| 1. |
- Boxall, A. B. A., et al.
(author)
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Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products in the Environment: What Are the Big Questions?
- 2012
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In: Environmental Health Perspectives. - : Environmental Health Perspectives. - 0091-6765 .- 1552-9924. ; 120:9, s. 1221-1229
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Over the past 10-15 years, a substantial amount of work has been done by the scientific, regulatory, and business communities to elucidate the effects and risks of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in the environment. OBJECTIVE: This review was undertaken to identify key outstanding issues regarding the effects of PPCPs on human and ecological health in order to ensure that future resources will be focused on the most important areas. DATA SOURCES: To better understand and manage the risks of PPCPs in the environment, we used the "key question" approach to identify the principle issues that need to be addressed. Initially, questions were solicited from academic, government, and business communities around the world. A list of 101 questions was then discussed at an international expert workshop, and a top-20 list was developed. Following the workshop, workshop attendees ranked the 20 questions by importance. DATA SYNTHESIS: The top 20 priority questions fell into seven categories: a) prioritization of substances for assessment, b) pathways of exposure, c) bioavailability and uptake, a effects characterization, e) risk and relative risk, f) antibiotic resistance, and g) risk management. CONCLUSIONS: A large body of information is now available on PPCPs in the environment. This exercise prioritized the most critical questions to aid in development of future research programs on the topic.
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| 3. |
- Hanke, F., et al.
(author)
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Structure and stability of weakly chemisorbed ethene adsorbed on low-index Cu surfaces: performance of density functionals with van der Waals interactions
- 2012
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In: Journal of Physics Condensed Matter. - : IOP Publishing. - 0953-8984 .- 1361-648X. ; 24:42, s. Article Number: 424217 -
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We have investigated the performance of popular density functionals that include van der Waals interactions for the experimentally well-characterized problem of ethene (C2H4) adsorbed on the low-index surfaces of copper. This set of functionals does not only include three van der Waals density functionals-vdwDF-PBE, vdwDF-revPBE and optB86b-vdwDF-and two dispersion-corrected functionals-Grimme and TS-but also local and semi-local functionals such as LDA and PBE. The adsorption system of ethene on copper was chosen because it is a weakly chemisorbed system for which the vdW interactions are expected to give a significant contribution to the adsorption energy. Overall the density functionals that include vdW interactions increased substantially the adsorption energies compared to the PBE density functional but predicted the same adsorption sites and very similar C-C bonding distances except for two of the van der Waals functionals. The top adsorption site was predicted almost exclusively for all functionals on the (110), (100) and (111) surfaces, which is in agreement with experiment for the (110) surface but not for the (100) surface. On the (100) surface, all functionals except two van der Waals density functionals singled out the observed cross-hollow site from the calculated C-C bonding distances and adsorption heights. On the top sites on the (110) surface and the cross-hollow site on the Cu(100) surface, the ethene molecule was found to form a weak chemisorption bond. On the (111) surface, all functionals gave a C-C bonding distance and an adsorption height more typical for physisorption, in agreement with experiments.
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| 4. |
- Haq, S., et al.
(author)
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Clean Coupling of Unfunctionalized Porphyrins at Surfaces To Give Highly Oriented Organometallic Oligomers
- 2011
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In: Journal of the American Chemical Society. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 1520-5126 .- 0002-7863. ; 133:31, s. 12031-12039
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The direct coupling of complex, functional organic molecules at a surface is one of the outstanding challenges in the road map to future molecular devices. Equally demanding is to meet this challenge without recourse to additional functionalization of the molecular building blocks and via clean surface reactions that leave no surface contamination. Here, we demonstrate the directional coupling of unfunctionalized porphyrin molecules-large aromatic multifunctional building blocks-on a single crystal copper surface, which generates highly oriented one-dimensional organometallic macromolecular nanostructures (wires) in a reaction which generates gaseous hydrogen as the only byproduct. In situ scanning tunneling microscopy and temperature programmed desorption, supported by theoretical modeling, reveal that the process is driven by C-H bond scission and the incorporation of copper atoms in between the organic components to form a very stable organocopper oligomer comprising organometallic edge-to-edge porphyrin-Cu-porphyrin connections on the surface that are unprecedented in solution chemistry. The hydrogen generated during the reaction leaves the surface and, therefore, produces no surface contamination. A remarkable feature of the wires is their stability at high temperatures (up to 670 K) and their preference for 1D growth along a prescribed crystallographic direction of the surface. The on-surface formation of directional organometallic wires that link highly functional porphyrin cores via direct C-Cu-C bonds in a single-step synthesis is a new development in surface-based molecular systems and provides a versatile approach to create functional organic nanostructures at surfaces.
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| 6. |
- Olson, R. S., et al.
(author)
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Predator confusion is sufficient to evolve swarming behaviour
- 2013
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In: Journal of the Royal Society Interface. - : Royal Society. - 1742-5689 .- 1742-5662. ; 10:85
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Swarming behaviours in animals have been extensively studied owing to their implications for the evolution of cooperation, social cognition and predator-prey dynamics. An important goal of these studies is discerning which evolutionary pressures favour the formation of swarms. One hypothesis is that swarms arise because the presence of multiple moving prey in swarms causes confusion for attacking predators, but it remains unclear how important this selective force is. Using an evolutionary model of a predator-prey system, we show that predator confusion provides a sufficient selection pressure to evolve swarming behaviour in prey. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the evolutionary effect of predator confusion on prey could in turn exert pressure on the structure of the predator's visual field, favouring the frontally oriented, high-resolution visual systems commonly observed in predators that feed on swarming animals. Finally, we provide evidence that when prey evolve swarming in response to predator confusion, there is a change in the shape of the functional response curve describing the predator's consumption rate as prey density increases. Thus, we show that a relatively simple perceptual constraint-predator confusion-could have pervasive evolutionary effects on prey behaviour, predator sensory mechanisms and the ecological interactions between predators and prey. © 2013 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.
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| 7. |
- Thompson, Paul M., et al.
(author)
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The ENIGMA Consortium : large-scale collaborative analyses of neuroimaging and genetic data
- 2014
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In: BRAIN IMAGING BEHAV. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1931-7557 .- 1931-7565. ; 8:2, s. 153-182
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The Enhancing NeuroImaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis (ENIGMA) Consortium is a collaborative network of researchers working together on a range of large-scale studies that integrate data from 70 institutions worldwide. Organized into Working Groups that tackle questions in neuroscience, genetics, and medicine, ENIGMA studies have analyzed neuroimaging data from over 12,826 subjects. In addition, data from 12,171 individuals were provided by the CHARGE consortium for replication of findings, in a total of 24,997 subjects. By meta-analyzing results from many sites, ENIGMA has detected factors that affect the brain that no individual site could detect on its own, and that require larger numbers of subjects than any individual neuroimaging study has currently collected. ENIGMA's first project was a genome-wide association study identifying common variants in the genome associated with hippocampal volume or intracranial volume. Continuing work is exploring genetic associations with subcortical volumes (ENIGMA2) and white matter microstructure (ENIGMA-DTI). Working groups also focus on understanding how schizophrenia, bipolar illness, major depression and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) affect the brain. We review the current progress of the ENIGMA Consortium, along with challenges and unexpected discoveries made on the way.
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