The low thermal conductivity of amorphous polymers typically prevents their usage in thermal management applications. Therefore, increasing their intrinsic thermal conductivity poses an exciting ...scientific challenge. One approach is to promote attractive interchain interactions. Here, we investigate the thermal conductivity of several ampholytic polymers. This unique class of polymers offers H bond donor and acceptor groups in each repeat unit and constitutes a one-component system. We use IR spectroscopy to characterize the bonding strength and motifs based on the carbonyl peak. For the dry ampholytic polymers, we find a correlation between H bond strength and thermal conductivity. We also characterized the influence of hydration under various relative humidity conditions, which mostly led to an increase in thermal conductivity. This increase can be rationalized by the formation of a water–polymer nanocomposite material and can be described by volume-weighted mixing models.
We compare the motivational underpinnings of the willingness to use crowdfunding for a range of sustainability- and social-justice-related objectives across three countries with different ...socioeconomic environments and cultures: Switzerland, Japan, and China. This study focuses on two motivational orientations; the first, other-orientedness, refers to a need for social interaction, social norms, and solidarity. The second, self- orientedness, reflects the importance of personal goals and internal standards. The analysis relies on student samples, an especially relevant segment for the development of socially responsible crowdfunding. The findings show that socially responsible crowdfunding is overall more consistently related to other-orientedness than self-orientedness. However, the motivational underpinnings are far from universal and vary by country and sustainability objectives. While the willingness to use crowdfunding is linked to other-orientedness in the Swiss and Chinese samples, it is linked to self-orientedness in the Japanese sample. Furthermore, we find that other-orientedness translates more strongly into support for many sustainability objectives (e.g., human rights and environmental protection) among Swiss respondents.
•We compare motivations of socially responsible crowdfunding across three countries.•This type of crowdfunding relies overall more on other-than self-orientedness.•Self-orientedness motivates crowdfunding only in Japan, not in Switzerland & China.•Other-orientedness correlates more with many sustainability goals in Switzerland.•Country variation is explained by individualism/collectivism and market development.
Social scientists have argued that ethical consumption is embedded into broader lifestyles running across various domains of social life. For instance, fair trade consumption might be part of a ...distinctive lifestyle, including behaviors such as going to fancy restaurants or the opera. We, therefore, investigate the relationships of the main dimensions of broader lifestyles to various aspects of fair trade consumption—from purchase frequency, to visiting specialized stores, to the identification with fair trade. The analysis relies on data collected in the Summer of 2011 in Zurich, Switzerland. Since per capita consumption of fair trade products in this country was on a comparatively high level, the results are also important for other societies experiencing only currently the mainstreaming of fair trade. The first dimension, distinctiveness of lifestyles, denoting orientations and behaviors with high social prestige in society, emerges as a substantial and important determinant of all included aspects of fair trade consumption. The second dimension, modernity, is only correlated with a subset of these aspects. These effects are robust, even when taking ethical and political orientations and resource endowment into account. Hence, differences between lifestyle groups do not simply reflect the social position of high-status consumers or their ethical and political views. They reflect orientations, mental representations and routines specific to these social groups. Broader lifestyles are, therefore, a relevant addition to explanations of fair trade consumption.
Biotrophic pathogens, such as the related maize pathogenic fungi Ustilago maydis and Sporisorium reilianum, establish an intimate relationship with their hosts by secreting protein effectors. Because ...secreted effectors interacting with plant proteins should rapidly evolve, we identified variable genomic regions by sequencing the genome of S. reilianum and comparing it with the U. maydis genome. We detected 43 regions of low sequence conservation in otherwise well-conserved syntenic genomes. These regions primarily encode secreted effectors and include previously identified virulence clusters. By deletion analysis in U. maydis, we demonstrate a role in virulence for four previously unknown diversity regions. This highlights the power of comparative genomics of closely related species for identification of virulence determinants.
Summary
The biotrophic basidiomycete fungus Ustilago maydis causes smut disease in maize. Hallmarks of the disease are characteristic large tumors in which dark pigmented spores are formed. Here, we ...functionally characterized a novel core effector lep1 (late effector protein 1) which is highly expressed during tumor formation and contributes to virulence.
We characterize lep1 mutants, localize the protein, determine phenotypic consequences upon deletion as well as constitutive expression, and analyze relationships with the repellent protein Rep1 and hydrophobins.
