KSAYMRFamide (PF3/AF8) is present in the free-living nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans

To date, seven FMRFamide-related peptides (FaRPs) have been structurally characterized from C. elegans, of which one is structurally identical to the parasitic nematode peptide AF2 (KHEYLRFamide). The other six FaRPs have so far been identified in free-living forms only. in the present study an additional FaRP was isolated and structurally characterized from an ethanolic extract of C. elegans. The extract was screened using a C-terminally directed FaRP antiserum, and the FMRFamide-immunoreactive peptide purified to homogeneity using HPLC. Approximately 80 pmol of the peptide was subjected to Edman degradation and the unequivocal primary structure of the K-7-amide, KSAYMRFamide (PF3/AF8) was determined following a single gas-phase sequencing run. The molecular mass of the peptide was determined using a MALDI-TOF mass spectrometer and was found to be 919 (MH+), which is in agreement with the theoretical mass of C-terminally amidated PF3. A new flp-gene, designated flp-6, has recently been identified which encodes six copies of KSAYMRFamide (PF3/AF8). (C) 1998 Academic Press.

Isolation of AF2 (KHEYLRFamide) from Caenorhabditis elegans: Evidence for the presence of more than one FMRFamide related peptide-encoding gene

Numerous FMRF amide-related peptides (FaRPs) have been isolated and sequenced from extracts of free-living and parasitic nematodes. The most abundant FaRP identified in ethanolic/methanolic extracts of the parasitic forms, Ascaris suum and Haemonchus contortus and from the free-living nematode, Panagrellus redivivus, was KHEYLRF amide (AF2). Analysis of the nucleotide sequences of cloned FaRP-precursor genes from C. elegans and, more recently, Caenorhabditis vulgaris identified a series of related FaRPs which did not include AF2. An acid-ethanol extract of Caenorhabditis elegans was screened radioimmunometrically for the presence of FaRPs using a C-terminally directed FaRP antiserum. Approximately 300 pmols of the most abundant immunoreactive peptide was purified to homogeneity and 30 pmols was subjected to Edman degradation analysis and gas-phase sequencing. The unequivocal primary structure of the heptapeptide, Lys-His-Glu-Tyr-Leu-Arg-Phe-NH2 (AF2) was determined following a single gas-phase sequencing run. The molecular mass of the peptide was determined using a time-of-flight mass spectrometer and was found to be 920 (MH(+))(-), which was consistent with the theoretical mass of C-terminally amidated AF2. These results indicate that C. elegans possesses more than one FaRP gene. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.

Bio-port Free Energy City

In an age of depleting oil reserves and increasing energy demand, humanity faces a stalemate between environmentalism and politics, where crude oil is traded at record highs yet the spotlight on being ‘green’ and sustainable is stronger than ever. A key theme on today’s political agenda is energy independence from foreign nations, and the United Kingdom is bracing itself for nuclear renaissance which is hoped will feed the rapacious centralised system that the UK is structured upon. But what if this centralised system was dissembled, and in its place stood dozens of cities which grow and monopolise from their own energy? Rather than one dominant network, would a series of autonomous city-based energy systems not offer a mutually profitable alternative? Bio-Port is a utopian vision of a ‘Free Energy City’ set in Liverpool, where the old dockyards, redundant space, and the Mersey Estuary have been transformed into bio-productive algae farms. Bio-Port Free Energy City is a utopian ideal, where energy is superfluous; in fact so abundant that meters are obsolete. The city functions as an energy generator and thrives from its own product with minimal impact upon the planet it inhabits. Algaculture is the fundamental energy source, where a matrix of algae reactors swamp the abandoned dockyards; which themselves have been further expanded and reclaimed from the River Mersey. Each year, the algae farm is capable of producing over 200 million gallons of bio-fuel, which in-turn can produce enough electricity to power almost 2 million homes. The metabolism of Free-Energy City is circular and holistic, where the waste products of one process are simply the inputs of a new one. Livestock farming – once traditionally a high-carbon countryside exercise has become urbanised. Cattle are located alongside the algae matrix, and waste gases emitted by farmyards and livestock are largely sequestered by algal blooms or anaerobically converted to natural gas. Bio-Port Free Energy City mitigates the imbalances between ecology and urbanity, and exemplifies an environment where nature and the human machine can function productively and in harmony with one another. According to James Lovelock, our population has grown in number to the point where our presence is perceptibly disabling the planet, but in order to reverse the effects of our humanist flaws, it is vital that new eco-urban utopias are realised.

