biology"
] | 1,511 | [
"Biochemistry",
"Protein biochemistry",
"Molecular biology"
] |
67,929,777 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry%20of%20Belarus | Industry plays an important role in the economy of Belarus. In 2020, industry accounted for 25.5% of Belarusian GDP. Share of manufacturing (excluding mining, energy and water supply) in Belarusian GDP was 21.3% in 2019. United Nations Economic Commission for Europe described Belarus as having "a well-developed industrial sector and highly skilled workforce". In 2020, 23.5% of the Belarusian workforce was employed in industry. In 2019, total industrial production amounted to (c. US$54 billion); in 2020, it rose to (c. US$44–54 billion). Belarusian industry is export-oriented: in 2020, 61.2% of industrial output was exported. The most important sector is food industry (29.9% share in total manufacturing output). Other well-developed sectors of industry include chemical industry (oil refining, petrochemistry, manufacturing of fertilizers and other chemical goods), automotive industry and manufacturing of other machinery equipment.
Overview
Belarusian industry is generally state-owned. The government has stakes up to 100% in major industrial companies. In 2019, 2.1% of industrial organizations were directly owned by the state, employing 19% of industrial workers while producing 13.4% of industrial output. 3.1% of industrial organizations were formally private but with a state share (up to 100%), and employed 42.2% of workers in industry while producing 52.3% of industrial output. 88.8% of organizations active in industry were private without any state share (they employed 34.5% of workers in industry and produced 28.4% of industrial output), while 6% were foreign-owned enterprises (they employed 4.3% of workers in industry and produced 5.9% of industrial output). State-owned industrial facilities are subordinated to different government bodies depending on the sector of industry: Ministry of industry for machinery and transportation, Belneftekhim state concern for chemical industry, Bellesbumprom state concern for forest industry and furniture production, Bellegprom state concern for textile, clothing and shoe-making industry, Belgospischeprom state concern for food industry.
A few major companies make a huge contribution to the total industrial output. In 2019, the 10 largest manufacturing companies in Belarus accounted for 34.4% of total manufacturing output. Analogous share of the 50 biggest companies was 50.4%.
The Belarusian state jealously guards its capital; the entry of allies such as Russia into the protected realm has proved difficult if not impossible, because the government in Minsk charges exorbitant prices for controlling stakes.
Dominance of state-run major companies negatively affected small and medium business in industry. In 2019, medium, small and microorganizations employed 28.6% of the industrial workforce and produced 18.4% of industrial output. These organizations were most active in production of wood and paper products including printing (47.1% of output in this sector) and least active in food industry (13.9% of output in this sector), manufacturing of chemical products (13.2%) and petrochemistry (no companies).
Some industrial facilities were privatized in the 1990s, often by their workers. A number of factories (both financially successful and unsuccessful) were nationalized during the reign of Alexander Lukashenko, usually without compensation:
Pinskdrev woodworking and furniture holding (Pinsk)
Kommunarka confectionery plant (Minsk)
Motovelo bicycle and motorcycle factory (Minsk)
Baranovichidrev (Baranavichy)
Borisovdrev woodworking facility (Barysaw)
Spartak confectionery plant (Gomel)
Krasny pischevik confectionery plant ("Red food-maker"; Babruysk)
Luch shoe-making factory (Minsk)
Minsk bearing factory
Keramin ceramic tile factory (Minsk)
Brest carpet factory
Belsolod malt factory (Ivanava)
Orsha aircraft repair plant
Minskinterkaps pharmaceutical manufacturer
Total net profit (after taxes) in industry was in 2019, rising from in 2018.
Structure
In 2020, the share of manufacturing () in the total industrial output was 88.3%, the share of energy generation and supply was 8.9%, the share of water supply was 1.7%, and the share of mining industry was 1.1%.
National statistical committee Belstat uses OKED classification of industries for statistical purposes. In 2020, eight sectors had at least 5% share in manufacturing:
Food industry — 29.9%
Manufacturing of refined petroleum products — 13.1%
Chemicail industry — 9.1%
Manufacturing of plastic, rubber and other nonmetallic mineral products — 7.9%
Metallurgy and manufacturing of metal products (except transportation and equipment) — 7.3%
Manufacturing of machinery and equipment not included in other OKED groups — 7.1%
Manufacturing of wood and paper products — 5.8%
Manufacturing of vehicles and transportation equipment — 5.1%
Other national sources, including the Belarusian encyclopedia, use different Soviet-designed classification of industries (fuel industry, chemical & petrochemical industry, machine building & metalworking industry, etc.).
International sources use different classification of industries.
Food industry
Food industry (manufacturing of foodstuffs, drinks and tobacco products) is the biggest sector of Belarusian industry. In 2019, 1131 companies were active in the food industry, employing 138.2 thousand workers and generating of net profit (after taxes). Return on sales in food industry was 8.4% in 2019. In 2019, share of dairy products in the total production in food industry was 28.6%, meat products — 24.2%, animal feed — 12.4%, drinks — 8%, oils and fats — 4.4%, confectionery — 4.3%. The biggest companies in the sector are situated in central and western Belarus.
In 2020, Belarusian companies produced 1060.6 thousand tons of meat and edible by-products, 264.8 thousand tons of sausages, 2100 thousand tons of whole milk dairy products (in raw milk equivalent), 119.5 thousand tons of butter, 269.2 thousand tons of cheese, 69.5 thousand tons of chocolate and confectionery, 16.3 million decaliters of distilled beverages, 43 million decaliters of beer, 43.5 million decalters of soft drinks. In 2019, 638.9 thousand tons of sugar and 430.9 thousand tons of salt was produced.
4 major breweries produce nearly 90% of beer in Belarus: Krynica (Minsk, state-owned), Alivaria (Minsk, major stake owned by Carlsberg Group), Syabar-Heineken (Babruysk), Lidskae Piva (Lida, owned by Olvi). Four major breweries in Minsk (Alivaria), Babruysk, Lida and Rečyca were bought by multinational corporations in the 2000s and early 2010s. In the early 2000s, Krynica brewery in Minsk reached an agreement with Baltika Breweries to transfer its controlling stake ti Baltika in exchange of investments, but later exited the deal unilaterally.
Minsk Kristall is the largest distillery producing 4.81 million dal of vodka and similar beverages, or c. 34% of vodka consumption in Belarus. State-owned distilleries in Brest, Vitebsk, Gomel, Grodno, Klimavichy are other major market players producing more than 1 million dal of vodka and similar beverages. Several private distilleries are active in the sectors, the biggest is Akvadiv (Maladziečna district) co-owned by Vladimir Peftiev and Minsk Kristall.
It's estimated that Belarusian companies produce 2.4% of dairy products in the world. In 2019, Belarus exported US$2384.9 million of dairy products and eggs, US$926 million of meat and its products, US$575 million of vegetables and fruits, US$201.5 million of beverages.
In August 2023, Belarusian PM Roman Golovchenko introduced Agriculture Minister Sergei Bartosh, highlighting strategic priorities like crop optimization and dairy modernization, emphasizing the significance of the sector. The introduction occurred recently, with focus on addressing challenges and revitalizing struggling agricultural enterprises.
Cigarettes
According to Belarusian classification, manufacturing of cigarettes is a part of food industry. Grodno tobacco factory is the largest producer of cigarettes in the country. In 2019, Alexander Lukashenko gave his associate Aliaksei Aleksin an exclusive right to import tobacco products; Aleksin also started to construct new tobacco factory near Minsk. Cigarettes produced in Belarus are often smuggled to other countries due to low excise rates in Belarus.
Chemical industry
Belarus has several major Soviet-built chemical factories. Belarusian statistical agency Belstat currently distinguishes two sectors of chemical industry — "manufacturing of coke and refined petroleum products" and "manufacturing of chemical products". The core of oil processing sector are two plants: Naftan refinery in Novopolotsk and Mozyr refinery. The main subsector of manufacturing of chemical products is production of fertilizers (76.5% of output in manufacturing of chemical products in 2019), other notable subsectors are manufacturing of synthetic fibers (6.3%), household chemicals (5.1%), varnishes and paints (4.9%).
In 2020, Belarusian companies produced 3224.4 thousand tons of motor gasoline, 5825.6 thousand tons of diesel fuel, 8698 thousand tons of mineral and chemical fertilizers, 205.8 thousand tons of chemical fibers. In 2019, 17,853 thousand tons of crude oil was processed. Of 8553.4 thousand tons of fertilizers produced in 2019, 7348.2 thousand tons were potash fertilizers (Belaruskali), 988.2 thousand tons — nitrogen fertilizers (Grodno Azot), 217 thousand tons — phosphorus fertilizers (Gomel chemical plant). In 2019, Belarusian companies also produced 1100.8 thousand tons of ammonia, 1005.4 thousand tons of sulphuric acid and oleum, 741.4 thousand tons of polymers (in primary forms), 216.4 thousand tons of synthetic fibers, 68.8 thousand tons of detergents, 26.2 thousand tons of pesticides, 5.7 thousand tons of cosmetics for skin.
In 2019, 38 companies were active in petroleum refining sector with 13.1 thousand workers and 492 companies were active in manufacturing of chemical products with 48.1 thousand workers. Total industrial production in petroleum refining sector amounted to (c. US$7.8 billion), in chemistry proper — (c. US$4.8 billion).
The majority of big companies in the sector are operated by the government via Belneftekhim state enterprise subordinated to the Council of Ministers.
The biggest company is Belaruskali (100% state-owned) which is one of the largest potash producers in the world, its global market share is estimated at 16%. Other major factories are:
Naftan oil refinery in Novopolotsk (99.83% state-owned)
Mozyr Oil Refinery (42.77% state-owned, Russian Rosneft owns large share)
Belshina, tire factory in Babruysk (100% state-owned)
Grodno Azot, nitrogen fertilizers factory in Grodno (99.97% state-owned)
Mogilevkhimvolokno, synthetic fibers factory in MMogilev (90.45% state-owned)
Khimvolokno, synthetic fibers factory in Grodno (currently — branch of Grodno Azot)
SvietlahorskKhimvolokno, synthetic fibers factory in Svietlahorsk (100% state-owned)
Polimir, plastic producer in Novopolotsk (currently — branch of Naftan)
In 2012, Alexander Lukashenko transferred defunct factory of protein-vitamin concentrates used in animal husbandry () in Novopolotsk to Interservis company owned by his alleged associate Mikalai Varabei to construct third oil refinery. As of 2021, the refinery wasn't constructed.
In the late 2010s, a major reconstruction of Naftan oil refinery started. According to Belneftekhim's official site, over US$1 billion was invested in the reconstruction. As of June 2021, modernization of Naftan hasn't been completed, total amount of investments was estimated at US$1.6 billion.
Belarusian oil refineries are critically dependent from import of Russian oil via Druzhba pipeline. In 2020, plans to diversificate oil imports using Lithuanian and Ukrainian ports were voiced again. Oil disputes with Russia are a major political issue in bilaterial relations. Belarus uses several small oil deposits (c. 1.5-1.7 million tons are produced every year) but the crude oil is exported via Druzhba pipeline. Notable deposits of oil shale aren't used (as of 2021).
Belaruskali produces potash fertilizers using raw minerals (sylvinite and carnallite) from local mines in Polesian Lowland, Grodno Azot uses large amounts of imported natural gas to produce nitrogen fertilizers, Gomel chemical plant imports raw minerals to produce phosphorus fertilizers and other chemical substances.
Export of refined petroleum and chemical products are major part of Belarusian foreign trade. In 2019, Belarus exported US$6259.7 million of petroleum, its products and related materials (18.99% of overall exportl; in 2018, it exceeded US$8 billion) and US$3259 million of fertilizers (9.89% of exports).
Automotive industry and other machinery
Automotive industry in Belarus emerged in the 1940s when the Minsk Automobile Plant (MAZ) was built. In the 1950s, production of haul trucks was moved from MAZ to BelAZ factory in Zhodzina. In 1991, MZKT factory split off from MAZ. In 1992–1993, MAZ started to produce buses and Belkommunmash factory in Minsk started to produce trolleybuses. A number of factories producing automotive units are situated in Belarus (Baranavichy, Barysaw, Grodno, Minsk and other cities). The biggest manufacturers of agricultural equipment are Minsk Tractor Works (MTZ, Minsk) and Gomselmash (Gomel), other major factories are situated in Lida and Babruysk. Belarusian BelAZ heavy dump truck factory is estimated to be one of the biggest in the world.
The largest plants are 100% state-owned: MTZ, MAZ, MZKT, Gomselmash, BelAZ. Minsk city council has 99.45% share in Belkommunmash (BKM). State-owned factories in the sector are economically independent forming holding companies with minor factories. The sector is overseed by the Ministry of industry of Belarus. Controlling stake of Amkodor construction and forestry machinery manufacturer (former "Udarnik" factory in Minsk) is owned by Aliaksandr Shakutsin who was recognized as a person "who benefited most from the privatisation during Lukashenko's tenure as President" by the Council of the European Union.
In 2020, 39.5 thousand tractors (for agriculture and forestry), 2.5 thousand metal-processing machines, 9.1 thousand trucks and 1349 buses (excluding trolleybuses) were produced. In 2019, 1451 buses, 133 trolleybuses, 1062 special vehicles, 2464 cargo trailers and semi-trailers, 3428 motorcycles, 67.2 thousand bicycles, 62 passenger railroad cars (including multiple units and trams), 2946 cargo railroad cars were manufactured. Agricultural machines (including self-propelled vehicles) manufactured in 2019 included 640 combine harvesters (for cereals), 254 forage harvesters, 6270 agricultural trailers and semi-trailers.
Belarus has two assemblers of cars from SKD kits: BelGee (joint venture of Belarusian state-owned BelAZ and Chinese Geely) and Unison (private company using former Ford Union workshops). Number of cars produced:
Belarus has no specialised manufacturer of light commercial vehicles (LCVs), but MAZ tried to enter the market twice. In 2010, MAZ-181 and 182 (based on Chinese copies of Toyota HiAce H100) were presented. In 2019, MAZ presented MAZ-3650 LCV and MAZ-281 minibus which are SKD-assembled JAC Sunrise.
The sole manufacturer of combustion engines is Minsk Motor Works (MMZ) but it specializes on production of diesel engines for tractors and heavy trucks. MAZ got the majority of its engines from Yaroslavl Motor Plant in Russia and from European producers. In the late 2010s, a joint venture with Chinese Weichai Power was established to assemble engines for MAZ in Belarus. In 2019, 66.7 thousand engines were produced in Belarus.
Belarus has two producers of rolling stock (railway cars) in Mogilev and Asipovichy. Swiss manufacturer Stadler Rail established assembly factory in Fanipal near Minsk to produce passenger trains. Lida depot of Belarusian Railway made a major overhaul of ChME3 diesel electric locomotive giving it new name TME1. Belkommunmash produces trams.
Belarus has no established aerospace manufacturers, but during the Soviet era three aircraft repair plants were built in Belarus: No 558 in Baranavichy (repairs military aircraft; also produces UAVs), No 407 in Minsk (repairs civil aircraft), No 571 in Balbasavo near Orsha (repaired Tu-16 and Tu-22 bombers, recently changed its specialization to helicopters). Aircraft Repair Plant Avia407 relocated from Minsk-1 airport to the new Minsk National Airport in 2018, following the closure of Minsk-1.
Military industry
Belarus inherited the well-developed military industry from the Soviet era. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Belarus was the twentieth largest exporter of major arms in a 5-year period of 2014–2018; its main clients were Vietnam, Sudan and Myanmar. Russia is another key client for the MAZ and MZKT plants.
Metallurgy and manufacturing of metal products
Byelorussian Steel Works (BMZ) in Zhlobin (built in the 1980s by Austrian Voestalpine company) is the biggest factory in the sector in Belarus. Other significant factories are Mogilev ironworks and Rechytsa hardware plant. 1757 companies were active in metallurgy and manufacturing of metal products (except transportation and other machinery) in 2019, they employed 57.7 thousand workers and produced (c. US$3.7 billion) of industrial output. In the late 2010s, Austrian and German investors constructed Miory Steel (MMPZ) factory to produce rolled steel and tinplate in Miory and export much of its production.
State-owned factories in Zhlobin, Mogilev and Rechytsa are parts of Belarusian metallurgical holding company.
In 2019, Belarusian companies produced 2717.7 thousand tons of steel, 2502.8 of rolled steel, 227.2 thousand tons of steel pipes, 727 km of thermally insulated steel pipes, 392.7 thousand tons of cold drawn unalloyed steel wire, 89.2 thousand tons of steel cord.
Belarus has two notable iron ore deposits, but they aren't in use (as of 2021).
Belarusian metallurgy is export-oriented, the country was among top 10 in the world by export orientation of steel industry. In 2019, Belarus exported US$1222.8 million of iron and steel, US$939.9 million of general metal products (SITC section 69), US$206 million of non-ferrous metals.
Electrical appliances, communication products, electronics
Belarus has two major manufacturers of household appliances established in the Soviet Union — Horizont (originally a radio manufacturer later switched to production of TV sets and household appliances) and Atlant (former Minsk Refrigerator Works, later started to produce several other household appliances). Several lesser factories are operational: two Torgmash factories in Baranavichy and Grodno produce kitchen appliances (though their original specialization was appliances for catering), Brest radiotechnical plant produces electric stoves and heaters, Amkodor-BelVAR (former Minsk instrumentation factory) produces kitchen appliances and climate control appliances. A number of small private companies are also active in this sector of industry.
In 2019, Belarusian companies manufactured 815 thousand domestic refrigerators, 882 thousand microwave ovens, 392.9 thousand electric stoves, 168 thousand washing machines, 56 thousand electric meat grinders, 71 thousand electric juicers, 0.4 thousand electric irons.
Minsk electrotechnical plant (METZ named after V.I.Kozlov) manufactures electrical transformers and electrical panels, factories in Mogilev, Luninets and other cities produce electric motors for specific purposes, factories in Mazyr, Gomel, Vitebsk, Minsk and Shchuchyn produce cables. In 2019, 533.3 thousand transformers, 545.3 thousand electric motors, 78.7 thousand km of optical cables, 7952 tons of insulated winding wires were produced.
As of 2019, Belarus had two factories that produce accumulator batteries (1AK joint venture with Exide Technologies in Pinsk and Amkodor-Radian near Minsk). Third accumulator factory was built in Brest but it faced with ecological protests. In 2019, Belarusian companies manufactured 280 thousand accumulator batteries.
The only big producer of light bulbs is Brest electric lamp plant. It produces bulbs under own Belsvet brand and also under General Electric and Philips international brands. In 2019, 38 million bulbs (incandescent, discharge and other types of lamps/bulbs) were produced which was significantly less than 105 million bulbs in 2016.
Electronics and computers
Minsk was one of the centres of development and manufacturing of early Soviet computers. "Minsk" computers were manufactured mainly at Sergo Ordzhonikidze plant in Minsk (later — MPOVT; Minsk Production Group for Computing Machinery). In 1979, a printed circuit boards factory was commissioned at MPOVT. In the 1990s and 2000s, MPOVT switched to production of other production.
Integral factory in Minsk was built in the Soviet era to manufacture mid-level integrated circuits and consumer electronics. Several manufacturers of electronic products in other cities of Belarus are currently part of Integral holding company.
In 2019, 93 million diodes and transistors, and 1511 million integrated circuits were produced in Belarus.
Forest industry
Processing of timber logged in abundant Belarusian forests is a well-developed sector of Belarusian industry. State-controlled factories in this sector are managed by Bellesbumprom concern.
In 2007, the government started the modernization of 9 major wood processing factories. The total amount of investments exceeded US$1 billion. However, it led to financial degradation of the modernized factories. Lack of sales markets analysis and low technical level of some of the new equipment were named the main reasons of failed modernization in the sector. It was also reported that the modernization was imposed by the Bellesbumprom while the managers of several factories were against it. One of the main issues was a heavy (nearly two-fold) drop in particle boards and MDF prices. In 2016, these factories were united in a single state-owned holding company. In 2018, all nine modernized factories were unprofitable. In 2019, only three of the modernized factories were profitable but even they got heavy debts (Gomeldrev's debts exceeded its net profit for more than 200 times).
The biggest woodworking factory and wooden furniture producer is Pinskdrev in Pinsk. It was privatized in the 1990s but nationalized in 2011. 9 major modernized factories with a controlling stake owned by government are:
Ivatsevichidrev (Ivatsevichy, 97.89% state-owned, 997 workers in 2016)
Mostovdrev (Masty, 99.99% state-owned, 1527 workers in 2020)
Rechitsadrev (Rechytsa, 99.94% state-owned in 2020, 1186 workers in 2016)
Mogilevdrev (Mogilev)
Gomeldrev (Gomel)
Vitebskdrev (Vitebsk)
Borisovdrev (Barysaw)
FanDOK (Babruysk)
Mazyrski DOK (Mazyr)
Besides the modernization of state-owned wood processing factories, several new plants were built by foreign investors. Austrian Kronospan built factories in Smarhon and Mogilev, Lithuanian companies VMG and SBA built another factory in Mogilev, Polish, Estonian and Spanish companies also made investments in this sector.
The biggest plant in paper industry is a Svietlahorsk cellulose and cardboard plant (CKK). In the 2010s, the government took a US$654 million loan from China to expand Svietlahorsk CKK by constructing a bleached pulp facility. Due to several problems the amount of investments increased to US$1 billion and the commissioning was postponed. The modernization was criticized for financial and ecological issues. In 2019, the contract with Chinese contractor company was terminated. Ecologists claimed that the facility was built near the city despite a very dirty technology (using sulfur and chlorine) was chosen. Locals claim that strong bad smell (presumably caused by methanethiol) strarted to spread. In 2020, the new facility was under commissioning. In February 2021, the government introduced duties on import of some of the Svietlahorsk CKK production (presumably to help the company). In June 2021, Svietlahorsk CKK made an additional issue of shares which is considered to be an indirect state support.
Medium paper mills are located in Dobrush, Shklow, Slonim, Barysaw and Chashniki. There are two wallpaper factories in Minsk and Gomel. State-owned Dobruš paper mill "Hero of Labour" was modernized in the 2010s by constructing new cardboard facility with Chinese loan. In 2018, the contract with Chinese construction company was terminated. Originally it was planned to finish the construction in 2015, but it was postponed to 2017 and later to 2020. It was finally commissioned on 1 June 2021 but the factory had to take new loans to finish the commissioning. Total amount of investments in this project was estimated at US$350 million.
In 2019, Belarus exported US$728 million of wood products (excluding furniture), US$592 million of furniture, US$225 million of paper and paperboard and other products made of pulp. Belarus is also a notable exporter of raw timber (US$686 million in 2019).
Building materials
During Soviet era, Belarus had only two cement plants and imported significant part of cement for construction from other republics of the USSR. Construction of the new cement plant in Kastsyukovichy started in the 1980s and was finished in the 1990s. Cement plants in Krychaw and Kastsyukovichy are 100% state-owned. The plant in Vawkavysk District was partially privatized (50% as of 2002), but later share of the state was increased to 91%. In 2012 and 2013, new production facilities built with Chinese financial and technical support were launched, but they were later found excessive due to changed market. Increased energy prices and high cost of production complicated the financial situation of the factories. The government later provided massive financial aid to these factories to help them pay off their loans. It was also reported that the quality of Chinese cement-producing equipment was lower than expected. This modernization was criticized for not taking into account any possible market changes and not analyzing the competitiveness of production. Despite the existence of plans to export the surplus of cement, it became unprofitable because it was more expensive than the cement produced in Russia.
As of 2019, three cement factories got nearly US$900 million of government support. In 2019, Alexander Lukashenko decreed that Krychaw cement plant has to repay debts in 2038–2049, Belarusian cement plant in Kastsyukovichy — in 2028–2038, Krasnoselskstroymaterialy in Vawkavysk district — in 2030–2037. They also received land tax and property tax exemptions until 2049, 2038 and 2037 respectively. Despite this financial support, all three cement factories were unprofitable in 2019.
In 2014, cement production reached it peak — 5617 thousand tons. In 2020, cement production was 4736 thousand tons.
Mining
In Belarus, mining is considered as a part of industry, In 2019, 42 organizations were active. 58.1% of its production was crude oil (by Belorusneft). Belaruskali potash producer is considered as a part of chemical industry.
Foreign trade
Export of industrial goods amounted to US$31,991 million in 2018 and US$30,871 million in 2019. In 2015–2019, from 57% to 63% of industrial output was exported every year.
In 2021, National Statistical Committee of the Republic of Belarus stopped to publish reports about several aspects of foreign trade after EU, US, UK and other countries imposed sanctions on Belarus.
Belarusian export by sectors of manufacturing in 2019:
Refined petroleum products — US$5548 million
Chemical products (excluding refined petroleum products) — US$5052 million
Food industry — US$4963 million
Other machinery — US$2373 million
Basic metals and metal products — US$2295.7 million
Transport vehicles and equipment — US$1869 million
Rubber, plastics and other non-metallic products — US$1674.5 million
Products of wood and paper — US$1662 million
Textiles and clothes — US$1358 million
Electrical equipment — US$1030 million
Other sectors — less than US$1 billion in 2019
In 2019, according to Belstat, major destinations of Belarusian export of industrial production were Eastern Europe (US$19.8 billion), Northern Europe (US$4.16 billion), Western Europe (US$2.46 billion), Southern and Central Asia (US$1.78 billion). Three main countries where industrial goods were exported in 2019 were Russia (41.5%, US$13.7 billion), Ukraine (12.6%, US$4.1 billion) and the United Kingdom (7%, US$2.3 billion), three more countries imported slightly more than US$1 billion: Germany, Poland and Lithuania. Total export of industrial goods to the European Union amounted to US$7.8 billion in 2017, US$10.2 billion in 2018 and US$8.4 billion in 2019.
Based on Standard International Trade Classification, major groups of Belarusian industrial export in 2019 were:
Mineral fuels, lubricants and related materials — US$6821 million
Machinery and transport equipment — US$5436.5 million
Chemicals and related products (not included in other sections) — US$5225 million
Manufactured goods — US$5000 million
Food and live animals — US$4851 million
Crude materials, inedible, except fuels — US$1274 million
Miscellaneous manufactured articles — US$2346 million
Sanctions and circumvention
A number of state-owned Belarusian factories were sanctioned by the EU, USA, UK, Canada and other countries following 2006, 2010, 2012 and 2020 elections. In 2020 and 2021, the EU imposed sanctions on several organizations, including major industrial companies:
MAZ (automotive industry)
MZKT (automotive industry, defense)
BelAZ (automotive industry)
Agat-Electromechanical plant (defense)
140th repair plant (defense)
On 24 June 2021, the EU introduced the sectoral sanctions that affected petroleum and fertilizer production, tobacco industry, supply of dual-purpose equipment, and access to the EU financial markets by the Belarusian government.
In 2021, USA resumed sanctions on Belarusian chemical industry (previously suspended, but not cancelled):
Belneftekhim concern
Naftan (oil refinery)
Belshina (tire plant)
Grodno Azot (fertilizer plant)
Grodno Khimvolokno (synthetic fiber plant)
Lakokraska (chemical paints plant)
Polotsk-Steklovolokno (fiberglass plant)
USA also imposed sanctions on Grodno tobacco factory together with several non-industrial companies.
In 2020—2021, Belarusian authorities made different efforts to circumvent the international sanctions. They also hid the statistics to prevent revealing the ways used to circumvent them and track their effects. In particular, access to data regarding production and exports of the sanctioned goods became restricted to public. In October 2021, Belstat started to hide data regarding exports of tractors and trucks. Overall classified exports in January-August 2021 is estimated at USD 8.2 billion. In September 2021, Alexander Lukashenko mentioned minister of industry and vice prime minister as the people who organized the circumvention of sanctions. He also accused several workers of state factories of gathering information about the ways used to circumvent the sanctions, and he threatened them with imprisonment. 13 workers from Grodno Azot fertilizer factory, Naftan oil refinery, BMZ steel mill and Belarusian Railway were arrested by the Belarusian KGB in a possible connection with this statement. It was reported that some of them were accused of state treason. At least two of them were later released.
In June 2021, Belorusneft was removed from subordination of Belneftekhim. This move was believed to be connected with the sanctions.
See also
China–Belarus Industrial Park
References
Comments
External links
Industry: general statistical information by Belstat national statistical bureau
About Belarus, export.by
Belarusian Economy, development.by
Metallurgical industry of Belarus | Industry of Belarus | [
"Chemistry"
] | 7,041 | [
"Metallurgical industry of Belarus",
"Metallurgical industry by country"
] |
67,930,430 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icenticaftor | Icenticaftor (development code QBW251) is a drug candidate for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and cystic fibrosis. The drug is being developed by Novartis.
Like ivacaftor (which is marketed as Kalydeco), icenticaftor functions by acting as a stimulator of the protein cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR).
References
Experimental drugs
Drugs acting on the respiratory system
Pyridines
Trifluoromethyl compounds
Amides
Methoxy compounds
Tertiary alcohols | Icenticaftor | [
"Chemistry"
] | 129 | [
"Amides",
"Functional groups"
] |
67,931,212 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rovafovir%20etalafenamide | Rovafovir etalafenamide (development code GS-9131) is an experimental drug for the treatment of HIV-1 infection. Rovafovir etalafenamide is a nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitor and prodrug of GS-9148. Rovafovir etalafenamide itself has no antiviral activity, but once consumed it is metabolized through the hydrolysis of the phosphonoamidate group to generate the antiviral compound GS-9148.
