Governing nanobiotechnology: lessons from agricultural biotechnology regulation

This article uses lessons from biotechnology to help inform the design of oversight for nanobiotechnology. Those lessons suggest the following: first, oversight needs to be broadly defined, encompassing not just regulatory findings around safety and efficacy, but also public understanding and acceptance of the technology and its products. Second, the intensity of scrutiny and review should reflect not just risks but also perceptions of risk. Finally, a global marketplace argues for uniform standards or commercially practical solutions to differences in standards. One way of designing oversight to achieve these purposes is to think about it in three phases—precaution, prudence, and promotion. Precaution comes early in the technology or product’s development and reflects real and perceived uncertainties. Prudence governs when risks and hazards have been identified, containment approaches established, and benefits broadly defined. Transparency and public participation rise to the fore. The promotional phase moves toward shaping public understanding and acceptance and involves marketing issues rather than safety ones. This flexible, three-phase approach to oversight would have avoided some of the early regulatory problems with agricultural biotechnology. It also would have led to a more risk-adjusted pathway to regulatory approval. Furthermore, it would avoid some of the arbitrary, disruptive marketing issues that have arisen.     

First principles study of the electronic properties of twinned SiC nanowires

The electronic properties of saturated and unsaturated twinned SiC nanowires grown along [111] direction and surrounded by {111} facets are investigated using first-principles calculations with density functional theory and generalized gradient approximation. All the nanowires considered, including saturated and unsaturated ones, exhibit semiconducting characteristics. The saturated nanowires have a direct band gap and the band gap decreases with increasing diameters of the nanowires. The hexagonal (2H) stacking inside the cubic (3C) stacking has no effect on electronic properties of the SiC nanowires. The highest occupied molecular orbitals and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals are distributed along the nanowire axis uniformly, which indicates that the twinned SiC nanowires are good candidates in realizing nano-optoelectronic devices.     

Hidden conformal symmetry of self-dual warped AdS<Subscript>3</Subscript> black holes in topological massive gravity

We extend the recently proposal of hidden conformal symmetry to the self-dual warped AdS₃ black holes in topological massive gravity. It is shown that the wave equation of massive scalar field with sufficient small angular momentum can be reproduced by the SL(2, R) Casimir quadratic operator. Due to the periodic identification in the φ direction, it is found that only the left section of hidden conformal symmetry is broken to U(1), while the right section is unbroken, which only gives the left temperature of dual CFT. As a check of the dual CFT conjecture of self-warped AdS₃ black hole, we further compute the Bekenstein–Hawking entropy and absorption cross section and quasinormal modes of scalar field perturbation and show these are just of the forms predicted by the dual CFT.     

Dysregulation of chemo-cytokine production in schizophrenic patients versus healthy controls

Background  

The exact cause of schizophrenia is not known, although several aetiological theories have been proposed for the disease, including developmental or neurodegenerative processes, neurotransmitter abnormalities, viral infection and immune dysfunction or autoimmune mechanisms. Growing evidence suggests that specific cytokines and chemokines play a role in signalling the brain to produce neurochemical, neuroendocrine, neuroimmune and behavioural changes. A relationship between inflammation and schizophrenia was supported by abnormal cytokines production, abnormal concentrations of cytokines and cytokine receptors in the blood and cerebrospinal fluid in schizophrenia. Since the neuropathology of schizophrenia has recently been reported to be closely associated with microglial activation we aimed to determined whether spontaneous or LPS-induced peripheral blood mononuclear cell chemokines and cytokines production is dysregulated in schizophrenic patients compared to healthy subjects. We enrolled 51 untreated first-episode schizophrenics (SC) and 40 healthy subjects (HC) and the levels of MCP-1, MIP-1α, IL-8, IL-18, IFN-γ and RANTES were determined by Elisa method in cell-free supernatants of PBMC cultures.     

