A Newly Discovered Relation between the Critical Resolved Shear Stress and the Fatigue Endurance Limit for Metallic Materials

The chapter introduces a valuable new description of fatigue strength in relation to material properties and thus a new perspective on the overall understanding of the fatigue process. Namely, a relation between the endurance limits and the accompanying values of the critical resolved shear stress (CRSS) for various metallic materials has been discovered by means of a multiscale approach for fatigue simulation. Based on the uniqueness of the relation, there is a strong indication that it is feasible to relate the endurance limit to the CRSS and not to the ultimate strength, as often done in the past.

Italy's presidential vote carries significant risks

Significance One of the front-runners to replace Mattarella is Prime Minister Mario Draghi, who recently gave a strong indication that he intends to run. However, if Draghi is elected president, there does not appear to be an alternative government which could guarantee political stability and make progress on Italy’s crucial reform agenda. Impacts A situation where there is no strong alternative to Draghi’s leadership may boost the electoral appeal of the far-right Brothers of Italy. The return of political instability would diminish Italy’s leverage in the EU regarding important issues such as foreign and fiscal policy. Unless the right-wing parties perform poorly, it is unlikely that Draghi would be elected as prime minister after the next election.

Post Occupancy Evaluation of Students’ Satisfaction with Hostel Facilities in Federal Polytechnic Offa, Kwara State, Nigeria

The study focuses on post occupancy evaluation of students’ satisfaction with hostels facilities in Federal Polytechnic Offa, Kwara State with a view to determine factors that promote users’ satisfaction with the hostel facility in terms of its services/amenities provided, structural features, environmental features, accommodation details and locational attributes. The hostel is wholly under the management and control of the Polytechnic. Four Hundred and Sixty (460) respondents were taken as the sample size for the study. 28 structured questionnaires were administered to the workforce of the hostel management using purposive sampling while 432 structured questionnaires were administered to the students occupying the school hostel. A total of 341 (74%) questionnaires was returned and found valid for analysis. Data analysis was conducted using descriptive statistical techniques such as frequency distribution table, Weighted Mean Score (WMS) and Relative Importance Indexes (RII). Findings revealed that there were mixed levels of satisfaction with elements of student hostel facilities. There was a strong indication of satisfaction with the environmental features compared to the other four elements of the hostel facilities. The students were dissatisfied with facilities either because they are inadequate in number or quality or because of the location. The study recommends that the polytechnic management should ensure that facilities that aid students' academic performance should be prioritized. This will help to improve the satisfaction level among students with hostel facilities.

Morphological Responses of a Light-Demanding Alstonia scholaris and a Shade-Tolerant Eusideroxylon zwageri to the Air Humidity and Light Intensity

The response of tropical trees to the change of light intensity has been reported to be varied among different species. Some reports argued that the growth was increasing parallel to the increasing of light intensity, but other reports mentioned that the sensitivity to the light intensity was depending on the species. Another environmental factor that has been scientifically proven to affect tree growth is humidity. While humidity itself also directly affected by the light intensity in the forest ecosystems. Therefore, it is possible that the growth pattern of trees under different light intensities is also affected by air humidity under the canopy. This research aimed to study the growth response of a light-demanding Alstonia scholaris and a shade-tolerant Eusideroxylon zwageri to the different levels of air humidity and light intensity. The experiment was conducted in Jambi, Indonesia from April to November 2019. The experiment was carried out using split plot design with factorial treatments. The main plot was the air humidity with three levels and the sub plots was light intensity with five levels. Four replicates were applied. In general, the A. scholaris tends to be more sensitive to the humidity and light intensity compared to E. zwageri. In particular, A. scholaris tends to be more sensitive to the light intensity while, E, zwageri is more sensitive to the humidity. However, there is also strong indication that the effects of light intensity to the growth, especially for A. scholaris, was affected by the humidity level.

Universality of excited three-body bound states in one dimension

We study a heavy-heavy-light three-body system confined to one space dimension in the regime where an excited state in the heavy-light subsystems becomes weakly bound. The associated two-body system is characterized by (i) the structure of the weakly-bound excited heavy-light state and (ii) the presence of deeply-bound heavy-light states. The consequences of these aspects for the behavior of the three-body system are analyzed. We find a strong indication for universal behavior of both three-body binding energies and wave functions for different weakly-bound excited states in the heavy-light subsystems.