The drug is being developed by Gilead Sciences.
Rovafovir etalafenamide shows antiviral activity against viruses containing major mutations associated with resistance to the nucleoside analog reverse-transcriptase inhibitors which are commonly used to treat HIV/AIDS infection.
The methods by which the drug is synthesized has been published.
References
Reverse transcriptase inhibitors
Experimental antiviral drugs
Purines
Dihydrofurans
Ethyl esters
Phosphonate esters | Rovafovir etalafenamide | [
"Chemistry"
] | 205 | [
"Pharmacology",
"Pharmacology stubs",
"Medicinal chemistry stubs"
] |
67,934,706 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20Science%20and%20Technology%20%28journal%29 | History of Science and Technology is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal covering the history of science and technology. It is published by State University of Infrastructure and Technologies (Ukraine) and was established in 2011.
Abstracting and indexing
The journal is abstracted and indexed in Scopus and the Emerging Sources Citation Index.
References
Academic journals established in 2011
History of science and technology
History of science journals | History of Science and Technology (journal) | [
"Technology"
] | 81 | [
"History of science and technology"
] |
67,935,354 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4-Methylphenmetrazine | 4-Methylphenmetrazine (mephenmetrazine, 4-MPM, PAL-747) is a recreational designer drug with stimulant effects. It is a substituted phenylmorpholine derivative, closely related to better known drugs such as phenmetrazine and 3-fluorophenmetrazine. It was first identified in Slovenia in 2015, and has been shown to act as a monoamine releaser with some preference for serotonin release.
See also
4,4'-DMAR
4-Methylamphetamine
4-Methylmethylphenidate
G-130
Mephedrone
RTI-32
Phendimetrazine
PDM-35
References
Beta-Hydroxyamphetamines
Designer drugs
Phenylmorpholines
Serotonin-norepinephrine-dopamine releasing agents
4-Tolyl compounds | 4-Methylphenmetrazine | [
"Chemistry"
] | 188 | [
"Pharmacology",
"Pharmacology stubs",
"Medicinal chemistry stubs"
] |
67,937,182 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demining%20robot | A demining robot is a robotic land vehicle that is designed for detecting the exact location of land mines and clearing them. Demining by conventional methods can be costly and dangerous for people. Environments that are dull or dirty, or otherwise dangerous to humans, may be well-suited for the use of demining robots.
Models
Uran-6
Uran-6 is a demining robot model used by Russian Federation in Syria and Ukraine. The Uran-6 is a short-range and remotely piloted robot. Limitations of this robot include the need for human operators to be within a few hundred feet.
MV-4 Dok-Ing
MV-4 Dok-Ing is a demining robot model used by Republic of Croatia.
See also
Lawnmower robot
Vacuum cleaner robot
References
Bomb disposal
Military robots
Mine warfare | Demining robot | [
"Chemistry",
"Engineering"
] | 164 | [
"Military engineering",
"Explosion protection",
"Bomb disposal",
"Mine warfare"
] |
67,938,919 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bimaximal%20mixing | Bimaximal mixing refers to a proposed form of the lepton mixing matrix. It is characterized by the neutrino being a bimaximal mixture of and and being completely decoupled from the , i.e. a uniform mixture of and . The is consequently a uniform mixture of and . Other notable properties are the symmetries between the and flavours and and mass eigenstates and an absence of CP violation. The moduli squared of the matrix elements have to be:
.
According to PDG convention, bimaximal mixing corresponds to and , which produces following matrix:
.
Alternatively, and can be used, which corresponds to:
.
Phenomenology
The L/E flatness of the electron-like event ratio at Super-Kamiokande severely restricts the CP-conserving neutrino mixing matrices
to the form:
Bimaximal mixing corresponds to . Tribimaximal mixing and golden-ratio mixing also correspond to an angle in the above parametrization. Bimaximal mixing, along with these other mixing schemes, have been falsified by a non-zero .
See also
Trimaximal mixing
Tribimaximal mixing
Neutrino oscillation
Double Chooz
References
Leptons
Standard Model
Neutrinos | Bimaximal mixing | [
"Physics"
] | 266 | [
"Standard Model",
"Particle physics"
] |
63,634,457 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper%E2%80%93Rayleigh%20scattering | Hyper–Rayleigh scattering optical activity ( ), a form of chiroptical harmonic scattering, is a nonlinear optical physical effect whereby chiral scatterers (such as nanoparticles or molecules) convert light (or other electromagnetic radiation) to higher frequencies via harmonic generation processes, in a way that the intensity of generated light depends on the chirality of the scatterers. "Hyper–Rayleigh scattering" is a nonlinear optical counterpart to Rayleigh scattering. "Optical activity" refers to any changes in light properties (such as intensity or polarization) that are due to chirality.
History
The effect was theoretically predicted in 1979, in a mathematical description of hyper Raman scattering optical activity. Within this theoretical model, upon setting the initial and final frequencies of light to the same value, the mathematics describe the hyper Rayleigh scattering optical activity. The theory was well in advance of its time, and the effect remained elusive for 40 years. Its author David L. Andrews referred to it as the "impossible theory". However, in January 2019, an experimental demonstration was reported by Ventsislav K. Valev and his team. The team investigated the hyper Rayleigh scattering (at the second harmonic generation frequency) from chiral nanohelices made of silver. Valev and his team observed that the intensity of the hyper Rayleigh scattering light depended on the direction of circularly polarized light and that this dependence reversed with the chirality of the nanohelices. Valev's work unambiguously established that the effect is physically possible, opening the way for nonlinear chiroptical investigations of a variety of chiral light-scattering materials; including molecules, plasmonic metal nanoparticles and semiconductor nanoparticles.
Significance
Hyper Rayleigh scattering optical activity (HRS OA) is arguably the most fundamental nonlinear chiral optical (chiroptical) effect; since other nonlinear chiroptical effects have additional requirements, which make them conceptually more involved, i.e. less fundamental. HRS OA is a scattering effect and therefore it does not require the frequency conversion process to be coherent, contrary to other nonlinear chiroptical effects, such as second harmonic generation circular dichroism or second harmonic generation optical rotation. Moreover, HRS OA is a parametric process: the initial and final quantum mechanical states of the excited electron are the same. Because the excitation proceeds via virtual states, there is no restriction on the frequency of incident light. By contrast, other nonlinear scattering effects, such as two-photon circular dichroism and hyper-Raman are non-parametric: they require real energy states that restrict the frequencies at which these effects can be observed.
In molecules
Soon after the first demonstration of hyper Rayleigh scattering optical activity in metal nanoparticles, the effect was replicated in organic molecules, specifically aromatic oligoamide foldamers.
At the third harmonic
Whereas the initial experimental demonstration of hyper-Rayleigh scattering optical activity was observed at the second harmonic of the illumination frequency of light, the effect is general and can be observed at higher harmonics. The first demonstration of hyper-Rayleigh scattering optical activity at the third harmonic was reported by Valev's team in 2021, from silver nanohelices.
See also
Linear dichroism
Magnetic circular dichroism
Optical activity
Optical isomerism
Optical rotation
Optical rotatory dispersion
Protein circular dichroism data bank
Raman optical activity (ROA)
Two-photon circular dichroism
Vibrational circular dichroism
References
External links
New physical effect demonstrated by University of Bath scientists after a 40 year search, official press release by the University of Bath.
Bath University has something to twist and shout about after 40-year search, by the EPSRC.
Hyper-Rayleigh scattering, published in the scientific journal Nature Photonics.
Nonlinear optics
Scattering, absorption and radiative transfer (optics)
Chirality | Hyper–Rayleigh scattering | [
"Physics",
"Chemistry",
"Biology"
] | 804 | [
"Pharmacology",
" absorption and radiative transfer (optics)",
"Origin of life",
"Stereochemistry",
"Chirality",
"Scattering",
"Asymmetry",
"Biochemistry",
"Symmetry",
"Biological hypotheses"
] |
63,634,544 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony%20Etherin | Anthony Etherin (born 2 September 1981) is a British experimental formal poet and publisher for the imprint Penteract Press. He is known for his use of strict, often combinatorial, literary restrictions, most notably palindromes, anagrams, and aelindromes, a restriction of his own invention. He also composes constraint-based music, and hosted The Penteract Podcast.
Etherin seeks to promote literary constraints as poetic tools rather than just word games, and sees constraints as part of the same tradition as fixed poetry forms, saying that palindromes “possess innate poetic value, in the elegance of their abstract symmetry.”
Work
Twitter
Etherin is known for his prolific use of Twitter, where he posts poems daily. These poems include award-winning palindromes, anagrammed lines poems, and minimalist sonnets composed in iambic monometer and dimeter. He has occasionally tweets triolets, a form for which has expressed a particular fondness.
In August 2018, a palindrome of Etherin's went viral, following a retweet from children's author JK Rowling. The tweet was a rare topical palindrome by Etherin, addressing rumours that actor Idris Elba would be the next James Bond (‘Able Sir, did nobody fit recognise it ties in? Go, certify—do Bond, Idris Elba!’). More typically, Etherin's palindromes avoid proper names and cultural references (‘I sat, solemn. I saw time open one poem. It was in me, lost as I.’).
Penteract Press
Etherin founded Penteract Press in July 2016, as a venue for experimental formal poetry, particularly constraint-based and visual poetry. Initially operating as a leaflet micro-press, by 2018 Penteract Press was producing full-length poetry books and chapbooks. Penteract Press has published work by such international avant-garde poets as Christian Bök, Gary Barwin, Nick Montfort, Steven J Fowler, Gregory Betts, derek beaulieu, rob mclennan, and Samuel Andreyev.
In April 2019, Penteract Press was invited by Gregory Betts to host a roundtable discussion on the subject of micro-press publishing at the conference TEXT/SOUND/PERFORMANCE: Making in Canadian Space held at University College Dublin.
In 2020, Etherin started hosting The Penteract Poetry Podcast, a series of interviews with poets and poetry publishers.
Stray Arts
In October 2019, Etherin published his book Stray Arts (and Other Inventions) through Penteract Press. Ten years in the making, the book is a collection of Etherin's most adventurous and extreme experiments in constraint-based formalism, presenting anagrams and palindromes in combination with traditional forms such as sonnets, sestinas, triolets, and ottava rima. Stray Arts also features experiments in visual poetry and a number of the smaller poems featured on his Twitter account.
The book received blurbs from poets Christian Bök and Ian McMillan, as well as magician Penn Jillette, who had previously referred to Etherin's poem-pair The White Whale as a ‘perfect work of art’. (The White Whale consists of two palindromes (one palindromic by pairs of letters) that are perfect anagrams of each other and which both discuss Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick). T. S. Eliot Prize winner George Szirtes said of Stray Arts''' poems: "They don't really belong in the realms of concrete poetry or of DADA. They are clearly moving towards coherence, as if each poem were the work of a dozen spiders constructing one complex web for the light to catch."
Slate Petals
In July 2021, Penteract Press published Slate Petals (and Other Wordscapes), Etherin's follow-up to 2019's Stray Arts. Applying the methods of its prequel to pastoral subject matter, Slate Petals explores the use of strict constraints to compose traditional lyrical poetry.Slate Petals received blurbs from Anthony Horowitz, George Szirtes, and Christian Bök and was launched online via The Penteract Podcast, owing to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Praising the book, magician Penn Jillette read excerpts from Slate Petals on his podcast, while poet and broadcaster Ian McMillan wrote of it, "Anthony Etherin is the true king of the jewels to be found in restricted language and I’ve really been enjoying his brilliant new collection… Anthony mines language to come up with things that are breathtaking and almost beyond meaning."
The Robots of Babylon
In October 2023, Penteract Press published The Robots of Babylon, Etherin's third full-length collection. Inspired by twentieth-century pulp fiction tropes, The Robots of Babylon presents several new literary constraints, including the slice and aelindivider. It also features Etherin’s first published works of alliterative verse. The book received blurbs from Jane Espenson and David Astle.
Knit Ink
An omnibus edition of Etherin’s work, Knit Ink (and Other Poems)'' was published by Deep Vellum in late 2024.
Aelindromes
Probably Etherin's biggest stylistic innovation is the aelindrome, a constraint that divides letters up according to numerical sequences. Etherin invented the restriction in 2012, after he saw the potential of composing palindromes by pairs of letters (the earliest palindrome-by-pairs was a tribute to Albert Einstein, ‘Intense ion, Einstein!’). They have been described as an "even more fiendish" constraint than palindromes and anagrams.
An aelindrome divides its letters by varying the number of letters by which it is a palindrome. For example, the line ‘melody, a bloody elm’ is aelindromic in 1-2-3-4, because the letter units are cut up as follows: 1(m) — 2(el) — 3(ody) — 4(ablo) before being reversed around their pivot. Etherin describes the Aelindrome thusly: “In an aelindrome, the unit is changing constantly according to a premeditated numerical palindrome.” Etherin's book Stray Arts includes aelindromes that use the first twenty digits of famous irrational numbers, such as pi, Euler's Number, and the golden ratio.
Books and chapbooks
Cellar (Penteract Press, 2018) ISBN: 9781999870201
Danse Macabre (above/ground press, 2018)
Quartets (Penteract Press, 2019)
Otherworld (no press, 2019)
Stray Arts (and Other Inventions) (Penteract Press, 2019) ISBN: 9781999870263
Thaumaturgy (above/ground press, 2020)
The Utu Sonnets (Penteract Press, 2021) ISBN: 9781913421137
Slate Petals (and Other Wordscapes) (Penteract Press, 2021) ISBN: 9781913421106
The Noson Sonnets (Penteract Press, 2022) ISBN: 9781913421212
The Robots of Babylon (Penteract Press, 2023) ISBN: 9781913421434
Knit Ink (and Other Poems) (Deep Vellum, 2024) ISBN: 9781646053452
References
External links
Etherin's Twitter Profile
Etherin's work on Wordpress
PenteractPress
The Penteract Podcast
21st-century British poets
Palindromists
Constrained writing
1981 births
Living people
British male poets | Anthony Etherin | [
"Physics"
] | 1,610 | [
"Palindromists",
"Symmetry",
"Palindromes"
] |
63,636,406 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UGC%208837 | UGC 8837 (also known as Holmberg IV) is a dwarf galaxy located in the constellation of Ursa Major, 24 million light years away from Earth. It is a member of the M101 Group, a group containing several galaxies orbiting the largest, the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101).
It is possible UGC 8837 is one of the galaxies that interacted with the Pinwheel Galaxy and, together with NGC 5474 and NGC 5477, initiated a burst of star formation.
See also
M101 Group, a group which UGC 8837 belongs
Pinwheel Galaxy, the central and largest galaxy in M101 group
References
External links
8837
Ursa Major
Irregular galaxies
M101 Group | UGC 8837 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 144 | [
"Ursa Major",
"Constellations"
] |
63,636,485 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlueTrace | BlueTrace is an open-source application protocol that facilitates digital contact tracing of users to stem the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially developed by the Singaporean Government, BlueTrace powers the contact tracing for the TraceTogether app. Australia and the United Arab Emirates have already adopted the protocol in their gov apps, and other countries were considering BlueTrace for adoption. A principle of the protocol is the preservation of privacy and health authority co-operation.
Overview
Preservation of user privacy was one of the core considerations around which BlueTrace was designed. To achieve this, personal information is collected only once at the point of registration and is only used to contact potentially infected patients. Additionally, users can opt-out at any time, clearing all personal information and rendering any recorded data untraceable. Contact tracing is done entirely locally on a client device using Bluetooth Low Energy, storing all encounters in a contact history log chronicling encounters for the past 21 days. Users in the contact log are identified using anonymous time-shifting "temporary IDs" issued by the health authority. This means a user's identity cannot be ascertained by anyone except the health authority with which they are registered. Additionally, since temporary IDs change on a regular basis, malicious third parties cannot track users by observing log entries over time.
Once a user tests positive for infection, the health authority requests the contact log. If the user chooses to share their log, it is sent to the health authority where they match the temporary ID with contact information. Health authorities are not able to access log entries about foreign users, so those entries are sent to the appropriate foreign health authority to be processed there. Once a log has been processed, the health authority contacts the user identified by the record.
Technical specification
The protocol is focused on two areas: locally logging registered users in the vicinity of a device and the transmission of the log to the operating health authority, all while preserving privacy. To achieve this, the protocol can be divided into the areas of device to device communication (DDC), and device to reporting server communication (DRSC).
The DDC component operates on top of the existing Bluetooth Low Energy protocol, defining how two devices acknowledge each other's presence. The DRSC component uses HTTPS to communicate a timeline of visits to a centralized server owned by a health authority once a user has tested positive for an infection. The health authority can then, using the log, notify the users who came in contact with the infected patient.
Device to reporting server communication protocol
Each app implementing the BlueTrace protocol has a corresponding central reporting server operated by a health authority. The reporting server is responsible for handling initial registration, provisioning unique user identifiers, and collecting contact logs created by the DDC part of the protocol. When the user first launches a BlueTrace app, they will be asked for their internationally formatted phone number and are assigned a static UserID. This phone number is later used if the user has registered an encounter in an infected patient's contact log.
Once registered, users are provisioned Temporary IDs (TempID) uniquely identifying them to other devices. Each TempID has a lifetime of 15 minutes to prevent malicious parties from performing replay attacks or tracking users over time with static unique identifiers. TempIDs are generated from a user's UserID, the TempID start time, and the TempID expiry time, which is encrypted and turned into a Base64 encoded string by the server using a secret symmetric encryption key. To ensure devices have a constant supply of TempIDs, even in an unstable network environment, TempIDs are transmitted to devices in forward dated batches. The composition of a TempID is shown below:
Once a user has been tested positive for infection, the health authority generates a PIN authenticating the user to upload their contact log to the reporting server. As part of the log, metadata about each encounter is included; the most important of which being the timestamp and health authority identifier (HAI).
The HAI identifies to which health authority the logged contact reports. If the HAI represents a foreign health authority the log entry is transmitted to the identified authority to be processed there.
Once a health authority has filtered log entries to only include home clients, they decrypt the TempID to reveal the UserID, start time, and expiry time. The start and expiry date are compared with the encounter timestamp to ensure validity, and the UserID is matched to a phone number. The health authority can then contact the phone number to inform a user of potential contact with an infected patient.
Device to device communication protocol
The DDC part of the protocol defines how two devices communicate and log their contact. Each device is in one of two states, Central or Peripheral, on a duty cycle of around 1:4, respectively.
In Peripheral mode, a device advertises its presence, and in Central mode, it scans for advertising devices. Additionally, certain devices are incapable of operating in Central mode and thus operate purely in Peripheral mode. Once two devices have discovered each other, they communicate a characteristic packet containing information about themselves. The packet is formed as a JSON file, containing the device's TempID, device model, HAI, and BlueTrace protocol version.
When operating in Central mode, the device additionally sends the strength of the signal, allowing the approximate distance between the two devices to be calculated later. Below is an example Central characteristic packet:
{
"id": "FmFISm9nq3PgpLdxxYpTx5tF3ML3Va1wqqgY9DGDz1utPbw+Iz8tqAdpbxR1 nSvr+ILXPG==", // TempID
"md": "iPhone X", // Device model
"rc": -60, // Signal strength
"o": "IJ_HAI", // Health authority identifier
"v": 2 // Protocol version
}
These characteristics are then added to a local database on the device where they are stored for 21 days and can be sent to the reporting server later. The contacted device is also added to a local blacklist for two duty cycles in order to stop two devices repeatedly contacting each other, saving power and storage.
Health authority cooperation
The cooperation between separate health authorities is a core component of the BlueTrace protocol, and it is designed such that multiple authorities can work together without revealing personal information to foreign authorities with which a user is not registered. Since each authority maintains its separate encryption key and user records, a health authority can't decrypt and see a foreign user's data.
To ensure log entries are sent to the correct authority, part of the DDC handshake contains a health authority identifier (HAI), a unique string assigned to registered health authorities. Once a foreign health authority's log entry is identified, the receiving health authority transmits the log entry to the foreign authority's reporting server where it is verified, and a static PseudoID is returned.
The PseudoID is a salted cryptographic hash of the UserID, designed to allow foreign health authorities to perform statistical analysis on contact logs and communicate about a specific user without revealing unnecessary personal information. Once the PseudoID is assessed to have been in close contact with the infected patient, the foreign health authority that issued the PseudoID is informed and can follow up as necessary.
Withdrawal of consent
The ability of users to withdraw consent to the use and collection of their data at any time was an important consideration in the design of the protocol. To allow this, personally identifiable information is excluded from the DDC component of the protocol. This means the only place personal information is stored is on the reporting server, where it is associated with an anonymous static UserID. This UserID (encrypted in a TempID) is what is used for identification in the DDC part of the protocol. If a user withdraws consent, the user record is deleted from the reporting server, meaning UserIDs obtained through contact logs can no longer be matched to a phone number.
Controversy
One of the largest privacy concerns raised about protocols such as BlueTrace or PEPP-PT is the usage of centralised report processing. In a centralised report processing protocol, a user must upload their entire contact log to a health authority administered server, where the health authority is then responsible for matching the log entries to contact details, ascertaining potential contact, and ultimately warning users of potential contact.
Alternatively, decentralised report processing protocols, while still having a central reporting server, delegate the responsibility to process logs to clients on the network. Protocols using this approach, such as TCN and DP-3T, have the client upload a number from which encounter tokens can be derived by individual devices. Clients then check these tokens against their local contact logs to determine if they have come in contact with an infected patient. Inherent in the fact the protocol never allows the government access to contact logs, this approach has major privacy benefits. However, this method also presents some issues, primarily the lack of human in the loop reporting, leading to a higher occurrence of false positives; and potential scale issues, as some devices might become overwhelmed with a large number of reports. Decentralised reporting protocols are also less mature than their centralised counterparts.
OpenTrace
OpenTrace is the open-source reference implementation of BlueTrace released under the GPL-3.0 license. The DRSC side of the protocol is implemented using the Firebase platform, using Firebase functions, a serverless computing framework, for all client calls; and Firebase Secret Manager and Storage for storing the encryption key and contact logs respectively. For the app/DDC side of the protocol, a modified version of the TraceTogether app for Android and iOS devices is included.
COVIDSafe
COVIDSafe is a digital contact tracing app announced by the Federal Australian Government based on OpenTrace/BlueTrace, announced on 14 April 2020 to help combat the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. On 26 April 2020, the Australian federal government publicly released the first version of the app. Within the first 24 hours after release, over 1 million people downloaded the app, and within 48 hours, over 2 million. By the second week, over 4 million users had registered. Accompanying the release, Peter Dutton, the Minister for Home Affairs, announced new legislation that would make it illegal to force anyone to hand over data from the app, even if they had registered and tested positive. The app source code was also released on 8 May 2020, after delays until a review by the Australian Signals Directorate had been completed.
See also
TraceTogether
TCN Protocol
Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing
(Google/Apple) Exposure Notification (GAEN)
References
External links
White paper
OpenTrace GitHub
BlueTrace homepage
Government software
Application layer protocols
Software associated with the COVID-19 pandemic
2020 software
Software using the GNU General Public License
Android (operating system) software
IOS software
Bluetooth software
Medical software
Digital contact tracing protocols
Digital contact tracing protocols with centralized reporting | BlueTrace | [
"Biology"
] | 2,309 | [
"Medical software",
"Medical technology"
] |
63,636,501 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UGC%209405 | UGC 9405 (also known as PGC 52142) is a faint dwarf irregular galaxy situated in the constellation of Ursa Major. It is about 20.5 million light-years, or 6.3 megaparsecs, away from the Earth. It is listed as a member of the M101 Group, a group containing the several galaxies orbiting the largest, Pinwheel Galaxy (M101). However, due to its far distance from the Pinwheel Galaxy, its membership of the group is uncertain.
References
9405
Irregular galaxies
Ursa Major
M101 Group | UGC 9405 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 119 | [
"Ursa Major",
"Constellations"
] |
63,639,704 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specula%20Melitensis%20Encyclica | Specula Melitensis Encyclica (“The Maltese Watchtower”) is a 1638 book by Fra Salvatore Imbroll, describing a machine invented by a Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher. It was printed in Naples by Secundino Roncagliolo and dedicated to Giovanni Paolo Lascaris, Grand Master of the Knights of Malta.
The book describes a machine that Kircher had devised while on a trip to Malta as the confessor of Friedrich of Hesse-Darmstadt. The machine was a combination mechanical calculator and a reference of contemporary scientific knowledge related primarily to astronomy, astrology, and medicine. The author of the document, Fra Salvatore Imbroll, seemed to have completed the project begun by Kircher.
Kircher's work in 1638 predates that of Blaise Pascal, but comes after the mechanical calculators devised by John Napier and Wilhelm Schickard.
Title
The full title reads
Specula Melitensis Encyclica, that is, a Syntagma of new Physico-Mathematical Instruments, in which anything pertaining to either Astronomy, or Physics, or disciplines related to them, by a new order and method, with utmost facility and brevity via wheels and dials artfully disposed, is seen orderly arranged.
The Latin word specula means a watchtower. The similarity of the words specula and speculum ("mirror") has led to the common mistranslation of the title as The Maltese Mirror or a variation of that. The intended meaning is explained in the first paragraph of the book:
This machine of ours is called Specula Melitensis both because of the similarity of its shape and form to that of a watchtower, and because, as from any watchtower, all in the circumference of the Horizon, being exposed far and wide, is revealed to an encounter, likewise as from this Specula, quicker than word, anything pertaining to Astronomy, Geography, Hydrography, Physics, and Medicine is revealed to the eye.
Book content
The book opens with a dedication to Johannes (Giovanni) Paulus Lascaris, and a credit to the machine's creator, "the most erudite" Athanasius Kircher. It lauds the machine as the greatest of all the machines and instruments Kircher had invented. The introduction is dated January 6, 1638.
The work proper begins with a five-page Synopsis of That, Which in this Machine, or Syntagma, is Contained. The Synopsis gives a description of the machine's overall appearance and organization, its primary parts of interest being the Cube and the Pyramid.
The synopsis is followed by the Usage section, which makes up the bulk of the work. The section consists of 125 Propositions organized in six sections, one for each side of the Cube and one for the Pyramid. Each Proposition explains a specific use of the machine.
Description of the machine
The book does not include any illustrations or schematics. The machine is described as consisting of three principal parts: the Circle, the Cube, and the Pyramid.
The Circle forms the base, and features a representation of the immobile Horizon, and the information on the winds and the art of navigation.
The Cube is the middle part, with five of its sides (excluding the bottom) each dedicated to a specific Mathematical or "Physico-Logical" discipline as follows.
The first side, The Universal Chronoscope, contains eight wheels displaying Julian and Gregorian calendars.
The second side, The Cosmographical Mirror, includes a Horoscopium (not to be confused with a horoscope) which, given the current time in Malta, displays the time in any part of the world, and two planispheres showing the movement of the Primum Mobile and the eight spheres and the fixed stars, as well as the tides in all parts of the world.
The third side has in its middle a large wheel displaying the sunrise and sunset times, the sun's declination, star culminations, and other astronomical data by year, month, and day. The large wheel is surrounded by three additional wheels, and four more smaller wheels are arranged in the corners of that side of the Cube. The three wheels display Moon phases and astrological signs with their application to matters of agriculture, medicine and navigation, and physiognomical information. The four smaller wheels in the corners provide predictions based on planetary conjunctions.
The fourth side presents "the entire Medicine—Botanical, Chemical, Spagyrical, Hermetic, and Sympathetic". It features four wheels. The first wheel contains information on the "simple and compound" medications of both mineral and animal origin. The second and the third wheels offer guidance in disease diagnostics. The fourth wheel, titled The Cabalistic Mirror, indicates which body part accommodates which medicine, and suggests the appropriate times for phlebotomy and the application of medicines.
The fifth side, which is the horizontal upper side of the Cube, shows the movement of the Sun, Moon, the planets, Caput and Cauda Draconis, and Zodiacal constellations, as well as their position at any given time.
The Pyramid consists of four parts corresponding to the four parts of the world, and describes the nature and languages of those parts.
In fiction
Specula Melitensis features prominently in Umberto Eco's novel The Island of the Day Before. The description of the machine in the novel borrows liberally from Imbroll's book, however Kircher is not identified as the inventor. Instead, one of the characters, a Jesuit Father Caspar, finds a description of the machine in papers of his deceased brother, who in turn had learned about it from another brother who had traveled to Malta. The description is very brief and lacks any schematics or specifics, just like Imbroll's book. Father Caspar manages to construct a working machine from his understanding of the description.
Importantly for the plot, in the novel the third side of the Cube contains a Horologium Catholicum (not found in the original), which shows the local time at any Jesuit mission in the world. The Horologium makes it possible to determine the longitude of the current location.
