At Odds Over INCO: The International Nickel Company of Canada and New Caledonian Politics in the 1960s

In the 1960s, the International Nickel Company of Canada (INCO) sought to preserve its dominance of the global nickel industry by securing access to New Caledonia’s abundant reserves of nickel ore. In attempting to do so, however, INCO became embroiled in an acrimonious political dispute between New Caledonian autonomists, who wanted to diversify the territory’s economic activities and secure greater self-government from French rule, and the government of France, which considered INCO a threat to French sovereignty over New Caledonia and France’s interests in the Pacific. In obstructing INCO’s ability to operate in New Caledonia throughout the 1960s, however, the French government inadvertently galvanized the territory’s nationalists and increased their demands for autonomy from France.Au cours des années 1960, l’International Nickel Company of Canada (INCO), cherchant à assurer sa prépondérance sur le marché mondial du nickel, a voulu obtenir l’accès aux abondantes réserves de ce minerai en Nouvelle-Calédonie. Par la même occasion, cependant, INCO s’est trouvée mêlée à un acrimonieux conflit politique entre les autonomistes néo-calédoniens intéressés à diversifier les activités économiques du territoire et à accroître l’autonomie gouvernementale, d’une part, et le gouvernement français qui voyait l’arrivée de la société comme une menace envers sa souveraineté en Nouvelle-Calédonie et les intérêts de la France dans le Pacifique, d’autre part. En s’opposant à la liberté de mouvement d’INCO en Nouvelle-Calédonie tout au long des années 1960, le gouvernement français s’est toutefois trouvé à galvaniser involontairement les nationalistes et leurs demandes d’autonomie de la France

Empirical Study of Simulated Two-planet Microlensing Event

We undertake the first study of two-planet microlensing models recovered from simulations of microlensing events generated by realistic multi-planet systems in which 292 planetary events including 16 two-planet events were detected from 6690 simulated light curves. We find that when two planets are recovered, their parameters are usually close to those of the two planets in the system most responsible for the perturbations. However, in one of the 16 examples, the apparent mass of both detected planets was more than doubled by the unmodeled influence of a third, massive planet. This fraction is larger than, but statistically consistent with, the roughly 1.5% rate of serious mass errors due to unmodeled planetary companions for the 274 cases from the same simulation in which a single planet is recovered. We conjecture that an analogous effect due to unmodeled stellar companions may occur more frequently. For seven out of 23 cases in which two planets in the system would have been detected separately, only one planet was recovered because the perturbations due to the two planets had similar forms. This is a small fraction (7/274) of all recovered single-planet models, but almost a third of all events that might plausibly have led to two-planet models. Still, in these cases, the recovered planet tends to have parameters similar to one of the two real planets most responsible for the anomaly.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables; submitted to ApJ; for a short video introducing the key results, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhK4a6sbfO

NASSAM: a server to search for and annotate tertiary interactions and motifs in three-dimensional structures of complex RNA molecules

Similarities in the 3D patterns of RNA base interactions or arrangements can provide insights into their functions and roles in stabilization of the RNA 3D structure. Nucleic Acids Search for Substructures and Motifs (NASSAM) is a graph theoretical program that can search for 3D patterns of base arrangements by representing the bases as pseudo-atoms. The geometric relationship of the pseudo-atoms to each other as a pattern can be represented as a labeled graph where the pseudo-atoms are the graph's nodes while the edges are the inter-pseudo-atomic distances. The input files for NASSAM are PDB formatted 3D coordinates. This web server can be used to identify matches of base arrangement patterns in a query structure to annotated patterns that have been reported in the literature or that have possible functional and structural stabilization implications. The NASSAM program is freely accessible without any login requirement at http://mfrlab.org/grafss/nassam/

An aperture masking mode for the MICADO instrument

MICADO is a near-IR camera for the Europea ELT, featuring an extended field (75" diameter) for imaging, and also spectrographic and high contrast imaging capabilities. It has been chosen by ESO as one of the two first-light instruments. Although it is ultimately aimed at being fed by the MCAO module called MAORY, MICADO will come with an internal SCAO system that will be complementary to it and will deliver a high performance on axis correction, suitable for coronagraphic and pupil masking applications. The basis of the pupil masking approach is to ensure the stability of the optical transfer function, even in the case of residual errors after AO correction (due to non common path errors and quasi-static aberrations). Preliminary designs of pupil masks are presented. Trade-offs and technical choices, especially regarding redundancy and pupil tracking, are explained.Comment: SPIE 2014 Proceeding -- Montrea

Magnetic and electronic properties of lithium cobalt oxide substituted by nickel

[Abstract] We measured susceptibility, electron-spin resonance, magnetization and electrical conductivity of LiCo1−yNiyO2 powders synthesized by wet-chemistry method using succinic acid as chelating agent. We found unusual properties in the nickel-rich LiCo0.2Ni0.8O2, which shows several resonance lines as a function of the temperature in the range 3.5–300 K. The signal at low magnetic field is attributed to the magnetic domains in the nanostructured sample. The two other lines correspond to the typical ferromagnetic signal observed in powdered compounds. In the temperature range 120–300 K, the unique ESR line centered at 315 mT is the paramagnetic signal with a gyromagnetic factor g=2.12, which is in good agreement with the presence of a high concentration of Ni3+ (3d7) ions. In the nickel-rich oxide, LiNi0.8Co0.2O2, the magnetic data are qualitatively well-described by the model proposed by Drillon and Panissod for a 3D ferromagnetic order.Spanish and French Foreign Office; HF 1999-0101Spanish and French Foreign Office; PAI Picasso 00717T

