Support for tenure mix by residents local to the Carlton Housing Estate,Melbourne, Australia

In this paper, we report on the level of support for tenure mix policies of residents living proximate to the Carlton Housing Estate mixed tenure redevelopment in Melbourne Australia. In a telephone survey of 200 residents living in the area surrounding the estate, the majority of respondents were supportive of tenure mix. Those who were financially comfortable or only spoke English were significantly more supportive than those reporting more difficult financial circumstances or who spoke a language other than English. The reasons for support for tenure mix included avoiding ghettoization, building community and social role modelling. The reasons for opposing tenure mix reflected a concern for the loss of public housing, a view that public and private tenants would not want to be co-located and that public tenants weren’t as deserving as others of living in a good inner city location. There were also concerns from both groups about how tenure mix might work in practice. Policy implications are discussed.     

Overcoming psychological resistance toward using recycled water in California

We use data from a representative sample of adult Californians (N = 1500) to examine the relation between information and sociodemographic factors to the willingness to adopt recycled water in 10 different applications. We find that direct consumption or skin contact with recycled water stirs the strongest resistance. We conducted a randomized experiment to test how respondents would react to learning that there is large, existing, indirect potable use program in Orange County. While both messages boost support for almost all uses of recycled water, respondents still resist drinking, bathing and cooking with it. Contrary to some previous findings, the response to both information cues generally does not appear to depend upon level of education.     

Is a vegan or a vegetarian diet associated with the microbiota composition in the gut? Results of a new cross-sectional study and systematic review

Abstract

It is assumed that diet influences the composition of gut microbiota, which in turn may affect human health status. This systematic review aimed to summarize associations of a vegan or vegetarian diet with the composition of microbiota. A literature search was conducted in PubMed and Embase for eligible human studies with vegan or vegetarian diets as an exposure and microbiota composition as an outcome in healthy adults. Furthermore, data from our cross-sectional study with vegan participants were included. Out of sixteen included studies, six investigated the association between gut microbiota composition in both vegans and in vegetarians, six in vegans and four studies in vegetarians compared to omnivores, respectively. Among 5 different phyla, 28 families, 96 genera and 177 species, Bacteroides, Bifidobacterium and Prevotella were the most reported genera, followed by the species Prevotella copri, Faecalibacterium prausnitzii and Escherichia coli in all diets. No consistent association between a vegan diet or vegetarian diet and microbiota composition compared to omnivores could be identified. Moreover, some studies revealed contradictory results. This result could be due to high microbial individuality, and/or differences in the applied approaches. Standardized methods with high taxonomical and functional resolutions are needed to clarify this issue.     

The economical and environmental performance of miscanthus and switchgrass production and supply chains in a European setting

The purpose of this study is to analyse the economical and environmental performance of switchgrass and miscanthus production and supply chains in the European Union (EU25), for the years 2004 and 2030. The environmental performance refers to the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the primary fossil energy use and to the impact on fresh water reserves, soil erosion and biodiversity. Analyses are carried out for regions in five countries. The lowest costs of producing (including storing and transporting across 100 km) in the year 2004 are calculated for Poland, Hungary and Lithuania at 43–64 € per oven dry tonne (odt) or 2.4–3.6 € GJ^?1 higher heating value. This cost level is roughly equivalent to the price of natural gas (3.1 € GJ^?1) and lower than the price of crude oil (4.6 € GJ^?1) in 2004, but higher than the price of coal (1.7 € GJ^?1) in 2004. The costs of biomass in Italy and the United Kingdom are somewhat higher (65–105 € odt^?1 or 3.6–5.8 € GJ^?1). The doubling of the price of crude oil and natural gas that is projected for the period 2004–2030, combined with nearly stable biomass production costs, makes the production of perennial grasses competitive with natural gas and fossil oil. The results also show that the substitution of fossil fuels by biomass from perennial grasses is a robust strategy to reduce fossil energy use and curb GHG emissions, provided that perennial grasses are grown on agricultural land (cropland or pastures). However, in such case deep percolation and runoff of water are reduced, which can lead to overexploitation of fresh water reservoirs. This can be avoided by selecting suitable locations (away from direct accessible fresh water reservoirs) and by limiting the size of the plantations. The impacts on biodiversity are generally favourable compared to conventional crops, but the location of the plantation compared to other vegetation types and the size and harvesting regime of the plantation are important variables.     