External links
A digital copy of Specula Melitensis Encyclica
References
1638 in science
1638 works
Calculators
Athanasius Kircher | Specula Melitensis Encyclica | [
"Mathematics"
] | 1,318 | [
"Calculators"
] |
63,640,195 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD%20156279 | HD 156279 is a star with a pair of orbiting exoplanets located in the northern constellation of Draco. It has various alternate designations, including HIP 84171 and BD+63 1335. Parallax measurements yield a distance of 118 light years from the Sun, but it is drifting closer with a radial velocity of −20 km/s. Despite an absolute magnitude of 5.25, at that distance the star is too faint to be visible to the naked eye with an apparent visual magnitude of 8.17. It is presumed to be a single star, as in 2019 all imaging surveys have failed to find any stellar companions.
The spectrum of HD 156279 has a stellar classification of G6 or K0, depending on the study. Hence it presents as an ordinary main sequence star of the late G-type or early K-type. The star has 93% of the mass of the Sun and 94% of the Sun's radius. HD 156279 is roughly seven billion years old and is spinning with a projected rotational velocity of 2.5 km/s. Based on the abundance of iron, this star is slightly enriched in heavy elements, having 140% of the solar abundance. It is radiating 70% of the luminosity of the Sun from its photosphere at an effective temperature of 5,449 K.
Planetary system
Orbiting HD 156279 are two superjovian planets, the inner HD 156279 b (discovered in 2011) and outer HD 156279 c (discovered in 2016). In 2022, the inclination and true mass of HD 156279 c were measured via astrometry.
References
G-type main-sequence stars
K-type main-sequence stars
Planetary systems with two confirmed planets
Draco (constellation)
Durchmusterung objects
156279
084171
J17122319+6321074 | HD 156279 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 388 | [
"Constellations",
"Draco (constellation)"
] |
63,640,292 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric%20Exercises%20in%20Paper%20Folding | Geometric Exercises in Paper Folding is a book on the mathematics of paper folding. It was written by Indian mathematician T. Sundara Row, first published in India in 1893, and later republished in many other editions. Its topics include paper constructions for regular polygons, symmetry, and algebraic curves. According to the historian of mathematics Michael Friedman, it became "one of the main engines of the popularization of folding as a mathematical activity".
Publication history
Geometric Exercises in Paper Folding was first published by Addison & Co. in Madras in 1893. The book became known in Europe through a remark of Felix Klein in his book Vorträge über ausgewählte Fragen der Elementargeometrie (1895) and its translation Famous Problems Of Elementary Geometry (1897). Based on the success of Geometric Exercises in Paper Folding in Germany, the Open Court Press of Chicago published it in the US, with updates by Wooster Woodruff Beman and David Eugene Smith. Although Open Court listed four editions of the book, published in 1901, 1905, 1917, and 1941, the content did not change between these editions. The fourth edition was also published in London by La Salle, and both presses reprinted the fourth edition in 1958.
The contributions of Beman and Smith to the Open Court editions have been described as "translation and adaptation", despite the fact that the original 1893 edition was already in English. Beman and Smith also replaced many footnotes with references to their own work, replaced some of the diagrams by photographs, and removed some remarks specific to India. In 1966, Dover Publications of New York published a reprint of the 1905 edition, and other publishers of out-of-copyright works have also printed editions of the book.
Topics
Geometric Exercises in Paper Folding shows how to construct various geometric figures using paper-folding in place of the classical Greek Straightedge and compass constructions.
The book begins by constructing regular polygons beyond the classical constructible polygons of 3, 4, or 5 sides, or of any power of two times these numbers, and the construction by Carl Friedrich Gauss of the heptadecagon, it also provides a paper-folding construction of the regular nonagon, not possible with compass and straightedge. The nonagon construction involves angle trisection, but Rao is vague about how this can be performed using folding; an exact and rigorous method for folding-based trisection would have to wait until the work in the 1930s of Margherita Piazzola Beloch. The construction of the square also includes a discussion of the Pythagorean theorem. The book uses high-order regular polygons to provide a geometric calculation of pi.
A discussion of the symmetries of the plane includes congruence, similarity, and collineations of the projective plane; this part of the book also covers some of the major theorems of projective geometry including Desargues's theorem, Pascal's theorem, and Poncelet's closure theorem.
Later chapters of the book show how to construct algebraic curves including the conic sections, the conchoid, the cubical parabola, the witch of Agnesi, the cissoid of Diocles, and the Cassini ovals. The book also provides a gnomon-based proof of Nicomachus's theorem that the sum of the first cubes is the square of the sum of the first integers, and material on other arithmetic series, geometric series, and harmonic series.
There are 285 exercises, and many illustrations, both in the form of diagrams and (in the updated editions) photographs.
Influences
Tandalam Sundara Row was born in 1853, the son of a college principal, and earned a bachelor's degree at the Kumbakonam College in 1874, with second-place honours in mathematics. He became a tax collector in Tiruchirappalli, retiring in 1913, and pursued mathematics as an amateur. As well as Geometric Exercises in Paper Folding, he also wrote a second book, Elementary Solid Geometry, published in three parts from 1906 to 1909.
One of the sources of inspiration for Geometric Exercises in Paper Folding was Kindergarten Gift No. VIII: Paper-folding. This was one of the Froebel gifts, a set of kindergarten activities designed in the early 19th century by Friedrich Fröbel. The book was also influenced by an earlier Indian geometry textbook, First Lessons in Geometry, by Bhimanakunte Hanumantha Rao (1855–1922). First Lessons drew inspiration from Fröbel's gifts in setting exercises based on paper-folding, and from the book Elementary Geometry: Congruent Figures by Olaus Henrici in using a definition of geometric congruence based on matching shapes to each other and well-suited for folding-based geometry.
In turn, Geometric Exercises in Paper Folding inspired other works of mathematics. A chapter in Mathematische Unterhaltungen und Spiele [Mathematical Recreations and Games] by Wilhelm Ahrens (1901) concerns folding and is based on Rao's book, inspiring the inclusion of this material in several other books on recreational mathematics. Other mathematical publications have studied the curves that can be generated by the folding processes used in Geometric Exercises in Paper Folding. In 1934, Margherita Piazzola Beloch began her research on axiomatizing the mathematics of paper-folding, a line of work that would eventually lead to the Huzita–Hatori axioms in the late 20th century. Beloch was explicitly inspired by Rao's book, titling her first work in this area "Alcune applicazioni del metodo del ripiegamento della carta di Sundara Row" ["Several applications of the method of folding a paper of Sundara Row"].
Audience and reception
The original intent of Geometric Exercises in Paper Folding was twofold: as an aid in geometry instruction,
and as a work of recreational mathematics to inspire interest in geometry in a general audience. Edward Mann Langley, reviewing the 1901 edition, suggested that its content went well beyond what should be covered in a standard geometry course. And in their own textbook on geometry using paper-folding exercises, The First Book of Geometry (1905), Grace Chisholm Young and William Henry Young heavily criticized Geometric Exercises in Paper Folding, writing that it is "too difficult for a child, and too infantile for a grown person". However, reviewing the 1966 Dover edition, mathematics educator Pamela Liebeck called it "remarkably relevant" to the discovery learning techniques for geometry instruction of the time, and in 2016 computational origami expert Tetsuo Ida, introducing an attempt to formalize the mathematics of the book, wrote "After 123 years, the significance of the book remains."
References
External links
Madras edition and Open Court edition of Geometric Exercises in Paper Folding on the Internet Archive
Paper folding
Mathematics books
Indian mathematics
1893 non-fiction books
1901 non-fiction books
1966 non-fiction books | Geometric Exercises in Paper Folding | [
"Mathematics"
] | 1,417 | [
"Recreational mathematics",
"Paper folding"
] |
63,640,741 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agouti%20coloration%20genetics | The agouti gene, the Agouti-signaling protein (ASIP) is responsible for variations in color in many species. Agouti works with extension to regulate the color of melanin which is produced in hairs. The agouti protein causes red to yellow pheomelanin to be produced, while the competing molecule α-MSH signals production of brown to black eumelanin. In wildtype mice, alternating cycles of agouti and α-MSH production cause agouti coloration. Each hair has bands of yellow which grew during agouti production, and black which grew during α-MSH production. Wildtype mice also have light-colored bellies. The hairs there are a creamy color the whole length because the agouti protein was produced the whole time the hairs were growing.
In mice and other species, loss of function mutations generally cause a darker color, while gain of function mutations cause a yellower coat.
Mice
As of 1979, there were 17 known alleles of agouti in mice.
Lethal yellow Ay causes yellow coloration and obesity. It is dominant to all other alleles in the series. When homozygous, it is lethal early in development.
Viable yellow Avy looks similar to lethal yellow and also causes obesity, but is not lethal when homozygous. Homozygous viable yellow mice can be variable in color from clear yellow through mottled black and yellow to a darker color similar to the agouti color.
Intermediate yellow aiy causes a mottled yellow coloration, which like viable yellow can sometimes resemble agouti.
Sienna yellow Asy heterozygotes are a dark yellow, while homozygotes are generally a clearer yellow.
White-bellied agouti AW mice have agouti coloration, with hairs that are black at the tips, then yellow, then black again, and white to tan bellies.
Agouti A looks like AW but the belly is dark like the back.
Black and tan at causes a black back with a tan belly. A/at heterozygotes look like AW mice.
Nonagouti a mice are almost completely black, with only a few yellow hairs around the ears and the genitals.
Extreme nonagouti ae mice are fully black, and is recessive to all other alleles in the series.
This is not a complete list of mouse agouti alleles.
The nonagouti allele a is unusually likely to revert to the black-and-tan allele at or to the white-bellied agouti allele AW.
Agouti production is regulated by multiple different promoter regions, capable of promoting transcription just in the ventral (belly) area, as seen in white-bellied agouti and black-and-tan mice, or all across the body but just during a specific part of the hair growth cycle, as seen in agouti and white-bellied agouti.
Lethal yellow and viable yellow cause obesity, features of type II diabetes, and a higher likelihood of tumors. In normal mice Agouti is only expressed in the skin during hair growth, but these dominant yellow mutations cause it to be expressed in other tissues including liver, muscle, and fat. The mahogany locus interacts with Agouti and a mutation there can override the pigmentation and body weight effects of lethal yellow.
Viable yellow agouti mice can inherit epigenetic differences from their dam affecting how yellow or brown they become.
The mouse agouti gene is found on chromosome 2.
Dogs
In dogs, the agouti gene is associated with various coat colors and patterns.
The alleles at the A locus are related to the production of agouti-signaling protein (ASIP) and determine whether an animal expresses an agouti appearance and, by controlling the distribution of pigment in individual hairs, what type of agouti. There are four known alleles that occur at the A locus:
Ay = Fawn or sable (tan with black whiskers and varying amounts of black-tipped and/or all-black hairs dispersed throughout) - fawn typically referring to dogs with clearer tan and sable to those with more black shading
aw = Wild-type agouti (each hair with 3-6 bands alternating black and tan) - also called wolf sable
at = Tan point (black with tan patches on the face and underside) - including saddle tan (tan with a black saddle or blanket)
a = Recessive black (black, inhibition of phaeomelanin)
ayt = Recombinant fawn (expresses a varied phenotype depending on the breed) has been identified in numerous Tibetan Spaniels and individuals in other breeds, including the Dingo. Its hierarchical position is not yet understood.
Most texts suggest that the dominance hierarchy for the A locus alleles appears to be as follows: Ay > aw > at > a; however, research suggests the existence of pairwise dominance/recessiveness relationships in different families and not the existence of a single hierarchy in one family.
Ay is incompletely dominant to at, so that heterozygous individuals have more black sabling, especially as puppies and Ayat can resemble the awaw phenotype. Other genes also affect how much black is in the coat.
aw is the only allele present in many Nordic spitzes, and is not present in most other breeds.
at includes tan point and saddle tan, both of which look tan point at birth. Modifier genes in saddle tan puppies cause a gradual reduction of the black area until the saddle tan pattern is achieved.
a is only present in a handful of breeds. Most black dogs are black due to a K locus allele.
A 2021 study found distinct genetic causes for fawn and sable, which it refers to as "dominant yellow" and "shaded yellow". Both have a more active hair cycle promoter than the wildtype agouti, but dominant yellow also has a more active ventral promoter. The hair cycle promoter involved in these colors is thought to have arisen about 2 million years ago in an extinct species of canid, which later hybridized with wolves.
Cats
The dominant, wild-type A allows hairs to be banded with black and red (revealing the underlying tabby pattern), while the recessive non-agouti or "hypermelanistic" allele, a, causes black pigment production throughout the growth cycle of the hair. Thus, the non-agouti genotype (aa) masks or hides the tabby pattern, although sometimes a suggestion of the underlying pattern can be seen (called "ghost striping"), especially in kittens. The sex-linked orange coloration is epistatic over agouti, and prevents the production of black pigment.
Horses
In normal horses, ASIP restricts the production of eumelanin to the "points": the legs, mane, tail, ear edges, etc. In 2001, researchers discovered a recessive mutation on ASIP that, when homozygous, left the horse without any functional ASIP. As a result, horses capable of producing true black pigment had uniformly black coats. The dominant, wildtype allele producing bay is symbolized as A, while the recessive allele producing black is symbolized as a. Extension is epistatic over agouti and will cause chestnut coloration regardless of what agouti alleles are present.
History
The cause behind the various shades of bay, particularly the genetic factors responsible for wild bay and seal brown, have been contested for over 50 years. In 1951, zoologist Miguel Odriozola published "A los colores del caballo" in which he suggested four possible alleles for the "A" gene, A+, A, At, and a, in order of most dominant to least.
This was accepted until the 1990s, when a different hypothesis became popular. It proposed that shades of bay were caused by many different genes, some which lightened the coat, some which darkened it. This theory also suggested that seal brown horses were black horses with a trait called pangare. Pangaré is an ancestral trait also called "mealy", which outlines the soft or communicative parts of the horse in buff tan.
The combination of black and pangaré was dismissed as the cause of seal brown in 2001, when a French research team published Mutations in the agouti (ASIP), the extension (MC1R), and the brown (TYRP1) loci and their association to coat color phenotypes in horses (Equus caballus). This study used a DNA test to identify the recessive a allele on the Agouti locus, and found that none of the horses fitting the phenotype of seal brown were homozygous for the a allele.
In 2007 one genetics lab began offering a test for what they believed was a marker for seal brown, and later for an agouti allele which they believed caused the brown color. However, the underlying research was never published and the test was suspended by 2015 due to unreliable results.
The genetic alleles that create seal brown and wildtype bay remain unknown. It is still hypothesized that to some extent, the darkening of coat color in some bays may be regulated by unrelated genes for traits like "sooty".
Donkeys
Most donkeys have creamy to gray-white areas on the belly and around the muzzle and eyes, called light points or pangare. However, a recessive variant of agouti causes those areas to be the same color as the body in a pattern called no light points or NLP, which is similar to recessive black in other mammals. This allele can be found in Norman donkeys and American miniature donkeys.
Rabbits
In rabbits, the wildtype is agouti with a light belly, and a recessive non-agouti allele causes a black coat. A third allele, possibly a mutation to a regulator or promoter region, is thought to cause black and tan color. The nonagouti allele is estimated to have first appeared before 1700.
Agouti is linked to the wideband gene, with about a 30% crossover rate.
Like white bellied agouti mice, rabbits with wildtype agouti produce transcripts with different untranslated 5' ends that have different dorsal and ventral expression. The 1A exon is only expressed in the belly region and may be responsible for the lighter color there.
References
Further reading
Genetics | Agouti coloration genetics | [
"Biology"
] | 2,123 | [
"Genetics"
] |
63,641,386 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant%20nucleus%20movement | Plant nucleus movement is the movement of the cell nucleus in plants by the cytoskeleton.
In response to stimuli
An important aspect of plant behavior includes responding to directional stimuli, which requires changes in the cellular signaling to control spatial elements. The integration of the stimuli in plant cells is not fully understood, but the movement of the cell nucleus provides one example of a cellular process that underlies plant behavior, and highlights the importance of the cytoskeleton in solving spatial problems within the plant cell. Unlike the static nature typically depicted in textbooks, the plant cell nucleus is a highly dynamic structure, constantly moving around cells via actin networks and myosins. The nucleus undergoes a characteristic program during cell division to guide asymmetric cell division, but there are several stimuli that have been demonstrated to cause movements of the nucleus in the plant cell.
Blue light
A well-studied stimulus is strong blue light, which drives movement of nuclei to anticlinal (perpendicular to the plane of the leaf) cell walls in mesophyll and epidermal cells of Arabidopsis thaliana plants. Chloroplasts moving in response to blue light associate with the nucleus to move the nucleus to the appropriate location. This is highly dependent on the blue light receptor phototropin and the actin cytoskeleton, as actin bundles are seen to form along the anticlinal wall in blue light. A protein called ANGUSTIFOLIA was also recently discovered to regulate nucleus movement in the dark by forming a complex that adjusts the alignment of actin filaments. The movement of the nucleus in response to blue light may serve several physiological purposes. The first is to avoid damaging mutations caused by UV radiation, as the nucleus stores the genetic material of a cell. A key problem faced as photosynthetic organisms transitioned from ocean to land was avoiding excessive mutations caused by UV radiation, but by moving the nucleus in response to light, damage caused by UV light could be limited. Another purpose may be to localize the nucleus near key receptors, such as phytochrome, to facilitate spatial integration and transduction of cellular signals into the nucleus, especially when considering the necessity of phytochrome import into the nucleus for changes in gene expression in response to red light.
Mechanical stimulation
Nuclear movement also occurs in response to mechanical stimulation. The nuclei of cultured ovule parenchyma tobacco cells were found to move directly to the site of probing by a fine glass pipette via cytoplasmic strands, which contain actin filaments specialized to carry out cytoplasmic streaming. This is likely a response co-opted from cytoplasmic streaming, but a receptor or other downstream signaling components underlying this cellular response have not been identified. Nonetheless, mechanical stimulation is a potent signal resulting in nuclear movement, and suggests that nuclear movement may be a process important for integration of mechanical stimulation during thigmotropism, gravitropism, or cellular interactions during development.
Symbionts
Recognition of microbial organisms also results in nuclear movement. During colonization by beneficial rhizobia, which begins at the root hair tip, the nucleus moves to the site of colonization and guides the formation and direction of movement of the infection thread, a structure that houses the colonizing rhizobium. This requires large scale cytoskeletal rearrangement, as well as cytoskeleton-mediated movement of the nucleus. Similarly, arbuscular mycorrhizae symbiosis involves extensive nuclear movement, which appears to guide formation of microtubule structures that steers penetration by the fungal hypha.
Pathogens
Importantly, cytoskeleton-mediated nuclear movement is critical for response of plants to pathogenic microorganisms. This is best studied in oomycetes, a devastating pathogenic organism. In potato cells, oomycete contact results in rapid movement of the nucleus to the site of contact, which initiates rapid deposition of cell wall material and restructuring of the cytoplasmic elements. This can block invasion by the oomycete, or if the oomycete successfully penetrates the cell, can initiate a hypersensitive response, killing the cell and preventing further propagation of the pathogen. However, in plants that are not resistant to oomycete infection, the nucleus does not move to the site of oomycete contact, and the oomycete proceeds to devastate the plant, indicating the importance of nuclear transport for resistance against oomycete pathogens.
These examples of nuclear movement in response to the biotic and abiotic stimuli highlight the role of the nucleus as a highly mobile command center necessary for the integration of cell signaling and also emphasize the importance of cytoskeletal structure in mediating the transduction of signaling from outside the cell to the nucleus. However, there is still a great deal left unknown in how exactly an extracellular stimulus leads to cytoskeletal rearrangement, nuclear movement, and ultimately integration of stimuli to guide plant behavior.
References
Plant physiology | Plant nucleus movement | [
"Biology"
] | 1,037 | [
"Plant physiology",
"Plants"
] |
63,642,672 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian%20Hooke | Adrian Hooke (died January 7, 2013) was an aerospace telecommunications engineer, and a cofounder of the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems.
Biography
Adrian Hooke held a B.Sc in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from the University of Birmingham, England.
He worked on the Apollo program and other NASA programs as a young engineer. In 1982, he cofounded the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS), an international consortium of space agencies, and remained active in the organization until 2012. Hooke helped develop standards published by the CCSDS, including the Space Communications Protocol Specifications (SCPS). He was involved in the Interplanetary Internet and Delay Tolerant Networking efforts to bring more computer networking into NASA telecommunications.
Awards
NASA Exceptional Service Medal (twice)
NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal
Special CCSDS Lifetime Leader Award, 2012
References
Astronautics
Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems
Telecommunications engineers
Electronics engineers
2013 deaths | Adrian Hooke | [
"Engineering"
] | 186 | [
"Electronics engineers",
"Electronic engineering",
"Telecommunications engineering",
"Telecommunications engineers"
] |
76,733,147 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%205008 | NGC 5008 (also known as IC 4381) is a massive barred spiral galaxy located in the Boötes constellation.
Details
It is located 530 million light-years away from the solar system and was discovered by Heinrich d'Arrest, a Prussian astronomer on May 18, 1862 as NGC 5008. It was again discovered on June 15, 1895 by Stephane Javelle who listed it in the Index Catalogue as IC 4381. With a diameter of 400,000 light-years, NGC 5008 easily dwarfs the Milky Way and is considered one of the largest galaxies. According to the SIMBAD Database, NGC 5008 has a LINER type active galactic nucleus. It has a surface brightness magnitude of 14.07, meaning it is a low-surface brightness galaxy.
Group membership
NGC 5008 is the dominant member of the Hickson Compact group, HCG 71. The other members of the group are IC 4382, PGC 50640 and PGC 50641, which is further away compared to the other galaxies.
References
5008
IC objects
09073
Barred spiral galaxies
Astronomical objects discovered in 1862
2MASS objects
Boötes
50629
+04-33-42
50629 | NGC 5008 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 246 | [
"Boötes",
"Constellations"
] |
76,733,413 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial%20hyaluronic%20acid%20production | Microbial hyaluronic acid production refers to the process by which microorganisms, such as bacteria and yeast, are utilized in fermentation to synthesize hyaluronic acid (HA). HA is used in a wide range of medical, cosmetic, and biological products because of its high moisture retention and viscoelasticity qualities. HA had originally been extracted from rooster combs in limited quantities. However, challenges such as low yields, high production costs, and ethical issues associated with animal-derived HA has driven the development of microbial production methods for HA.
Although there are other methods for instance chemical synthesis and modification, chemoenzymatic synthesis, enzymatic synthesis; microbial fermentation has been preferred to produce HA because of economical advantages.
Bacterial production
Some bacteria, like Streptococcus, develop an extracellular capsule that contains HA. This capsule functions as a molecular mimic to elude the host's immune system during the infection process in addition to providing adherence and protection. Streptococcus zooepidemicus was used for first commercially HA fermentation, and that is most used bacteria since provides high yields although it is a pathogen microorganism.
Encoding of HA production is carried out by hasA, hasB, hasC, hasD and hasE genes in S. zooepidemicus.
Genetically modified producers were developed such as Kluysveromyces lactis, Lactococcus lactis, Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli, and Corynebacterium glutamicum because of S. zooepidemicus’s pathogeny.
Biological process
Intracellular factors
Metabolism
Intermediates are used from pathways essential to support cell growth, such as the production of organic acids, polysaccharides during the HA production. HA is not an essential metabolite, and it competes other metabolites to attend the carbon flux in the cell. Reduction potential of S. zooepidemicus may have a role in hyaluronic acid production, because 2 NAD+ are consumed during the synthesis of one monomer. Although NAD+ does not control HA synthesis when NADH oxidase over-expressed, it has a big role in biomass formation.
Some studies showed that balanced intracellular concentration of precursors and their fluxes balanced provides higher molecular weight such as UDP-acetylglucosamine concentration. Enzymes such as hyaluronidase, β-glucuronidase of S. zooepidemicus decrease yield of HA. HA concentration is increased by deletion of associated genes of these enzymes.
On the other hand, some enzymes induce HA production like sucrose-6-phosphatate hydrolase, and hyaluronan synthase. Using combined approaches with these two type enzymes is a good strategy for high yield HA production.
Membrane
HA is produced around the cell, serving as a barrier against the host immune system by the bacteria. Only 8% of HA remains as attached the cell when cells arrived stationary phase. Biosurfactants such as sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) are used to gain this product. Hyaluronan synthase, that is a membrane-binding enzyme, is one of the factors that reduces the production of HA. Hyaluronan synthase limits hyaluronic acid production by affecting cell morphology.
Environmental factors
pH
Organic acids formed during HA production by S. zooepidemicus cause pH to decrease Although HA production without pH control is cheaper, it prefers since provides high hyaluronic acid yields..
Temperature
HA production is affected regarding to yield and molecular weight by temperature. HA production increases while bacterial cells are growing above 37°C. However, HA yield decreases while molecular weight is higher with fermentation under 32°C.
Aeration
Although S. zooepidemicus is an aerotolerant anaerobe, hyaluronic acid production is affected by oxygen because NADH/NAD+ balance of cells changes with oxygen amount. Controlling oxygen during the cultivation via agitation rate provides increase both HA yield and molecular weight.
Culture Media Components
The carbon source is one of the media components that has effects on production of microbial HA. Although the glucose is most used one as a carbon source for the HA production; molasses, sucrose, and maltose are used for microbial production.
HA production needs also many amino acids in the culture media therefore nitrogen source concentration has a key.
See also
Hyaluronic acid
Streptococcus zooepidemicus
References
Fermentation
Industrial processes
Wikipedia Student Program | Microbial hyaluronic acid production | [
"Chemistry",
"Biology"
] | 950 | [
"Biochemistry",
"Cellular respiration",
"Fermentation"
] |
76,733,479 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiscalant | An antiscalant is a chemical or pre-treatment chemical that prevents the formation of scale, or crystallized mineral salts, commonly used in water purification systems, pipelines and cooling tower applications. Antiscalants are also known as scale inhibitor agents. Scale formation occurs when the concentration of dissolved salts in water exceeds their solubility limits, leading to the precipitation of these salts onto surfaces as hard deposits. Antiscalants dissolve the substances accumulated near the membrane surface and reduce the rate of fouling. They play a crucial role in preventing scale formation, thus improving the efficiency and longevity of industrial equipment and processes.
Common ingredients
Antiscalants could be broadly classified into 3 main categories: phosphorus based AS, synthetic polymeric AS and natural green AS. Common active ingredients include phosphonates, polyphosphates, polymers, aminophosphonates and organic acids. Antiscalants typically contain a combination of active ingredients that interfere with the crystallization process of scale-forming salts. Phosphorus-based antiscalants has the largest application use globally and they can be further classified into phosphorus-based and phosphonate-based AS. Green antiscalants usually contain natural polymers such as starch and are recently being more widely investigated due to discharge requirements. Polymer-based AS are synthetic polymers that have functional groups like carboxylic acid groups, acrylic acid, sulfonic acid, and phosphonic acid groups. Common global suppliers of antiscalants include Kurita Water Industries, Avista, Nalco, and Veolia.
Chemistry and mechanism
These compounds work by various mechanisms such as suppression of crystallization, dispersion and crystal distortion.
Suppression of crystallization
Antiscalants contain molecules that can complex with metal ions present in the water, preventing them from participating in scale formation reactions. Phosphonates and polyphosphates are particularly effective in sequestering calcium, magnesium, and other metal ions.
Dispersion
Antiscalants may also work by dispersing small-scale particles, preventing them from agglomerating and forming larger, more problematic deposits. Polymers are often used for their dispersing properties.
Crystal modification
Some antiscalants alter the crystal structure of scale-forming salts, making them less likely to adhere to surfaces and form stubborn deposits. At a submicroscopic level, these soft non-adherent scales with antiscalant use would appear distorted, more oval in shape and less compact.
Applications
Reverse osmosis and desalination
In reverse osmosis (RO) and desalination plants, antiscalants are vital for preventing scale formation on membrane surfaces. Scaling can severely impair the efficiency of these processes and lead to increased maintenance costs. Antiscalants help maintain optimal performance and prolong the lifespan of membranes. Scales form in the RO or desalination plants occurs when the ionic product of sparingly dissolved salts in the concentrated flow equals or exceeds its solubility product. The extent and degree of scaling phenomena are determined not only by the supersaturation conditions that occurred, but also by the precipitation kinetics.
Water treatment
Scale deposition in boilers can reduce heat transfer efficiency and increase energy consumption. Antiscalants are added to boiler feedwater to prevent scale formation on heat transfer surfaces, piping, and other boiler components. Water treatment plants can use antiscalants to maintain filtration.
Cooling water systems
Industrial cooling water systems are susceptible to scale formation due to high temperatures and concentrations of dissolved minerals. Antiscalants help mitigate scale deposition in cooling towers, heat exchangers, and condensers, preserving their efficiency and reducing the need for maintenance.
Mining and oil and gas industry
Antiscalants are used in mining operations and oil & gas production to prevent scale deposition in pipelines, drilling equipment, and processing facilities. Scaling in these industries can lead to decreased flow rates, equipment damage, and production downtime. Preventing the formation of scale from blocking or hindering fluid flow through pipelines, valves, and pumps used in oil production and processing. Oilfield scaling is the precipitation and accumulation of insoluble crystals (salts) from a mixture of incompatible aqueous phases in oil processing systems.