Efficient visible-light-induced photocatalytic degradation of MO on the Cr-nanocrystalline titania-S

In order to improve visible light photocatalytic activities of the nanometer TiO₂, a novel and efficient Cr,S-codoped TiO₂ (Cr-TiO₂-S) photocatalyst was prepared by precipitation-doping method. The crystalline structure, morphology, particle size, and chemical structure of Cr-TiO₂-S were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) techniques, respectively. Results indicate that the doping of Cr and S, cause absorption edge shifts to the visible light region (λ > 420 nm) compare to the pure TiO₂, reduces average size of the TiO₂ crystallites, enhances desired lattice distortion of Ti, promotes separation of photo-induced electron and hole pair, and thus improves pollutant decomposition under visible light irradiation. The photocatalytic activities of Cr-TiO₂-S nanoparticles were evaluated using the photodegradation of methyl orange (MO) as probe reaction under the irradiation of UV and visible light and it was observed that the Cr-TiO₂-S photocatalyst shows higher visible photocatalytic activity than the pure TiO₂. The optimal Cr-TiO₂-S concentration to obtain the highest photocatalytic activity was 5 mol% for both of Cr and S.     

Detection of corrosion beneath a paint layer by use of spectral polarization optical imaging

The spectral and polarization properties of scattered light were used to image corrosion beneath the surface of a painted aluminum plate. The quality of imaging of the corrosion on the metal surface was significantly enhanced by the spectral polarization optical imaging technique. Depolarization scattered light was used to detect and image corrosion beneath the paint layer.     

MULTIQ: A Queueing Model for FMSs with Several Pallet Types

Analytical modelling of the work flow through flexible manufacturing systems (FMSs), based on closed queueing network models, has been successfully applied to the early stages of design and analysis of FMSs. This paper describes the advantages of using multiple job-class closed queueing networks for modelling realistic situations occurring in FMSs. The general modelling of FMSs by closed queueing networks is first reviewed. The way Solberg's CAN-Q—a single job-class queueing-based package—deals with several part types is clarified. A new model called MULTIQ, allowing multiple pallet types, each of which is used by several part types, is proposed. Results are derived using the data from an existing FMS. The use of the MULTIQ model for optimization purposes is suggested by some examples.     

New Results on EX Graphs

By the extremal number ex(n; t) = ex(n; {C ₃, C ₄, . . . , C _t }) we denote the maximum size (that is, number of edges) in a graph of order n > t and girth at least g ≥ t + 1. The set of all the graphs of order n, containing no cycles of length ≥ t, and of size ex(n; t), is denoted by EX(n; t) = EX(n; {C ₃, C ₄, . . . , C _t }), these graphs are called EX graphs. In 1975, Erdős proposed the problem of determining the extremal numbers ex(n; 4) of a graph of order n and girth at least 5. In this paper, we consider a generalized version of this problem, for t ≥ 5. In particular, we prove that ex(29; 6) = 45, also we improve some lower bounds and upper bounds of ex _u (n; t), for some particular values of n and t.     

Niche width and scale in organizational competition: A computational approach

In some organizational applications, the principle of allocation (PoA) and scale advantage (SA) oppose each other. While PoA implies that organizations with wide niches get punished, SA holds that large organizations gain an advantage because of scale efficiencies. The opposition occurs because many large organizations also possess wide niches. However, analyzing these theoretical mechanisms implies a possible trade-off between niche width and size: if both PoA and SA are strong, then organizations must be either focused or large to survive, resulting in a dual market structure, as proposed by the theory of resource partitioning. This article develops a computational model used to study this trade-off, and investigates the properties of organizational populations with low/high SA and low/high PoA. The model generates three expected core “corner” solutions: (1) the dominance of large organizations in the strong SA setting; (2) the proliferation of narrow-niche organizations in the strong PoA setting; and (3) a bifurcated or dual market structure if both SA and PoA are present. The model also allows us to identify circumstances under which narrow-niche (specialists) or wide-niche (generalists) organizations thrive. We also use the model to examine the claim that concentrated resource distributions are more likely to generate partitioned or bifurcated populations. We also investigate the consequences of environments comprised of ordered versus unordered positions.