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Sources and distributions of branched and isoprenoid tetraether lipids on the Amazon shelf and fan
(2014)Geochimica et Cosmochimica ActaBranched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (brGDGTs) in river fan sediments have been used successfully to reconstruct mean annual air temperature (MAAT) and soil pH of the Congo River drainage basin. However, in a previous study of Amazon deep-sea fan sediments the reconstructed MAATs were ca. 10 °C colder than the actual MAAT of the Amazon basin. In this study we investigated this apparent offset, by comparing the concentrations and ...Journal Article -
Helsingør Statement on poly- and perfluorinated alkyl substances (PFASs)
(2014)ChemosphereIn this discussion paper, the transition from long-chain poly- and perfluorinated alkyl substances (PFASs) to fluorinated alternatives is addressed. Long-chain PFASs include perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids (PFCAs) with 7 or more perfluorinated carbons, perfluoroalkyl sulfonic acids (PFSAs) with 6 or more perfluorinated carbons, and their precursors. Because long-chain PFASs have been found to be persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic, they ...Journal Article -
Highly recombinant VGII Cryptococcus gattii population develops clonal outbreak clusters through both sexual macroevolution and asexual microevolution
(2014)mBioAn outbreak of the fungal pathogen Cryptococcus gattii began in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) in the late 1990s. This outbreak consists of three clonal subpopulations: VGIIa/major, VGIIb/minor, and VGIIc/novel. Both VGIIa and VGIIc are unique to the PNW and exhibit increased virulence. In this study, we sequenced the genomes of isolates from these three groups, as well as global isolates, and analyzed a total of 53 isolates. We found that ...Journal Article -
The Unsustainable City
(2014)Sustainability“Make cities more sustainable” is an omnipresent slogan in architecture and urban planning. This article is a discussion on theoretical and practical boundaries of using the expression “sustainability” with respect to the scientific community, therefore avoiding sustainability becoming a euphemism for “doing good”. By definition, it can be concluded, cities developed as counterparts to the hinterland and, therefore, they axiomatically ...Journal Article -
Evidence for the direct decay of the 125 GeV Higgs boson to fermions
(2014)Nature PhysicsThe discovery of a new boson with a mass of approximately 125 GeV in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider1,2,3 has heralded a new era in understanding the nature of electroweak symmetry breaking and possibly completing the standard model of particle physics4,5,6,7,8,9. Since the first observation in decays to γγ, WW and ZZ boson pairs, an extensive set of measurements of the mass10,11 and couplings to W and Z bosons11,12,13, as well as ...Journal Article -
Shock waves on complex networks
(2014)Scientific ReportsPower grids, road maps, and river streams are examples of infrastructural networks which are highly vulnerable to external perturbations. An abrupt local change of load (voltage, traffic density, or water level) might propagate in a cascading way and affect a significant fraction of the network. Almost discontinuous perturbations can be modeled by shock waves which can eventually interfere constructively and endanger the normal functionality ...Journal Article -
Fingerprinting Breast Cancer vs. Normal Mammary Cells by Mass Spectrometric Analysis of Volatiles
(2014)Scientific ReportsThere is increasing interest in the development of noninvasive diagnostic methods for early cancer detection, to improve the survival rate and quality of life of cancer patients. Identification of volatile metabolic compounds may provide an approach for noninvasive early diagnosis of malignant diseases. Here we analyzed the volatile metabolic signature of human breast cancer cell lines versus normal human mammary cells. Volatile compounds ...Journal Article -
Identification and Evaluation of Improved 4′-O-(Alkyl) 4,5-Disubstituted 2-Deoxystreptamines as Next-Generation Aminoglycoside Antibiotics
(2014)mBioThe emerging epidemic of drug resistance places the development of efficacious and safe antibiotics in the spotlight ofcurrent research. Here, we report the design of next-generation aminoglycosides. Discovery efforts were driven by rational syn-thesis focusing on 4=alkylations of the aminoglycoside paromomycin, with the goal to alleviate the most severe and disablingside effect of aminoglycosides—irreversible hearing loss. Compounds were ...Journal Article -
1980–2008: The Illusion of the Perpetual Money Machine and What It Bodes for the Future
(2014)RisksWe argue that the present crisis and stalling economy that have been ongoing since 2007 are rooted in the delusionary belief in policies based on a “perpetual money machine” type of thinking. We document strong evidence that, since the early 1980s, consumption has been increasingly funded by smaller savings, booming financial profits, wealth extracted from house price appreciation and explosive debt. This is in stark contrast with the ...Journal Article -
Model risk in portfolio optimization
(2014)RisksWe consider a one-period portfolio optimization problem under model uncertainty. For this purpose, we introduce a measure of model risk. We derive analytical results for this measure of model risk in the mean-variance problem assuming we have observations drawn from a normal variance mixture model. This model allows for heavy tails, tail dependence and leptokurtosis of marginals. The results show that mean-variance optimization is seriously ...Journal Article