Non-competitive phenotypic differences can have a strong effect on ideal free distributions

1. We present a model of the ideal free distribution (IFD) where differences between phenotypes other than those involved in direct competition for resources are considered. We show that these post-acquisitional differences can have a dramatic impact on the predicted distributions of individuals.

2. Specifically, we predict that, when the relative abilities of phenotypes are independent of location, there will be a continuum of mixed evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) distributions (where all phenotypes are present in all patches).

3, When the relative strengths of the post-acquisitional trait in the two phenotypes differ between patches, however, we predict only a single ESS at equilibrium. Further, this distribution may be fully or partially segregated (with the distribution of at least one phenotype being spatially restricted) but it will never be mixed.

4, Our results for post-acquisitional traits mirror those of Parker (1982) for direct competitive traits. This comparison illustrates that it does not matter whether individual differences are expressed before or after competition for resources, they will still exert considerable influence on the distribution of the individuals concerned.

How do grazers achieve their distribution? A continuum of models from random diffusion to the ideal free distribution using biased random walks

A conceptual model is described for generating distributions of grazing animals, according to their searching behavior, to investigate the mechanisms animals may use to achieve their distributions. The model simulates behaviors ranging from random diffusion, through taxis and cognitively aided navigation (i.e., using memory), to the optimization extreme of the Ideal Free Distribution. These behaviors are generated from simulation of biased diffusion that operates at multiple scales simultaneously, formalizing ideas of multiple-scale foraging behavior. It uses probabilistic bias to represent decisions, allowing multiple search goals to be combined (e.g., foraging and social goals) and the representation of suboptimal behavior. By allowing bias to arise at multiple scales within the environment, each weighted relative to the others, the model can represent different scales of simultaneous decision-making and scale-dependent behavior. The model also allows different constraints to be applied to the animal's ability (e.g., applying food-patch accessibility and information limits). Simulations show that foraging-decision randomness and spatial scale of decision bias have potentially profound effects on both animal intake rate and the distribution of resources in the environment. Spatial variograms show that foraging strategies can differentially change the spatial pattern of resource abundance in the environment to one characteristic of the foraging strategy.</

Free and projective Banach lattices

We define and prove the existence of free Banach lattices in the category of Banach lattices and contractive lattice homomorphisms, and establish some of their fundamental properties. We give much more detailed results about their structure in the case when there are only a finite number of generators, and give several Banach lattice characterizations of the number of generators being, respectively, one, finite or countable. We define a Banach lattice P to be projective if, whenever X is a Banach lattice, J is a closed ideal in X, Q : X → X/J is the quotient map, T: P → X/J is a linear lattice homomorphism and ε > 0, there exists a linear lattice homomorphism : P → X such thatT = Q º and ∥∥ ≤ (1 + ε)∥T∥. We establish the connection between projective Banach lattices and free Banach lattices, describe several families of Banach lattices that are projective and prove that some are not.

Primed, constant infusion with [H-2(3)]serine allows in vivo kinetic measurement of serine turnover, homocysteine remethylation, and transsulfuration processes in human one-carbon metabolism

Background: One-carbon metabolism involves both mitochondrial and cytosolic forms of folate-dependent enzymes in mammalian cells, but few in vivo data exist to characterize the biochemical processes involved.

Objective: We conducted a stable-isotopic investigation to determine the fates of exogenous serine and serine-derived one carbon units in homocysteine remethylation in hepatic and whole-body metabolism.

Design: A healthy man aged 23 y was administered [2,3,3 H-2(3)]serine and [5,5,5-H-2(3)]leucine by intravenous primed, constant infusion. Serial plasma samples were analyzed to determine the isotopic enrichment of free glycine, serine, leucine, methionine, and cystathionine. VLDL apolipoprotein B-100 served as an index of liver free amino acid labeling.

