The article argues that the lack of convincing empirical evidence for the global economy as being subject to ‘command and control’ results from that contention being a neo‐Marxist myth. First, ...imagining the global economy as being subject to ‘highly concentrated command’ through the function of some major cities as ‘strategic sites’ for the production of ‘command and control’ is traced back through several neo‐Marxist authors to narrate its genesis, and to argue that the lack of evidence for that proposition is a consequence of those antecedents envisioning capitalism as a totalizing structure, thus making the assumption that it is subject to control and coordination from a distance. Second, Taylor's interlocking world city network model is forensically examined to explain that it is fallacious because it is a structuralism that, bedevilled by a sorites paradox, contains the further problem of containing no credible evidence for the existence of ‘command centres’. Finally, the article moves beyond neo‐Marxism's key concepts by juxtaposing their assumptions with ethnographic results from social studies of finance, a manoeuvre which forges an understanding of cities as socio‐technical assemblages and eventful multiplicities, beyond, inter alia, the baseless assumption that the global economy is subject to ‘command and control’.
The detonation of a helium shell on a white dwarf (WD) has been proposed as a possible explosion triggering mechanism for SNe Ia. Here, we report ZTF 18aaqeasu (SN 2018byg/ATLAS 18pqq), a peculiar ...Type I supernova, consistent with being a helium-shell double-detonation. With a rise time of 18 days from explosion, the transient reached a peak absolute magnitude of MR −18.2 mag, exhibiting a light curve akin to sub-luminous SN 1991bg-like SNe Ia, albeit with an unusually steep increase in brightness within a week from explosion. Spectra taken near peak light exhibit prominent Si absorption features together with an unusually red color (g − r 2 mag) arising from nearly complete line blanketing of flux blueward of 5000 . This behavior is unlike any previously observed thermonuclear transient. Nebular phase spectra taken at and after 30 days from peak light reveal evidence of a thermonuclear detonation event dominated by Fe-group nucleosynthesis. We show that the peculiar properties of ZTF 18aaqeasu are consistent with the detonation of a massive ( 0.15 ) helium shell on a sub-Chandrasekhar mass ( 0.75 ) WD after including mixing of 0.2 of material in the outer ejecta. These observations provide evidence of a likely rare class of thermonuclear supernovae arising from detonations of massive helium shells.
ABSTRACT
We observed a transit of WASP-166 b using nine Next Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) telescopes simultaneously with the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) observations of the same ...transit. We achieved a photometric precision of 152 ppm per 30 min with the nine NGTS telescopes combined, matching the precision reached by TESS for the transit event around this bright (T = 8.87) star. The individual NGTS light-curve noise is found to be dominated by scintillation noise and appears free from any time-correlated noise or any correlation between telescope systems. We fit the NGTS data for TC and Rp/R*. We find TC to be consistent to within 0.25σ of the result from the TESS data, and the difference between the TESS and NGTS measured Rp/R* values is 0.9σ. This experiment shows that multitelescope NGTS photometry can match the precision of TESS for bright stars, and will be a valuable tool in refining the radii and ephemerides for bright TESS candidates and planets. The transit timing achieved will also enable NGTS to measure significant transit timing variations in multiplanet systems.
Usher syndrome is a major cause of genetic deafness and blindness. The hearing loss is usually congenital and the retinitis pigmentosa is progressive and first noticed in early childhood to the ...middle teenage years. Its frequency may be underestimated. Newly developed molecular technologies can detect the underlying gene mutation of this disorder early in life providing estimation of its prevalence in at risk pediatric populations and laying a foundation for its incorporation as an adjunct to newborn hearing screening programs.
A total of 133 children from two deaf and hard of hearing pediatric populations were genotyped first for GJB2/6 and, if negative, then for Usher syndrome. Children were scored as positive if the test revealed ≥1 pathogenic mutations in any Usher gene.
Fifteen children carried pathogenic mutations in one of the Usher genes; the number of deaf and hard of hearing children carrying Usher syndrome mutations was 15/133 (11.3%). The population prevalence was estimated to be 1/6000.
Usher syndrome is more prevalent than has been reported before the genome project era. Early diagnosis of Usher syndrome has important positive implications for childhood safety, educational planning, genetic counseling, and treatment. The results demonstrate that DNA testing for Usher syndrome is feasible and may be a useful addition to newborn hearing screening programs.
The pregnancy vaginal microbiome contributes to risk of preterm birth, the primary cause of death in children under 5 years of age. Here we describe direct on-swab metabolic profiling by Desorption ...Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry (DESI-MS) for sample preparation-free characterisation of the cervicovaginal metabolome in two independent pregnancy cohorts (VMET, n = 160; 455 swabs; VMET II, n = 205; 573 swabs). By integrating metataxonomics and immune profiling data from matched samples, we show that specific metabolome signatures can be used to robustly predict simultaneously both the composition of the vaginal microbiome and host inflammatory status. In these patients, vaginal microbiota instability and innate immune activation, as predicted using DESI-MS, associated with preterm birth, including in women receiving cervical cerclage for preterm birth prevention. These findings highlight direct on-swab metabolic profiling by DESI-MS as an innovative approach for preterm birth risk stratification through rapid assessment of vaginal microbiota-host dynamics.
