Synthesis of prebiotic galactooligosaccharides from lactose using bifidobacterial β-galactosidase (BbgIV) immobilised on DEAE-Cellulose, Q-Sepharose and amino-ethyl agarose

The bifidobacterial β-galactosidase BbgIV was immobilised on DEAE-Cellulose and Q-Sepharose via ionic binding and on amino-ethyl- and glyoxal-agarose via covalent attachment, and was then used to catalyse the synthesis of galactooligosaccharides (GOS). The immobilisation yield exceeded 90 % using ionic binding, while it was low using aminoethyl agarose (25 – 28 %) and very low using glyoxal agarose (< 3 %). This was due to the mild conditions and absence of chemical reagents in ionic binding, compared to covalent attachment. The maximum GOS yield obtained using DEAE-Cellulose and Q-Sepharose was similar to that obtained using free BbgIV (49 – 53 %), indicating the absence of diffusion limitation and mass transfer issues. For amino-ethyl agarose, however, the GOS yield obtained was lower (42 – 44 %) compared to that obtained using free BbgIV. All the supports tried significantly (P < 0.05) increased the BbgIV operational stability and the GOS synthesis productivity up to 55 °C. Besides, six successive GOS synthesis batches were performed using BbgIV immobilised on Q-Sepharose; all resulted in similar GOS yields, indicating the possibility of developing a robust synthesis process. Overall, the GOS synthesis operation performance using BbgIV was improved by immobilising the enzyme onto solid supports, in particular on Q-Sepharose

National interest to global reform: patterns of reasoning in British foreign policy discourse

Discussion of the national interest often focuses on how Britain's influence can be maximized, rather than on the goals that influence serves. Yet what gives content to claims about the national interest is the means-ends reasoning which links interests to deeper goals. In ideal-typical terms, this can take two forms. The first, and more common, approach is conservative: it infers national interests and the goals they advance from existing policies and commitments. The second is reformist: it starts by specifying national goals and then asks how they are best advanced under particular conditions. New Labour's foreign policy discourse is notable for its explicit use of a reformist approach. Indeed, Gordon Brown's vision of a 'new global society' not only identifies global reform as a key means of fulfilling national goals, but also thereby extends the concept of the national interest well beyond a narrow concern with national security.

A multipoint study of a substorm occurring on 7 December, 1992, and its theoretical implications

On 7 December 1992, a moderate substorm was observed by a variety of satellites and ground-based instruments. Ionospheric flows were monitored near dusk by the Goose Bay HF radar and near midnight by the EISCAT radar. The observed flows are compared here with magnetometer observations by the IMAGE array in Scandinavia and the two Greenland chains, the auroral distribution observed by Freja and the substorm cycle observations by the SABRE radar, the SAMNET magnetometer array and LANL geosynchronous satellites. Data from Galileo Earth-encounter II are used to estimate the IMF B-z component. The data presented show that the substorm onset electrojet at midnight was confined to closed field lines equatorward of the preexisting convection reversal boundaries observed in the dusk and midnight regions. No evidence of substantial closure of open flux was detected following this substorm onset. Indeed the convection reversal boundary on the duskside continued to expand equatorward after onset due to the continued presence of strong southward IMF, such that growth and expansion phase features were simultaneously present. Clear indications of closure of open flux were not observed until a subsequent substorm intensification 25 min after the initial onset. After this time, the substorm auroral bulge in the nightside hours propagated well poleward of the pre-existing convection reversal boundary, and strong flow perturbations were observed by the Goose Bay radar, indicative of flows driven by reconnection in the tail.

Half-remembered quotations from mostly forgotten speeches: the limits of Labour’s European policy discourse

This article uses discourse analysis to study the continuities in British foreign policy thinking within the Labour party from the 1960s to the present day. Using representative extracts from speeches by Hugh Gaitskell, Harold Wilson, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, it identifies the ideational consis- tencies in the leaders’ attitudes to: Empire; federalism in the EEC/EU; and laying down conditions that have to be met before any constructive engagement with ‘Europe’ can be countenanced. We argue that these consistencies, spanning a 50-year period, exemplify a certain stagnation both within Labour’s European discourses and within British foreign policy thinking more widely. We develop the idea that Labour party thinking has been crucially framed by both small ‘c’ conser- vative and upper-case Conservative ideology, popularised by Winston Churchill in his ‘three circles’ model of British foreign policy.

