The fate of injectant coal in blast furnaces: The origin of extractable materials of high molecular mass in blast furnace carryover dusts

The aim of the work was to investigate the fate of injectant coal in blast furnaces and the origin of extractable materials in blast furnace carryover dusts. Two sets of samples including injectant coal and the corresponding carryover dusts from a full sized blast furnace and a pilot scale rig have been examined. The samples were extracted using 1-methyl-2-pyrrolidinone (NMP) solvent and the extracts studied by size exclusion chromatography (SEC). The blast furnace carryover dust extracts contained high molecular weight carbonaceous material, of apparent mass corresponding to 10⁷?10⁸ u, by polystyrene calibration. In contrast, the feed coke and char prepared in a wire mesh reactor under high temperature conditions did not give any extractable material. Meanwhile, controlled combustion experiments in a high-pressure wire mesh reactor suggest that the extent of combustion of injectant coal in the blast furnace tuyeres and raceways is limited by time of exposure and very low oxygen concentration. It is thus likely that the extractable, soot-like material in the blast furnace dust originated in tars is released by the injectant coal. Our results suggest that the unburned tars were thermally altered during the upward path within the furnace, giving rise to the formation of heavy molecular weight (soot-like) materials.     

Morphological evolution through multiple cis-regulatory mutations at a single gene

One central, and yet unsolved, question in evolutionary biology is the relationship between the genetic variants segregating within species and the causes of morphological differences between species. The classic neo-darwinian view postulates that species differences result from the accumulation of small-effect changes at multiple loci. However, many examples support the possible role of larger abrupt changes in the expression of developmental genes in morphological evolution. Although this evidence might be considered a challenge to a neo-darwinian micromutationist view of evolution, there are currently few examples of the actual genes causing morphological differences between species. Here we examine the genetic basis of a trichome pattern difference between Drosophila species, previously shown to result from the evolution of a single gene, shavenbaby (svb), probably through cis-regulatory changes. We first identified three distinct svb enhancers from D. melanogaster driving reporter gene expression in partly overlapping patterns that together recapitulate endogenous svb expression. All three homologous enhancers from D. sechellia drive expression in modified patterns, in a direction consistent with the evolved svb expression pattern. To test the influence of these enhancers on the actual phenotypic difference, we conducted interspecific genetic mapping at a resolution sufficient to recover multiple intragenic recombinants. This functional analysis revealed that independent genetic regions upstream of svb that overlap the three identified enhancers are collectively required to generate the D. sechellia trichome pattern. Our results demonstrate that the accumulation of multiple small-effect changes at a single locus underlies the evolution of a morphological difference between species. These data support the view that alleles of large effect that distinguish species may sometimes reflect the accumulation of multiple mutations of small effect at select genes.     

Oxysterols direct immune cell migration via EBI2

Epstein-Barr virus-induced gene 2 (EBI2, also known as GPR183) is a G-protein-coupled receptor that is required for humoral immune responses; polymorphisms in the receptor have been associated with inflammatory autoimmune diseases. The natural ligand for EBI2 has been unknown. Here we describe the identification of 7α,25-dihydroxycholesterol (also called 7α,25-OHC or 5-cholesten-3β,7α,25-triol) as a potent and selective agonist of EBI2. Functional activation of human EBI2 by 7α,25-OHC and closely related oxysterols was verified by monitoring second messenger readouts and saturable, high-affinity radioligand binding. Furthermore, we find that 7α,25-OHC and closely related oxysterols act as chemoattractants for immune cells expressing EBI2 by directing cell migration in vitro and in vivo. A critical enzyme required for the generation of 7α,25-OHC is cholesterol 25-hydroxylase (CH25H). Similar to EBI2 receptor knockout mice, mice deficient in CH25H fail to position activated B cells within the spleen to the outer follicle and mount a reduced plasma cell response after an immune challenge. This demonstrates that CH25H generates EBI2 biological activity in vivo and indicates that the EBI2-oxysterol signalling pathway has an important role in the adaptive immune response.     

Consequences of climate change on the tree of life in Europe

Many species are projected to become vulnerable to twenty-first-century climate changes, with consequent effects on the tree of life. If losses were not randomly distributed across the tree of life, climate change could lead to a disproportionate loss of evolutionary history. Here we estimate the consequences of climate change on the phylogenetic diversities of plant, bird and mammal assemblages across Europe. Using a consensus across ensembles of forecasts for 2020, 2050 and 2080 and high-resolution phylogenetic trees, we show that species vulnerability to climate change clusters weakly across phylogenies. Such phylogenetic signal in species vulnerabilities does not lead to higher loss of evolutionary history than expected with a model of random extinctions. This is because vulnerable species have neither fewer nor closer relatives than the remaining clades. Reductions in phylogenetic diversity will be greater in southern Europe, and gains are expected in regions of high latitude or altitude. However, losses will not be offset by gains and the tree of life faces a trend towards homogenization across the continent.     