„KRYZYS MONARCHI PIASTOWSKIEJ” I PROBLEM TZW. REAKCJI POGAŃSKIEJ OKIEM ARCHEOLOGA

The turmoil of the 1030s in the Polish territory has so far attracted attention of historians. A detailed analysis of the information available in the written sources has strengthened a position in the result of which (in line with the reference to the events in question) the pagan backlash was to stem primarily from religious reasons. This interpretations suggests and provokes reception of Mieszko II’s domain as a completely Christian organisation. Consequently, at least officially it suggests that the pagan communities had been pushed to the margins of the society. Scholars have no doubts that these communities existed because they are regarded to have affected the events of the 1030s. Was it really the case? An analysis of archaeological sources, previously not used in the discussion of the pagan backlash, does not answer the questions so unambiguously. There is a strong indication that the followers of the old values did not have to flee from persecutions or the missionary ideology. It also looks like they did not have to fear financial exploitation for the benefit of the established church structures which could have easily operated parallel to venues referring to the traditional religious symbols. If we assume that it was the case, were the events of the 1030s in fact a pagan backlash? This question was at the basis of the considerations presented in this text.

Accelerated decline of genome heterogeneity in the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus

In the brief time since the outbreak of the COVID 19 pandemic, and despite its proofreading mechanism, the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has accumulated a significant amount of genetic variability through recombination and mutation events. To test evolutionary trends that could inform us on the adaptive process of the virus to its human host, we summarize all this variability in the Sequence Compositional Complexity (SCC), a measure of genome heterogeneity that captures the mutational and recombinational changes accumulated by a nucleotide sequence along time. Despite the brief time elapsed, we detected many differences in the number and length of compositional domains, as well as in their nucleotide frequencies, in more than 12,000 high-quality coronavirus genomes from across the globe. These differences in SCC are phylogenetically structured, as revealed by significant phylogenetic signal. Phylogenetic ridge regression shows that SCC followed a generalized decreasing trend along the ongoing process of pathogen evolution. In contrast, SCC evolutionary rate increased with time, showing that it accelerates toward the present. In addition, a low rate set of genomes was detected in all the genome groups, suggesting the existence of a stepwise distribution of rates, a strong indication of selection in favor of different dominant strains. Coronavirus variants reveal an exacerbation of this trend: non-significant SCC regression, low phylogenetic signal and, concomitantly, a threefold increase in the evolutionary rate. Altogether, these results show an accelerated decline of genome heterogeneity along with the SARS CoV 2 pandemic expansion, a process that might be related to viral adaptation to the human host, perhaps paralleling the transformation of the current pandemic to epidemic.

A Discrete Relativistic Spacetime Formalism for 1+1-QED With Continuum Limits

We build a quantum cellular automaton (QCA) which coincides with 1 + 1 QED on its known continuum limits. It consists in a circuit of unitary gates driving the evolution of particles on a one dimensional lattice, and having them interact with the gauge field on the links. The particles are massive fermions, and the evolution is exactly U(1) gauge-invariant. We show that, in the continuous-time discrete-space limit, the QCA converges to the Kogut-Susskind staggered version of 1 + 1 QED. We also show that, in the continuous spacetime limit and in the free one particle sector, it converges to the Dirac equation—a strong indication that the model remains accurate in the relativistic regime.

Structure-based Assessment of Homologous Analogues of Natural products: A computational approach to predict the therapeutic effects of natural products

The present study describes a novel strategy to screen natural products (NPs) for their therapeutic effects with the predicted mechanism of action. The method entitled 'Structure-based Assessment of Homologous Analogues of Natural products-SAHANA' follows the comparison of NPs against prescribed synthetic chemical drugs to deduce activity cliffs and core fragments, based on the molecular properties and 2-dimensional structural similarities. The method was applied to predict the biological effect of the identified NPs as antidiabetic molecules. Selected NPs were assessed for their pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamics properties. The biological interactions and structural stability of the bound structures were evaluated using molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations. The study yielded NPs with significant structural similarities to prescribed drugs. Further, their binding interactions stabilized the macromolecular structure. The results envisage a strong indication that the natural products can produce therapeutic effects efficiently if administered individually. The results also encourage using the current screening strategy to identify competent natural product drugs against any disease condition ad libitum.