Thermal lensing: outside of the lasing medium

The thermal lens formed in a thermo-optical material as a result of its inhomogeneous heating, is a well-known phenomenon that has found widespread interest in the last decades, especially in the field of laser engineering and photo-thermal spectroscopy. In recent years, growing interest in the application of thermal lensing in different fields of optics and material studies has been observed. This review summarizes the latest efforts made by the scientific community to develop ways of using the phenomenon of thermal lensing. Its applications in spectroscopy, in laser beam formation and in imaging are described. The advantages and disadvantages of the thermal lensing in regard to these areas along with the potential future applications of the phenomenon are discussed.

Advances in Anti-Tumor Nanomedicine based on Functional Metal Organic Frameworks beyond Drug Carriers

Nanoscale metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have attracted widespread interest due to the unique properties including tunable porous structure, high drug loading capacity, structural diversity, and outstanding biocompatibility. MOFs have been extensively...

The landowner role in beginning farmer/rancher land access: exploring predictors of landowners' views of extra-familial farm transfer to a BFR

PurposeBeginning farmers and ranchers (BFRs) are more likely to access land through an unrelated landowner than through family. Thus, farm and ranch owners who might transfer their land or businesses out of family are potential sources of land access for BFRs and are the most frequent participants in incentive programs to facilitate land transfer to BFRs. To assist in identifying landowners who might transfer out of family, the paper aims to explore similarities and differences between landowners according to their expectations for intra-familial versus extra-familial farm transfer.Design/methodology/approachPairwise and regression analysis of USA Midwestern and Plains landowners' responses to an online survey (n = 322).FindingsLandowners who might transfer out of family were likely to need the proceeds from a land sale to finance their retirement. Landowners' financial needs interacted with their widespread interest in transferring to a BFR such that 97% of owners who expected extra-familial transfer wanted to transfer to a BFR. There were also statistical patterns around the size of owners' landholdings in relation to their transfer plans.Research limitations/implicationsThis exploratory inquiry suggests patterns for future research to examine, especially around landowners' juxtaposition of their retirement income and their interest in transferring to a BFR and how to align these priorities and values.Originality/valueBy exploring the characteristics of landowners who are the most likely to provide land access to BFRs, the authors begin to examine how to target these owners in program outreach. Patterns for further exploration point to landowners' financial needs in relation to their interest in helping a BFR to get started in agriculture.

Human RIPK3 maintains MLKL in an inactive conformation prior to cell death by necroptosis

The ancestral origins of the lytic cell death mode, necroptosis, lie in host defense. However, the dysregulation of necroptosis in inflammatory diseases has led to widespread interest in targeting the pathway therapeutically. This mode of cell death is executed by the terminal effector, the MLKL pseudokinase, which is licensed to kill following phosphorylation by its upstream regulator, RIPK3 kinase. The precise molecular details underlying MLKL activation are still emerging and, intriguingly, appear to mechanistically-diverge between species. Here, we report the structure of the human RIPK3 kinase domain alone and in complex with the MLKL pseudokinase. These structures reveal how human RIPK3 structurally differs from its mouse counterpart, and how human RIPK3 maintains MLKL in an inactive conformation prior to induction of necroptosis. Residues within the RIPK3:MLKL C-lobe interface are crucial to complex assembly and necroptotic signaling in human cells, thereby rationalizing the strict species specificity governing RIPK3 activation of MLKL.

Clinical and Infection Prevention Applications of SARS-CoV-2 Genotyping: an IDSA/ASM Consensus Review Document

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged into a world of maturing pathogen genomics, with more than 2 million genomes sequenced at the time of writing. The rise of more transmissible variants of concern that impact vaccine and therapeutic effectiveness has led to widespread interest in SARS-CoV-2 evolution. Clinicians are also eager to take advantage of the information provided by SARS-CoV-2 genotyping beyond surveillance purposes. Here, we review the potential role of SARS-CoV-2 genotyping in clinical care. The review covers clinical use cases for SARS-CoV-2 genotyping, methods of SARS-CoV-2 genotyping, assay validation and regulatory requirements, and clinical reporting for laboratories, as well as emerging issues in clinical SARS-CoV-2 sequencing. While clinical uses of SARS-CoV-2 genotyping are currently limited, rapid technological change along with a growing ability to interpret variants in real time foretells a growing role for SARS-CoV-2 genotyping in clinical care as continuing data emerge on vaccine and therapeutic efficacy.