References
Industrial water treatment | Antiscalant | [
"Chemistry"
] | 870 | [
"Water treatment",
"Industrial water treatment"
] |
76,734,639 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut%E2%80%93memory%20connection | The gut–memory connection is the relation between the gastrointestinal tract and memory performance. The phenomenon of the gut–memory connection is based on and part of the idea of the gut-brain axis, a complex communication network, linking the central nervous system to the gut. The gut-brain axis first gained significant momentum in research and formal recognition in the 20th century with advancements in neuroscience and gastroenterology. The idea of a connection between the gut and emotion has been hinted at in various ancient traditions and medical practices for centuries.
As a vital conduit for the communication between gastrointestinal tract and the brain, the gut-brain axis influences a variety of physiological processes. A prominent example of the gut–memory connection is the effects that alterations in the gut microbiome can have on the pathogenesis of neural diseases like Alzheimer's.
Understanding the connections between the gut microbiome and cognitive health could aid researchers in developing novel strategies for slowing down cognitive decline in neurodegenerative diseases.
Origins
The gut-brain axis is a two-way communication network within human systems that correlates the gut microbiome and the brain, encompassing immune, endocrine and neural connections. There is an evident association between the gastrointestinal tract and enteric microbiota with functional changes highlighted in the nervous system evidenced in vivo and vitro studies. This relationship plays a role in maintaining brain health as a result of resident microbes in the GI tract, influencing pathophysiology and mental behaviours. This can be accomplished through neuronal function directly or indirectly via vitamins, neurotransmitters and metabolites. The exact biochemical pathway for this has yet to be determined, while some experimental data may suggest afferent sensory neurons travel via neuroimmune and endocrine systems traveling over the vagus nerve. This demonstrates a commensalistic relationship between bacteria that exist in the human GI tract reaping from a diverse source of nutrients while providing indigestible nutrients available to the host.
It has also been hypothesized that IBS can originate as a result of brain-to-gut or gut-to-brain syndrome as well which emphasizes the importance of the gut-brain axis. Neurological disorders could also be a result of microbiota factors explaining why the intestine is known as the second brain as opposed to having neural origin. This uncovers the link to discovering mental and neurological disorders such as depression and anxiety with gut microbiota health. While not much of the ancestral origin of these interactions is not well known, this has a long history based on the coevolution and ecological interactions between vertebrates and bacteria, tightly coupled in animal evolution. This can also be evidenced by observing the role of bacteria such as the Hydra holobiont in contractile behaviour necessary for gut motility, demonstrating the product of ancient interaction between bacteria and emerging metazoans.
The ancestral mammalian gut likely harboured a diverse array of microbes that played essential roles in metabolism, digestion and immune response, and as a result, has evolved and adapted in response to selection and dietary pressures. With the development of the vertebrate nervous system, the coordination of digestive processes in the gastrointestinal tract with external stimuli would’ve allowed communication.
Neuroanatomical basis
The anatomical basis of the gut–memory connection includes the gastrointestinal tract (GIT), which has its own intrinsic nervous system, called the enteric nervous system (ENS). The ENS controls intestinal function and can theoretically operate independently from the central nervous system (CNS). More than 100 million efferent neurons are present in the human ENS. They are connected to the brain through the vagus nerve, which seems to be the main mediator of gut-brain communication. Around 90% of the vagus nerve fibers connecting the brain and the ENS are afferent, meaning that the brain receives more information from the digestive system than it sends out. Afferent vagus nerve fibers have cell bodies in the nodose ganglia that synapse with the CNS. The signals are then relayed to the medial nucleus of the solitary tract (NTS), which in turn relays them to various brainstem and forebrain regions, including the hippocampus and the amygdala.
Signals from the GIT can activate the hippocampus, which was shown by directly stimulating the vagus nerve in human participants. The connection between the hippocampus and the medial NTS does not appear to be direct. Instead it seems to involve the locus coeruleus (LC) and the medial septum (MS), making the connection indirect. Studies have shown increased memory retention in both humans and rodents, following direct vagus nerve stimulation.
There are noradrenergic projections from the nucleus of the solitary tract to the amygdala, which is often associated with emotional learning. Direct Vagus nerve stimulation increases the release of noradrenaline in the amygdala and has been linked to increased fear depletion and positive outcomes of preclinical treatments of major depressive disorder (MDD).
Other factors that can indirectly influence memory function, include the immune system and hormonal processes. The ENS mediates HPA-axis function via gastrointestinal hormones, cytokines and neuropeptides. Through the same pathways the HPA-axis can influence the ENS. Therefore, the gut can indirectly influence hippocampal functioning and other cortical structures related to memory, via the HPA-axis.
Probiotics
Probiotics and memory function
Probiotics, living bacteria with health benefits, are emerging as a potential tool to influence the microbiota-gut-brain axis and improve mental well-being. This axis is a complex communication network linking the gut and the brain, primarily mediated by the vagus nerve and the production of neuromodulators, which influence nerve activity and brain function. Although the exact molecular mechanisms are still unclear, the gut microbiota has been demonstrated to influence behaviour and brain functions, including pain perception, stress response, prefrontal myelination, and brain biochemistry.
Experimental manipulation of the gut microbial community composition has been shown to modify the host's neural function. For instance, long-term consumption of a probiotic Lactobacillus strain by BALB/c mice changed gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) expression in brain regions related to emotional processing. This alteration was associated with reduced anxiety and depression-like behaviour. A study found that consuming probiotics for 4–6 weeks altered neural activity in brain regions responsible for the central processing of emotion and sensation in healthy women, even without changes in gut microbial composition.
Given the evidence that gut microbiota influences emotional processing and the connections between emotion, memory, and decision-making, researchers hypothesized that probiotic ingestion could impact brain mechanisms related to such contexts. Their study demonstrated that administering a multi-strain probiotic significantly impacts behavioural scores and fMRI measures in brain regions involved in emotional decision-making and memory.
Probiotics contribute to the reduction of oxidative stress, a cellular process that can damage brain cells. Accordingly, probiotics may protect brain cells in the hippocampus, a region important for memory storage and retrieval while promoting a healthy gut lining.
A study in middle-aged rats examined the effects of probiotics, prebiotics and a combination of both, symbiotics, on memory. The study found that rats given the symbiotic supplement performed significantly better in spatial memory tests than the control groups. Improvement in memory was also accompanied by several positive changes in the brain. The symbiotic group showed lower levels of inflammation, a factor well known to impair memory. They also showed increased levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a protein important for memory formation, and higher levels of butyrate, a fatty acid produced by gut bacteria that can improve memory and altered brain cell activity patterns that promote learning and memory. A mixture of probiotics and prebiotics could be a way to improve cognitive abilities, particularly spatial memory.
Treatment along antibiotics
Antibiotic medication can disrupt the natural gut microbiome, leading to an imbalance in the gut-brain axis. Some studies in mice have shown that probiotic treatment can reverse the negative effects of antibiotics on bacteria in the gut, called dysbiosis and can also improve memory function. They further found that probiotics not only reduced gut dysbiosis associated with memory loss but also reduced the activity of specific enzymes associated with memory deficits, such as acetylcholinesterase and myeloperoxidase.
Impact on mental health
The link between gut bacteria and mental health, particularly anxiety and depression becomes a stronger focus in research. There exist studies on germ-free mice, devoid of any gut bacteria, that show the mice exhibit less anxiety compared to mice with a normal gut microbiome. Inflammations or infections of the gut tract of mice caused a change in certain behaviour associated with symptoms of anxiety, such as a less drive to explore and a stronger inhibition of behavioral responses. This hints at the potential influence specific types of bacteria might have on behaviour and mental health. Studies with rodents have experimentally shown similar results.
Some certain probiotic strains, like Lactobacillus rhamnosus and Bifidobacterium infantis, have shown promise in reducing anxiety-like behaviour in animal models. These probiotics are being explored as potential so-called psychobiotics for treating mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety.
Further evidence comes from microbiota transfer experiments in mice, in which researchers transplanted gut bacteria from one strain of mice to another. It seems to influence their behaviour, suggesting the composition of the gut microbiome plays an important role. Stressful situations can also disrupt the delicate balance of gut bacteria and can lead to maternal separation and social defeat stress alters gut microbiota.
Some other studies of mice exposed to food deprivation or social disruption found changes in their gut bacteria composition. The influence seems to go both ways, since research using a depression model in mice revealed alterations in their gut bacteria compared to healthy mice. This, in turn, suggests that anxiety and depression might also affect the gut microbiome.
Alzheimer’s disease
The gut-brain axis acts as a communication network between the gastrointestinal tract and the brain. Due to this communication through neural, endocrine, and immune pathways, the gut microbiota and the brain can mutually influence their functions. Therefore, changes in the gut microbiota can influence the pathogenesis of various neurological diseases. There is rising evidence of a relationship between the gut microbiome and the neurodegenerative disease Alzheimer’s.
The development and progression of Alzheimer’s disease are characterised by abnormal brain protein aggregation, inflammation, immune dysregulation, and impaired neuronal and synaptic activity of the brain. These abnormalities associated with Alzheimer’s disease are also associated with a dysregulation of the gut microbiome. There are different environmental factors such as diet, exercise and exposure to air pollution that have an impact on the gut microbiome and therefore could also have an influence on Alzheimer’s disease. To have positive health outcomes the intestinal bacterial flora should be in an equilibrium. By consuming sufficient probiotics such as Bifidobacteria and Lactobacillus through a diet the achievement of this equilibrium is supported. Bifidobacteria and Lactobacillus can be taken as supplements but are also contained in different types of foods. To ensure a variety of microbiota strains in the gut a large and diverse diet is required.
Further research suggests a correlation between Alzheimer’s disease, low insulin levels (diabetes type 1) and insulin resistance (diabetes type 2), that could be caused by amyloid beta-derived diffusible ligands (ADDLs). These ADDLs are neurotoxins that reduce synapse plasticity and provoke oxidative damage by altering the shape of insulin receptors. This inhibits the learning and memory mechanisms in the brain because Insulin usually supports the necessary regulation of processes like neuronal survival, energy metabolism, and plasticity. Insulin resistance could therefore explain the memory loss in AD patients.
There are different theories of the potential mechanisms through which the gut microbiome influences the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease. A viral or bacterial infection can contribute to the development of Alzheimer's disease. The Heliobacter pylori infection decreases the MMSE scores of patients with Alzheimer's disease through the release of inflammatory mediators. In addition, patients with Alzheimer's disease show higher serum levels of Aß40 and Aß42 if they are infected by a bacterial infection. The bacteria can alter the levels of specific neurotransmitters proteins and receptors which are responsible for synaptic plasticity. The theory of age-related dysbiosis associates the appearance of Alzheimer's disease with the ageing of the immune system. Through the process of ageing the levels of proteobacteria expand whereas the levels of probiotics decrease. These changes alter the composition of the gut microbiota. As an alteration of the gut microbiota occurs it can lead to differences in the activity of the brain. This connection raises the possibility of a treatment for patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Therapeutic treatment could manipulate the gut microbiome and therefore induce neuronal and synaptic changes in the patient's brain.
Other related diseases
Irritable bowel syndrome
Irritable bowel syndrome or IBS is a gastrointestinal disorder with the disruption of the gut-brain axis as one of its characteristics. There are multiple ways in which this disorder impacts memory performance. IBS is a disorder that can cause chronic pain, stress and immune activity.
Many of the people suffering from IBS have visceral hypersensitivity. Pain disrupts attention which is a crucial factor for memory formation. The adverse effects of chronic pain also affect executive functioning, working memory, episodic memory and speed of information processing. Sleep deprivation in IBS patients is common and can have adverse effects on memory consolidation, executive functions and mental health, which also impairs memory.
IBS patients often show a higher response to stressors, causing dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal ( HPA ) axis and the autonomic nervous system ( ANS ). The activation of the HPA axis leads to the release of glucocorticoids, cortisol in humans. In people with IBS, the amount of cortisol was found to be higher which is related to a decline in hippocampus-dependent episodic memory performance. This also causes hippocampus deactivation and morphological changes which have been associated with spatial memory deficits. The decrease in blood flow to the hippocampus and other brain areas also seems to be involved in the effects of stress on the hippocampus.
The frontal lobes, which are involved in executive functions such as working memory, are more sensitive than the hippocampus to glucocorticoid levels causing similar disruptive effects of IBS as in the hippocampus. They are also affected by the ANS. The disruption of the ANS in IBS causes an increase in sympathetic nervous system activation and a decrease in parasympathetic nervous system activation, resulting in higher noradrenaline levels. This activates α1 receptors in the prefrontal cortex which impairs working memory. Noradrenaline and cortisol to the amygdala have the opposite effect and can enhance emotional memory formation which for IBS patients is shown as an enhanced memory for gastrointestinal-related words.
IBS patients have an abnormal immune activity which can be seen when measuring cytokines. They have a higher-than-normal amount of the proinflammatory cytokines IL6 and IL8 and some also have elevated TNF-α and IL1-α levels. ( IL6 is found to be related to cognitive abilities and Alzheimer's disease severity. ) Too much of it can affect memory by reducing neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus and inhibiting long term potentiation. The high amount of IL6 and TNF-α decreases episodic memory performance. IL1-α and TNF-α have these effects through LTP inhibition in the dentate gyrus and TNF-a, through excitotoxicity through the modulation of glutamate transmission also.
Obesity
Obesity is associated with many adverse effects physically and mentally. These include memory deficits. Obesity causes an increase in inflammation throughout the body. Cytokines, the chemicals that regulate this, can cross the blood-brain barrier in certain cases and affect the brain, including memory related areas.
Adipose tissue, which contains the fat, have certain neuroendocrine functions such as the production and release of adipokines. In obesity, the body is in a state of adiposopathy in which the secretion of adipokines changes. leptin, one of the adipokines, also promotes axonal growth and modulates NMDA functioning, enhancing LTP. In obese states, the body has leptin resistance, disrupting these effects of leptin.
In adiposopathy, the secretion of interleukin 6 is increased. This leads to reduced neurogenesis, the inhibition of LTP and impaired working memory performance as in irritable bowel syndrome. Some studies also suggest that cytokines such as interleukin 6 may reduce hippocampal grey matter volume.
Animal studies
In order to analyze the effects gut microbiota has on our learning of spatial memory and cognition, animal studies can be applied to human studies. This implies the use of rats, and mice in experiments in order to study the effects of a sucrose diet on cognitive skills. Experiments on lab animals demonstrated similar results in human experiments whereas sucrose diet has an impact on cognitive abilities.
The excessive use of abundant sugar consumption has a significant impact on cognitive performance. Consistent consumption of foods rich in cholesterol shows that over a long duration decreases cognitive abilities, specifically spatial memory In order to study spatial learning using animal models, rodents are placed into an experiment called radial arm maze where the working memory of semantic memories of animals are tested.
This experiment uses operant conditioning such as rewards and punishments in order to measure working memory in rodents and motivate the animal towards a desired behaviour like figuring out where the food is located in the maze. Findings of high-fat diets include deficits in spatial memory and cognitive impairment. A study including obese mice which encompassed high levels of palmitic acid these high concentrations of acid demonstrated a change in the microbiota of the gut which shows deficits in cognition and spatial learning.
This type of acid found in an animal study shows similarities with humans, therefore this finding can be applied to humans as well. According to animal studies, high-fat diets contribute to significant alterations in gut microbiota and in decrease of spatial learning.
References
Gastroenterology
Memory
Digestive system | Gut–memory connection | [
"Biology"
] | 4,011 | [
"Digestive system",
"Organ systems"
] |
76,734,649 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autograph%20of%20Nicolaus%20Copernicus%27%20De%20revolutionibus | The autograph of Nicolaus Copernicus' De revolutionibus is a manuscript of six books of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543) by Nicolaus Copernicus written between 1520 and 1541. Since 1956, it is kept in the Jagiellonian Library in Kraków (signature 10,000).
The autograph was handwritten by Nicolaus Copernicus in Latin and Greek, using humanistic cursive. The manuscript consists of 213 paper leaves sized 28 × 19 centimeters, two endpapers, and four protective cards. The binding of the manuscript dates back to the early 17th century and is made of cardboard glued with waste paper and a parchment document from the 16th century.
It is a unique object on a global scale, inscribed in 1999 on the UNESCO Memory of the World list. It is also the most valuable and famous autograph kept in the collections of the Jagiellonian Library of the Jagiellonian University, of which it has been the property since 1956.
The text of the autograph, which was first published in 1543 in Nuremberg in the first edition of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, revolutionized the perception of the universe from a historical point of view and was a starting point for modern astronomy and science.
Description
The autograph contains the text of the six books authored by Nicolaus Copernicus that make up the work De revolutionibus.
Contents of the manuscript of De revolutionibus
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Leaf 1 contains the incipit: (I)nter multa ac varia litteraturum artiumaque studia, Leaf 1 verso: Capitulum primum. Quod mundus sit sphaericus. Principio advertendum nobisest globusm est mundum.
Leaf 212 verso contains the : remanebit praepollens latitudo quaesita.
Provenance notes
The endpaper of the front cover contains an ex libris with the coat of arms of the Nostitz family and the inscription:Ex Bibliotheca Maioratus Familiae Nostitzianae 1774Below the ex libris, there is a note written in ink over the previous one made in pencil, stating:Das Manuscript enthält: 212 Blätter, ausserdem 3 Vorblätter von denen das 1-e leer ist, das 2-e die Aufzählung der verschiedenen Eigenthümer und das 3-e Blatt den Namhen Otto F. v. Nostitz
The inserted leaf b contains a note attributed to Jakob Christmann:Venerabilis et eximii Iuris utriusque Doctoris, Dni Nicolai Copernick Canonici Varmiensis, in Borussia Germaniae mathematici celeberrimi opus de revolutionibus coelestibus propria manu exparatum et haectenus in bibliotheca Georgii Ioachimii Rhetici item Valentini Othonis conservatum, ad usum studii mathematici procurauit M. Iakobus Christmannus Decanus Facultatis artium, anno 1603, die 19 DecembrisThe reverse side of leaf b contains a note by John Amos Comenius:Hunc librum a vidua pie defuncti M. Jac. Cristmanni digno redemptum pretio, in suam transtulit Bibliothecam Johannes Amos Nivanus: Anno 1614. 17 Januarii. Heidelbergae.On leaf c, there is the signature Otto F. v. Nostitz mp.
Paper
The manuscript consists of four types of paper with characteristic watermarks designated in the literature by letters: C, D, E, and F. These symbols were used in their descriptions by Ludwik Birkenmajer, followed by his son Aleksander Birkenmajer.
Types of paper used for the manuscript of De revolutionibus
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Papers of different types occur irregularly in the manuscript.
Type C paper
Paper C is the oldest used in the manuscript. Its watermark depicts a rather thick snake, resembling the stance and curvature of a seahorse, with its head bent beyond the axis towards the margin, while its tail points in the opposite direction, although its end is also directed towards the margin. On the snake's head, there is a fleur-de-lis resembling a crown, and a tongue protrudes from its mouth directed upwards and ending in a blade-shaped tip. The snake's body is divided by a dorsal line into two parts, which are further divided into segments by oblique horizontal lines descending downwards. In Charles Briquet's catalogue, the most similar watermark is cataloged as number 10,738.
As established, this watermark was often found on papers from southern France, Spain, and Italy in the 15th and 16th centuries. However, the most similar ones to those found in the De revolutionibus manuscript were discovered on paper known from Middelburg from 1525. There, an even earlier paper was discovered, with a watermark featuring a similar depiction of the snake's tongue, dated to 1520.
Dating the paper is also facilitated by the fact that the text written on paper C, on leaf 88 verso, discusses an astronomical observation made by Copernicus on 11 March 1516. The occurrence of paper C ends on leaf 89.
Type D paper
Paper D contains a watermark depicting a hand protruding from a cross with 9 pinnacles, with fingers raised upwards and spread out, placed beneath a crown. This paper is of inferior quality. Analysis of watermarks on similar paper has shown its origin from the town of Tulle in France, dating back to the years 1523 and 1526. Presumably, this paper reached Copernicus through the Netherlands, similar to paper C. In Charles Briquet's catalogue, the most similar watermarks are cataloged as number 10,944 and 10,946.
On paper D, Copernicus provided information and comments on astronomical observations from 27 September 1522 (leaf 128), 22 February 1523 (leaf 166), and 12 March 1529 (leaf 173). It is assumed that this paper was used by Copernicus from 1523 to 1533. Paper D occurs between leaves 9 and 192.
Type E paper
Paper E contains a watermark in the shape of the letter P, with a fleuron placed above it. This watermark is almost identical to the one known from Maastricht in 1540. However, this paper reached Copernicus earlier, as he wrote letters in August 1537 and March 1539, and extensive portions of the manuscript were written on this paper before 1540. Paper E occurs between leaves 22 and 213. In Charles Briquet's catalogue, the most similar watermark is cataloged as number 8,698.
Type F paper
Paper F contains a watermark similar to the one on paper D. It depicts a hand with fingers spread out, with a sleeve ending in a circular fold, above which is a three-leaf clover. This watermark has been identified in full accordance with other watermarks on papers from Osnabrück from 1538 and from Lorraine from 1540. Copernicus used the same paper in a letter to Duke Albert of Prussia dated 15 June 1541. Pages from paper F were therefore used in either 1540 or 1541.
In Charles Briquet's catalogue, the most similar watermark is cataloged as number 11,466. This watermark appears only once – on leaf 24, but paper F was used three times – on leaves 24, 25, and 209.
Sections
The paper block containing Copernicus' autograph is divided into 21 sections, which were marked in the 16th century with consecutive letters of the Latin alphabet from a to x. The numbering of the pages in individual sections was probably added around 1854 in the Nostitz Library, as the list of the number and completeness of the manuscript's leaves placed under the ex libris dates from the same year.
Characteristics of sections in the manuscript of De revolutionibus
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The notation of the sections with letters occurred in the final stage of editing the autograph. Aleksander Birkenmajer expressed the view that for many years of working on the autograph, Copernicus completely managed without any numbering of its leaves or notebooks.
The letter signatures of the sections, except for the letter a on leaf 1, were applied by Copernicus in 1539.
Researchers paid particular attention to the absence of the first leaf from paper D in section a, which was very carefully cut out – almost without a visible trace – and its remaining edge was glued to the preceding protective leaf.
Aleksander Birkenmajer leans towards the view that the leaf, conventionally called zero, served for some time as the title page of Copernicus' work. Presumably, the leaf was removed during the binding of the manuscript, in 1603 or 1604 in Heidelberg.
The content of the zero leaf remains unknown. It is not known whether it contained only the title written by Copernicus' hand, or perhaps a dedication or notes about the history of the autograph or its successive owners. It cannot be ruled out that the zero leaf contained some glaring damage, stains, or doubtful notes. The structure of the autograph itself and the changes made by Copernicus in individual sections suggest that if Copernicus himself removed the zero leaf, he would have replaced it with another leaf and corrected the content on it.
Copernicus made frequent changes in the structure of the sections. He most often exchanged and rewrote sheets, and sometimes added additional leaves within the section. As a result, various types of paper from different periods of its acquisition are encountered in different sections.
Writing
The autograph is written by the hand of Nicolaus Copernicus in humanistic cursive. Marginalia and interlinear notes made by Georg Joachim Rheticus are found on leaves 21, 24, 71, 72, 188, and presumably 87 verso and 187 verso. Leaves 107 verso and 109 contain marginalia – two words written in the 17th century, attributed to Jakob Christmann.
One of the primary pieces of evidence supporting the assertion that this is Copernicus' handwritten autograph is a note attributed to Jakob Christmann: Nicolai Copernik [...] opus [...] propria manu exaratum.
To confirm or exclude the authenticity of Nicolaus Copernicus' handwriting, various autographs of Copernicus were examined, including, in particular, his letters, which serve as unquestionable and authoritatively attributed comparative material. Six handwritten letters of Nicolaus Copernicus to Johannes Dantiscus, preserved in Kraków and held at the National Museum in Kraków, were selected for this analysis. These letters were written over three years – 1536 and 1539 – between the ages of 63 and 66, and they bear his signature and date. The signature and handwriting are undoubtedly original.
As a comparative material for De revolutionibus, handwritten notes made and signed by Copernicus, providing samples of his handwriting from the years 1503, 1511, 1512, 1513, 1518, 1521, and 1529, were also considered. These notes, which raise no doubts about authorship or authenticity, have been preserved in the accounts of the Warmia Chapter and in the locational entries of Locationes mansorum desertorum. Their chronology complements the chronology covered by Copernicus' letters.
From the comparison of Copernicus' handwriting samples from 1503 to 1541, written between the ages of 30 and 68, it can be inferred that this is the handwriting of a mature individual, with well-formed shapes and no significant differences dependent on chronology. There are no signs of immature handwriting in these examples, even in later years.
During the examination of the De revolutionibus autograph, Birkenmajer identified certain differences depending on the speed at which Copernicus wrote: Two ducts of handwriting appear in the autograph: a hasty but well-shaped and legible cursive, and a calmer, more vertical handwriting, which is a typical humanistic antiqua.
The most noticeable are the characteristic shapes of letters, their inclinations, elements of cursive writing, the sweep of the handwriting, the direction of pen strokes, and the spacing of lines and margins. The analysis also revealed that in certain periods and fixed records of the autograph, some characteristics became fixed.
Copernicus did not adhere to the custom of a fixed number of lines per page, as professional copyists of manuscripts contemporaneous to him did. The number of lines per page varies between 37 and 43. The text block averages 19 centimeters in width and 28 centimeters in height.
The autograph text is primarily written in ink shades ranging from brown to full black. Red ink was used in the tables crossed out from leaves 15 verso to 70 verso.
Examiners emphasize that the notation style indicates the writer's preference for order, cleanliness, and harmonious arrangement of text columns and accompanying drawings. Despite the aesthetic form of the manuscript, some strange mistakes were found. Between leaves 125 and 175, Copernicus incorrectly wrote the word iusta instead of iuxta at least six times. This error was described as an interesting case of perpetuating a once-made mistake and unconsciously repeating it.
Many ink stains and blots of various sizes appear on clean and carefully written leaves. From their distribution, it is inferred that they were created during later erasures and corrections made in haste.
Geometric drawings, of which there are 162 in the entire manuscript, distributed over 129 pages, also deserve attention. The drawings are also made by the hand of Nicolaus Copernicus, as evidenced by the style of letters used to label them. The drawings are made carefully, using a compass and ruler, although minor flaws occasionally occborn Copernicus extensively uses lines in astronomical tables, which appear on 118 pages of the manuscript.
The conclusion of the conducted research was that the handwriting of the De revolutionibus manuscript is – except for minor foreign annotations – the handwritten autograph of Nicolaus Copernicus.
Binding
During the work on the De revolutionibus autograph, the section and leaves accumulated by Copernicus did not have a binding. Presumably – according to the customs prevailing in that era – Copernicus stored loose sections of his work in a cover such as a bag, envelope, or folder made of leather or parchment. It could also have been a box or chest. This is indicated by the significantly greater dirtiness of the external leaves of the sections, which was the result of their separate storage.
The cover of the manuscript consists of 4 protective leaves (a, b, c, and d) and 2 endpapers. However, it is more accurate to consider that the manuscript has an endpaper and protective leaf a at the beginning and protective leaf e and endpaper at the end because leaves b and c are not strictly protective leaves but substitutes for a title page.
Leaf a was made from paper A, while cards b, c, and e were made from paper B.
The watermark of paper A depicts a large letter P, split at the bottom, with a rosette above it in the form of a four-petaled flower on a single stem. Below the letter is a faint drawing of an object – either a trumpet or a pine cone. In Briquet's catalog, the watermark most similar is cataloged as number 8,833.
The watermark of paper B depicts a heraldic shield cut by a horizontal band, above which is a rod pointing upwards topped with a three-leaf clover entwined by a snake sticking out its long tongue. In Briquet's catalog, the watermark most similar is cataloged as number 1,451.
These papers date from 1580 to 1600 and originate from Württemberg paper mills.
During conservation work, after removing the endpaper, it was discovered that the cover made of cardboard consisting of parchment pulp under an external parchment cover contained a parchment document of Emperor Maximilian II from 1566 and a corrected printout of De inquisitione Hispanica, Heidelberg 1603.
The fact that correction leaves of a book published in 1603 were found inside the cover proves that the cover certainly was not made before that year, and at the same time, its creation could not have been too far from the 1603/1604 transition.
Before the binding from 1603/1604, the manuscript was neither sewn nor trimmed, and the current binding is its first binding.
History of the manuscript
The preserved form of the De revolutionibus autograph represents a certain stage in the work on this piece. It is the stage closest to completion and closest to the death of Nicolaus Copernicus, which occurred on 24 May 1543.
The preserved copy of the De revolutionibus autograph was not used for publishing purposes either in Wittenberg in 1542 or in Nuremberg in 1543 during the printing of the first edition, nor in Basel during the printing of the second edition. This is evidenced by the cleanliness of the manuscript and the absence of traces associated with contemporary printing work such as stains, marks, etc. Not only does the appearance of the manuscript indicate that it was not a copy used in the printing process, but also the lists of printer's errors included in the published copies and referring to a comparison with the manuscript, which contain words not present in the original autograph.
