Recent developments of two-color operation modes at X-ray free-electron laser facilities provide new research opportunities, such as X-ray pump/X-ray probe experiments and multiple-wavelength anomalous dispersion phasing methods. However, most existing indexing methods were developed for indexing diffraction data from monochromatic X-ray beams. Here, a new algorithm is presented for indexing two-color diffraction data, as an extension of the sparse-pattern indexing algorithm SPIND, which has been demonstrated to be capable of indexing diffraction patterns with as few as five peaks. The principle and implementation of the two-color indexing method, SPIND-TC, are reported in this paper. The algorithm was tested on both simulated and experimental data of protein crystals. The results show that the diffraction data can be accurately indexed in both cases. Source codes are publicly available at https://github.com/lixx11/SPIND-TC.

The HSBC Climate Partnership (HCP) is a five-year partnership (2007-2011) between HSBC, The Smithsonian, The Climate Group, Earthwatch Institute and WWF to inspire action on climate change.
Working with these partners and engaging its employees around the world, HSBC hopes to tackle climate change impacts for people, forests, water, and cities. The HCP research of the Smithsonian's Center for Tropical Forest Science (CTFS) focuses on:
• Understanding the role of forests in the global carbon cycle
• Comparing temperate and tropical forests by establishing new plots in the temperate zone
• Quantifying the environmental services provided by tropical forests

The post The HSBC Climate Partnership is a five-year partnership to inspire action on climate change appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

New results from a massive study at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute show that interactions among community members play an important role in determining which organisms thrive.

The post Tropical tree study shows interactions with neighbors plays an important role in tree survival appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

This work presents a technique for extracting the detailed shape of peaks with extended, overlapping tails in an X-ray powder diffraction pattern. The application discussed here concerns crystallite size broadening, though the technique can be applied to spectra of any origin and without regard to how the profiles are to be subsequently analyzed. Historically, the extraction of profile shapes has been difficult due to the complexity of determining the background under the peak, resulting in an offset of the low-frequency components of the Fourier transform of the peak known as the `hook' problem. The use of a carefully considered statistical weighting function in a non-linear least-squares fit, followed by summing the residuals from such a fit with the fit itself, allows one to extract the full shape of an isolated peak, without contributions from either the background or adjacent peaks. The extracted shape, consisting of the fit function recombined with the residuals, is not dependent on any specific shape model. The application of this to analysis of microstructure is performed independently of global parametric models, which would reduce the number of refined parameters; therefore the technique requires high-quality data to produce results of interest. The effectiveness of the technique is demonstrated by extraction of Fourier transforms of peaks from two sets of size-broadened materials with two differing pieces of equipment.

The methods for X-ray crystal orientation are rapidly evolving towards versatility, fewer goniometry measurements, automation, high accuracy and precision. One method that attracts a lot of attention is energy-dispersive X-ray diffraction (EDXRD) which is based on detecting reflections from crystallographic planes in a crystal at fixed angles of a parallel polychromatic X-ray incident beam. In theory, an EDXRD peak can move in a diffraction pattern as a function of a crystallographic plane d-spacing and its orientation relative to a fixed direction in space can change also. This is equivalent to the possibility of measuring the orientation of single crystals. The article provides a modeling for the EDXRD method whose main feature is the nonmoving crystal in the sense of traditional goniometry where the angle measurements of diffracting planes are a must. The article defines the equation of orientation for the method and shows the derivation in great detail. It is shown that the exact solutions of the equations can be obtained using the generalized reduced gradient method, a mathematical subroutine that is implemented in Excel software. The significance and scientific impact of the work are discussed along with the validated tested results.

To date X-ray protein crystallography is the most successful technique available for the determination of high-resolution 3D structures of biological molecules and their complexes. In X-ray protein crystallography the structure of a protein is refined against the set of observed Bragg reflections from a protein crystal. The resolution of the refined protein structure is limited by the highest angle at which Bragg reflections can be observed. In addition, the Bragg reflections alone are typically insufficient (by a factor of two) to determine the structure ab initio, and so prior information is required. Crystals formed from an imperfect packing of the protein molecules may also exhibit continuous diffraction between and beyond these Bragg reflections. When this is due to random displacements of the molecules from each crystal lattice site, the continuous diffraction provides the necessary information to determine the protein structure without prior knowledge, to a resolution that is not limited by the angular extent of the observed Bragg reflections but instead by that of the diffraction as a whole. This article presents an iterative projection algorithm that simultaneously uses the continuous diffraction as well as the Bragg reflections for the determination of protein structures. The viability of this method is demonstrated on simulated crystal diffraction.