Results: [H-2(1)]Methionine and [H-2(2)]methionine were labeled through homocysteine remethylation. We propose that [H-2(2)]methionine occurs by remethylation with [H-2(2)]methyl groups (as 5-methyltetrahydrofolate) formed only from cytosolic processing of [H-2(3)]serine, whereas [H-2(1)]methionine is formed with labeled one-carbon units from mitochondrial oxidation of C-3 serine to [H-2(1)]formate to yield cytosolic [H-2(1)]methyl groups. The labeling pattern of cystathionine formed from homocysteine and labeled serine suggests that cystathionine is derived mainly from a serine pool different from that used in apolipoprotein B-100 synthesis.

Conclusions: The appearance of both [H-2(1)]- and [H-2(2)]methionine forms indicates that both cytosolic and mitochondrial metabolism of exogenous serine generates carbon units in vivo for methyl group production and homocysteine remethylation. This study also showed the utility of serine infusion and indicated functional roles of cytosolic and mitochondrial compartments in one-carbon metabolism.

Politics, policy preferences and the evolution of Irish bureaucracy:A framework for analysis

Analysis of the Irish state's administrative system is an unaccountably neglected area of systematic academic inquiry. This is all the more difficult to account for in view of the dynamic relationship between government actors and the public bureaucracy in realizing political goals. This paper identifies some distinguishing institutional features and dominant trends in Irish politico-administrative governance, and suggests avenues for future inquiry. The paper begins with an examination of the literature on administrative system change, with a focus on the New Public Management literature. Following this, the Irish case is profiled, identifying the evolution of ministerial departments and of state agencies by successive Irish governments, including patterns of agency creation and termination over time. Particular attention is given to the period 1989-2010, which has been one of quite rapid and complex organizational change within the state's bureaucratic apparatus. © 2012 Political Studies Association of Ireland.

Policy difference and policy ownership under UK devolution: social housing policy in Northern Ireland

This paper assesses the impact of UK devolution on social housing policy in Northern Ireland from 1999 until 2011, with a particular focus on the administration from May 2007 until April 2011, the first in which the elected elements of the process functioned for the entire period. Housing is one of the responsibilities of the Minister for Social Development. Northern Ireland has had a political commitment to the provision of good quality social housing for many years, both before and after the 1998 Good Friday/ Belfast Agreement and the establishment of the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive in 1999.
The paper begins with an analysis of factors contributing to policy difference within the United Kingdom under the 1999 devolution settlement, noting that these factors may contribute either to policy convergence or divergence between the four UK jurisdictions. There follow reflections on the concept of ‘policy ownership’ in multi-level states and the benefits of this analytical approach for consideration of housing policy under UK devolution. A review of social housing policy since 1999 is followed by discussion of three key issues from the 2007-11 administration: the governance of social housing; the procurement of new social housing; and improving access to shared space and a shared future. The paper concludes that, in Northern Ireland, the 2007-11 administration marked a transition between a technocratic past and the future policy ownership of the social housing policy field by locally elected politicians. Reflections on wider implications for UK social policy, for UK devolution, and for the complex governance structures of devolved and federal states are also included.

Low-Temperature Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) of NOx with n-Octane Using Solvent-Free Mechanochemically Prepared Ag/Al2O3 Catalysts

Low-temperature (<200 degrees C) hydrocarbon selective catalytic reduction of NOx has been achieved for the first time in the absence of hydrogen using a solvent-free mechanochemically prepared Ag/Al2O3 catalyst. Catalysts prepared by this ball-milling method show a remarkable increase in activity for the reduction of nitrogen oxides with octane by lowering the light-off temperature by up to 150 degrees C compared with a state-of-the-art 2 wt %Ag/Al2O3 catalyst prepared by wet impregnation. The best catalyst prepared from silver oxide showed 50% NOx conversion at 240 degrees C and 99%, at 302 degrees C. The increased activity is not due to an increased surface area of the support, but may be associated with a change in.the'defeet structure of the alumina surface, leading to the formation of the small silver clusters necessary for the activation of the octane without leading to total combustion. On the other hand, since one possible role of hydrogen is to remove inhibiting species from the silver, we cannot exclude some change in the chemical properties of the silver as a result of the ball-milling treatment.

