8 November 2013

Research Event

Event participants

Christopher K Johnson, Senior Adviser; Freeman Chair in China Studies, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Chair: Dr Michal Meidan, Associate Fellow, Asia Programme, Chatham House 

Tim and Sophie, an Australian couple with OM in Paris, experienced life in North Africa, and its many different needs and difficulties, through Transform 2012.

How God called Andrea from Italy to leave his comfort zone during the Transform conference and his experience with OM Lifehope in the UK.

Participating in a Transform outreach to trafficked women gave OMer Erika Tello the vision of founding the OM Italy anti-trafficking ministry.

Cyclists with the Ride to Transform initiative rode 830 kilometres (about 515 miles) through Italy to raise funds for Transform relief projects around the Mediterranean.

Around 340 people participated in the Transform 2013 mission conference in Rome before spreading across the Mediterranean on 29 outreaches.

Artists participating in the Incarnate training and discipleship programme of OM Arts in Italy are inspired by conversations with locals.

Meeting Christian refugees praying for European governments made a deep impression on a Transform participant. For another, the term ‘refugee’ got a whole new meaning.

A Greek woman embarks on a lonely journey to the Transform 2013 conference in Rome, a journey that began when she accepted Christ at 19.

After attending Transform 2014 and going on the Greece outreach, a young South African man returns to Greece eight months later to stay.

God is working to transform lives in Mozambique through the efforts of the local OM team.

Walking the thousand year old pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela gave the Transform team many opportunities to share the Gospel

Participants witnessed God at work through the Transform conference in Spain followed by outreach teams to the Mediterranean region and beyond.

Newlyweds Sam & Lena joined Transform as part of their honeymoon, because they wanted to honour God from the very start of their life together.

The OM Transform team experienced God at work during the conference and outreach day. The local churches were an added blessing, as was the cycling team sent out to pray for least reached towns.

Transform mission conference one year, outreach team in France the following year, the sisters from Mexico are eager to share the love of Christ, realising the audience was different from what they expected.

It started with one ball and grew to become a garden.

A young woman's life is transformed by the love of Jesus shared and displayed through Tabitha Skills Training in Zambia.

An OM training conference equips a local pastor with tools to transform his Sunday service for Syrian refugees.

Transform mission conference one year, outreach team in France the following year, the sisters from Mexico are eager to share the love of Christ, realising the audience was different from what they expected.

Transform mission conference one year, outreach team in France the following year, the sisters from Mexico are eager to share the love of Christ, realising the audience was different from what they expected.

Transform mission conference one year, outreach team in France the following year, the sisters from Mexico are eager to share the love of Christ, realising the audience was different from what they expected.

Transform mission conference one year, outreach team in France the following year, the sisters from Mexico are eager to share the love of Christ, realising the audience was different from what they expected.

Transform mission conference one year, outreach team in France the following year, the sisters from Mexico are eager to share the love of Christ, realising the audience was different from what they expected.

Renewable energy stakeholders are well aware that clean energy is slowly but steadily transforming the energy landscape and that message couldn’t have been more clear at the recently concluded Power-Gen International, the largest show for the traditional power generation industry. Since all forms of power generation are represented at the show through the four co-located conferences, PennWell calls the second week in December "Power Generation Week."

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have discovered that the insulation plastic used in high-voltage cables can withstand a 26 per cent higher voltage if nanometer-sized carbon balls are added. This could result in enormous efficiency gains in the power grids of the future, which are needed to achieve a sustainable energy system.

One of Europe's largest utilities is on the cusp of reportedly transforming its business from being a centralised energy provider into a decentralized energy provider.

In Germany, the provision of temporary personnel is strictly regulated by the German Temporary Employment Act (“AÜG”). The principle is straightforward: the agency is the employer and supplies the temporary employees to the hirer. A...

HiFives, a leading provider of cloud based employee rewards management and recognition platform, today announced a collaborative cloud based service model that is helping global corporations transform their employee rewards programs,...

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and US global conglomerate GE on Thursday announced a global partnership in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) space to boost digital transformation.

The digital transformation has positive impacts on productivity for many firms, but has not yet translated into stronger productivity growth at the economy-wide level. This background report for the March 2018 G7 Innovation Ministers' meeting focuses on the impacts of digital transformation on jobs and productivity.

This paper presents a framework for measuring the digital transformation of manufacturing industries, and maps the impact of digital technologies across these several dimensions: firm productivity growth, business dynamism, industry concentration, firm mark-ups and mergers and acquisition activity.

This report provides an assessment of G20 economies’ performance with respect to digitalisation and examines some of the most pressing policy challenges in areas spanning from access to digital infrastructures to digital security to legal frameworks. It includes a set of 11 core policy recommendations that could underpin a comprehensive G20 digital agenda.

At the OECD, ee have started an ambitious 2-year project to examine how the digital transformation affects policy making across the broadest possible range of fields and topics. The objective is to work with governments, business, labour and civil society to develop policies to harness the power of the digital revolution for OECD members and developing countries and unlock the benefits for everyone.

How immigrants contribute to developing countries’ economies shows that negative perceptions are often unjustified. It points out that immigrants are no burden on the economies of host countries, and that in developing countries, their impact on labour markets, economic growth and public finance is generally positive although relatively limited.

As the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) approach their expiry date, we must focus our efforts on ensuring a brighter, more inclusive and sustainable future for all. We face a plethora of common issues: growing inequalities; changing consumption patterns and population dynamics; increasing natural resource scarcity; and ongoing illicit financial flows.

This report aims to help environmental and other competent authorities in OECD countries to promote green business practices among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It analyses different ways to establish environmental regulatory requirements for facilities with low environmental risk (most of which are SMEs).

