This special issue presents the results of a European research project on the creative class in European city regions. In this introduction, the need for contextualizing the approach is underlined, taking into account the differences between the United States, where Richard Florida's ideas were developed, and Europe. In modifying the approach to suit European conditions, varieties of capitalism an

Nanowires in the InAs/InP material system are grown with catalyst-assisted chemical beam epitaxy. Ohmic contacts are then fabricated to selected wires, allowing electron transport measurements to be carried out at room-temperature as well as at low T. InAs nanowires show strong quantum confinement effects, where thin wires (

In this study, we present a novel method to isolate and enrich low concentrations of Campylobacter pathogens. This method, Acanthamoeba-Campylobacter coculture (ACC), is based on the intracellular survival and multiplication of Campylobacter species in the free-living protozoan Acanthamoeba polyphaga. Four of the Campylobacter species relevant to humans and livestock, Campylobacter jejuni, C. coli

Susceptibility to lung cancer may in part be attributable to inter-individual variability in metabolic activation or detoxification of tobacco carcinogens. The glutathione S-transferase M1 (GSTM1) genetic polymorphism has been extensively studied in this context; two recent meta-analyses of case-control studies suggested an association between GSTM1 deletion and lung cancer. At least 15 studies ha

The study of creativity needs a theory of personality as its backbone. Several alternatives are reviewed. Psychoanalysis is deemed unserviceable because of its lack of an integrated theory of perception. A useful theory of personality should be process-oriented and avoid substance concepts like traits. It may still borrow a number of fruitful constructs from its predecessors. One such, often debat

A dot blot hybridization method was developed to detect Plasmodium falciparum sporozoites in naturally infected mosquitoes. A fluorescein-labelled oligomer was used as a probe. Initial non-specific hybridization was found to correlate with the presence of blood in the mosquitoes. This was eliminated by allowing digestion of the engorged blood by keeping the mosquitoes in cages for 48 h before proc

In this paper, we report the preliminary result from the first Coulomb excitation experiment at REX-ISOLDE (Habs et al 1998 Nucl. Instrum. Methods B 139 128) using neutron-deficient Sn-beams. The motivation of the experiment is to deduce the reduced transition probability, B(E2; 2(+) -> 0(+)), for the sequence of neutron deficient, unstable, even-even Sn- isotopes from Sn-110 to ultimately Sn-110.

Using scanning tunneling microscopy and density functional theory, we have studied the initial oxidation of Rh(111) surfaces with two types of straight steps, having {100} and {111} microfacets. The one-dimensional (1D) oxide initially formed at the steps acts as a barrier impeding formation of the 2D oxide on the (111) terrace behind it. We demonstrate that the details of the structure of the 1D

The lengths of fallows have decreased in many parts of the Sahel due to agricultural expansion, which can have negative impacts on crop production when few other ways to improve soil fertility exist. However, the dynamics of agricultural expansion may change because of the changing role of agriculture in society due to increased livelihood diversification outside of agriculture. The results of thi

Phenotypic plasticity is the ability of a genotype to modify its phenotypic characteristics in response to different environments. Theory predicts that adaptive plasticity should primarily evolve in organisms that experience heterogeneous environments. An organism's dispersal rate is a key component in these models, because the degree of dispersal partly determines the extent of environmental hete

Biomaterials research will always require a range of techniques to examine structure and function on a range of length scales and in a range of settings. Neutron scattering provides a unique way of disentangling the molecular and structural complexity of biomaterials through study of the constituent components. We examine how the technique has been used to study surface immobilized proteins and li

In the present article we continue investigating the algebraic dependence of commuting elements in q-deformed Heisenberg algebras. We provide a simple proof that the 0-chain subalgebra is a maximal commutative subalgebra when q is of free type and that it coincides with the centralizer (commutant) of any one of its elements dierent from the scalar multiples of the unity. We review the Burchnall-Ch

In order to reduce the effort of the controller design in the customized image convolution processor, a controller synthesis tool is developed based on [9] to support the design flow from a system or algorithm specification to RTL level VHDL. Architecture extensions to basic FSMs structures are implemented with the purpose of optimizing controller design for area and power consumption. Together wi

In ERP studies of adults, semantic incongruities elicit a, late negative response called the N400. Recently it was demonstrated that the amplitude of the N400 is sensitive to the organization of semantic categories in memory. The present study sought to investigate whether a similar incongruity response can be identified in children in their second year of life and whether this response is sensiti

The protein kinase C (PKC) isoforms are maintained in an inactive and closed conformation by intramolecular interactions. Upon activation these are disrupted by activators, binding proteins and cellular membrane. We have seen that autophosphorylation of two sites in the C-terminal V5 domain is crucial to keep PKC alpha insensitive to the activator diacylglycerol, which presumably is caused by a ma

The physiological impacts and fitness costs of parasitism by an introduced ectoparasitic fly, Philornis downsi (Muscidae), were studied in nestlings of Darwin's Small Ground Finch, Geospiza fuliginosa (Geospizinae), on the Galápagos Archipelago. Whole blood haemoglobin (Hb) concentration was used to measure host response to ectoparasitism due to its high repeatability and validity, as well as for