GRAVITY: getting to the event horizon of Sgr A*

We present the second-generation VLTI instrument GRAVITY, which currently is in the preliminary design phase. GRAVITY is specifically designed to observe highly relativistic motions of matter close to the event horizon of Sgr A*, the massive black hole at center of the Milky Way. We have identified the key design features needed to achieve this goal and present the resulting instrument concept. It includes an integrated optics, 4-telescope, dual feed beam combiner operated in a cryogenic vessel; near infrared wavefront sensing adaptive optics; fringe tracking on secondary sources within the field of view of the VLTI and a novel metrology concept. Simulations show that the planned design matches the scientific needs; in particular that 10 microarcsecond astrometry is feasible for a source with a magnitude of K=15 like Sgr A*, given the availability of suitable phase reference sources.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, to appear in the conference proceedings of SPIE Astronomical Instrumentation, 23-28 June 2008, Marseille, Franc

A fast ILP-based Heuristic for the robust design of Body Wireless Sensor Networks

We consider the problem of optimally designing a body wireless sensor network, while taking into account the uncertainty of data generation of biosensors. Since the related min-max robustness Integer Linear Programming (ILP) problem can be difficult to solve even for state-of-the-art commercial optimization solvers, we propose an original heuristic for its solution. The heuristic combines deterministic and probabilistic variable fixing strategies, guided by the information coming from strengthened linear relaxations of the ILP robust model, and includes a very large neighborhood search for reparation and improvement of generated solutions, formulated as an ILP problem solved exactly. Computational tests on realistic instances show that our heuristic finds solutions of much higher quality than a state-of-the-art solver and than an effective benchmark heuristic.Comment: This is the authors' final version of the paper published in G. Squillero and K. Sim (Eds.): EvoApplications 2017, Part I, LNCS 10199, pp. 1-17, 2017. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-55849-3\_16. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55849-3_1

What makes health promotion research distinct?

There have been concerns about the decline of health promotion as a practice and discipline and alongside this, calls for a clearer articulation of health promotion research and what, if anything, makes it distinct. This discussion paper, based on a review of the literature; the authors’ own experiences in the field; and a workshop delivered by two of the authors at the 8th Nordic Health Promotion Conference, seeks to state the reasons why health promotion research is distinctive. While by no means exhaustive, the paper suggests four distinctive features. The paper hopes to be a catalyst to enable health promotion researchers to be explicit in their practice and to begin the process of developing an agreed set of research principles

CRISPR-Cas9 screens in human cells and primary neurons identify modifiers of C9ORF72 dipeptide-repeat-protein toxicity.

Hexanucleotide-repeat expansions in the C9ORF72 gene are the most common cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia (c9ALS/FTD). The nucleotide-repeat expansions are translated into dipeptide-repeat (DPR) proteins, which are aggregation prone and may contribute to neurodegeneration. We used the CRISPR-Cas9 system to perform genome-wide gene-knockout screens for suppressors and enhancers of C9ORF72 DPR toxicity in human cells. We validated hits by performing secondary CRISPR-Cas9 screens in primary mouse neurons. We uncovered potent modifiers of DPR toxicity whose gene products function in nucleocytoplasmic transport, the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), proteasome, RNA-processing pathways, and chromatin modification. One modifier, TMX2, modulated the ER-stress signature elicited by C9ORF72 DPRs in neurons and improved survival of human induced motor neurons from patients with C9ORF72 ALS. Together, our results demonstrate the promise of CRISPR-Cas9 screens in defining mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases

Cerebellar c9RAN proteins associate with clinical and neuropathological characteristics of C9ORF72 repeat expansion carriers.

Clinical and neuropathological characteristics associated with G4C2 repeat expansions in chromosome 9 open reading frame 72 (C9ORF72), the most common genetic cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia, are highly variable. To gain insight on the molecular basis for the heterogeneity among C9ORF72 mutation carriers, we evaluated associations between features of disease and levels of two abundantly expressed "c9RAN proteins" produced by repeat-associated non-ATG (RAN) translation of the expanded repeat. For these studies, we took a departure from traditional immunohistochemical approaches and instead employed immunoassays to quantitatively measure poly(GP) and poly(GA) levels in cerebellum, frontal cortex, motor cortex, and/or hippocampus from 55 C9ORF72 mutation carriers [12 patients with ALS, 24 with frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) and 19 with FTLD with motor neuron disease (FTLD-MND)]. We additionally investigated associations between levels of poly(GP) or poly(GA) and cognitive impairment in 15 C9ORF72 ALS patients for whom neuropsychological data were available. Among the neuroanatomical regions investigated, poly(GP) levels were highest in the cerebellum. In this same region, associations between poly(GP) and both neuropathological and clinical features were detected. Specifically, cerebellar poly(GP) levels were significantly lower in patients with ALS compared to patients with FTLD or FTLD-MND. Furthermore, cerebellar poly(GP) associated with cognitive score in our cohort of 15 patients. In the cerebellum, poly(GA) levels similarly trended lower in the ALS subgroup compared to FTLD or FTLD-MND subgroups, but no association between cerebellar poly(GA) and cognitive score was detected. Both cerebellar poly(GP) and poly(GA) associated with C9ORF72 variant 3 mRNA expression, but not variant 1 expression, repeat size, disease onset, or survival after onset. Overall, these data indicate that cerebellar abnormalities, as evidenced by poly(GP) accumulation, associate with neuropathological and clinical phenotypes, in particular cognitive impairment, of C9ORF72 mutation carriers