Fabrication and evaluation of a skutterudite-based thermoelectric module for high-temperature applications

We report a straightforward methodology for the fabrication of high-temperature thermoelectric (TE) modules using commercially available solder alloys and metal barriers. This methodology employs standard and accessible facilities that are simple to implement in any laboratory. A TE module formed by nine n-type Yb x Co4Sb12 and p-type Ce x Fe3CoSb12 state-of-the-art skutterudite material couples was fabricated. The physical properties of the synthesized skutterudites were determined, and the module power output, internal resistance, and thermocycling stability were evaluated in air. At a temperature difference of 365 K, the module provides more than 1.5 W cm−3 volume power density. However, thermocycling showed an increase of the internal module resistance and degradation in performance with the number of cycles when the device is operated at a hot-side temperature higher than 573 K. This may be attributed to oxidation of the skutterudite thermoelements.

Location choices of multinational firms in Europe: the role of EU cohesion policy

Using data on 5509 foreign subsidiaries established in 50 regions of 8 EU countries over the period 1991–1999, we estimate a mixed logit model of the location choice of multinational firms in Europe. In particular, we focus on the role of EU Cohesion Policy in attracting foreign investors from both within and outside Europe. We find that, after controlling for the role of agglomeration economies as well as a number of other regional and country characteristics and allowing for a very flexible correlation pattern among choices, Structural and Cohesion funds allocated by the EU to laggard regions have indeed contributed to attracting multinationals. These policies as well as other determinants play a different role in the case of European investors as opposed to non-European ones.

Mediated addiction: The drug discourses of Hong Kong youth

This paper examines the ways young people in Hong Kong at different stages of involvement with illegal drugs respond to government produced anti-drug television commercials through a methodology which provided them with the technical skills and equipment to make their own short videos about drugs. An analysis of the videos they produced and their interaction while producing them reveals that participants with different drug-taking experiences have very different and often multiple ways of talking about drugs, and that these different ‘discourses’ and the ways they are deployed in different contexts affect how ‘at-risk’ they are for new or continued drug use and how they respond to anti-drug messages designed to mitigate this risk.

Constructing risk across timescales and trajectories: Gay men's stories of sexual encounters

This paper explores the way risk is constructed in the stories gay men tell of their sexual experiences. It focuses on how tellers use such stories to portray themselves both as rational actors and as legitimate members of their social groups by reconstructing the ‘orderliness’ of sexual encounters. An analysis of a corpus of stories derived from a diary study of gay male sexual behaviour in Hong Kong using current theories of discourse analysis reveals how narrators organize their experiences along two primary vectors of engagement: a sequential vector along which the trajectory of the sexual encounter is presented as a chain of occurrences, each occurrence contingent upon previous ones and warranting subsequent ones, and a hierarchical vector along which processes perceived on longer timescales are portrayed as exerting pressure on the ways processes on shorter timescales unfold. Examining how men portray these vectors in their accounts of risk behaviour can help us better understand both the situatedness of risk behaviour and the ways it is linked to larger social practices, identity projects and community histories

Mediated action and sexual risk: Searching for 'culture' in discourses of homosexuality and AIDS prevention in China

This paper examines the concept of ‘culture’ and its relationship to HIV prevention. Culture is here seen as the interaction between human beings and the various ‘cultural tools’ they appropriate when taking action. Among these tools are ways of speaking which encode certain meanings, ideologies and social practices. When individuals take action with regard to AIDS, what they do is mediated through voices which they borrow strategically from their environ- ment. The textual tools that are available and the ways individuals adapt and combine them work to either limit or amplify their participation in HIV prevention. What are traditionally seen as ‘cultures’ or ‘sub-cultures’, or worse, ‘risk groups’, are, in this perspective, viewed as ‘communities of practice’, groups of individuals who share particular cultural tools and ways of using them. This conceptual framework is applied to recent discourses of homosexuality and AIDS prevention in China. An instance of ‘of� cial’ discourse in the form of an AIDS education pamphlet for ‘gays’ is analysed for the voices it contains and how these voices are strategically marshalled by the authors and mixed with other voices in ways which amplify participation in AIDS prevention for some and limit it for others. This ‘offical’ discourse is then compared to the discourse of homosexually active Chinese men recently interviewed in Beijing and Fuzhou to examine which of these of� cial voices and other voices they appropriate, and how they adapt these voices in responding to HIV.