Hypolipidemic activity of the surfactants aminimides,and their effects on lipid metabolism of rodents

A series of short chain fatty acid derivatives of aminimides were shown to possess hypolipidemic activity in rats and mice. Most of the agents tested lowered both serum cholesterol and triglyceride levels by at least 30% in mice and were effective in hyperlipidemic induced mice. 1,1-Dimethyl-1-(2-hydroxypropyl)-amine mersitimide lowered serum cholesterol levels 41% and serum triglyceride levels 56% at 20 mg/kg/day I.P. after 16 days. The same agent was active orally when administered to rats with a 38% reduction in serum cholesterol and a 52% reduction in serum triglycerides after 14 days. The agents inhibited liver acetyl CoA synthetase, ATP dependent citrate lyase and phosphatidate phosphohydrolase activities in vitro and in vivo. Reduction of cholesterol, triglycerides, neutral lipids and phospholipid levels were noted in the livers of mice treated for 16 days. In rat studies, cholesterol, triglyceride and phospholipid levels were reduced in liver, small intestine and the feces after two weeks' dosing. The cholesterol content was reduced in the very low density lipoprotein (VLDL) and low density lipoprotein (LDL) fractions but elevated in the high density lipoproteins (HDL). Triglyceride levels were lowered in the VLDL, and neutral lipid levels were reduced in the chylomicron and VLDL fractions.     

BITS,A Hebrew-English bibliographic translation system

This article provides an overview of the BITS Hebrew-English bibliographic translation system developed at CCL, UMIST. This is an experimental machine translation system for translating bibliographic references in which first generation translation techniques are combined with more recent developments in computer science. The experiment explores whether simple techniques can be used to achieve usable translations in this context. The input material, the pre-editing system and the general architecture of the BITS system are described and evaluated in view of current MT research.     

VII. Yeast sequencing reports. The sequence of an 11·1 kb fragment on the left arm of Saccharomyces cerevisiae chromosome VII reveals six open reading frames including NSP49, KEM1 and four putative new genes

We report the sequence of an 11·1 kb fragment located on the left arm of chromosome VII of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. By sequence analysis we have detected six open reading frames (ORFs) longer than 300 bp, which cover 87% of the entire sequence. ORF G1645 is 100% identical to the KEM1 gene, also identified as DST2, XRN1, SEP1 and RAR5, while G1648 is 100% identical to the NSP49 or NUP49 gene. ORF G1642 shares some identity with a hypothetical protein of Caenorhabditis elegans, while the other four ORFs show no significant homology to known proteins. The sequence has been submitted to the EMBL data library under Accession Number X84705.     

The DNA sequence of a 7941 bp fragment of the left arm of chromosome VII of Saccharomyces cerevisiae contains four open reading frames including the multicopy suppressor gene of the pop2 mutation and a putative serine/threonine protein kinase gene

We report the sequence of a 7941 bp DNA fragment from the left arm of chromosome VII of Saccharomyces cerevisiae which contains four open reading frames (ORFs) of greater than 100 amino acid residues. ORF biC834 shows 100% bp identity with the recently identified multicopy suppressor gene of the pop2 mutation (MPT5); its deduced protein product carries an eight-repeat domain region, homologous to that found in the hypothetical regulatory YGL023 protein of S. cerevisiae and the Pumilio protein of Drosophila. ORF biE560 protein exhibits patterns typical of serine/threonine protein kinases, with which it shares high degrees of homology. The complete nucleotide sequence was submitted to the EMBL Data Library under Accession Number X83690.