One-step synthesis of ZnO nanosheets: a blue-white fluorophore

Zinc oxide is synthesised at low temperature (80A degrees C) in nanosheet geometry using a substrate-free, single-step, wet-chemical method and is found to act as a blue-white fluorophore. Investigation by atomic force microscopy, electron microscopy, and X-ray diffraction confirms zinc oxide material of nanosheet morphology where the individual nanosheets are polycrystalline in nature with the crystalline structure being of wurtzite character. Raman spectroscopy indicates the presence of various defects, while photoluminescence measurements show intense green (centre wavelength approximately 515 nm) blue (approximately 450 nm), and less dominant red (approximately 640 nm) emissions due to a variety of vacancy and interstitial defects, mostly associated with surfaces or grain boundaries. The resulting colour coordinate on the CIE-1931 standard is (0.23, 0.33), demonstrating potential for use as a blue-white fluorescent coating in conjunction with ultraviolet emitting LEDs. Although the defects are often treated as draw-backs of ZnO, here we demonstrate useful broadband visible fluorescence properties in as-prepared ZnO. 

Defining the molecular basis for the first potent and selective orthosteric agonists of the FFA2 free fatty acid receptor

FFA2 is a G protein-coupled receptor that responds to short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) and has generated interest as a therapeutic target for metabolic and inflammatory conditions. However, definition of its functions has been slowed by a dearth of selective ligands that can distinguish it from the closely related FFA3. At present, the only selective ligands described for FFA2 suffer from either poor potency, altered signaling due to allosteric modes of action, or a lack of function at non-human orthologs of the receptor. To address the need for novel selective ligands, we synthesized two compounds potentially having FFA2 activity and examined the molecular basis of their function. These compounds were confirmed to be potent and selective FFA2 agonists that interact with the orthosteric binding site. A combination of ligand structure-activity relationship, pharmacological analysis, homology modeling, species ortholog comparisons and mutagenesis studies were then employed to define the molecular basis of selectivity and function of these ligands. From this, we identified key residues within both extracellular loop 2 (ECL2) and the transmembrane domain (TM) regions of FFA2 critical for ligand function. One of these ligands was active with reasonable potency at rodent orthologs of FFA2 and demonstrated the role of FFA2 in the regulation of lipolysis in murine 3T3-L1 adipocytes. Together, these findings describe the first potent and selective FFA2 orthosteric agonists and demonstrate key aspects of ligand interaction within the orthosteric binding site of FFA2 that will be invaluable in future ligand development at this receptor.

Simplifying the representation of complex free-energy landscapes using sketch-map

A new scheme, sketch-map, for obtaining a low-dimensional representation of the region of phase space explored during an enhanced dynamics simulation is proposed. We show evidence, from an examination of the distribution of pairwise distances between frames, that some features of the free-energy surface are inherently high-dimensional. This makes dimensionality reduction problematic because the data does not satisfy the assumptions made in conventional manifold learning algorithms We therefore propose that when dimensionality reduction is performed on trajectory data one should think of the resultant embedding as a quickly sketched set of directions rather than a road map. In other words, the embedding tells one about the connectivity between states but does not provide the vectors that correspond to the slow degrees of freedom. This realization informs the development of sketch-map, which endeavors to reproduce the proximity information from the high-dimensionality description in a space of lower dimensionality even when a faithful embedding is not possible.

How to Manipulate an Incompatibilistically Free Agent

A prominent criticism of compatibilist theories of moral responsibility is that they do not deal adequately with cases of manipulation, and particularly with induced desires. So, for example, accounts that give the conditions for responsibility in terms of the reasons-responsiveness of the mechanism governing one's decisions, as Fischer and Ravizza (1998) do, seem to leave the door open to cases such as the following.

‘The “English Disease” is to Look for a “Solution of the Irish Problem”’: British Constitutional Policy in Northern Ireland after Sunningdale 1974–1976

This article reconstructs British constitutional policy in Northern Ireland after power-sharing collapsed in May 1974. Over the following two years, the British government publicly emphasised that Northern Ireland would decide its own future, but ministers secretly considered a range of options including withdrawal, integration and Dominion status. These discussions have been fundamentally misunderstood by previous authors, and this article shows that Harold Wilson did not seriously advocate withdrawal nor was policy as inconsistent as argued elsewhere. An historical approach, drawing from recently released archival material, shows that consociationalists such as Brendan O'Leary and Michael Kerr have neglected the proper context of government policy because of their commitment to a particular form of government, failing to recognise the constraints under which ministers operated. The British government remained committed to an internal devolved settlement including both communities but was unable to impose one.