Owners of the De revolutionibus manuscript and where it is stored
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Period from Copernicus' death to 1600
After Copernicus' death, his papers and books were inherited by his close friend Tiedemann Giese, the Bishop of Chełmno, and later, from 1548, the Bishop of Warmia. Giese passed away on 23 October 1550, and according to his will, his library was bequeathed to the .
However, the De revolutionibus autograph did not end up in the chapter library. Instead, during Tiedemann Giese's lifetime, it came into the possession of Georg Joachim Rheticus (also known as von Lauchen). This could have happened as early as 1545 or as late as 1550.
Rheticus actually had access to the content of the autograph in the form of a copy even earlier, when in 1540 he published the first account of Copernicus' work in Gdańsk in the Narratio prima. He also used a copy of the De revolutionibus autograph when he published De lateribus et angulis triangulorum in Wittenberg in 1542, which was intended to be the second book of Copernicus' work for some time.
The exact moment when Georg Joachim Rheticus received the De revolutionibus autograph remains unknown. What is certain is that the remaining collection of Copernican materials in Tiedemann Giese's possession was transferred to the Warmia Chapter library.
Georg Joachim Rheticus undoubtedly played a major role in disseminating Copernicus' thoughts and works. It was under his influence that Copernicus agreed to publish his autograph and helped in making a copy of it. However, Copernicus did not directly pass on the autograph to Rheticus during his lifetime.
In 1551, Rheticus had to urgently leave Leipzig and abandon his further career at the university. Eventually, in 1554, he found himself in Kraków. Around 1569, Valentinus Otho, a student of Johannes Praetorius, joined Rheticus as his collaborator. During this time, the De revolutionibus autograph was in Kraków, together with Rheticus.
Shortly before his death, Georg Joachim Rheticus left Kraków for Košice, where he stayed as a guest of Albrecht Łaski, the voivode of Sieradz, and the Hungarian magnate Jan Rüber. During Rheticus' stay in Košice, Valentinus Otho brought the De revolutionibus manuscript from Kraków, left there by Rheticus. This happened on 28 November 1574. A few days later, on 4 December 1574, Georg Joachim Rheticus died, and Valentinus Otho became his heir and the next owner of the manuscript.
Otho soon left Košice and sought new employment. He obtained a position as a professor of mathematics at the Calvinist University of Heidelberg. During his stay there, the De revolutionibus manuscript and other papers acquired from Rheticus were stored haphazardly among stacks of other books and papers. This disorderly state of storage was reported by Otho's associate, Bartholomaeus Pitiscus, in the preface to his work Thesaurus Mathematicus.
From 1600 to 1945
When Valentinus Otho died, his collections were acquired by the orientalist professor Jakob Christmann, who wrote a note on leaf b attributed to him, stating ad usum studii mathematici procuravit dated 16 December 1603. It is likely that Christmann did not include the manuscript in the university library but instead kept it for personal use when Simon Petiscus, who held the chair of mathematics at the time, took possession of it. Petiscus died in 1608, and at that point, the manuscript most likely returned to Christmann's possession. Christmann unquestionably owned the manuscript at the time of his death on 16 June 1613, and his widow, who took over the manuscript, sold it to John Amos Comenius on 17 January 1614.
Comenius acquired the manuscript just over half a year after his enrollment at the Heidelberg University (which occurred on 19 June 1613). The purchase transaction was completed for an unspecified "fair price" paid to Christmann's widow. Comenius noted this information on leaf b verso of the manuscript, signing himself as Johannes Amos Nivanus (from his birthplace – Nivnice in Moravia). It is known that he resided in Poland several times (Leszno 1626–1641, Elbląg 1642–1648, again Leszno 1648–1656), but it is not known whether he had the De revolutionibus manuscript with him during any of his stays. The moment when Comenius lost Copernicus' autograph is also unknown.
The next owner of the De revolutionibus autograph was Otto von Nostitz. The autograph is mentioned in the inventory document of the Nostitz Library under the signature MS e 21 (leaf 360 verso) with an entry from 5 October 1667. This date is later than the moment when von Nostitz became the owner, as he had already passed away at the time of the entry, but he left his signature on the protective leaf c of the De revolutionibus autograph. At that time, the manuscript was kept at Jawor Castle.
Later on, along with the Nostitz Library, the autograph became part of the estate created by them and was transferred to the Nostitz Palace in Prague. The autograph remained the property of the Nostitz family for nearly 300 years and was mentioned several times in the inventories of this library in the 17th and 18th centuries.
From 1945 to the present day
In 1945, the Prague collections of the Nostitz family, along with the autograph of De revolutionibus, were nationalized. Eleven years later, on 5 July 1956, the government of Czechoslovakia offered this artifact as a gift to the Polish nation.
On 25 October 1956, the autograph of De revolutionibus by Nicolaus Copernicus was handed over to the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, and since then it has been kept in the special collections of the Jagiellonian Library.
Owen Gingerich, who examined almost all copies of the first and second editions of De revolutionibus from 1543 from Nuremberg and from 1566 from Basel, and who saw the autograph in Kraków around 1976, states in his book that this priceless treasure was lent to Poland by Czechoslovakia, and the Poles simply kept it and deposited it in the Jagiellonian Library at the Alma Mater of Copernicus. Since it was not customary for one communist country to protest too vehemently against the conduct of a brother nation, the valuable manuscript remained in Poland.
However, this opinion is not confirmed by the facts and is even contradictory to the findings in this regard made and conveyed by UNESCO.
Autograph storage in modern times
The autograph of De revolutionibus is stored in a secured, fireproof vault, in a specially prepared room within the Jagiellonian Library, where a constant temperature and humidity are maintained.
Protection of objects from special collections is one of the most important statutory obligations of the university and the Jagiellonian Library. Direct access to the autograph of De revolutionibus is permitted only for scientific and editorial purposes.
Access to this object is strictly controlled and limited. According to the regulations governing access to special collections, independent academic staff and individuals with a doctoral degree, doctoral students, adjuncts, and assistants with a master's degree can use them after presenting a letter of recommendation from their supervisor or academic advisor. Students preparing master's theses can also access them after presenting a letter of recommendation from their supervisor, and employees of scientific, cultural institutions, or publishing houses can access them after presenting a letter of recommendation or a certificate informing about the research topic and purpose. Individuals outside of the above groups can only access the special collections with the permission of the head of the manuscripts department.
Due to its unique value and the need for protection from external factors, the autograph of De revolutionibus is rarely displayed in public exhibitions. The last time this occurred was in 2012 during the 6th European Congress of Mathematics, and previously in 2005 during the Lesser Poland Days of Cultural Heritage.
During the last exhibition, the autograph of De revolutionibus, as one of the most valuable treasures, was exhibited only temporarily, after which, for safety and conservation reasons, it was replaced with facsimile editions.
Facsimile editions
1944 – Munich
The facsimile was produced using the photolithography technique, in monochrome. This edition does not capture all the details of the original and has been assessed as not possessing significant aesthetic qualities.
Full bibliographic information for the edition: Nicolaus Copernicus, Gesamtausgabe, vol. 1: Opus de revolutionibus caelestibus manu propria. Faksimile-Wiedergabe, München, Berlin 1944. Introduction by Fritz Kubach, afterword by Karl Zeller.
1972 – Kraków
Volume I of the Complete Works of Nicolaus Copernicus, also published in foreign languages (Latin 1973, French 1973, Russian 1973), containing images of all pages of the autograph, printed on third-class offset paper. The volume is accompanied by an introduction by Jerzy Zathey. The publication was initiated on the occasion of the five hundredth anniversary of Nicolaus Copernicus' birth in 1973.
1974 – Hildesheim
Edition of De revolutionibus: mit einem Vorwort zur Gesamtausgabe und einem Vorbericht über das Manuskript – the first volume containing a facsimile of the autograph.
1976 – Kraków
The reproduction was made using offset printing, using a halftone contact screen, ensuring full tonal compliance of the facsimile background with the original. The contact screen used allowed for the preservation of writing shades from brown to black and faithful reproduction of even small dots, spots, and distortions.
Printing was done on 120 gsm offset paper in shades adjusted to the four types of paper used in the manuscript. The dimensions of the pages are faithful to the original and cropped according to the prototype.
The fidelity of the reproduction to the original is as follows:
Background texture – 95%
Background shades – 90%
Low black intensity writing texture – 85%
Black writing texture and shades – 95%
Red writing shade and texture – 95%
This facsimile version looks so authentic that some people mistake it for the original when viewing it. Owen Gingerich mentions in his book about a certain bookseller from Chicago who donated the facsimile to the Adler Planetarium and wanted to deduct the value of the donation from taxes. Believing he was donating the original autograph of Copernicus, he asked Gingerich to appraise it.
1996 – electronic Neurosoft
Published as a "digital reprint" of the autograph. The publication consists of a CD-ROM containing images of all manuscript pages. It also includes an article by Marian Zwiercan entitled The History of Nicolaus Copernicus' De revolutionibus Autograph.
De revolutionibus autograph online
Images of all pages of Nicolaus Copernicus' De revolutionibus autograph are available in the online collections of the Jagiellonian Library.
Autograph on the Memory of the World list
The manuscript of De revolutionibus handwritten by Nicolaus Copernicus has been inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World list since 1999, as one of twelve Polish objects on the list and three hundred globally.
The entry emphasizes that De revolutionibus is one of the greatest achievements of an individual that shaped new eras and influenced the development of civilization and culture.
References
Bibliography
Studies
External links
Nicolaus Copernicus
History of astronomy
16th-century manuscripts
Memory of the World Register
Jagiellonian University | Autograph of Nicolaus Copernicus' De revolutionibus | [
"Astronomy"
] | 6,109 | [
"History of astronomy"
] |
76,734,839 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey%20Drug%20Trials | The Monkey Drug Trials of 1969 were a series of controversial animal testing experiments that were conducted on primates to study the effects of various psychoactive substances. The trials shed light on the profound effects of drug addiction and withdrawal in primates, pioneering critical insights into human substance abuse.
Background
The Monkey Drug Trials experiment was influenced by preceding research discussing related topics. Six notable research publications may be highlighted: “Factors regulating oral consumption of an opioid (etonitazene) by morphine-addicted rats”; “Experimental morphine addiction: Method for automatic intravenous injections in unrestrained rats.”; ”Morphine self-administration, food-reinforced, and avoidance behaviors in rhesus monkeys''; “Psychopharmacological elements of drug dependence”; “Drug addiction. I. Addiction by escape training”; “Morphine addiction in rats”.
Experiments
The study “Self-Administration of Psychoactive Substances by the Monkey” was conducted by G. Deneau, T. Yanagita and M.H. Seever at the department of pharmacology at the University of Michigan.
The monkey drug trials consisted of self-injection of intravenous drugs in monkeys, in which the primates were trained to operate the self-administration of cocaine, morphine, amphetamines, codeine, caffeine, mescaline, pentobarbital, ethanol, by using a lever in their cage. Their responses to the drugs over time were carefully analyzed to assess whether monkeys, after initial exposure to it, will show a voluntary intake of it, indicating psychological dependencies.
The results suggested that some drugs elicited signs of dependency while others did not. They were compared with human dependency problems aiming to find an explanation of physiological and psychological drug dependence in humans. Those trials had some drastic side effects like tremors, hallucinations, convulsions, sudden death and disorientation. Several other experiments that were highly criticised because of moral issues led to the development of guidelines for guidelines for Ethical Conduct in the Care and Use of Animals provided by the American Psychological Association.
Procedure
Monkeys selected as experiment subjects were kept in specially-built cubicles. Inside the booths, monkeys were restrained by a harness attached to a restraining arm mounted on the wall. Upon acclimation of the monkey to the new environment, the harness was adjusted to fit the size of the animal. A silicone catheter was inserted into the monkey’s jugular vein under anesthesia and fixed in place. The other end of the catheter was attached to a tube running through the harness to an injector.
After the monkey recovered from the catheter installation, two switches were placed inside the cubicle. Pressing one of the switches activated the injector and saline was injected into the vein of the monkey. Upon pressing the other switch, saline was transported back from the injector to the container. After the monkey learned to operate the self-admiration mechanism, saline was switched to a drug solution. Drug injections could be administered by the monkey or a timer.
If the drug had rewarding effects on the monkey, it increased the self-admiration rate as pressing the switch would be associated with a pleasant experience. If the experience was perceived negatively, the monkey avoided pressing the switch.
In the event of the monkey not initiating drug injections, the solution was administered automatically at regular intervals to test if upon further exposure, the monkey would begin to press the switch on its own, signaling psychological dependence on the drug.
Results
Morphine: Some monkeys expressed an initial reluctance to self-administer morphine at lower doses, but they eventually began and maintained a consistent intake of it, some even significantly increasing the dosage throughout the experiment. None of the monkeys voluntarily ceased their morphine intake during the study, and when this drug was taken away from them they expressed symptoms of severe dependence. Some of the side effects observed during the monkeys’ morphine consumption were drowsiness, apathy, reduced food intake, and temporary weight loss.
Codeine: Four out of five monkeys initiated level-pressing for codeine, gradually increasing its intake until achieving a stable consumption between the fifth and sixth week of the experiment. One monkey experienced convulsions and died after reaching the highest observed daily dosage of 600 mg/kg, and the other four died between the sixth and eighth week of unrestricted codeine consumption.
Nalorphine: Due to the monkey’s experience with the first drug trial, they refused to administer themselves drugs out of their own free will. So they were injected every four hours for the whole period of the trial. During the trial the monkeys were less active, somewhat apprehensive and salivated mildly for 10-15 minutes. Once the trial ended and the monkeys were taken off the drugs they yawned excessively and scratched for 2 days.
Morphine-Nalorphine mixture: Four monkeys were tested with a mixture of both drugs, these monkeys had shown psychological dependence but had not been allowed to self-administer morphine. None of the monkey voluntarily self-administered the mixture.
Cocaine: Two out of four monkeys started self-administration with a dose of 0.25 mg/kg, and the other three started with a dose of 1.0 mg/kg that they maintained throughout the experiment. Once self-administration began, the cocaine consumption rapidly increased, leading to convulsions and death within 30 days. To extend the experiment, the self-administration dose was restricted to one dose per hour, and the consequent pattern was monkeys self-administering until exhaustion, after which they voluntarily ceased their cocaine intake for a period ranging from 12 hours to 5 days. During this period of voluntary restriction, monkeys slept intermittently and ate frequently. Cocaine consumption resulted in secondary effects such as hallucinations, muscle mass loss, and frequent grand mal convulsions.
Morphine-cocaine: Four monkeys had 2 tubes implanted, where one supplied morphine and one supplied cocaine, with corresponding lever switches which could be pressed as pleased. Quite shortly after, the monkeys developed dependency, primarily using cocaine during the day and morphine during the evening/night. Combined toxic effects of these drugs created disorientation, delirium, anorexia, motor impairment, emaciation and eventually death after 2-4 weeks.
The Amphetamines: Five monkeys voluntarily self-administered a maximum dose of methamphetamine. The intake was infrequent with periods of voluntary withdrawal and periods of high intake daily and nightly. D-amphetamine had similar but milder effects than cocaine, lacking especially grand convulsions, chewing of forearms and digits. Hair was plucked from one monkey’s body by themselves leading to believe the hallucinations might have been present. Just as in cocaine the monkeys became confused and a catabolic effect was observed in both cocaine and amphetamines.
Caffeine: Four monkeys were placed in a caffeine trial, where two failed self-administration of 1.0mg/kg, one failed self-administration at 2.5mg/kg and one did initiate self administration at this level, and one monkey initiated self-administration at 5.0mg/kg. One monkey self-administered voluntarily and two did with priming. The pattern following self-administration was sporadic and with irregular intervals of administration and abstinence. No tendency to heighten the dose or to take the drug at night was shown, and once the drug was withdrawn no signs of withdrawal were visible with the monkeys.
Mescaline: The monkeys either did not self-administer mescaline or started doing so after one month of programmed administration. Effects observed were salivation indicating nausea although no monkeys vomited, mydriasis and piloerection. The monkeys were also very apprehensive of sounds. No abstinence signs were observed during programmed administration.
Pentobarbital: Five monkeys initiated and maintained self-administration of 3 mg/kg doses of pentobarbital. They constantly self-administered as soon as the last dose enabled them to re-administer, reaching a tolerance plateau of 420mg/kg per week. All monkey’s abstained during meals, which were larger than average. The monkeys maintained good physical condition, gaining weight throughout the experiment. They never voluntarily abstained and when abstinence was forced, abstinence syndrome was observed with symptoms of extreme restlessness, tremors, grand mal convulsions and apparent hallucinations.
Ethanol: Four out if five monkeys administered ethanol voluntarily, where one of four completely stopped self-administering after one month. Despite severe abstinence syndrome, the monkeys voluntarily abstained for 2-4 days during the first 4 months. Afterwards these periods were usually no more than a day. Effects observed included severe motor incoordination and stupor, sometimes to the point of light anesthesia. Withdrawal periods also induced symptoms of tremor, vomiting, hallucinatory behavior and convulsions within 6 hours after the last dose. Food intake was also severely deprived, showing marked weight loss and cachexia. Two monkeys died because of respiratory obstruction during anesthesia.
Chlorpromazine: None of six monkeys willingly self-administered chlorpromazine, and received programmed injections. After withdrawal though, two monkeys willingly self-administered 2-5 times a day and then abstained completely after several weeks. Effects during administration included typical phenothiazine effects of reduced spontaneous activity and responsiveness, narrowed palpebral fissures and slight miosis, but no major dyskinesias were observed. No withdrawal signs were observed either.
Saline: No attempt during the study to establish saline as a reinforcing agent was successful.
Limitations
Limitations the experimenters Deneau et al. mentioned in their paper about Self-Administration of Psychoactive Drugs by the Monkey include that the study was not able to test drugs that are not water soluble. This limited research of substances like the active ingredients of marijuana. In the paper it was also noted, that the individual variability in drug abuse of the individual monkeys, may affect the reliability of the results.
When discussing the concept of self-administration for inferring abuse potential it is essential to consider the toxicity of the drug when it is administered as well as the withdrawal-effects once usage is stopped. The experiment mainly focused on the self-administration and not on the withdrawal-period or detailed effects that the drugs had on the body. Abuse potential as well as a drugs potential danger is not only determined by self-administration but by several factors that were not taken into account when the study was conducted.
An additional point of criticism raised by primatologists is the limitation of generalizing results from data obtained on non-human primates onto humans. There are possible biases that can emerge through, for example, the environment the monkeys are being placed in or connected traumas resulting from the replacement of their previous environment to the laboratory.
Ethics
Experiments using Non-Human Primates (NHPs) are viewed more critically in years following 1969, when the study of Self-Administration of Psychoactive Substances by the Monkey was conducted.
The bioethicist Peter Singer, for example, argues that there should be no use of any animal in biomedical research as this would indicate speciesism. It is often argued that animals lack sentience, autonomy and self-consciousness, which is utilized to justify the use of animals in scientific experiments. Singer draws the comparison of humans that lack these traits and argues that if one is morally able to deprive an animal of their rights based on this argument, one would also be entitled to depriving said humans of the same rights and privileges.
More specific to the experiment of Self-Administration of Psychoactive Substances by the Monkey which utilized rhesus monkeys, there is the factor of a substantial phylogenetic proximity between non-human primates and humans which indicates that the suffering endured by NHPs in these experiments is similar to what a human would experience under the same circumstances.
Some argue that this phylogenetic proximity between NHPs and humans is exactly what benefits comparative psychology, in which it is thus easier to infer from the animal to humans. The drug self-administration procedures that occur in animals have been found to present valid and reliable results for assessing the potential drug abuse in humans. The reliability of these studies is particularly high because of the phylogenetic similarity.
Carl Cohen, a bioethicist, suggests that as long as animals are killed by humans daily, simply for consumption, even though this is unnecessary due to modern scientific developments, there would be no reason not to utilize animals in scientific experiments.
A utilitarian argument to justify this further would be that there are relatively few NHPs used in research, compared to the relatively large number of people benefitting.
The Institution of Harvard Medical School, when talking about a different ethically-questioned experiment using NHPs, stated:As long as non-human primates are used in scientific experiments, we are morally obligated to provide them with sufficient social conditions that ensure their emotional well-being.
Legacy and aftermath
The monkey drug trials were not the first nor the last experiment of its kind. Using animals to assess the effects of addiction and withdrawal was a relatively common practice during Deneau’s time, with monkeys and rats being the most prevalent subjects. Notably, Charles Schuster’s studies on drug self-administration were critical in demonstrating the highly addictive nature of stimulant substances. The cruelty and disregard for the animals displayed by the experimenters during the 1969 drug trials were the key contributor in the controversy that followed.
The experiment had a profound impact on the field of neuroscience and addiction research, leading to lasting changes in research practices, ethical considerations, and public perception.
In spite of the criticism that accompanied the publication of the study, subsequent research did provide valuable insights into addiction-driven behaviors. In the following decades, articles focusing on the biological processes underlying drug-addiction grew in popularity. Respected scientists, such as George Koob and Nora Volkov, were at the forefront of new discoveries in addiction neuroscience and the pharmacology of behavior. Research also explored the clinical aspects of addiction-related behaviors, with experiments aimed at reducing the likelihood of relapse in patients.
While self-administered drug trials were not a novelty in the last century, the validity and efficiency of such procedures have since become a subject of debate in the scientific community. The use of animals in studies exploring the effects of various substances was still prevalent by the end of the 20th century.
See also
Cambridge University primates
Silver Spring monkeys
References
Animal testing techniques
Animal rights
Toxicology tests
Animal testing in the United States
Animal testing on non-human primates
Substance abuse | Monkey Drug Trials | [
"Chemistry",
"Environmental_science"
] | 2,996 | [
"Animal testing",
"Toxicology",
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76,735,004 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl%20math | The phrase "girl math" is an internet meme, used to describe rationalizations by young women to justify indulgent and potentially irresponsible spending habits. It originated from the social media platform TikTok, later transferring over to Instagram and X (formerly Twitter).
History
According to KnowYourMeme, the origins of this trend stem from the TikTok user's @samjamessssss video, in which she encouraged the transition from "Girl Dinner", another popular TikTok trend amongst women, to girl math. The meme was created and popularized by women themselves on TikTok.
Another possible origin of the trend is thought to be from a New Zealand radio show "Fletch, Vaughan & Hailey", where they have a segment called "Girl Math". For this segment listeners would call in and share their large purchases, and the hosts would in turn help them justify spending the money on the item. The original segment became especially popular once it got to TikTok, where the trend went viral.
Effect of gender stereotypes
The rise of online trends on social media platforms such as X and TikTok, that pertain to the concept of "girl math" and "boy math" could potentially be influenced by and influence gender perceptions, as proposed by some research. Gender perceptions are the cultural and social views of males and females. There is a difference in the meaning behind the trends because when "girl math" is referred to it most commonly celebrates femininity with positive appraisement amongst women. Women tend to use the trend in a more humorous way to shine a light on how women spend their money and make decisions, which then ultimately transformed into a broader trend that addresses various issues related to womanhood.
There has been some backlash as people find that it perpetuates the notion that women's thought processes are irrational. Researchers have proposed that girls may adopt these societal preconceptions of boys being superior in academic subjects including math, which can result in heuristic linkages leading to underperformance in mathematical tasks. With some male users reportedly disregarding the trend as "delusional" and using it to support the stereotype that women are not mathematically capable, the negative feedback gained from girl math led to the emergence of "boy math".
"Boy math" on the other hand does not address how they spend money, but rather addresses male behavior, especially in romantic and sexual relationships, aiming to highlight instances of misogyny and toxic masculinity. The subsequent trend shows women weaponizing language in order to shame men for behaviors that harm women, rather than outwardly censuring the male population. "Boy math" has a certain negative connotation to it, because often the language used to criticize the toxic masculinity and misogynistic behaviors people have witnessed, is negative.
Behavioral economics
The trend of girl math utilizes cognitive biases that are prevalent and commonly known in the economic domain. The "cashless effect" is another frequently encountered bias about people generally being more willing to buy something when physical money is not involved in the transaction. This helps explain the statement that paying with a gift card is free. Another phenomenon promoted in the girl math trend is "cost-per-use", which refers to justifying expensive purchases by dividing the sum across the days of usage.
Other psychological concepts relevant to girl math include cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, the framing effect, and mental accounting theory. Cognitive dissonance is the mental tension which arises from the holding of two contradicting beliefs. Girl math is applied to alleviate said mental tension through the usage of biases and heuristics. There are multiple biases used in girl math one of them is the confirmation bias, where people choose to pay attention to evidence that supports their decision and ignore what does not. The framing effect is another bias, which allows people to make inferior choices based on positive nuance.
Mental accounting theory helps form the basis for girl math. The main premise of it is the organization of money into different "mental buckets", such as one mental bucket for paying rent and one mental bucket for going shopping. This affects how one perceives financial gains and losses in relative instead of absolute terms. If people find money on the sidewalk or get their tax refund, it makes them happy because the money has not been organized into a mental bucket yet and is therefore considered free money which can be spent however they want.
Criticism
In a widely spread TikTok video, Marley Brown, a college freshman, attempted to explain the girl math concept to her concerned father. She jokingly said that if she bought concert tickets for two and was reimbursed, the repaid money felt like "free money" since her bank account had already been charged. Thousands of comments, primarily from women, resonated with Brown's logic, revealing that they also apply girl math principles to their everyday purchases. However, financial experts warn against viewing certain expenses as "free". They emphasize that rationalizing small purchases can hinder long-term financial planning, by pointing out, for example, a daily $5 coffee, which can be very easily "girl math-ed", may seem insignificant but can accumulate to $100 a month or $1,200 annually.
A more serious criticism comes from the idea that by labelling illogical calculations as girl math, this trend trivializes women's mathematical abilities and highlights the stereotype that women are inherently less skilled in logical reasoning. The implications of girl math extend beyond individual perceptions, reinforcing historical biases that have historically marginalized women in mathematics and related disciplines.
For girl math's proponents, the trend is light-hearted fun and it should not be taken seriously. Girl math is no longer considered to be fun when one earnestly uses it to justify their bad spending habits and alleviate any sense of guilt. In some cases, girl math can undermine the significance of small expenses made on a daily basis. If the long-term consequences of small daily expenses are not factored into one's finances, then financial trouble is a likely consequence in the future.
References
Psychological effects
Human behavior
Women and psychology
TikTok trends
Instagram | Girl math | [
"Biology"
] | 1,272 | [
"Behavior",
"Human behavior"
] |
76,736,170 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitivity%20theorem | In computational complexity, the sensitivity theorem, proved by Hao Huang in 2019, states that the sensitivity of a Boolean function is at least the square root of its degree, thus settling a conjecture posed by Nisan and Szegedy in 1992. The proof is notably succinct, given that prior progress had been limited.
Background
Several papers in the late 1980s and early 1990s showed that various decision tree complexity measures of Boolean functions are polynomially related, meaning that if are two such measures then for some constant . Nisan and Szegedy showed that degree and approximate degree are also polynomially related to all these measures. Their proof went via yet another complexity measure, block sensitivity, which had been introduced by Nisan. Block sensitivity generalizes a more natural measure, (critical) sensitivity, which had appeared before.
Nisan and Szegedy asked whether block sensitivity is polynomially bounded by sensitivity (the other direction is immediate since sensitivity is at most block sensitivity). This is equivalent to asking whether sensitivity is polynomially related to the various decision tree complexity measures, as well as to degree, approximate degree, and other complexity measures which have been shown to be polynomially related to these along the years. This became known as the sensitivity conjecture.
Along the years, several special cases of the sensitivity conjecture were proven.
The sensitivity theorem was finally proven in its entirety by Huang, using a reduction of Gotsman and Linial.
Statement
Every Boolean function can be expressed in a unique way as a multilinear polynomial. The degree of is the degree of this unique polynomial, denoted .
The sensitivity of the Boolean function at the point is the number of indices such that , where is obtained from by flipping the 'th coordinate. The sensitivity of is the maximum sensitivity of at any point , denoted .
The sensitivity theorem states that
In the other direction, Tal, improving on an earlier bound of Nisan and Szegedy, showed that
The sensitivity theorem is tight for the AND-of-ORs function:
This function has degree and sensitivity .
Proof
Let be a Boolean function of degree . Consider any maxonomial of , that is, a monomial of degree in the unique multilinear polynomial representing . If we substitute an arbitrary value in the coordinates not mentioned in the monomial then we get a function on coordinates which has degree , and moreover, . If we prove the sensitivity theorem for then it follows for . So from now on, we assume without loss of generality that has degree .
Define a new function by
It can be shown that since has degree then is unbalanced (meaning that ), say . Consider the subgraph of the hypercube (the graph on in which two vertices are connected if they differ by a single coordinate) induced by . In order to prove the sensitivity theorem, it suffices to show that has a vertex whose degree is at least . This reduction is due to Gotsman and Linial.
Huang constructs a signing of the hypercube in which the product of the signs along any square is . This means that there is a way to assign a sign to every edge of the hypercube so that this property is satisfied. The same signing had been found earlier by Ahmadi et al., which were interested in signings of graphs with few distinct eigenvalues.