In tumors, lep1 mutants show attenuated hyphal aggregation, fail to undergo massive late proliferation and produce only a few spores. Upon constitutive expression, cell aggregation is induced and the surface of filamentous colonies displays enhanced hydrophobicity. Lep1 is bound to the cell wall of biotrophic hyphae and associates with Rep1 when constitutively expressed in hyphae.
We conclude that Lep1 acts as a novel kind of cell adhesin which functions together with other surface‐active proteins to allow proliferation of diploid hyphae as well as for induction of the morphological changes associated with spore formation.
The Media Luna spring, Mexico, is the main reservoir of the endemic and endangered fish
Ataeniobius toweri
. In the last decades, the ecosystem has been modified by tourism, and the habitat has ...changed for this species. Therefore, for better conservation management of the natural fish population, it is necessary to understand its abundance status and suitable habitat conditions, in ecological and spatial scenarios, on a temporal scale. In the present study, we modeled
A. toweri
’s ecological responses and spatial distribution for adult and juvenile life stages, in three summer periods (years 1999, 2009, and 2019). As habitat variables, we used water depth and underwater coverage. Ecological response curves were obtained from a Generalized Linear Model; distribution models were obtained with DOMAIN. In the modeling evaluation, for the Linear Regression Model, we obtained true statistical skills metric > 0.30 and, for DOMAIN, an area under the curve (AUC) > 0.70 with an AUC ratio > 1.00. In general, as the summer periods progressed, we found the highest probability of occurrence (
P
> 0.20) and distribution (
P
> 0.60) in areas with conditions of large coverage of underwater vegetation, in the first 1.5 m of depth, and near the shores of the spring. Also, the variations of relative abundance were always observed at sites with these habitat conditions. Thus, we concluded that our models had the performance to discern between suitable and unsuitable habitat conditions for
A. toweri
, and that areas with little or no anthropogenic pressure are more important for this species.
The importance of remittances for economic development and the maintenance of transnational social relationships have been widely discussed. Based on data from Switzerland, we analyze the roles of ...transnational social relations and moral obligations for the likelihood of sending remittances among intra-European migrants from Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Portugal, Serbia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Our data shows high levels of remitting among these groups, with migrants from South-East European countries sending remittances primarily to family and friends and migrants from Portugal and Great Britain sending remittances primarily to their own bank account. Furthermore, by using differentiated and direct measures for social relations and moral obligations, we show that strong social ties as well as moral family obligations are relevant predictors of sending remittances, beyond measures of various desires and capacities to remit usually discussed in the literature. However, these effects also vary according to social relation and remittance type. Together, the results make a strong case for the social embeddedness of remittances and the importance of including migrants from western and southern Europe in empirical research.
Abstract
Strategies to deliver drugs using nanocarriers, which are passively or actively targeted to their alleged site of action might favorably affect benefit–risk profiles of novel therapeutics. ...Here we tested the hypothesis whether the physico-chemical properties of the cargo as well as the actual conditions during encapsulation interfere during formulation of nanoparticular cargo–carrier systems. On the basis of previous work, a versatile class of nanocarriers is polyether-based ABC triblock terpolymer micelles with diameters below 50 nm. Their tunable chemistry and size allows to systematically vary important parameters. We demonstrate
in vivo
differences in pharmacokinetics and biodistribution not only dependent on micellar net charge but also on the properties of encapsulated (model) drugs and their localization within the micelles. On the basis of
in vitro
and
in vivo
evidence we propose that depending on drug cargo and encapsulation conditions micelles with homogeneous or heterogeneous corona structure are formed, contributing to an altered pharmacokinetic profile as differences in cargo location occur. Thus, these interactions have to be considered when a carrier system is selected to achieve optimal delivery to a given tissue.
Wine as a Cultural Product Beckert, Jens; Rössel, Jörg; Schenk, Patrick
Sociological perspectives,
02/2017, Letnik:
60, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
In markets for goods that are valued for their aesthetic qualities, the ascription of value appears to be an uncertain social process. The wine market is an extraordinary example, as most persons are ...not able to differentiate between wines based on objective sensory characteristics. Therefore, we theorize valuation according to Bourdieu's field theoretical perspective as a social process in which quality is contested. Our empirical analysis shows, first, that his model has considerable power in explaining price differentiation between wineries and second, that the orientation of consumers toward different segments of the field is based on a homologous class hierarchy.
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