The Cost of Plastics in Compost

In urban Blantyre, there is ample green-waste and widespread interest in compost, but the feedstock is often contaminated with plastics. If composting is going to become more widely implemented, it must be profitable and ideally, competitive with chemical nutrients, however the time and cost associated with plastics removal is currently a bottleneck to profitability. In this study we investigated the financial sustainability of compost production using a Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing method over 16-weeks to identify the types and duration of each activity required. Combining these data with capital and operating costs, we then modeled the profitability of the facility to identify cost-bottlenecks and to determine scenarios that would lead to improved profitability. The results show that it took 1 h 50 min of labor to produce 165-L (0.065 m3) bag of compost. A total of 12.3% of the active labor time was spent sorting out plastics from the organic waste before composting, during composting and from the finished product before packaging. Until similar work is published on the topic, these values cannot be evaluated as being either optimal or wasteful, but rather, serve as a baseline against which future interventions—e.g., source separation, especially at markets can be evaluated. Though based in Malawi, the documented and modeled costs can be converted and scaled by other entrepreneurs/agencies who are interested in estimating the financial feasibility of composting in their own context.

Human capital in the context of high levels of inequality in South Africa

Piketty’s (2014) book titled “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” sparked widespread interest in global inequality, the distinction between wealth and income inequality and the economic, social and political processes accounting for changes in economic inequality over time. Piketty’s (2014) study controversially stated that widening economic inequality is the normal state of affairs in capitalist societies. The return from capital/wealth (terms used interchangeably) will almost always outpace the returns from labour. In contrast with Piketty’s (2014) thesis that the returns on non-human capital drive growing income inequality, economists such as Leibbrandt et al. (2012), Van der Berg (2014) and Hundenborn et al. (2016) have found that the labour market and human capital (HC) are the primary sources of income inequality. The research problem for this study stems from these contrasting views.

Progress in the Development of Single-Phase Magnetoelectric Multiferroic Oxides

Magnetoelectric (ME) multiferroics manifesting the coexistence and the coupling of ferromagnetic and ferroelectric order are appealing widespread interest owing to their fascinating physical behaviors and possible novel applications. In this review, we highlight the progress in single-phase ME multiferroic oxides research in terms of the classification depending on the physical origins of ferroic properties and the corresponding examples for each case, i.e., material by material, along with their ME multiferroic properties including saturation magnetization, spontaneous polarization, (anti)ferromagnetic/ferroelectric transition temperature, and ME coefficient. The magnetoelectrically-active applications of high expectancy are presented by citing the representative examples such as magnetoelectric random-access-memory and multiferroic photovoltaics. Furthermore, we discuss how the development of ME multiferroic oxides should proceed by considering the current research status in terms of developed materials and designed applications. We believe that this short review will provide a basic introduction for the researchers new to this field.

A Practical Guide to Analyzing and Reporting the Movement of Nanoscale Swimmers

The recent invention of nanoswimmers– synthetic, powered objects with characteristic lengths in the range of 10-500 nm - has sparked widespread interest among scientists and the general public. As more researchers from different backgrounds enter the field, the study of nanoswimmers offers new opportunities but also significant experimental and theoretical challenges. In particular, the accurate characterization of nanoswimmers is often hindered by strong Brownian motion, convective effects, and the lack of a clear way to visualize them. When coupled with improper experimental designs and imprecise practices in data analysis, these issues can translate to results and conclusions that are inconsistent and poorly reproducible. This Perspective follows the course of a typical nanoswimmer investigation from synthesis through to applications and offers suggestions for best practices in reporting experimental details, recording videos, plotting trajectories, calculating and analyzing mobility, eliminating drift, and performing control experiments, in order to improve the reliability of the reported results.

Islandsk sprog og dansk tunge

The Icelandic language and medieval literature played an important role in the development of Danish national identity. Icelandic manuscripts served as a key source for the writing of Denmark’s earliest history and attracted widespread interest among Danish scholars. Growing nationalist sentiment was increasingly directed at the mother tongue, which was considered a major cornerstone of national identity. Knowledge of Icelandic could be of key importance for researching the Danish language, and for interpreting the meaning of older writings. Languages that had a long tradition of writing and prestigious literature were highly respected, and it was significant to find an unbroken connection between the contemporary and original language. In this respect, the Icelandic language had characteristics that Danish no longer had. Interest of Danes in Icelandic language and literature, together with the important role they were accorded in the age of Romanticism, meant a great deal to Icelanders. Apart from creating job opportunities and income in Copenhagen, these conditions fuelled their pride as Icelanders and boosted awareness of the significance of language for Icelandic nationality and culture. As a result, interest on the part of Danes in Icelandic language and culture contributed to the growth and development of both Icelandic and Danish.