Let be the signed adjacency matrix corresponding to the signing. The property that the product of the signs in every square is implies that , and so half of the eigenvalues of are and half are . In particular, the eigenspace of (which has dimension ) intersects the space of vectors supported by (which has dimension ), implying that there is an eigenvector of with eigenvalue which is supported on . (This is a simplification of Huang's original argument due to Shalev Ben-David.)
Consider a point maximizing . On the one hand, .
On the other hand, is at most the sum of absolute values of all neighbors of in , which is at most . Hence .
Constructing the signing
Huang constructed the signing recursively. When , we can take an arbitrary signing. Given a signing of the -dimensional hypercube , we construct
a signing of as follows. Partition into two copies of . Use for one of them and for the other, and assign all edges between the two copies the sign .
The same signing can also be expressed directly. Let be an edge of the hypercube. If is the first coordinate on which differ, we use the sign .
Extensions
The sensitivity theorem can be equivalently restated as
Laplante et al. refined this to
where is the maximum sensitivity of at a point in .
They showed furthermore that this bound is attained at two neighboring points of the hypercube.
Aaronson, Ben-David, Kothari and Tal defined a new measure, the spectral sensitivity of , denoted . This is the largest eigenvalue of the adjacency matrix of the sensitivity graph of , which is the subgraph of the hypercube consisting of all sensitive edges (edges connecting two points such that ). They showed that Huang's proof can be decomposed into two steps:
.
.
Using this measure, they proved several tight relations between complexity measures of Boolean functions: and . Here is the deterministic query complexity and is the quantum query complexity.
Dafni et al. extended the notions of degree and sensitivity to Boolean functions on the symmetric group and on the perfect matching association scheme, and proved analogs of the sensitivity theorem for such functions. Their proofs use a reduction to Huang's sensitivity theorem.
See also
Decision tree model
Notes
References
Theorems in computational complexity theory | Sensitivity theorem | [
"Mathematics"
] | 1,167 | [
"Theorems in computational complexity theory",
"Theorems in discrete mathematics"
] |
76,738,771 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRB-seq | Bulk RNA barcoding and sequencing (BRB-seq) is an ultra-high-throughput bulk 3' mRNA-seq technology that uses early-stage sample barcoding and unique molecular identifiers (UMIs) to allow the pooling of up to 384 samples in one tube early in the sequencing library preparation workflow. The transcriptomic technology is compatible with both Illumina and MGI short-read sequencing instruments.
In standard RNA-seq, a sequencing library must be prepared for each RNA sample individually. In contrast, in BRB-seq, all samples are pooled early in the workflow for simultaneous processing to reduce the cost and hands-on time associated with the library preparation stage
As BRB-seq is a 3' mRNA-seq technique, short reads are generated only for the 3' region of polyadenylated mRNA molecules instead of the full length of transcripts like in standard RNA-seq. This means that BRB-seq requires a far lower sequencing depth per sample to generate genome-wide transcriptomic data that allows users to detect similar numbers of expressed genes and differentially expressed genes as the standard Illumina TruSeq approach but at a cost up to 25 times cheaper or similar to profiling four genes using RT-qPCR. BRB-seq also has a greater tolerance for lower RNA quality (RIN <6) where transcripts are degraded because only the 3' region is required in library preparation
History
The BRB-seq technique was first published in April 2019 in the peer-reviewed journal Genome Research in a manuscript entitled 'BRB-seq: ultra-affordable high-throughput transcriptomics enabled by bulk RNA barcoding and sequencing. By the end of 2019, the article was among the top 10 most-read papers in the journal and has been cited over 150 times (April 2024).
The technique was developed at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland in the labs of Professor Bart Deplancke and collaborators. In May 2020, a company called Alithea Genomics was established to provide BRB-seq as kits for researchers or as a full service. BRB-seq builds upon technological advances in single-cell transcriptomics, where sample barcoding made the early multiplexing of hundreds to thousands of single cells possible. Sample multiplexing allowed researchers to create single sequencing libraries containing multiple distinct samples, reducing overall experimental costs and hands-on time while dramatically boosting throughput.
BRB-seq applies these advancements in sample and mRNA barcoding to mRNAs derived from bulk cell populations to enable ultra-high-throughput studies crucial for drug discovery, population studies, or fundamental research.
Method
The fundamental aspect of BRB-seq is the optimized sample barcode primers. Each barcoded nucleotide sequence includes an adaptor for primer annealing, a 14-nt long barcode that assigns a unique identifier to each individual RNA sample, and a random 14-nt long UMI that tags each mRNA molecule with a unique sequence to distinguish between original mRNA transcripts and duplicates that result from PCR amplification bias. BRB-seq allows up to 384 individually barcoded RNA samples to be pooled into one tube early in the workflow to streamline subsequent steps in cDNA library preparation and sequencing.
Input RNA requirements
Isolated total RNA samples require RIN ≥ 6 and an A260/230 ratio ˃ 1.5 when quantified by Nanodrop. Between 10 ng to 1 μg of purified RNA per sample is recommended for standard BRB-seq. To ensure library uniformity and an even distribution of reads for each sample after sequencing, the RNA concentration per input sample, their RIN, and their 260/230 values must be as uniform as possible.
Workflow
The BRB-seq workflow begins by adding isolated RNA samples to individual wells of a 96- or 384-well plate. Each sample then undergoes independent barcoded reverse transcription after the addition of unique optimized barcoded oligo(dT) primers. These primers uniquely tag the 3’ poly(A) tail of mRNA molecules during the first-strand synthesis of cDNA. Strand information is preserved. As each RNA sample has an individual barcode, all samples from the 96- or 384-well plate can be pooled into one tube for simultaneous processing after this first step.
Following sample pooling into a single tube, free primers are digested. A second-strand synthesis reaction then results in double-stranded cDNA (DS cDNA).
Next, these full-length cDNA molecules undergo a process called tagmentation facilitated byTn5 transposase preloaded with adaptors necessary for library amplification. The transposase first fragments cDNA molecules and then ligates the pre-loaded adaptors to these cDNA fragments. Higher library complexity occurs when using around 20 ng of cDNA per sample for tagmentation, meaning fewer PCR amplification cycles are required.
For compatibility with Illumina sequencers, the resulting cDNA library is then indexed and amplified using a unique dual indexing (UDI) strategy with indexes P5 and P7. These indexes minimize the risk of barcode misassignment after next-generation sequencing.
Information about the average fragment size of libraries is then required to assess the libraries' molarity and prepare the appropriate library dilution for sequencing. A successful library contains fragments in the range of 300 – 1000 bp with a peak of 400-700 bp.
Unlike standard bulk RNA-seq methods which require around 30 million reads per sample for robust gene expression information, for BRB-seq, a sequencing depth of between one and five million reads per sample is sufficient to detect the majority of expressed genes in a sample. Lowly expressed genes can be detected by sequencing at higher depths.
BRB-seq sequencing data can be analyzed with standard open-source transcriptomic analysis methods, such as STARsolo, designed to align multiplexed data and generate gene and UMI count matrices for downstream RNA-seq analysis from raw fastq files.
Applications
BRB-seq is suitable for any study requiring genome-wide transcriptomic data. It is especially suited to studies with hundreds or thousands of samples thanks to its scalable, straightforward, and quick workflow, which is suitable for automation.
AI-driven drug discovery and toxicogenomics
Artificial intelligence requires vast amounts of training data to reach robust and reliable conclusions about a drug's on- or off-target biological effects and their toxicogenomic profiles. BRB-seq is a cost-effective and time-efficient sequencing technology that allows pharmaceutical companies to extract more transcriptomic data at a lower cost to investigate the pharmacological effects of thousands of molecules on cells of interest simultaneously and at scale.
Fundamental research
BRB-seq has been used to discover a new type of cell that inhibits the formation of fat in humans, with the potential to improve treatments for obesity and type 2 diabetes, to determine the expression of immune genes activated by SARS-CoV-2 at different temperatures in human airway cells and to discover genes that are turned on or off at different times of the day in the fruit fly
Agrigenomics
Researchers also used Plant BRB-seq in agritranscriptomics to investigate the transcriptomic response of maize to nitrogen fertilizers. They found the differential expression of a subset of stress-responsive genes in response to altering levels of fertilizer
References
DNA sequencing | BRB-seq | [
"Chemistry",
"Biology"
] | 1,568 | [
"Molecular biology techniques",
"DNA sequencing"
] |
76,739,450 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusarium%20pseudoanthophilum | Fusarium pseudoanthophilum is a species of fungus in the family Nectriaceae. It was first described by Kerry O'Donnell and Jürgen Kroschel in 1998 as Fusarium brevicatenulatum. It was then listed as a synonym of F. brevicatenulatum by Amata and colleagues in 2010, who confirmed the species are the same through sexual compatibility tests. , Index Fungorum does not recognize the proposed synonymy.
The original 1998 publication included both F. brevicatenulatum and F. pseudoanthophilum. No information was found to locate a type specimen of the species. Research papers noted that F. pseudoanthophilum and F. brevicatenulatum were cultured and isolated from millet, noxious witchweed, and maize. F. pseudoanthophilum was first isolated from Zea mays, maize, in Zimbabwe, Gambiza. F. brevicatenulatum was first isolated from noxious witchweed (Striga asiatica) in Madagascar.
Fusarium in modern Latin comes from the Latin word fusus meaning spindle.
For F. pseudoanthophilum, "pseudo" means false or imitation, "antho" meaning flower, "philum" as friend or loving.
Physiology
Fusarium pseudoanthophilum and F. brevicatenulatum are part of the Gibberella fujikuroi species complex.
Fusarium brevicatenulatum
The mycelium is whitish and is lanose to fluffy while the pigmentation in reverse is greyish orange and becomes dark bluish-grey. The conidia aggregate in false heads that form short chains. It only forms the short chains under continuous black light. The conidia are long-oval to obovoid and mostly lack septation. There is no odor associated with F. brevicatenulatum.
Fusarium pseudoanthophilum
The mycelium is orange-white and lanose while the pigmentation in reverse is pale orange and then orange-grey in the center. The conidia are produced in false heads and some also grow short chains. The conidiophores are erect and strongly branched. The condia are obovoid to clavate, pyriform, and sometimes long-oval to alantoid. It is mostly 0-septate. Chlamydospores are produced in chains.
Studies
Isolated from garden soils from Durban, South Africa, F. pseudoanthohilum was among three isolates of Fusarium species present. F. pseudoanthohilum was tested against crops other than the typical associated cereal crops. F. pseudoanthohilum is shown to be able to infect Solanaceae crops such as tomatoes and peppers. F. pseudoanthohilum is also the most susceptible of the Fusarium species to the halogenated coumarins.
An analysis of Fusarium species found in the Kermanshah province of Iran was conducted on the roots and stems of maize between 2006 and 2008. Out of the 110 samples and 1100 Fusarium isolates, 29 Fusarium species were identified. F. pseudoanthohilum and F. brevicatenulatum were among the species. They are the first reports of the species in Iran.
Within the Fusarium species of Gibberella fujikuroi species complex, F. pseudoanthohilum and F. brevicatenulatum were among the 96 fungal isolates of the 28 species studied for furthering data on the production of beauvericin, enniatins, and fusaproliferin and toxicity to Artemia salina, brine shrimp. The studies did not show any of the three F. pseudoanthohilum strains as BEA producers which was previously reported in another study. F. brevicatenulatum was also studied, but there was no significant data that was specifically presented and highlighted.
In Ethiopia, Fusarium species were isolated from maize kernels to analyze what is causing the maize kernel rot. Out of the 200 samples from around Ethiopia, 38% had a mixture of fungal species. F. pseudoanthohilum had a 13.4% association with the kernels compared to the dominant species, F. verticillioides, at 42% out of the 11 different Fusarium species. The maize samples were also tested for mycotoxins. 77% of the total maize samples were found to have fumonisin mycotoxins.
Fusarium pseudoanthohilum were among the pathogenic species isolated from stored potato tubers with symptoms of dry rot disease. 76 species were isolated with a mixture of genera. F. pseudoanthohilum and F. foetens formed a single system with F. oxysporum for their pathogenicity.
Global Fungi Database
In the Global Fungi Database F. brevicatenulatum was used to search as F. pseudoanthophilum was not recognized in the database.
In the Global Fungi database, 74.08% of the samples of F. brevicatenulatum were found in soil. In the entire Global fungi database of the sample type breakdown of all samples, soil was the highest at 44.52%. The sample biome breakdown of the F. brevicatenulatum was 35.84% in cropland, 22.24% in grasslands, and 20.79% in forests. 53.72% of all samples in the entire database were found in forest biomes. The geolocation of the F. brevicatenulatum samples were distributed in Asia at 48.33% and Africa at 31.05%. Based on the map abundance of where the samples are found, F. brevicatenulatum is abundant in South Africa and Eastern Asia.
Croplands and biomes where wild crops are able to grow are preferred, which is typical for the Fusarium genus. Most of the Fusarium are crop related fungi. F. brevicatenulatum and F. pseudoanthophilum were isolated and described on cereal crops.
References
pseudoanthophilum
Fungi described in 1998
Fungus species
Fungi of Africa | Fusarium pseudoanthophilum | [
"Biology"
] | 1,286 | [
"Fungi",
"Fungus species"
] |
76,739,816 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoglas | Taoglas, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, is a manufacturer of RF antennas, RF Receivers, speakers and other modules.
The company was founded in 2004 in Enniscorthy, County Wexford and in 2021, with their main headquarters located in Dublin.
In February 2023, the company was purchased by US based Graham Partners.
In July 2023, the European Commission engaged with the Irish Government after Taoglas components were discovered in Russian bombs used to attack Ukraine during the Russo-Ukrainian War.
Worldwide locations
US headquarters:
San Diego, California
Production sites:
Taiwan: Taoyuan, Tainan
Other: India: Ahmedabad
See also
Radio frequency
Antenna (radio)
References
External links
Official website
2004 establishments in Ireland
Companies based in Dublin (city)
Electronics companies of Ireland
Radio manufacturers | Taoglas | [
"Engineering"
] | 156 | [
"Radio electronics",
"Radio manufacturers"
] |
76,740,070 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%204383 | NGC 4383 is a spiral galaxy located in the constellation Coma Berenices, within the Virgo Cluster. It was discovered on 23 May 1862 by Eduard Schönfeld. It is one of the most H I-rich galaxies in the cluster, hosting a 6-kiloparsec (20,000 ly) bipolar outflow, travelling at an average velocity of 210 kilometres per second. The outflow was studied using the Multi-unit spectroscopic explorer (MUSE) at the Very Large Telescope (VLT).
References
Coma Berenices
Virgo Cluster
Spiral galaxies
J12252551+1628120
7507
40516
+03-32-030
Astronomical objects discovered in 1862
4383 | NGC 4383 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 149 | [
"Coma Berenices",
"Constellations"
] |
76,741,113 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natascha%20F%C3%B6rster%20Schreiber | Natascha M. Förster Schreiber (born 1970) is an astronomer specializing in near-infrared spectroscopy of early galaxies. Born in Canada, and educated in Canada and Germany, she has worked in France, The Netherlands, and Germany. She is a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, near Munich.
Education and career
Förster Schreiber is originally from Canada, where she was born in 1970. She grew up near Montreal, and she became interested in astronomy through a summer program in high school. She completed a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics at the Université de Montréal in 1992, and continued there for a master's degree in physics in 1995. Her master's thesis, jointly supervised by Daniel Nadeau and René Doyon, concerned infrared observations of Messier 82. Next, she went to Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany for doctoral study in astrophysics. Continuing her work on M82, she completed a doctorate (Dr. rer. nat.) in 1999. Her dissertation, Near infrared imaging spectroscopy and mid-infrared spectroscopy of M82: revealing the nature of star formation activity in the archetypal starburst galaxy, was advised by Reinhard Genzel; the American Astronomical Society also lists Linda Tacconi as a co-advisor.
She became a postdoctoral researcher in France, at the Direction des Sciences et de la Matière of CEA Paris-Saclay, from 1998 to 2000, and then in The Netherlands, at the Leiden Observatory, from 2000 to 2004. She joined the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics as a research associate in 2004, and became a tenured senior scientist there in 2013.
Research
After early work on starburst galaxies such as M82, Förster Schreiber's research interests shifted to high-redshift galaxies, which provide a view of the universe at a much earlier time in its evolution. Her observations include both in-depth studies of individual galaxies and large-scale surveys of many galaxies. Through this work, she has found an unexpectedly rapid maturation of galaxies, producing a high population of massive and quenched galaxies and well-structured spiral galaxies in the early universe, and investigated the effects of galactic superwinds on star formation. Her contributions also include work on the instrumentation needed for these observations, including the Extremely Large Telescope under construction in Chile for the European Southern Observatory.
Recognition
Förster Schreiber's research at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics was funded from 2004 to 2008 by a Balzan Fellowship, and from 2008 to 2012 by a Minerva Fellowship of the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research. In 2019 she was given an honorary doctorate by the University of Bath in England.
References
External links
Home page
1970 births
Living people
Canadian astronomers
Canadian women scientists
German astronomers
German women scientists
Women astronomers
Université de Montréal alumni
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni
Max Planck Society people | Natascha Förster Schreiber | [
"Astronomy"
] | 601 | [
"Women astronomers",
"Astronomers"
] |
76,741,855 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IC%204617 | IC 4617 is a type Sbc spiral galaxy located in the Hercules constellation. It is located 553 million light-years from the Solar System and has an estimated diameter of 115,000 light-years thus making it slightly larger compared to the Milky Way. The galaxy was discovered by American astronomer, Edward Emerson Barnard or E. E. Barnard although no date of discovery was confirmed. IC 4617 is a member of Abell 2199 and happens to lie near towards the globular cluster, Messier 13.
References
4617
Hercules (constellation)
Spiral galaxies
2085077
Discoveries by Edward Emerson Barnard | IC 4617 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 124 | [
"Hercules (constellation)",
"Constellations"
] |
76,742,506 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%205683 | NGC 5683 is a type S0-a lenticular galaxy with a bar located in the Boötes constellation. It is 513 million light-years away from the Solar System and has an approximate diameter of 256,000 light-years meaning it is larger compared to the Milky Way. NGC 5683 was discovered by George Johnstone Stoney on April 13, 1850.
NGC 5683 happens to lie near to a spiral galaxy NGC 5682, but they are far apart from each other. Nearby is another galaxy NGC 5689.
Characteristics
NGC 5683 has an active galactic nucleus which presents strong x-rays. It is a Seyfert 1 type galaxy and such falls into the Markarian catalogue as Mrk 474, which its core shines in ultraviolet rays. The most accepted theory for this energy source of active galactic nuclei is the presence of an accretion disk around its supermassive black hole. It also shows high amounts of strong emission-lines which are mostly attributed to short-lived star formation in its regions likely restricted to a nuclear disk with its radius less than few hundred parsecs.
Supernova
Type la supernova SN 2002db was discovered on May 18, 2002, in NGC 5683 by a collaboration of astronomers and Reiki Kushida from LOTOSS (Lick Observatory and Tenagra Observatory Supernova Searches). It was positioned 8 arcsecs west and 9 arcsecs north of the nucleus, with a magnitude of 17.6.
References
Lenticular galaxies
Seyfert galaxies
Boötes
Astronomical objects discovered in 1850
5683
+08-27-003
0474
14329+4853
052114
052114
2MASS objects | NGC 5683 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 351 | [
"Boötes",
"Constellations"
] |
76,743,052 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLRg%20property | In mathematics, the notion of “common limit in the range” property denoted by CLRg property is a theorem that unifies, generalizes, and extends the contractive mappings in fuzzy metric spaces, where the range of the mappings does not necessarily need to be a closed subspace of a non-empty set .
Suppose is a non-empty set, and is a distance metric; thus, is a metric space. Now suppose we have self mappings These mappings are said to fulfil CLRg property if
for some
Next, we give some examples that satisfy the CLRg property.
Examples
Source:
Example 1
Suppose is a usual metric space, with Now, if the mappings are defined respectively as follows:
for all Now, if the following sequence is considered. We can see that
thus, the mappings and fulfilled the CLRg property.
Another example that shades more light to this CLRg property is given below
Example 2
Let is a usual metric space, with Now, if the mappings are defined respectively as follows:
for all Now, if the following sequence is considered. We can easily see that
hence, the mappings and fulfilled the CLRg property.
References
Fixed points (mathematics) | CLRg property | [
"Mathematics"
] | 245 | [
"Fixed points (mathematics)",
"Mathematical analysis",
"Topology",
"Dynamical systems"
] |
76,743,458 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%206331 | NGC 6331 is a type E elliptical galaxy located in the Ursa Minor constellation. It is located 737 million light-years from the Solar System and was discovered by German-British astronomer William Herschel on December 20, 1797, utilizing an 18.7-inch f/13 spectrum telescope but also observed by Guillaume Bigourdan.
With an approximate diameter of 345,000 light-years, NGC 6331 is well considered one of the largest galaxies. It is the brightest group member of Abell 2256 and first in 6' string to the east, making up of 6 galaxies. NGC 6331 also makes up a part of the galactic triplet CGCG 355-024 which comprises two other elliptical galaxies in the cluster, CGCG 355-024 NED03 (PGC 59513) and CGCG 355-024 NED01 (PGC 84827).
References
6331
Ursa Minor
Elliptical galaxies
084830
2MASS objects
+13-12-015
Discoveries by William Herschel
Astronomical objects discovered in 1797
J170335.88+783744.0 | NGC 6331 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 230 | [
"Ursa Minor",
"Constellations"
] |
76,743,659 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poulton%20%26%20Wyre%20Railway%20Society | Poulton & Wyre Railway Society (PWRS) is a railway preservation company based in Lancashire, England. Formed in 2006, its main focus has been working towards reinstating the railway line between Poulton-le-Fylde and Fleetwood (part of the Preston and Wyre Railway) for passenger use. The line was taken out of use in 1970 and removed in certain sections.
History
Poulton & Wyre Railway Society was formed in 2008, after a merger between Wyre Rail Cycle Partnership and a heritage railway group.
In 2007, the society obtained a non-operational lease from Network Rail for a section of line between the former Thornton for Cleveleys station in Thornton Centre and Hillylaid Road, a short distance to the north. The main aim was to clear the station's extant platforms of vegetation. This was achieved.
Network Rail upgraded the lease to a clearance licence the following year, and extended its coverage to the entire line between Poulton-le-Fylde and Jameson Road in Fleetwood.
In 2010, PWRS were given a three-year lease for Thornton for Cleveleys station. Lancashire County Council (LCC) supported the scheme. A £30,000 feasibility study was undertaken to explore the re-instatement of the link and the addition of a third platform at Poulton-le-Fylde station.
Highway England granted a licence to the society in 2015 to allow access to the line between the Wyre Way footpath and the A585 Amounderness Way.
In 2019, a motion requesting a feasibility study into the restoration was rejected by Wyre Council. This followed LCC's denial of £50,000 in funding the previous week.
On 28 February 2020, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made an unannounced visit to the Thornton station, three months before the 50th anniversary of the last passengers arriving there. He invited local councillor Brian Crawford onto the tracks for a private word. When Johnson asked what Crawford needed, he replied that £100,000 was necessary for an initial feasibility study. Johnson granted the request, and said he wanted the station to reopen before the next election, which was due in 2024. The line was one of several chosen as part of a policy to "Reverse Beeching" (see Beeching cuts).
The study, completed in 2021, found that the line could be reopened for heavy rail, to integrate with the national rail network. It confirmed it could also be used for 'light' rail, as an extension of the Blackpool Tramway route, or as a hybrid system, using vehicles which could operate on both heavy- and light-rail systems. The study also found that reopening the link would propose an 11-minute journey from Fleetwood to Poulton, and 28 minutes from Fleetwood to Preston. A journey which currently takes an hour by public transport.
In 2022, plans to reinstate the railway line between Poulton-le-Fylde and Fleetwood were approved by Parliament, with the Department for Transport agreeing to fund the project.
The society, having completed a full restoration of Thornton for Cleveleys station, has now begun work to clear vegetation and restore the disused platform at Burn Naze Halt, north of Thornton for Cleveleys, as part of their ambition to restore most of the line for heritage trains. The former Burn Naze station is located within the Hillhouse Enterprise Zone (part of the former ICI Hillhouse site, which was in operation between 1941 and 1992). It is possible that the station could be relocated to nearby Butts Close in Burn Naze, where there is space for a potential car park. PWRS moved its headquarters to the Hillhouse Enterprise Zone, having been given a plot of land by NPL Group.
In 2023, an 1890 Lancashire and Yorkshire Victorian railway carriage body was acquired by the society from Raikes Farmhouse in Thornton.
Plans for a Heritage Railway Centre, with a museum, offices, workshop and a test track, are underway.
Locomotives
The society has purchased and restored a John Fowler shunter from Leyland Motors, as well as two Class 108 diesel multiple units (DMU), which are also being restored. One is a trailer car, the other is power car.
Personnel
The society's president between 2018 and 2024 was Eddie Fisher. As of 2022, its chairman is Bill Eccles. The Labour Party's Cat Smith is a PWRS member.
References
External links
Official website
Organizations established in 2008
2008 establishments in England
Non-profit organisations based in England
Rail transport preservation
Railway societies
Railway companies of the United Kingdom | Poulton & Wyre Railway Society | [
"Engineering"
] | 938 | [
"Rail transport preservation",
"Engineering preservation societies"
] |
76,746,049 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trifluoroethylene | Trifluoroethylene (abbreviated as TrFE) is an organofluoride compound with the chemical formula . It is a colourless gas. TrFE can polymerise to form poly(trifluoroethylene) (PTrFE). It can also form copolymers with other monomers, such as vinylidene fluoride to form a co-polymer that is used to produce ferroelectric materials.
References
Monomers
Fluoroalkenes
Hydrofluoroolefins | Trifluoroethylene | [
"Chemistry",
"Materials_science"
] | 111 | [
"Monomers",
"Polymer chemistry"
] |
76,747,649 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna%20Lawniczak | Anna T. Lawniczak (born 1953) is an applied mathematician known for her work on complex systems including lattice gas automata, a type of cellular automaton used to model fluid dynamics. Educated in Poland and the US, she has worked in the US and Canada, where she is a professor at the University of Guelph. She is the former president of the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society.
Education and career
After earning a master's degree in engineering (summa cum laude) from the Wrocław University of Science and Technology in Poland, Lawniczak went to Southern Illinois University in the US for doctoral study in mathematics. She completed her Ph.D. in 1981, supervised by Philip J. Feinsilver.
Before taking her current position at the University of Guelph in 1989, Lawniczak was a professor at Louisiana State University in the US, and the University of Toronto in Canada.
She was president of the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society / Société Canadienne de Mathématiques Appliquées et Industrielles (CAIMS/SCMAI) from 1997 to 2001. As president she guided a 1998 transition that included a new constitution, formal incorporation, a new annual conference, and a change from its former name, the Canadian Applied Mathematics Society / Société Canadienne de Mathématiques Appliquées.
Recognition
The Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society gave Lawniczak their Arthur Beaumont Distinguished Service Award in 2003. In the same year, the Fields Institute listed her as a Fellow in recognition of her "outstanding contributions to the Fields Institute and its activities".
The Engineering Institute of Canada named her as an EIC Fellow in 2018, after a nomination from IEEE Canada, naming her as "an international authority in the discrete modeling & simulation methods like Individually Based Simulation Models, Agent Based Simulations, Cellular Automata and Lattice Gas Cellular Automata, a field of which she is one of the co-developers".
References
External links
Home page
1953 births
Living people
Polish mathematicians
Polish women mathematicians
Canadian mathematicians
Canadian women mathematicians
Applied mathematicians
Cellular automatists
Wrocław University of Technology alumni
Southern Illinois University alumni
Louisiana State University faculty
Academic staff of the University of Toronto
Academic staff of the University of Guelph | Anna Lawniczak | [
"Mathematics"
] | 452 | [
"Applied mathematics",
"Applied mathematicians"
] |
76,749,187 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%206261 | NGC 6261 is a lenticular galaxy in the constellation of Hercules. It is located 470 million light-years away from the Solar System and has an approximate diameter of 200,000 light-years.
NGC 6261 was discovered on July 13, 1880, by French astronomer Edouard Stephan. The galaxy is described as LINER according to SIMBAD database and presents emission spectrum in its nucleus which is categorized by broad lines of weak ionized atoms.
Supernovae
Two supernovae have been discovered in NGC 6261: SN 2007hu and SN 2008dt.
SN 2007hu
SN 2007hu was discovered on September 9, 2007, by astronomers Ernesto Guido, A. Sehgal and Tim Puckett. It had a magnitude of 17.7 and was located 1".3 west and 1".4 north of the nucleus. The supernova was Type la.
SN 2008dt
SN 2008dt was discovered on 30 June, 2008, by astronomers D. Madison, W. Li and A.V. Filippenko at the University of California, Berkeley. It had a magnitude of 17.2 and was located 1".0 east and 5.5" south of the nucleus. The supernova was Type la.