Features of azimuthal plots for RHEED and its new counterpart, RHEPD, are discussed. The plots, for both electrons and positrons, are determined using dynamical diffraction theory.

A method is described for indexing grazing-incidence X-ray diffraction data of epitaxially grown thin films comprising various crystal orientations and/or polymorphs by measuring reciprocal-lattice vectors.

The analytical solution of the problem of X-ray spherical-wave Laue diffraction in a single crystal with a linear change of thickness on the exit surface is derived. General equations are applied to a specific case of plane-wave Laue diffraction in a thick crystal under the conditions of the Borrmann effect.

Su Ming Sun
Apr 16, 2020; 0:jcs.237628v1-jcs.237628
Articles

To transform the offshore oil and gas industry’s safety culture, operators, contractors, subcontractors, associations representing these groups, and federal regulators should collaborate to foster safety throughout all levels of the industry and confront challenges collectively, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

In response to alarming evidence of high rates of depression and suicide among U.S. health care workers, the National Academy of Medicine is launching a wide-ranging “action collaborative” of multiple organizations to promote clinician well-being and resilience.

Several strong earthquakes around the world have resulted in a phenomenon called soil liquefaction, the seismic generation of excess porewater pressures and softening of granular soils, often to the point that they may not be able to support the foundations of buildings and other infrastructure.

All stakeholders in the scientific research enterprise -- researchers, institutions, publishers, funders, scientific societies, and federal agencies – should improve their practices and policies to respond to threats to the integrity of research, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine identifies global health priorities in light of current and emerging challenges and makes 14 recommendations for the U.S. government and other stakeholders to address these challenges, while maintaining U.S. status as a world leader in global health.

Policymakers, employers, and educational institutions should take steps to strengthen the nation’s skilled technical workforce, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The academic biomedical research community should improve its ability to mitigate and recover from the impacts of disasters, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

U.S. colleges and universities should respond with urgency to the current surge in undergraduate enrollments in computer science courses and degree programs, which is straining resources at many institutions, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

In recognition of the need for a national coordinated and collective response to the epidemic of opioid addiction in the U.S., the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), in partnership with the Aspen Institute, launched a public-private partnership made up of more than 35 organizations representing federal, state, and local governments, health systems, associations and provider groups, health education and accrediting institutions, pharmacies, payers, industry, nonprofits, and academia.

The Gulf Research Program (GRP) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine today announced a new funding opportunity under its Healthy Ecosystems Initiative.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have joined with over 40 colleges, universities, and research institutions to launch an Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education.

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences and U.S. National Academy of Medicine joined the science academies of South Africa, Brazil, and Germany today in issuing a statement calling for urgent worldwide action to reduce air pollution.

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine urges systemic action to change the culture in STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine) to address the underrepresentation of women in these fields.

India-based merchant payment and lending service provider BharatPe has announced disbursing funds...

Chris Hemsworth and Rudhraksh Jaiswal in Extraction.; Credit: Netflix/Extraction (2020)

Larry Mantle and KPCC film critics Christy Lemire, Angie Han and Wade Major review this weekend’s new movie releases on streaming and VOD platforms.

• "Extraction" on Netflix

• "Bad Education" on HBO

• "Circus Of Books" on Netflix

• "Why Don't You Just Die!" on VOD (iTunes, Amazon & Google Play)

• "Beastie Boys Story" on Apple TV+

• "Robert The Bruce" on VOD (iTunes, Amazon, FandangoNOW & Google Play)

• "1BR" on VOD (iTunes) & DVD

• "The True History Of The Kelly Gang" on VOD (iTunes, Vudu & Google Play)

Guests:

Angie Han, KPCC film critic and deputy entertainment editor at Mashable; she tweets @ajhan

Christy Lemire, film critic for KPCC, RogerEbert.com and co-host of the ‘Breakfast All Day’ podcast; she tweets @christylemire

Wade Major, film critic for KPCC and CineGods.com

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

'California Mountain Lions,' Episode 7: Human Interaction

Jordan Trimble of Skyharbour Resources lays out the reasons why the uranium bear market is coming to an end, and why his company is poised to take advantage of the upturn, in this conversation with Maurice Jackson of Proven and Probable.