Abstract
Gene tree conflict is common and finding methods to analyze and alleviate the negative effects that conflict has on species tree analysis is a crucial part of phylogenomics. This study aims ...to expand the discussion of inferring species trees and molecular branch lengths when conflict is present. Conflict is typically examined in two ways: inferring its prevalence and inferring the influence of the individual genes (how strongly one gene supports any given topology compared to an alternative topology). Here, we examine a procedure for incorporating both conflict and the influence of genes in order to infer evolutionary relationships. All supported relationships in the gene trees are analyzed and the likelihood of the genes constrained to these relationships is summed to provide a likelihood for the relationship. Consensus tree assembly is conducted based on the sum of likelihoods for a given relationship and choosing relationships based on the most likely relationship assuming it does not conflict with a relationship that has a higher likelihood score. If it is not possible for all most likely relationships to be combined into a single bifurcating tree then multiple trees are produced and a consensus tree with a polytomy is created. This procedure allows for more influential genes to have a greater influence on an inferred relationship, does not assume conflict has arisen from any one source and does not force the data set to produce a single bifurcating tree. Using this approach, on three empirical data sets, we examine and discuss the relationship between influence and prevalence of gene tree conflict. We find that in one of the data sets, assembling a bifurcating consensus tree solely composed of the most likely relationships is impossible. To account for conflict in molecular rate analysis we also introduce a concordance-based approach to the summary and estimation of branch lengths suitable for downstream comparative analyses. We demonstrate through simulation that even under high levels of stochastic conflict, the mean and median of the concordant rates recapitulate the true molecular rate better than using a supermatrix approach. Using a large phylogenomic data set, we examine rate heterogeneity across concordant genes with a focus on the branch subtending crown angiosperms. Notably, we find highly variable rates of evolution along the branch subtending crown angiosperms. The approaches outlined here have several limitations, but they also represent some alternative methods for harnessing the complexity of phylogenomic data sets and enrich our inferences of both species relationships and evolutionary processes.Branch length estimation; consensus tree; gene tree conflict; gene tree filtering; phylogenetics; phylogenomics.
The ocean carbon store plays a vital role in setting the carbon response to emissions and variability in the carbon cycle. However, due to the ocean's strong regional and temporal variability, sparse ...carbon observations limit our understanding of historical carbon changes.
Ocean temperature and salinity profiles are more widespread and rapidly expanding due to autonomous programmes, and so we explore how temperature and salinity profiles can provide information to reconstruct ocean carbon inventories with ensemble optimal interpolation. Here, ensemble optimal interpolation is used to reconstruct ocean carbon using synthetic Argo temperature and salinity observations, with examples for both the top 100 m and top 2000 m carbon inventories.
When considering reconstructions of the top 100 m carbon inventory, coherent relationships between upper-ocean carbon, temperature, salinity, and atmospheric CO2 result in optimal solutions that reflect the controls of undersaturation, solubility, and alkalinity.
Out-of-sample reconstructions of the top 100 m show that, in most regions, the trend in ocean carbon and over 60 % of detrended variability can be reconstructed using local temperature and salinity measurements, with only small changes when considering synthetic profiles consistent with irregular Argo sampling.
Extending the method to reconstruct the upper 2000 m reveals that model uncertainties at depth limit the reconstruction skill.
The impact of these uncertainties on reconstructing the carbon inventory over the upper 2000 m is small, and full reconstructions with historical Argo locations show that the method can reconstruct regional inter-annual and decadal variability.
Hence, optimal interpolation based on model relationships combined with hydrographic measurements can provide valuable information about global ocean carbon inventory changes.
This article provides a review of the published literature describing the use of biosensors and biologically-inspired systems for explosives detection. The review focusses on the use of antibodies, ...enzymes, biologically-inspired synthetic ligands and whole-cell biosensors, providing a flavour of the range of technology, formats and approaches that can be used to detect explosives using biological systems.
There is growing interest among farmers in the northeast US in silvopasture and other practices that would help them expand their agricultural land base in this forested region. Unfortunately, little ...quantitative data exist regarding forage performance and economic outcomes associated with different forest-to-agriculture conversion strategies, particularly for the northern tier of states. This research examined forage dry matter production and quality in six forage treatments (orchardgrass, bluegrass, brome, and perennial ryegrass bicultures with white clover; cut hay; and a control) in newly-established silvopastures and open pastures converted from an early successional northern hardwood forest in New York. In addition, we conducted a financial analysis of the establishment of both agricultural systems, as well as a thinned forest treatment managed solely for wood products. Total forage dry matter production (planted forages plus volunteer grasses) was greater in open pastures than silvopastures in the first year after establishment; however, no differences in total forage production were found between silvopastures and open pastures in June or August of the second year. Total forage dry matter production was greater in the orchardgrass-white clover biculture compared to the control treatment in both years. Orchardgrass percent crude protein was lower in open pastures (10.7%) compared to silvopastures (12.9%) in June of year two. The financial analysis indicated that silvopasture outperformed open pasture and thinned forest treatments in terms of both IRR and NPV. We conclude that forage production in silvopastures can be competitive with that in open pastures on sites with a similar, forested, starting condition.
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