See also
List of NGC objects (6001–7000)
References
6261
10617
Hercules (constellation)
Astronomical objects discovered in 1880
Lenticular galaxies
059286
LINER galaxies
059286
2MASS objects
SDSS objects
+05-40-006
Discoveries by Édouard Stephan | NGC 6261 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 315 | [
"Hercules (constellation)",
"Constellations"
] |
76,749,557 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UGC%206697 | UGC 6697 is a large irregular spiral galaxy with a bar located in the Leo constellation. It is located 378 million light-years from the Solar System and has an estimated diameter of 205,000 light-years. UGC 6697 is considered a starburst galaxy which produces high rates of star formation. The first known reference to this galaxy comes from volume II of the Catalogue of Galaxies and of Clusters of Galaxies compiled by Fritz Zwicky in 1968, where it was listed as CGCG097-087, and its coordinates listed as 1141.2 + 2015 (epoch B1950).
Possible Jellyfish Galaxy
UGC 6697 has a particular morphology. It is considered an edge-on galaxy and such has a long tidal tail with blue color and low surface brightness which stretches out northwest. This is in fact caused by dynamic pressure. It occurs when the galaxy plunges forward into the cluster, the pressure acts on the galaxy and penetrates through high speeds causing intracluster medium. In the process, the cooler gas is compressed and expelled from the galaxy's edge thus forming a trail. The gas trail extends 100 kpc which measures 326,000 light-years in diameter. In the long run, the dynamic pressure will eventually strip the gas from the galaxy, rending it an anemic galaxy.
According to observations from Chandra X-ray Observatory, it shows that more massive new stars have formed in compressed gas regions of UGC 6697 due to the result of increased dynamic stripping. These, however will explode into supernovas over the next 10 million years which its heat produces x-rays and optical light.
Companion galaxy
UGC 6697 has one companion galaxy: CGCG 097-087N (also known as 2MASX J11434983+1958343). It is located 379 million light-years away and also shows signs of distortion caused by dynamic pressure. Further studies show that the two galaxies might have interacted in the past.
Supernova
On March 5, 1986, B. Leibundgut and B. Binggeli of European Southern Observatory, La Silla discovered a supernova in UGC6697: SN1986C (typeII, mag. 18).
Group membership
UGC 6697 is a member of the Leo Cluster which is made up of at least 70 galaxies. The other members include NGC 3805, NGC 3837, the brightest cluster member NGC 3842, NGC 3860, NGC 3883, NGC 3884, NGC 3919, NGC 3929, NGC 3937, NGC 3940, NGC 3947 and NGC 3954. Other galaxies included in the Leo Cluster are radio galaxy NGC 3862, and IC 2955.
References
Leo (constellation)
Spiral galaxies
Starburst galaxies
Leo Cluster
06697
036466
036466
+03-30-066
F11412+2014
2MASS objects
SDSS objects | UGC 6697 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 614 | [
"Leo (constellation)",
"Constellations"
] |
72,329,175 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseniaspora%20pseudoguilliermondii | Hanseniaspora pseudoguilliermondii is a species of yeast in the family Saccharomycetaceae. Originally isolated from orange juice concentrate, it has been found on fruit and fruit juices in locations around the world. It has also been observed forming hybrids with Hanseniaspora opuntiae.
Taxonomy
A sample of H. pseudoguilliermondii was first isolated from orange juice concentrate in Georgia, USA. It was studied in 2003 by Neža Čadež, Gé A. Poot, Peter Raspor, and Maudy Th. Smith, who found that it could not be distinguished from Hanseniaspora guilliermondii using physiological criteria. After further testing in 2006, Čadež, Raspor, and Smith offered a description of the species, based upon DNA testing, that they called Hanseniaspora pseudoguilliermondii. The specific epithet "pseudoguilliermondii" was chosen because the species is similar to H. guilliermondii.
Description
Microscopic examination of the yeast cells in YM liquid medium after 48 hours at 25°C reveals cells that are 2.2 to 8.7 μm by 1.6 to 4.2 μm in size, apiculate, ovoid to elongate, appearing singly or in pairs. Reproduction is by budding, which occurs at both poles of the cell. In broth culture, sediment is present, and after one month a very thin ring and a sediment is formed.
Colonies that are grown on malt agar for one month at 25°C appear cream-colored, butyrous, glossy, and smooth. Growth is flat to slightly raised at the center, with an entire to slightly undulating margin. The yeast forms poorly developed pseudohyphae on cornmeal or potato agar. The yeast has been observed to form four hat-shaped ascospores when grown for at least seven days on 5% Difco malt extract agar.
The yeast can ferment glucose and cellobiose, but not galactose, sucrose, maltose, lactose, raffinose or trehalose. It has a positive growth rate at 37°C, but there is no growth at 40°C. It can grow on agar media containing 0.1% cycloheximide and 10% sodium but growth on 50% glucose-yeast extract agar is weak.
Ecology
The original strain of this species was isolated from orange juice concentrate. It has also been isolated from fruit and fermenting fruit juices in The Philippines, Réunion, and French Guiana. It has been observed to form hybrids with Hanseniaspora opuntiae.
It is not known whether it has any human pathogenic potential, but it can grow at a normal body temperature.
References
Saccharomycetes
Yeasts
Fungi described in 2006
Fungus species | Hanseniaspora pseudoguilliermondii | [
"Biology"
] | 594 | [
"Yeasts",
"Fungi",
"Fungus species"
] |
72,330,224 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hortensia%20Galeana%20S%C3%A1nchez | Hortensia Galeana Sánchez (born 6 November 1955) is a Mexican mathematician specializing in graph theory, including graph coloring and the independent dominating sets ("kernels") of directed graphs. She is director of the Institute of Mathematics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
Education and career
Galeana is originally from Mexico City. She was educated at UNAM, earning bachelor's master's, and doctoral degrees there, in 1978, 1981, and 1985 respectively. Her 1985 doctoral dissertation, Algunos resultados en la teoría de núcleos en digráficas, was supervised by Víctor Neumann-Lara.
She has taught at UNAM since 1977, and was named director of the UNAM Institute of Mathematics in 2022.
Recognition
Galeana is a member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences. In 1995 and again in 2015 UNAM gave her their National University Prize.
References
External links
Living people
Mexican mathematicians
Mexican women mathematicians
Graph theorists
National Autonomous University of Mexico alumni
Academic staff of the National Autonomous University of Mexico
Members of the Mexican Academy of Sciences
1955 births | Hortensia Galeana Sánchez | [
"Mathematics"
] | 222 | [
"Mathematical relations",
"Graph theory",
"Graph theorists"
] |
72,331,198 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Erd%C5%91s%20Distance%20Problem | The Erdős Distance Problem is a monograph on the Erdős distinct distances problem in discrete geometry: how can one place points into -dimensional Euclidean space so that the pairs of points make the smallest possible distance set? It was written by Julia Garibaldi, Alex Iosevich, and Steven Senger, and published in 2011 by the American Mathematical Society as volume 56 of the Student Mathematical Library. The Basic Library List Committee of the Mathematical Association of America has suggested its inclusion in undergraduate mathematics libraries.
Topics
The Erdős Distance Problem consists of twelve chapters and three appendices.
After an introductory chapter describing the formulation of the problem by Paul Erdős and Erdős's proof that the number of distances is always at least proportional to , the next six chapters cover the two-dimensional version of the problem. They build on each other to describe successive improvements to the known results on the problem, reaching a lower bound proportional to in Chapter 7. These results connect the problem to other topics including the Cauchy–Schwarz inequality, the crossing number inequality, the Szemerédi–Trotter theorem on incidences between points and lines, and methods from information theory.
Subsequent chapters discuss variations of the problem: higher dimensions, other metric spaces for the plane, the number of distinct inner products between vectors, and analogous problems in spaces whose coordinates come from a finite field instead of the real numbers.
Audience and reception
Although the book is largely self-contained, it assumes a level of mathematical sophistication aimed at advanced university-level mathematics students. Exercises are included, making it possible to use it as a textbook for a specialized course. Reviewer Michael Weiss suggests that the book is less successful than its authors hoped at reaching "readers at different levels of mathematical experience": the density of some of its material, needed to cover that material thoroughly, is incompatible with accessibility to beginning mathematicians. Weiss also complains about some minor mathematical errors in the book, which however do not interfere with its overall content.
Much of the book's content, on the two-dimensional version of the problem, was made obsolete soon after its publication by new results of Larry Guth and Nets Katz, who proved that the number of distances in this case must be near-linear. Nevertheless, reviewer William Gasarch argues that this outcome should make the book more interesting to readers, not less, because it helps explain the barriers that Guth and Katz had to overcome in proving their result. Additionally, the techniques that the book describes have many uses in discrete geometry.
References
Mathematics books
2011 non-fiction books
Discrete geometry
American Mathematical Society | The Erdős Distance Problem | [
"Mathematics"
] | 523 | [
"Discrete geometry",
"Discrete mathematics"
] |
72,332,968 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20third-party%20Micro%20Channel%20computers | This is a list of computer systems based on the Micro Channel architecture that were manufactured by IBM. Such third-party computers were also referred to as PS/2 clones or MCA clones. The first third-party Micro Channel–based computer was Tandy Corporation's 5000 MC in July 1988. Despite expensive research and development costs on the part of third-party manufacturers of Micro Channel computers—in part due to the expensive licensing fees incurred by IBM in order to allow legal use of their technology—by 1990 most MCA clones were not fully compatible with the Micro Channel architecture or expansion cards and peripherals based on Micro Channel. By the time IBM was winding down the PS/2 line of personal computers (which in 1987 acted as the means of introducing Micro Channel to the general public) in 1992, NCR Corporation remained one of the few committed vendors of MCA clones.
Systems
See also
List of IBM PS/2 models
Notes
References
IBM PS/2
Third-party Micro Channel computers | List of third-party Micro Channel computers | [
"Technology"
] | 197 | [
"Computing-related lists",
"Lists of computer hardware"
] |
72,333,949 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitryl%20azide | Nitryl azide (tetranitrogen dioxide) is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is an unstable nitrogen oxide consisting of a covalent nitrogen–nitrogen bond between a nitro group and an azide group. It has been detected by infrared spectroscopy as a short-lived product of the reaction between sodium azide and nitronium hexafluoroantimonate:
The compound quickly decomposes to form nitrous oxide. Calculations suggest this process that occurs via an oxatetrazole oxide intermediate:
References
Azido compounds
Nitrogen oxides | Nitryl azide | [
"Chemistry"
] | 119 | [
"Inorganic compounds",
"Inorganic compound stubs"
] |
72,334,602 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%20History%20of%20Architecture | A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method is a book about history of architecture by Banister Flight Fletcher and his father, Banister Fletcher, published in London in 1896. The book became a standard reference work, with updated editions published throughout the 20th century. The latest, 21st edition, was published in 2019.
Editions
Murray Fraser wrote in his review about different editions:
The first edition was steeped in late-Victorian myths of empire. It covered nothing outside Europe and the (ancient) Middle East. The 4th edition (1901) added some other architectural traditions under the dismissive title of "The Non-Historical Styles". Non-Western architecture was likewise caricatured as the stunted lower branches on the "Tree of Architecture" included in the 5th and 6th editions (1905 and 1921). This attitude was partially tackled by later General Editors, and a centenary 20th edition was published in 1996 under Dan Cruickshank, yet their good intentions did little to resolve the fundamental problem. A fully post-colonial reworking planned by John McKean in the mid-2000s never happened, and post-colonialism itself has since been absorbed into broader concepts of globalisation.
20th-century editions
There was a major revision with the 6th edition in 1921, when much of the text was rewritten by Banister Flight Fletcher and his first wife. This was over twenty years after his father's death, and for this edition, his father's name was dropped, and the numerous drawings were replaced by new ones by George G. Woodward and others. According to J. Mordaunt Crook, this edition concentrated "on supplying an epitomised history of world architecture" such that "Fletcher turned a useful handbook into a veritable student's bible". Fletcher produced the sixteenth edition shortly before his death in 1953.
A centenary 20th edition edited by Dan Cruickshank was produced in 1996.
21st-century editions
The 21st edition was published in 2019, edited by Murray Fraser and Catherine Gregg, under the sponsorship of the RIBA. Retitled as Sir Banister Fletcher's Global History of Architecture, it aims to correct the historical western-centric imbalance of the content, which has been tackled by earlier editions, but not eradicated. The RIBA claims that the expanded edition, written by 88 experts from around the world, represents the most comprehensive survey of global architecture to date. In a review of the new edition, Preeti Chopra writes that "Banister Fletcher's Global History uses as its starting point 3500 BCE, commonly accepted as the beginning of the 'urban revolution', and concludes with the present day. A neutral framework divides the volumes into seven parts covering sequential and broad periods that unfold in linear time without focusing on particular historical events or favouring particular regions. ... Acknowledging that this edition bears only some 'traces' of the original works, Fraser defends the use of Sir Banister Fletcher's name in the title by affirming that 'just as no man is an island, nothing stands anew'."
References
Further reading
Architectural history
Architecture books | A History of Architecture | [
"Engineering"
] | 632 | [
"Architectural history",
"Architecture"
] |
72,335,746 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coenzyme%20Q5 | Coenzyme Q5, more commonly known as COQ5, is a coenzyme involved in the electron transport chain. It is a shorter-chain homolog of coenzyme Q10 (ubiquinone), the more-common coenzyme of this family.
References
1,4-Benzoquinones
Methoxy compounds
Coenzymes | Coenzyme Q5 | [
"Chemistry"
] | 77 | [
"Organic compounds",
"Coenzymes"
] |
72,337,079 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric%20Origami | Geometric Origami is a book on the mathematics of paper folding, focusing on the ability to simulate and extend classical straightedge and compass constructions using origami. It was written by Austrian mathematician and published by Arbelos Publishing (Shipley, UK) in 2008. The Basic Library List Committee of the Mathematical Association of America has suggested its inclusion in undergraduate mathematics libraries.
Topics
The book is divided into two main parts. The first part is more theoretical. It outlines the Huzita–Hatori axioms for mathematical origami, and proves that they are capable of simulating any straightedge and compass construction. It goes on to show that, in this mathematical model, origami is strictly more powerful than straightedge and compass: with origami, it is possible to solve any cubic equation or quartic equation. In particular, origami methods can be used to trisect angles, and for doubling the cube, two problems that have been proven to have no exact solution using only straightedge and compass.
The second part of the book focuses on folding instructions for constructing regular polygons using origami, and on finding the largest copy of a given regular polygon that can be constructed within a given square sheet of origami paper. With straightedge and compass, it is only possible to exactly construct regular for which is a product of a power of two with distinct Fermat primes (powers of two plus one): this allows to be 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, etc. These are called the constructible polygons. With a construction system that can trisect angles, such as mathematical origami, more numbers of sides are possible, using Pierpont primes in place of Fermat primes, including for equal to 7, 13, 14, 17, 19, etc. Geometric Origami provides explicit folding instructions for 15 different regular polygons, including those with 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 17, and 19 sides. Additionally, it discusses approximate constructions for polygons that cannot be constructed exactly in this way.
Audience and reception
This book is quite technical, aimed more at mathematicians than at amateur origami enthusiasts looking for folding instructions for origami artworks. However, it may be of interest to origami designers, looking for methods to incorporate folding patterns for regular polygons into their designs. Origamist David Raynor suggests that its methods could also be useful in constructing templates from which to cut out clean unfolded pieces of paper in the shape of the regular polygons that it discusses, for use in origami models that use these polygons as a starting shape instead of the traditional square paper.
Geometric Origami may also be useful as teaching material for university-level geometry and abstract algebra, or for undergraduate research projects extending those subjects, although reviewer Mary Fortune cautions that "there is much preliminary material to be covered" before a student would be ready for such a project. Reviewer Georg Gunther summarizes the book as "a delightful addition to a wonderful corner of mathematics where art and geometry meet", recommending it as a reference for "anyone with a working knowledge of elementary geometry, algebra, and the geometry of complex numbers".
References
Mathematics books
2008 non-fiction books
Paper folding | Geometric Origami | [
"Mathematics"
] | 688 | [
"Recreational mathematics",
"Paper folding"
] |
72,337,666 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle%20Filters%20Group | Eagle Filters Group Oyj (formerly Loudspring Oyj, earlier Cleantech Invest Oyj) is a Finnish industrial company that manufactures gas turbine air intake filters for the energy and process industries, energy-saving and filtration efficiency-enhancing fibre solutions for industrial and building applications, and FFP2/FFP3 respirators for healthcare professionals and industry.
The company was formerly an investment and development company, investing in clean technology and natural resources efficiency companies. In 2021, the company made a strategic decision to focus and transform Loudspring from an investment company to an industrial company built around Eagle Filters. In September 2021, the company acquired the remaining 15% of Eagle Filters Oy from its founder Juha Kariluoto. The decision meant that gradually all available resources of the company will be used to support the growth of Eagle Filters and the other holdings will be sold within a reasonable period of time. The company changed its name from Loudspring Plc to Eagle Filters Group Plc at the 27 October 2022 general meeting and began listing under the new name and trading symbol 14 November 2022 Nasdaq Nordic First North Finland and Nasdaq Nordic First North Sweden. On 29 March 2023, the company applied for and received approval to delist its shares from Nasdaq First North Sweden with effect from 12 May 2023 due to the low trading volumes on that list.
The company had two classes of shares, Series K shares and Series A shares. At the Extraordinary General Meeting on 18 January 2023, the unlisted K shares (with 20 votes) were converted into listed A shares with one vote. As a result, all shares in the company are now listed A shares. The number of shares in the company is 204 072 406.
Eagle Filters Ltd
Eagle Filters Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of Eagle Filters Group Plc. It was founded in 1995 in Kotka, Finland. The company's name comes from the place where it was founded, whose Finnish name kotka means eagle in English. The idea of the company came from the observation that too often the quality of imported filters for Finnish energy production facilities were not good enough. The founders had ideas how to make better filters with the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.
Early years
Eagle Filters began by providing air filtration solutions for gas turbine power plants. The company's first major customer, Imatran Voima, helped Eagle Filters expand internationally through various projects worldwide. In 1999, the company made its first export trade to Hungary, and has since established a presence on every continent.
In the early 2000s, Eagle Filters recognized the critical importance of clean air for the efficiency of gas turbine power plants and decided to focus on improving this area. The company developed and patented an air filter solution that not only saves fuel, but also prevents a typical loss of 10% efficiency in power plants and reduces maintenance costs. The company has patented the air filter solution it uses. In the late 2000s, the company explored the possibility of expanding into filters for residential air conditioning systems, but eventually decided to focus on making products for gas turbines only.
Gas Turbine Inlet Air Filters
The company offers a range of products for gas turbines in filter classes G4-M6, MERV 7-12, fine filters F7-F9, MERV 13-15 and EPA-filters (Semi HEPA) E10-E12, MERV 16. Each product is designed to improve the fuel efficiency of gas turbines and prolong the life of the equipment compared to low-cost filter solutions. Natural gas price increase in 2022 was reflected in its mid-year review that Customer interest for Eagle's products grew significantly during the end of H1/2022. As one of the reference companies Astoria Energy I & II LLC reported a power increase of 4 MW for each of the four gas turbines, total of 16 MW.
Rivals
The turbine air filtration market is moderately fragmented. The company's major competitors in the market for gas turbine air intake filters are Camfil AB, Donaldson Company Inc., Nordic Air Filtration A/S, MANN+ HUMMEL GmbH and Graver Technologies LLC. Gas turbine manufacturer Engie has started to use Eagle's filters pre-installed in some of its products.
Investments
Eagle Filters Group Oyj currently holds the assets of its Loudspring venture investments. The company has faced criticism regarding the timing of its shift from a previous investment-focused entity to a full-fledged industrial company. By the end of the first half of 2023, Eagle Filters Group had only three subsidiaries: Eagle Filters Ltd, Lumeron Ltd, and Loudspring Sweden Ltd. The company does not publish consolidated financial accounts, as it and its subsidiaries are classified as a smaller entity to comply with accounting regulations. On October 11, 2023, Lumeron Ltd acquired complete ownership of a factory production space.
Among its investments, the company holds a 24.2% stake in Nuuka Solutions Ltd, valued at approximately €2.6 million as of the latest share sale in spring 2022. This stake was the company's second-largest after Eagle Filters Ltd. Enersize Plc, with a 7.1% stake, is listed on Nasdaq Nordic First North Sweden, with a market value of approximately EUR 75,000 as of April 12, 2023. On February 17, 2023, the company impaired the value of Loudspring's holdings, except for Nuuka Solutions Ltd, which was valued at EUR 1.3 million. Due to increased uncertainty in fair value measurement, in August 2023, the company decided to recognize the impairment and reassess Nuuka Solutions Ltd's value as zero. Consequently, all assets, except for Eagle Filters Ltd, Lumeron Ltd, and Loudspring Sweden Ltd are now revalued at zero.
Status of the inherited Loudspring Oyj investments as at 24 November 2022. The order is the same as reported in the company's 2021 financial statements. The post-fiscal year events reported in the financial statements are reflected in the listing.
References
Companies listed on Nasdaq Helsinki
Manufacturing companies established in 1995
Filter manufacturers | Eagle Filters Group | [
"Chemistry"
] | 1,262 | [
"Filter manufacturers",
"Filters"
] |
72,337,786 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD%20201772 | HD 201772, also known as HR 8104, is a yellowish-white hued star located in the southern constellation Microscopium. It has an apparent magnitude of 5.26, making it one of the brighter members of this generally faint constellation. The object is located relatively close at a distance of 111 light-years based on Gaia DR3 parallax measurements but is approaching closer with a heliocentric radial velocity of . At its current distance, HD 201772's brightness is diminished by 0.11 magnitudes due to interstellar dust.
The star has been given multiple stellar classifications over the years. It was given the luminosity class of a subgiant and main sequence star (IV/V; IV-V) and a dwarf (V). Most sources generally agree that it is a F5 star. Richard O. Gray and colleagues give HD 201772 a class of F6 V Fe−0.9 CH−0.5, which indicates that it is a F-type main-sequence star with an underabundance of iron and CH molecules in its spectrum.
It has 1.47 times the mass of the Sun and an enlarged radius of . It radiates 7.8 times the luminosity of the Sun from its photosphere at an effective temperature of . At an age of 2.5 billion years, HD 201722 is currently 1.33 magnitudes above the ZAMS, consistent with a star that is evolving off the main sequence. The star has an iron abundance 66% that of the Sun, making it metal deficient. It spins modestly with a projected rotational velocity of .
HD 201772 is suspected to be a spectroscopic binary consisting of the subgiant described above and an ordinary F6 V star with a mass of . However, the stars have no separation or an orbital period. This is because the companion might be a result of spectrum contamination, so HD 201772 is more likely to be a solitary star.
References
F-type subgiants
F-type main-sequence stars
Microscopium
Microscopii, 56
CD-39 14152
201772
104738
8104 | HD 201772 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 452 | [
"Microscopium",
"Constellations"
] |
72,339,713 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium%20trisulfide | Titanium trisulfide (TiS3) is an inorganic chemical compound of titanium and sulfur. Its formula unit contains one Ti4+ cation, one S2− anion and one S22−.
TiS3 has a layered crystal structure, where the layers are weakly bonded to each other and can be exfoliated with an adhesive tape. The exfoliated layers have potential applications in ultrathin field-effect transistors.
Synthesis
Millimeter-long crystalline whiskers of TiS3 can be grown by chemical vapor transport at ca. 500 °C, using excess sulfur as the transporting gas.
Properties
TiS3 is an n-type semiconductor with an indirect bandgap of about 1 eV. Its individual layers are made of TiS atomic chains; hence they are anisotropic and their properties depend on the in-plane orientation. For example, in the same sample, electron mobility can be 80 cm2/(V·s) along the b-axis and 40 cm2/(V·s) along the a-axis.
References
Sulfides
Titanium(IV) compounds
Monolayers | Titanium trisulfide | [
"Physics"
] | 226 | [
"Monolayers",
"Atoms",
"Matter"
] |
72,340,000 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minolta%20XG-1 | Minolta XG-1 is a 35mm SLR film camera manufactured by Minolta between 1977 and 1984. It is the second model to appear in the XG series of cameras, succeeding the Minolta XG-E (1977). The Minolta XG-1 has gone through various renaming and redesign all throughout its production run.
The last version of the XG-1 is marketed as Minolta XG-1(n), featuring a new design closely similar to the top of the line, Minolta XG-M.
Paul Goresh, an amateur photographer, used the Minolta XG-1 to capture the final photograph of John Lennon on December 8, 1980, shortly before Lennon's assassination.
Versions
Minolta XG 1
The Minolta XG 1 is basically a Minolta XG-E with less informative viewfinder and fixed film door. The range between 1/15s and 1/2s shutter speed was represented only by one LED. It also lacks the memo holder although it had a DIN/ASA conversion scale sticker on the film door. This version features the old Minolta logo.
Minolta XG-1 and XG-1(n)
In 1982, Minolta started producing a similar model with a slightly different name. The Minolta XG-1 resembles the original XG 1 except that it now features the new iconic Minolta "rising sun" logo on the prism cover.
The XG-1 was later replaced by the Minolta XG-1(n) where the moniker "n" stands for "new". It features the same Minolta "rising sun" logo and has a completely redesigned body with a plastic grip, resembling that of the high-end Minolta XG-M.
Unlike the XG-M, however, the XG-1(n) is still an aperture priority model with an option for manual exposure. Minolta also added a memo holder on the film door, while also retaining the DIN/ASA conversion scale sticker. The viewfinder has been upgraded with a fixed Acute Matte focusing screen.
Despite the name change, the camera is still engraved with XG-1 on the front. The Minolta XG-1(n) supports Auto Winder G, and various Minolta Auto electroflashes.
References
Minolta SLR cameras
Minolta
Single-lens reflex cameras | Minolta XG-1 | [
"Technology"
] | 515 | [
"System cameras",
"Single-lens reflex cameras"
] |
72,340,245 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method%20of%20virtual%20quanta | The method of virtual quanta is a method used to calculate radiation produced by interactions of electromagnetic particles, particularly in the case of bremsstrahlung. It can also be applied in the context of gravitational radiation, and more recently to other field theories by Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker and Evan James Williams in 1934.
Background
In problems of collision between charged particles or systems, the incident particle is often travelling at relativistic speeds when impacting the struck system, producing the field of a moving charge as follows:
where indicates the component of the electric field in the direction of travel of the particle, indicates the E-field in the direction perpendicular to and in the plane of the collision, is the impact parameter, is the Lorentz factor, the charge and the velocity of the incident particle.
In the ultrarelativistic limit, and have the form of a pulse of radiation travelling in the direction. This creates the virtual radiation pulse (virtual quanta) denoted by . Moreover, an additional magnetic field may be added in order to turn into a radiation pulse travelling along , denoted . This virtual magnetic field will turn out to be much smaller than , hence its contribution to the motion of particles is minimal.
By taking this point of view, the problem of the collision can be treated as a scattering of radiation. Similar analogies can be made for other processes (e.g. the ionisation of an atom by a fast electron can be treated as photoexcitation).
Bremsstrahlung
In the case of bremsstrahlung, the problem becomes one of the scattering of the virtual quanta in the nuclear Coulomb potential. This is a standard problem and the cross section of the scattering is known as the Thomson cross section:
The differential radiation cross section per unit frequency is hence:
where is the frequency spectrum of virtual quanta produced by the incident particle over all possible impact parameters.
Other applications
Synchrotron radiation
In the rest frame of the charged accelerating particle, the emission of synchrotron radiation can be treated as a Thomson scattering problem. This enables the introduction of various corrections into the classical calculation of the power lost by particles while accelerated, such as the quantum correction through the Klein-Nishina formula.
Gravitational radiation
When transforming the gravitational field described by the Schwarzschild metric into the rest frame of a passing, relativistic test particle, an effect similar to the relativistic transformation of electric and magnetic fields is observed, and virtual pulses of gravitational radiation are produced. Through this, the cross section of close gravitational encounters and radiative power loss caused by such collisions can be calculated.
References
Bibliography
Electrodynamics
Synchrotron-related techniques | Method of virtual quanta | [
"Mathematics"
] | 552 | [
"Electrodynamics",
"Dynamical systems"
] |
72,340,768 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercritical%20carbon%20dioxide%20blend | Supercritical carbon dioxide blend (sCO2 blend) is an homogeneous mixture of CO2 with one or more fluids (dopant fluid) where it is held at or above its critical temperature and critical pressure.
Carbon dioxide behaves as a supercritical fluid above its critical temperature (304.13 K, 31.0 °C, 87.8 °F) and critical pressure (7.3773 MPa, 72.8 atm, 1,070 psi, 73.8 bar), expanding to fill its container like a gas but with a density like that of a liquid.
By combining CO2 with other fluids, the critical temperature and critical pressure of the mixture can be modified. The s-CO2 blend is usually designed to increase the mixture supercritical temperature to employ the s-CO2 in power cycles, obtaining increased energy conversion efficiency.