South-Africa based PSP Thumbzup and cloud service distributor

Jordan Trimble of Skyharbour Resources lays out the reasons why the uranium bear market is coming to an end, and why his company is poised to take advantage of the upturn, in this conversation with Maurice Jackson of Proven and Probable.

Researchers in Greece have added a new dimension to noise level mapping by including data on residents’ perception and value of different sounds. This consideration of the experiences of residents in this way could lead to more effective policy implementation.

How does climate change cause extinction? An extensive analysis of the available evidence has explored this question and concluded that climate change’s effects on the interactions between species is likely to be the main reason for local extinctions. For example, climate change may lead to the loss of prey for predators.

Shifts in species’ ranges are expected under climate change, as organisms move to find suitable conditions. New research in the Mediterranean Sea has found that the way species interact could also have a significant effect on their resilience in a changing climate.

Transaction costs can be incurred during various phases of environmental policy making, from planning through to enforcement. A recent study has examined what influences these costs and concluded that policy selection and evaluation could benefit from a better understanding of the causes of these transaction costs.

Although national and European policy supports the importance of outdoor recreation, there are few binding commitments for action, according to new research. In particular, monitoring of recreation in forests is rarely mentioned in national policy and the study suggests comparable European data could inform firmer decision-making.

Outputs of conservation planning research are likely to be translated into action more quickly and successfully if a transdisciplinary approach is adopted, according to a recent study. The researchers have applied a transdisciplinary framework 'pyramid of knowledge' to aid in understanding the process of converting research into action, which may also be applicable to other academic disciplines.

A more circular economy could reduce global levels of raw material extraction by 10% by 2030, a new study suggests. It could also drive a slight increase in overall employment levels, but the types of jobs available would change significantly, moving away from low- and medium-skilled work in the manufacturing and mining sectors and opening up more opportunities for medium- and high-skilled jobs in the service sector.

A new study suggests shale gas extraction leads to methane contamination of underground water sources and calls for thorough surveys of methane levels at extraction sites. The study presents a timely insight into a relatively under-researched area of science that will help support decisions on the future of shale gas exploration.

Measures designed to reduce levels of methane and black carbon in the atmosphere could help bring climate change under control more quickly than CO2 targeting measures alone, according to a new study. The researchers also predict wider benefits for human health and food security from methane-targeted measures.

Around 20% of all species found in a Spanish coastal wetland could be affected by increasingly salty water as seawater intrudes into the groundwater system as a result of groundwater being withdrawn to irrigate crops. This is the conclusion of a recent study which used a Life Cycle Impact Assessment approach to characterise the ecological damage in the wetland as a result of changes in groundwater consumption.

NPCI consecutively reported dismal figures for April 2020 for its UPI, IMPS, NETC and Bharat BillPay platforms – as AePS emerges as an outlier.

Yusuf Pachmariwala, EVP & Head Operations, Tata AIA LI talks about the use of AI and ML at the Insurer to automate tasks and reduce fraud.

We are still losing biodiversity at an unprecedented rate, according to a new report prepared by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The report confirms that the world failed to meet the 2010 target to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss and calls for policy makers to take urgent, coordinated action to address the challenge of combating biodiversity loss and in so doing, address the linked challenges posed by climate change.

A new study has assessed the potential of several “fast-action” climate change mitigation strategies. Key options are reducing use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), reducing emissions of black carbon and ozone-forming pollutants, and sequestering carbon through afforestation and biochar production.

A recent analysis highlights advances in the field of synthetic biology and efforts to develop approaches that will prevent non-natural organisms from interfering with natural organisms and ecosystems. It suggests that synthetic organisms could be developed with inbuilt ‘firewalls’ that prevent genetic interactions with other organisms.

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ITS neighbours are some of the most attractive homes in Hobart.