The impact of parameter and model uncertainty on market risk predictions from GARCH‐type models

We study the effect of parameter and model uncertainty on the left‐tail of predictive densities and in particular on VaR forecasts. To this end, we evaluate the predictive performance of several GARCH‐type models estimated via Bayesian and maximum likelihood techniques. In addition to individual models, several combination methods are considered, such as Bayesian model averaging and (censored) optimal pooling for linear, log or beta linear pools. Daily returns for a set of stock market indexes are predicted over about 13 years from the early 2000s. We find that Bayesian predictive densities improve the VaR backtest at the 1% risk level for single models and for linear and log pools. We also find that the robust VaR backtest exhibited by linear and log pools is better than the backtest of single models at the 5% risk level. Finally, the equally weighted linear pool of Bayesian predictives tends to be the best VaR forecaster in a set of 42 forecasting techniques.     

A bibliographical study of the introduction of Lavoisier's Traité élémentaire de chimie into Great Britain and America

As the most famous woman scientist of the twentieth century, there has been no shortage of books and articles on the life and career of Marie Curie (1867–1934). Her role as a director of a laboratory-based research school in the new scientific field of radioactivity, a field which embraced both chemistry and physics, however, has never been examined. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the question of research schools, and Morrell, Ravetz, Geison, and Klosterman, amongst others, have written on this subject. Using, in part, the methodology of Morrell, this paper investigates the role of Marie Curie as a school director in the Paris Faculty in the years 1907–14, examining the work and characteristics of her school and assessing her effectiveness as a director.     

Making the abstract concrete: The role of norms and values in experimental modeling

Experimental modeling is the construction of theoretical models hand in hand with experimental activity. As explained in Section 1, experimental modeling starts with claims about phenomena that use abstract concepts, concepts whose conditions of realization are not yet specified; and it ends with a concrete model of the phenomenon, a model that can be tested against data. This paper argues that this process from abstract concepts to concrete models involves judgments of relevance, which are irreducibly normative. In Section 2, we show, on the basis of several case studies, how these judgments contribute to the determination of the conditions of realization of the abstract concepts and, at the same time, of the quantities that characterize the phenomenon under study. Then, in Section 3, we compare this view on modeling with other approaches that also have acknowledged the role of relevance judgments in science. To conclude, in Section 4, we discuss the possibility of a plurality of relevance judgments and introduce a distinction between locally and generally relevant factors.     

The impact of cyclin-dependent kinase 5 depletion on poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase activity and responses to radiation

Cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (Cdk5) has been identified as a determinant of sensitivity to poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors. Here, the consequences of its depletion on cell survival, PARP activity, the recruitment of base excision repair (BER) proteins to DNA damage sites, and overall DNA single-strand break (SSB) repair were investigated using isogenic HeLa stably depleted (KD) and Control cell lines. Synthetic lethality achieved by disrupting PARP activity in Cdk5-deficient cells was confirmed, and the Cdk5^KD cells were also found to be sensitive to the killing effects of ionizing radiation (IR) but not methyl methanesulfonate or neocarzinostatin. The recruitment profiles of GFP-PARP-1 and XRCC1-YFP to sites of micro-irradiated Cdk5^KD cells were slower and reached lower maximum values, while the profile of GFP-PCNA recruitment was faster and attained higher maximum values compared to Control cells. Higher basal, IR, and hydrogen peroxide-induced polymer levels were observed in Cdk5^KD compared to Control cells. Recruitment of GFP-PARP-1 in which serines 782, 785, and 786, potential Cdk5 phosphorylation targets, were mutated to alanines in micro-irradiated Control cells was also reduced. We hypothesize that Cdk5-dependent PARP-1 phosphorylation on one or more of these serines results in an attenuation of its ribosylating activity facilitating persistence at DNA damage sites. Despite these deficiencies, Cdk5^KD cells are able to effectively repair SSBs probably via the long patch BER pathway, suggesting that the enhanced radiation sensitivity of Cdk5^KD cells is due to a role of Cdk5 in other pathways or the altered polymer levels.