As the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) approach their expiry date, we must focus our efforts on ensuring a brighter, more inclusive and sustainable future for all. We face a plethora of common issues: growing inequalities; changing consumption patterns and population dynamics; increasing natural resource scarcity; and ongoing illicit financial flows.

Register for the Green Growth Knowledge Platform (GGKP) Webinar on Sustainable Cities and Structural Transformation through a presentation of this year's African Economic Outlook (AEO). The webinar will take place on 20 July 2016, 2:00-3:30pm (Geneva time).

Schools nowadays are required to learn faster than ever before in order to deal effectively with the growing pressures of a rapidly changing environment.

Despite people’s perceptions of us, we economists are neither futurologists, nor historians. But we do see trends that we try to interpret, by applying objectivity where subjectivity abounds, and using the (rather few) tools we have developed to address (very many) major social problems.

How Africa urbanises will be critical to the continent’s future growth and development, says the African Economic Outlook 2016 released today at the African Development Bank Group’s 51st Annual Meetings.

Transforming growth factor β-1 (TGFβ-1) is a secreted signalling protein that directs many cellular processes and is an attractive target for the treatment of several diseases. The primary endogenous activity regulatory mechanism for TGFβ-1 is sequestration by its pro-peptide, latency-associated peptide (LAP), which sterically prohibits receptor binding by caging TGFβ-1. As such, recombinant LAP is promising as a protein-based therapeutic for modulating TGFβ-1 activity; however, the mechanism of binding is incompletely understood. Comparison of the crystal structure of unbound LAP (solved here to 3.5 Å resolution) with that of the bound complex shows that LAP is in a more open and extended conformation when unbound to TGFβ-1. Analysis suggests a mechanism of binding TGFβ-1 through a large-scale conformational change that includes contraction of the inter-monomer interface and caging by the `straight-jacket' domain that may occur in partnership through a loop-to-helix transition in the core jelly-roll fold. This conformational change does not appear to include a repositioning of the integrin-binding motif as previously proposed. X-ray scattering-based modelling supports this mechanism and reveals possible orientations and ensembles in solution. Although native LAP is heavily glycosylated, solution scattering experiments show that the overall folding and flexibility of unbound LAP are not influenced by glycan modification. The combination of crystallography, solution scattering and biochemical experiments reported here provide insight into the mechanism of LAP sequestration of TGFβ-1 that is of fundamental importance for therapeutic development.

The photovoltaic perovskite, methyl­ammonium lead triiodide [CH3NH3PbI3 (MAPbI3)], is one of the most efficient materials for solar energy conversion. Various kinds of chemical and physical modifications have been applied to MAPbI3 towards better understanding of the relation between composition, structure, electronic properties and energy conversion efficiency of this material. Pressure is a particularly useful tool, as it can substantially reduce the interatomic spacing in this relatively soft material and cause significant modifications to the electronic structure. Application of high pressure induces changes in the crystal symmetry up to a threshold level above which it leads to amorphization. Here, a detailed structural study of MAPbI3 at high hydro­static pressures using Ne and Ar as pressure transmitting media is reported. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction experiments with synchrotron radiation at room temperature in the 0–20 GPa pressure range show that atoms of both gaseous media, Ne and Ar, are gradually incorporated into MAPbI3, thus leading to marked structural changes of the material. Specifically, Ne stabilizes the high-pressure phase of NexMAPbI3 and prevents amorphization up to 20 GPa. After releasing the pressure, the crystal has the composition of Ne0.97MAPbI3, which remains stable under ambient conditions. In contrast, above 2.4 GPa, Ar accelerates an irreversible amorphization. The distinct impacts of Ne and Ar are attributed to differences in their chemical reactivity under pressure inside the restricted space between the PbI6 octahedra.

In this work, the mechanism of solvent-mediated desolvation transformation of lenvatinib mesylate (LM) was investigated. Two new solid forms of LM, a dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) solvate and an unsolvated form defined as form D, were discovered and characterized using powder X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, polarized light microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. To investigate the thermodynamic mechanism of solvent-mediated desolvation transformation (SMDT) from LM DMSO solvate to form D, solubilities of LM DMSO solvate and form D in binary solvent mixtures of DMSO and water at different water volume fractions and temperatures (293.15–323.15 K) were measured and correlated by non-random two liquids model. The solubility data were used to evaluate the thermodynamic driving force of the SMDT process from DMSO solvate to form D and the effect of the activities of water and DMSO on the transformation process. Raman spectroscopy was used to monitor in situ the solid phase compositions during the SMDT process from LM DMSO solvate to form D while the solution concentration was measured by the gravimetric method. The overall desolvation transformation experiments demonstrated that the SMDT process was controlled by the nucleation and growth of form D. Moreover, effects of operating factors on the SMDT process were studied and the results illustrated that water activity in solution was the paramount parameter in the SMDT process. Finally, a new SMDT mechanism was suggested and discussed.

The solvent-mediated desolvation process of newly discovered lenvatinib DMSO solvate to form II at different water volume fractions and temperatures was investigated. It is confirmed that the activity of water is the most important factor affecting the desolvation process: the desolvation process only occurs when the activity of water is greater than the activity of DMSO, and one new mechanism of solvent-mediated desolvation process was proposed.

A team of astrophysicists and planetary scientists has predicted that Neptune-like planets located near the center of the Milky Way galaxy have been transformed into […]

The post Black hole blasts may transform “Mini-Neptunes” into rocky worlds appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Appendices B4 and B5 of Cayron [Acta Cryst. (2019), A75, 411–437] contain equations involving the point group and the metric tensor in which the equality symbol should be substituted by the inclusion symbol.