Applications
Power generation
Despite the development of new electricity generation technologies, most power plants are thermal power stations, meaning that they use a heat source (solar thermal, nuclear power, fossil fuel, biomass, Incineration, geothermal) to produce electricity. Although this process can be achieved directly by using the seebeck effect, the power conversion efficiency is greatly increased by using a power cycle. Traditionally, power plants are based on Rankine cycle and use steam turbines for electricity generation. The efficiency of the power cycle is limited by the temperature difference between the heat source and the heat sink. The greater the differential, the more electricity can be produced. Replacing steam by supercritical carbon dioxide allows reaching a higher temperature differential, therefore increasing the power efficiency of the power plant.
Supercritical state facilitates the heat exchange at the heat source. Furthermore, supercritical carbon dioxide is twice as dense as steam, and the combination of high density and volumetric heat makes it a high energy dense fluid, meaning that the size of most components of the thermodynamic cycle can be reduced. Therefore, the ecological footprint of the plant and the capital expenditure are considerably reduced. In addition, sCO2 is non-flammable, non-explosive, cheap and has comparably low toxicity. Efficiency can be further increased employing a combined cycle.
One of the main limitations that has delayed the massive use of carbon dioxide in power cycles is the corrosion engineering. Materials for the fluid transport and power generation must display high resistance to high temperature, corrosion and creep.
Concentrated Solar Power
Concentrated solar power (CSP) is a solar thermal technology that uses mirrors or lenses to concentrate sunlight into a receiver. The receiver reaches very high temperatures, up to 1000 °C for commercial solar power towers, favouring high power conversion efficiency. However, electricity production is limited by the heat engine used.
In the Concentrated Solar Power sector, using supercritical CO2 as the heating engine fluid can provide a significant cost reduction. The higher efficiency of the power block reduces the solar field size, decreasing the soil occupation and therefore the cost of this part of the plant. According to the available analyses, electricity production costs of conventional supercritical CO2 CSP are expected to be 9,5–10 $ cent/KWh in favorable conditions. In addition, Concentrated Solar Power offers the possibility of directly recovering solar radiation without using any intermediate energy carrier. However, this poses challenges in the design of high pressure solar receivers, that must held pressures above the critical pressure of the fluid, as well as energy storage systems.
Efficient supercritical CO2 power cycles requires that the compressor inlet temperature is close to, or even lower than, the critical temperature of the fluid (31 °C for pure carbon dioxide). When this target is reached, and the heat source is higher than 600–650 °C, then the sCO2 cycle outperforms any Rankine cycle running on water/steam with the same boundary conditions.
Because of the weather conditions in arid sites where Concentrated Solar Power plants are usually located, with ambient temperatures above 35 °C, it is impossible to cool down CO2 enough to compress the fluid with low energy requirements. Accordingly, the rapid transition to an almost ideal behavior of carbon dioxide when temperature increases to 40 °C or above increases compression work and reduces the thermal efficiency of the power block, which can only be increased again through a large increase of turbine inlet temperature. To overcome these thermodynamic problems, a supercritical CO2 blend with a higher critical temperature could be employed. The critical temperature of several sCO2 blends has been studied. For example, a mixture that reaches a critical temperature of 80 °C can provide high efficiency for heat sink temperatures up to 50 °C.
SCARABEUS project, which has received funding from the European Union, formulates a new conceptual approach to implement supercritical carbon dioxide blends in Concentrated Solar Power Plants to reduce operating and capital costs by increasing the power cycle efficiency. The SCARABEUS project is developed by a consortium of European universities (Politecnico di Milano and Università degli Studi di Brescia from Italy, Technische Universität Wien from Austria, Universidad de Sevilla from Spain and University of London from United Kingdom) and private companies(Kelvion from Germany, Baker Hughes from United States and Abengoa from Spain) with experience in Concentrated Solar Power.
See also
Supercritical carbon dioxide
Concentrated solar power
Electricity generation
Thermodynamic cycle
Rankine cycle
Steam turbine
Carbon dioxide
References
Carbon dioxide | Supercritical carbon dioxide blend | [
"Chemistry"
] | 1,098 | [
"Greenhouse gases",
"Carbon dioxide"
] |
72,341,694 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvin%20I.%20Simon | Melvin Isaac Simon (born February 8, 1937, in New York City) is an American molecular biologist, molecular geneticist, and microbiologist.
Biography
After secondary education at Manhattan's Yeshiva University High School for Boys, he graduated in 1959 with a B.S. from City College of New York and in 1963 with a Ph.D. from Brandeis University. From 1963 to 1965 he was a postdoc at Princeton University. From 1965 to 1982 he was a faculty member of the biology department of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). In 1982 he and UCSD professor John Abelson founded the Agouron Institute. In 1982 Simon and Abelson both moved to California Institute of Technology (Caltech). In the Division of Biology of Caltech, Simon was Biaggini Professor of Biological Sciences from 1982 to 2007, when he retired from Caltech as professor emeritus. At Caltech he was the chair of his department from 1995 to 2000. At the UC San Diego School of Medicine, was an adjunct professor of pharmacology from 2007 when he retired from UCSD.
Simon is the author or coauthor of over 350 scientific publications. Simon's group at UCSD did important research on bacterial movement and chemotaxis. Michael Robert Silverman (born in 1943) and Melvin Simon are credited with the discovery that bacterial flagella are based in rotary motors. Silverman was Simon's doctoral student.
Simon’s laboratory group at Caltech played an important role in the Human Genome Project (HGP) and built many of the initial libraries that provided the basic material for the HGP. Simon's group invented in 1992 bacterial artificial chromosomes (BACs) and in 1994 phage artificial chromosomes (PACs) using the P1 phage. The group's scientists were among the main developers of the maps of human chromosome 16 and human chromosome 22. In 2002 Simon and colleagues determined the complete genome sequence of Pyrobaculum aerophilum, a hyperthermophilic archaeum. Simon and his Caltech group gained an international reputation for their research on G-proteins and the molecular mechanisms of how these proteins are essential for transmitting signals detected on cellular surfaces into cellular interiors. Simon and colleagues demonstrated how various genetic mutations in bacteria, nematodes, and mice cause various abnormalities and diseases.
Simon has been involved with a number of non-profit organizations and commercial corporations. He was one of the founders of Agouron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which was acquired by Warner-Lambert in 1999. He was also one of the founders of the Diversa Corporation, which was merged with the Celunol Corporation in 2007 to form the Verenium Corporation.
Simon was a Guggenheim fellow for the academic year 1978–1979. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1985 and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1986. In 1991 he received the Selman A. Waksman Award in Microbiology.
In January 1937 in the Bronx, he married Linda Fried. They have two sons and a daughter.
Selected publications
Articles
(over 2700 citations)
1996 (over 500 citations)
2000 (over 1100 citations)
Books
References
1937 births
Living people
American molecular biologists
American microbiologists
Molecular geneticists
Phage workers
City College of New York alumni
Brandeis University alumni
University of California, San Diego faculty
California Institute of Technology faculty
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences | Melvin I. Simon | [
"Biology"
] | 709 | [
"Molecular geneticists",
"Molecular genetics"
] |
72,341,725 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%205004 | NGC 5004 is a lenticular galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices. The object was discovered by astronomer William Herschel on 13 March 1785, using an 18.7-inch aperture reflector telescope. Due to its moderate apparent magnitude (+13), it is visible only with amateur telescopes or with superior equipment.
One supernova has been observed in NGC 5004: SN 1976A (type unknown, mag. 16.5) was discovered by Miklós Lovas on 28 February 1976.
See also
List of NGC objects (5001–6000)
References
External links
Coma Berenices
5004
17850313
Discoveries by William Herschel | NGC 5004 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 135 | [
"Coma Berenices",
"Constellations"
] |
73,765,754 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menu%20hack | A menu hack (also called a secret menu) is a non-standard method of ordering food, usually at fast-food or fast casual restaurants, that offers a different result than what is explicitly stated on a menu. Menu hacks may range from a simple alternate flavor to "gaming the system" in order to obtain more food than normal. They are often spread on social media platforms such as TikTok, and are more popular with Generation Z, which has been known to customize their orders more than previous generations. Hacks are sometimes officially added to the menu after their popularity grows. However, in some cases, they have been criticized for overburdening fast food employees with outlandish requests, sparking debate as to whether certain menu hacks are unethical.
History
The term "menu hack" stems from hacker culture and its tradition of overcoming previously imposed limitations. However, the tradition of ordering from a secret menu dates back to the early days of fast food. "Animal style" fries, a word of mouth menu item ordered from In-N-Out since the 1960s, was rumored to have been created by local surfers. In the Information Age, the rise of social media gave influencers the ability to communicate unique food combinations to their followers, which proved to go viral easily. Design mistakes in food ordering apps also proved to be easily exploitable. In some cases, these hacks boosted the profile of brands on social media, while in others, they caused financial harm when the company was unprepared to handle the sudden influx of unusual orders.
One restaurant chain notable for the phenomenon is Chipotle Mexican Grill. A viral hack from Alexis Frost, suggesting a quesadilla with fajita vegetables inside, dipped in Chipotle vinaigrette mixed with sour cream, obtained 1.9 million views on TikTok, overloading the chain's workers, who had to work harder to prepare more vegetables and vinaigrette. Some restaurants began to deny the dish to customers, forcing them to only order meat and cheese on quesadillas. The company ultimately left the dish on the menu, but urged customers to stop ordering it via social media. When it later officially added the Fajita Quesadilla to the menu, digital sales nearly doubled. A method to order nachos, which are not officially on the menu, was also noted by customers.
Starbucks is also famous for menu hacks, including the Pink Drink, a "Barbiecore" beverage in which coconut milk replaced the water in the strawberry açaí refresher. After it went viral, the company made it a permanent menu item and distributed it bottled in grocery stores.
Controversy
Menu hacks have been subject to a growing backlash, with employees stating that they "dread" younger customers due to the proliferation of unusual orders. Service industry workers, already considering themselves overworked and underpaid, have called the rise of menu hacks and their difficulty to make an additional reason to unionize and demand higher wages.
See also
Fad diet
Life hack
References
Fast food
Hacker culture
Social media | Menu hack | [
"Technology"
] | 631 | [
"Computing and society",
"Social media"
] |
73,767,561 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%20B.%20Olsson | Shannon B. Olsson (born Bice, 18 July 1977) is a scientist working on chemical ecology and sustainability, particularly in the context of Indian ecosystems. Olsson is the founder and Global Director of the echo network, a science with society network crossing 45 countries. She also serves through the echo network's international hub as Special Scientific Envoy to India with the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences (ATV) in close collaboration with the Innovation Centre Denmark in
India (under the auspices of the MFA Denmark and the Ministry of Higher Education and Science (Denmark)). She previously served as a project leader at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, and then a faculty member of the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bangalore, India.
Early life and education
Olsson was born Shannon Bryn Bice to Norman Allen Bice and Joyce Elaine Parish in De Peyster, New York. Olsson was educated at Heuvelton Central School in Heuvelton, New York. She went on to study at Nazareth College (New York) where she received her Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry with secondary science education in 1999. Olsson was awarded a PhD in 2005 in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University with a specialization in Chemical Ecology under the supervision of Professors Thomas Eisner and Wendell L. Roelofs. Her dissertation research examined the chemosensory basis for sympatric host shifts in Rhagoletis pomonella. She was awarded the "Distinguished Alumni Award" from Heuvelton Central School, the "Graduate of the Last Decade" by Nazareth College, and her summer research at Clarkson University with Professor Yuzhuo Li was featured at the United States Capitol for the Council on Undergraduate Research “Posters on the Hill” event.
Chemical ecology
Research career
Following her undergraduate studies, Olsson was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Lund University where she performed research in neuroethology under the supervision of Professor Bill Hansson. Afterward, she began her graduate studies at Cornell University, and in 2006–2007 performed postdoctoral research at the University of California, Los Angeles in the laboratory of Professor Richard K. Zimmer on the chemical ecology of marine invertebrates in California kelp forests. In 2007, she started her career as a Project Leader for the EU-funded program "Biosynthetic Infochemical Communication" at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany.
Naturalist-inspired chemical ecology
In 2014, Olsson joined the faculty of the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bangalore, India. At NCBS, she promoted chemical ecology across Indian ecosystems through multiple efforts. At NCBS, Olsson also started the Naturalist-Inspired Chemical Ecology (NICE) Group, which uses a wholistic approach to combine naturalist approaches with modern tools from chemistry, molecular biology, ecology, and neuroscience. The NICE Group examines how organisms use chemicals to interact with each other and identify relevant objects in their environment. She has noted that "love, hunger and fear" unite all organisms in their struggle for survival, and chemicals play a fundamental role in these processes.
Indian chemical ecology
Olsson's science is committed to laying the foundation for a sustainable India, and her studies have addressed topics as diverse as chemical communication in the Indian antelope blackbuck
ecological agriculture in India's coffee plantations, the impact of air pollution on our wild animals and insects, the effect of environmental change on our ecosystem services, a global study linking COVID-19 with smell and taste impairment, and a multimodal virtual reality arena for insects.
Awards and recognition
For her scientific work, Olsson has been awarded a United Nations Pinning for Research Excellence by Ghandian Scholars and is a Ramanujan Fellow. Olsson's research has been featured by CNN, Nature (journal), Science (journal), Inverse (website), Haaretz, USA Today, Chemical and Engineering News, The Conversation (website), and The Hindu, among many other international news outlets.
Sustainability
the echo network
In 2019, Olsson founded the echo network, a cross-sector public-private partnership to address current issues in human and environmental sustainabiliity, first in India, and eventually worldwide. The network was initiated by the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, K. VijayRaghavan, on December 19, 2019, with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Hindustan Unilever Limited, RoundGlass Foundation, India Climate Collaborative, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), and the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP) as founding partners. As of April 2023, the echo network has over 2100 members crossing 45 countries. Olsson has stated "The concept of echo network is to create a mechanism for organisations and people from different sectors to work together along with academia and use science and technology to create sustainable communities."
Appointments and other participation
In 2022, Olsson was appointed as "Special Scientific Envoy to India" with the Danish Academy of Technical Sciences (ATV) in close collaboration with the Innovation Centre Denmark in India (under the auspices of the MFA Denmark and the Ministry of Higher Education and Science (Denmark)). This is supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. She is also a founding member of Ecosystem-based Adaptation for Resilient Incomes (ECOBARI), and the Biodiversity Collaborative. In 2021, she co-founded Citizen Science for Biodiversity (CitSci India), and co-organizes their yearly conference. She is also an advisor ("Guru") for the Future Climate Leaders Programme and is on the advisory committee for the Research and Innovation Circle of Hyderabad (RICH).
Awards and recognition
Olsson was named as an INK Fellow in 2016. For her efforts in sustainability, Olsson was recognized as one of "75 Women in STEAM in India", awarded by Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India in partnership with Red Dot Foundation, British High Commission, and FICCI FLO.
Public speaking and appearances
Olsson is a well-known and sought-after international inspirational speaker and three-time TEDx speaker. Her work has also appeared in the Science Gallery Dublin, Ireland, The Victoria and Albert Museum in London, UK, and the Department of Science and Technology (India) Science Express train. In 2023, she will speak at the 59th Nobel Conference.
Selected public talks
G20 DWG Event, December 13, 2022
Festival of Consciousness, July 30, 2022
TEDxChennai, Mar 11, 2018
TEDxAshokaUniversity, Sept 23, 2017
INK Fellows Program, INK Conference 2016, Sept 16, 2016
TEDx MAIS, Dec 8, 2015
References
1977 births
Living people
Max Planck Society alumni
American women scientists
American ecologists
Chemical ecologists
Cornell University alumni
Women ecologists
Scientists from New York (state) | Shannon B. Olsson | [
"Chemistry"
] | 1,397 | [
"Chemical ecologists",
"Chemical ecology"
] |
73,768,734 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IoT%20security%20device | Internet of Things (IoT) security devices are electronic tools connected via Internet to a common network and are used to provide security measures. These devices can be controlled remotely through a mobile application, web-based interface or any proprietary installed software, and they often have capabilities such as remote video monitoring, intrusion detection, automatic alerts, and smart automation features. IoT security devices form an integral part of the smart ecosystem, which is characterized by the interconnectivity of various appliances and devices through the Internet.
History
The concept of IoT security devices began to gain traction in the early 2010s with the advent of smart technology. The initial devices were primarily focused on remote surveillance that would allow monitoring of the properties remotely using webcams and similar devices. As technology advanced, these systems began to incorporate a wider range of features, such as intrusion detection and automatic alerts.
The rise of smart automation and the proliferation of IoT devices in the mid-2010s further accelerated the growth of IoT security devices. As of 2021, the market for IoT security devices is expected to continue its rapid expansion due to increasing consumer awareness about security and the continuing development of IoT technology.
Types of IoT Security Devices
Surveillance Cameras: These are one of the most common types of IoT security devices. They provide real-time video monitoring of the environment, allowing to view footage remotely from the interface.
Smart Locks: Smart locks can be controlled remotely and can provide access to authorized individuals. Some also have features such as biometric recognition and automatic locking and unlocking based on proximity.
Smart Alarms: These devices can detect potential threats such as break-ins, fire, and carbon monoxide and send automatic alerts to homeowners, security units and, in some cases, local authorities.
Door/Window Sensors: These sensors trigger an alert when doors or windows are opened or tampered with.
Smart Detectors: These devices detect environmental hazards such as smoke, gas leaks, and water leaks, alerting in real time.
Criticism and Concerns
Despite their benefits, IoT security devices have also raised several concerns. The most significant of these is the potential for privacy breaches. As these devices are connected to the internet, they are potentially vulnerable to hacking, which could result in unauthorized access to sensitive data.
There are also concerns about the reliance on internet connectivity. If an internet connection goes down, some devices may become non-functional, potentially leaving the environment unprotected. Similarly, if a device's software isn't regularly updated, it could become vulnerable to security flaws.
But with the technological rise, IoT devices can be secured with the help of vulnerability assessment and penetration testing. These tests are performed by expert pentesters in order to secure the IoT device. Manufacturers can now take a security audit of their IoT devices.
See also
Home automation
Industry 4.0
Internet of Things
Self-Defense
Physical security
Web of things
References
Home
Physical security
Internet of things
Smart devices | IoT security device | [
"Technology"
] | 600 | [
"Home automation",
"Smart devices"
] |
73,769,673 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine%20dioxide | Iodine dioxide is a binary inorganic compound of iodine and oxygen with the chemical formula . Only stable as a dilute gas, this compound is one of many iodine oxides, and "iodine dioxide" is sometimes used to describe its formal dimer, the salt diiodine tetroxide (I2O4, [IO]+[IO3]−).
It is formed, in parts-per-trillion quantities, at the marine boundary layer and believed to mediate particulate nucleation therein. The iodine, originally from algaeic diiodomethane, is photooxidized to iodine monoxide, which then disproportionates to free iodine atoms and iodine dioxide. At a sufficiently large concentration, the particles then combine to form small grains of diiodine tetroxide.
References
Iodine compounds
Oxides | Iodine dioxide | [
"Chemistry"
] | 181 | [
"Oxides",
"Salts"
] |
73,769,748 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricca%27s%20factors | A Ricca's factor is considered to be an elicitor of electrical signalling in wounded plants, recently shown to be thioglucoside glucohydrolase, a protein of the myrosinase family.
History
Ricca's factors were originally considered to be hormones transported in the water of the xylem as a stress-induced response in Mimosa pudica, denoted first in scientific literature in 1916 by plant scientist Ubaldo Ricca of Genoa, Italy. These chemicals in theory are released following wounding, or from the herbivores themselves, and travel long distances. Whilst early research initially predicted the inducers to be hormones, as of 2023 these are suspected to be β-thioglucoside glucohydrolase 1 & 2 (TGG1, TGG2).
Mechanism
Severe wounding triggers defence-inducing electrical signals known as slow wave potentials in angiosperms. These widespread signals are transmitted between leaves, often induced by herbivore-mediated damage of the leaf midrib or petiole, via the primary distal leaf vein. It is denoted by a long-duration membrane depolarisation phase, lasting approximately two minutes, allowing rapid loss of membrane potential. Slow wave potentials alongside short-lived aglycone intermediates generated by hydrolysis of glucosinolate or Ricca's factors play a role in plant defence.
References
Plant communication
EC 3.2.1 | Ricca's factors | [
"Biology"
] | 304 | [
"Plant communication",
"Plants"
] |
73,769,818 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear%20Regulatory%20Authority | The Nuclear Regulatory Authority is the regulator for nuclear power in Turkey. Regulators are being trained in Russia and will oversee Akkuyu operated by Rosatom.
References
Governmental nuclear organizations
Nuclear power in Turkey
Government agencies of Turkey
2018 establishments in Turkey
Organizations based in Ankara
Regulatory and supervisory agencies of Turkey | Nuclear Regulatory Authority | [
"Engineering"
] | 58 | [
"Governmental nuclear organizations",
"Nuclear organizations"
] |
73,769,888 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023%20Taichung%20crane%20collapse | On 10 May 2023, a construction crane fell 30 floors from a construction site of Highwealth Construction Corp onto a moving Taichung Metro Green Line train south of Feng-le Park metro station, Taichung, Taiwan, killing 1 and injuring 10 passengers onboard.
The deceased passenger, legal scholar , 52, was ejected out of the train carriage upon impact, resulting in her being crushed under the same train.
One passenger onboard, a Canadian national, claimed that the driverless train was stationary when the crane fell onto the tracks and the train then proceeded to drive and collide straight onto the fallen crane.
Investigation
It was revealed that the onboard train attendant followed company procedures to contact the control center about the crane obstructing the track. However, the control center at Taichung Metro would require 20 seconds to activate the emergency brakes remotely, which was insufficient to prevent the collision. The passenger emergency buttons onboard the train were not designed to immediately stop the train.
The Taichung District Prosecutors Office questioned Taichung Metro staff involved in the incident and ten Highwealth Construction Corp personnel who were responsible for the operation of the construction crane.
The operations control center detected a loss of power caused by the fallen crane, but power was automatically restored shortly after. Half of the control center staff were on meal break at time of the incident.
Timeline of incident
At a press conference, Taichung Metro revealed that based on CCTV footage of the train and the station before the fallen crane, the following events occurred:
12:26:50 - Trainset 03/04 entered the station
12:27:04 - Construction crane fell onto the track, breaching the noise barrier
12:27:14 - Station security reported incident to station supervisor
12:27:22 - Trainset 03/04 doors closes
12:27:26 - Staff onboard trainset 03/04 found track obstruction, contacted control center and attempted to open the manual driving control panel to stop the train
12:27:30 - Trainset 03/04 departed the station
12:27:45 - Trainset 03/04 collided with the fallen construction crane on track
12:27:52 - Trainset 03/04 came to a complete stop
Reactions
Taichung Metro said they intended to seek at least TWD 0.2 billion (USD6.5 million) in compensation against Highwealth Construction Corp for damage and losses resulting from the collapse.
Other metro operators in Taiwan began to review and secure ongoing construction sites that were situated near the tracks.
Taipei Metro admitted that the existing procedures regarding driverless trains, such as the Wenhu Line, were inadequate to stop the train in time under a similar scenario as the track circuit would not be broken and detect a fallen crane, and staff opening the manual driving panel or informing the control centre to cut off power would have taken too long. Taipei Metro promised to develop new procedures to deal with such scenarios, and in the meantime metro staff were authorized to deliberately obstruct the platform or train doors from closing in order to prevent the train from moving off.
The acting chairman of Taichung Metro resigned after he was criticized for his performance post-collapse.
Taichung Metro proposed changes to procedures to prevent collapse of a similar nature. Changes in protocol included introducing a new standardized hand signal for staff indicating emergency stop is necessary, encouraging staff and passengers to prevent the doors from closing by obstructing the doors to prevent a driverless train from departing after witnessing an incident, and relocating the key to a separate, more accessible holder to allow roving staff to more easily open the manual driving panel to access the emergency stop button. Taichung Metro also promised updates to emergency devices at stations and obstruction detection devices that will allow a train to stop in time or prevent its departure in similar circumstances.
The Taiwan Transportation Safety Board concluded in June 2024 that the primary reasons for the collapse were a failure to ensure proper operation of a tower crane and a lack of clear measures for restricting or prohibiting construction on either side of Taichung Metro tracks. In August 2024, two workers were indicted on charges of negligent manslaughter.
See also
2021 Hualien train derailment - collision with construction machinery that fell onto the track
References
External links
2023 disasters in Taiwan
Engineering failures
May 2023 events in Taiwan
Railway accident deaths
Railway accidents and incidents in Taiwan
Railway accidents in 2023
2023 crane collapse | 2023 Taichung crane collapse | [
"Technology",
"Engineering"
] | 894 | [
"Systems engineering",
"Reliability engineering",
"Technological failures",
"Engineering failures",
"Civil engineering"
] |
73,769,919 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lantadene | Lantadenes are naturally occurring pentacyclic triterpenoids found in the Lantana camara plant. They are known to be poisonous to livestock that graze on the leaves of the plant, causing photosensitivity and hepatotoxicity as major symptoms. Lantadenes A and B are the most abundant and bioactive triterpenoids found in the Lantana camara leaves.
Discovery
In 1922, Kishori Lal Moudgill, a research student from the University of Glasgow, purified the essential oils of the Lantana camara leaves through distillation, isolating 10-12% of α-phellandrene and 80% of an unidentifiable terpene compound. In a series of reports investigating the toxicity of many natural products, Van der Walt and Steyn published in 1941 the effects of Lantana camara poisoning in sheep. They fed two sheep varying amounts of leaves and fresh shoots from a plant native to Durban and found that the sheep became jaundiced and had an inflammation of the nose that created a lasting pink discoloration, called "pink-nose," a condition that commonly appears in other Lantana camara livestock poisonings.
In 1943, Louw isolated the active compound from the leaves through a series of alcohol extractions and recrystallizations, naming it "lantanin." A series of tests were performed to examine the solubility of the active compound in various solvents, determine chemical formula, and probe the functional groups present. 5 years later, in 1948 Louw renamed the substance from "lantanin" to "lantadene A" in order to avoid confusion with a previously named alkaloid from the Lantana brasiliensis plant. In that same study, another structural analog of lantadene A was recrystallized out from a larger sample of Lantana camara leaves, which was named as "lantadene B." The chemical structures of these compounds were accurately determined by Nobel Prize laureate Sir Derek Barton. In 1954, he and co-workers published the correct structure for lantadene B, followed by lantadene A shortly after in 1958.
Health effects
Symptoms
The lantadenes are particularly well known for their toxicity to livestock, primarily for causing hepatotoxicity, or damage to the liver. A vast collection of symptoms have been observed in cattle, sheep, and other livestock including "weakness, severe gastroenteritis, anorexia, weight loss, jaundice, conjunctivitis, corneal opacity and blindness, ulceration of tongue, gums, and buccal mucous membranes, partial paralysis of the legs, and photosensitization of the skin." Within the first 12-24 after the poisoning, animals exhibit loss of appetite and constipation, followed by more severe effects of photosensitization and jaundice. Unlike the livestock poisonings, cases of poisonings in children do not exhibit jaundice as a major symptom, but rather show symptoms of lung and kidney congestion, diarrhea, vomiting, lack of coordination, and in extreme cases, death.
Toxicity
Toxicity of the lantadene triterpenoids in adult humans is not well-known, but there have been cases of acute toxicity in children that eat the fruit of the Lantana camara plant. Isolated samples of Lantadenes A and B have been shown to elicit both toxic biological responses as well as potential antimicrobial, antiviral, and antitumor activity in animals, primarily Lantadene A. The LD50 values of Lantadene A for toxicity in sheep have been previously reported both intravenously and orally:
In guinea pigs, a range of effects in the kidney and liver have been reported to be dependent on the amount and duration of lantadenes administered. Dosages of 24 mg/kg (body weight) initiate adverse physiological responses (increased bile duct proliferation and inflammation in the liver) over the course of 90 days of exposure.
Mechanism of action
The exact mechanism of action of the lantadenes is not well understood. They are thought to inhibit the function of the sodium-potassium pump within the cell membranes of "biliary epithelial cells" within the liver, a process that affects the production and control of bile. Specifically, Lantadene A has been reported to block the "secretion of sheep bile acids" into the bile ducts through an unknown mechanism.
Chemistry
Biosynthesis
Pentacyclic triterpenoids are believed to be synthesized in nature through cyclization of squalene and its derivatives by the enzymes known as oxidosqualene cyclases (OCS). The exact biosynthetic pathways of the lantadenes are not reported, but 2,3-oxidosqualene (epoxidized derivative of squalene) has been shown to readily cyclize by OSC and undergo oxidation by various enzymes to create common triterpenoid natural products.
Lantadene family
There are 4 naturally occurring compounds in the lantadene family, labelled A-D in the order of discovery. They vary in the structure of the carbon-based side chain of the ester group. Lantadenes A and C have the same carbon backbones, where the only difference is the presence of a double bond in the side chain of lantadene A. Lantadenes B and D are similarly related with a different arrangement of methyl substituents in the side chain. Lantadene A and B are the most abundant triterpenoids found in both young and mature Lantana camara leaves, followed by lantadene C.
Source in Nature
References
Pentacyclic compounds
Carboxylic acids
Esters
Triterpenoids | Lantadene | [
"Chemistry"
] | 1,193 | [
"Chemical ecology",
"Esters",
"Carboxylic acids",
"Functional groups",
"Plant toxins",
"Organic compounds"
] |
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