Commentary on Star Chamber Decree 1586

A decree prohibiting the publication of any book contrary to statute, injunction, ordinance and letters patents, as well as any ordinance set down by the Company of Stationers. The formal protection of the Star Chamber was extended not only to books protected under royal printing privileges (see: uk_1566) but to books printed in contravention of the internal regulations of the Stationers' Company itself, further enhancing the significance of ‘stationers' copyright'.
The commentary describes the background to the decree, in particular the religious controversies of the 1570s and 1580s, as well as the dissatisfaction within the general printing trade during this period at the manner in which a number of the printing privileges granted by Elizabeth resulted in the monopolistic control of commercially lucrative works within the hands of a few stationers only. The commentary also details the efforts of the dominant members of the Stationers' Company to influence the substance of the decree and further augment their control over the internal operation of the book trade.

Ovariole number - a predictor of differential reproductive success among worker subfamilies in queenless honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) colonies

A honeybee queen normally mates with 10-20 drones, and reproductive conflicts may arise among a colony's different worker patrilines, especially after a colony has lost its single queen and the workers commence egg laying. In this study, we employed microsatellite markers to study aspects of worker reproductive competition in two queenless Africanized honeybee colonies. First, we determined whether there was a bias among worker patrilines in their maternity of drones and, second, we asked whether this bias could be attributed to differences in the degree of ovary activation of workers. Third, we relate these behavioral and physiological factors to ontogenetic differences between workers with respect to ovariole number. Workers from each of three (colony A) and one (colony B) patrilineal genotypes represented less than 6% of the worker population, yet each produced at least 13% of the drones in a colony, and collectively they produced 73% of the drones. Workers representing these genotypes also had more developed follicles and a greater number of ovarioles per ovary. Across all workers, ovariole development and number were closely correlated. This suggests a strong effect of worker genotype on the development of the ovary already in the postembryonic stages and sets a precedent to adult fertility, so that

CO multipulse TAP studies of 2% Pt/CeO2 catalyst: Influence of catalyst pretreatment and temperature on the number of active sites observed

CO multipulse temporal analysis of products (TAP) experiments were used to characterize a ceria-supported platinum catalyst after various oxidative and reductive pretreatments using O-2, H2O, CO2, and H-2. Based on the amount of CO consumed, using the final CO-saturated catalyst composition as the common state point, the oxidatively pretreated catalyst could be described using a general scale. From a kinetic analysis of the CO multipulse responses, two kinetic regimes corresponding to two types of active sites could be identified. As the temperature was raised, the number of the most active sites did not change while the amount of the less active site increased. Comparison of the number of active sites determined from the TAP data reported herein with that determined by a previous steady-state isotope transient kinetic analysis experiment showed excellent agreement. This correlation indicates that the (very fast response) TAP experiments can provide information regarding the number and type of active sites that are relevant to a catalyst under real reaction conditions. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A modified commercial DRIFTS cell for kinetically relevant operando studies of heterogeneous catalytic reactions

This paper discusses a number of checks that should be carried out to ensure that the kinetic and spectroscopic measurements made using a DRIFTS cell are meaningful. The observations reported here demonstrate how an appropriately modified commercial DRIFTS cell can provide pertinent kinetic information about both gaseous products and the related surface intermediates. The oxidation of CO with 02 was used as a test to assess the catalyst bed bypass by the reaction mixture. Full CO conversion was obtained after the light-off temperature in the case of the modified cell, contrary to the case of the original cell, for which 80% of the reaction mixture bypassed the catalyst bed. The water-gas shift reaction over a Pt/CeO2 catalyst was used as a model reaction to further characterize the behavior of the cell under reaction conditions. The catalyst bed was shown not to be a dead-zone and was purged in essentially the same time as that needed to purge the cell. The reaction chamber globally operated in a quasi plug-flow mode and the gas composition in the thin catalyst bed appears to be homogeneous when operated under differential conditions. The production of the gas-phase reaction product CO2 could be simultaneously followed both by mass spectrometry and DRIFTS, both techniques leading to identical results. Various IR bands integration methods were discussed to allow a precise and accurate determination of the surface concentration of adsorbates during isotopic exchange. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Finding the magic number

Paul Wilson and Colin Cooper investigate methods used to extract the number of factors in a factor analysis