How to make a living from anaerobic ammonium oxidation.

Anaerobic ammonium-oxidizing (anammox) bacteria primarily grow by the oxidation of ammonium coupled to nitrite reduction, using CO2 as the sole carbon source. Although they were neglected for a long time, anammox bacteria are encountered in an enormous species (micro)diversity in virtually any anoxic environment that contains fixed nitrogen. It has even been estimated that about 50% of all nitrogen gas released into the atmosphere is made by these 'impossible' bacteria.

Enhanced screening in chemically functionalized graphene.

Resonant scatterers such as hydrogen adatoms can strongly enhance the low-energy density of states in graphene. Here, we study the impact of these impurities on electronic screening. We find a two-faced behavior: Kubo formula calculations reveal an increased dielectric function ε upon creation of midgap states but no metallic divergence of the static ε at small momentum transfer q→0.

Dialogical Self Theory and the increasing multiplicity of I-positions in a globalizing society: an introduction.

Dialogical Self Theory is a recent development in the social sciences, based on a conception of the self as a society of mind. In this conception, the self is considered as extended to significant others in the environment, who populate the self as a dynamic multiplicity of I-positions between which dialogical or monological relationships may emerge. While from a spatial perspective the self is engaged in a process of positioning and counterpositioning in a globalizing society, from a temporal point of view the self is part of a process of positioning and repositioning in collective history and personal development.

Data mining in the Life Sciences with Random Forest: a walk in the park or lost in the jungle?

In the Life Sciences 'omics' data is increasingly generated by different high-throughput technologies. Often only the integration of these data allows uncovering biological insights that can be experimentally validated or mechanistically modelled, i.e.

Anammox--growth physiology, cell biology, and metabolism.

Anaerobic ammonium-oxidizing (anammox) bacteria are the last major addition to the nitrogen-cycle (N-cycle). Because of the presumed inert nature of ammonium under anoxic conditions, the organisms were deemed to be nonexistent until about 15 years ago. They, however, appear to be present in virtually any anoxic place where fixed nitrogen (ammonium, nitrate, nitrite) is found.

The role of the frontal eye fields in oculomotor competition: image-guided TMS enhances contralateral target selection.

In order to execute a correct eye movement to a target in a search display, a saccade program toward the target element must be activated, while saccade programs toward distracting elements must be inhibited. The aim of the present study was to elucidate the role of the frontal eye fields (FEFs) in oculomotor competition. Functional magnetic resonance imaging-guided single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was administered over either the left FEF, the right FEF, or the vertex (control site) at 3 time intervals after target presentation, while subjects performed an oculomotor capture task.

Framework and extra-framework aluminium in wet ion exchanged Fe-ZSM5 and the effect of steam during the decomposition of N2O.

The role of extra-framework and framework aluminium in wet-ion exchanged Fe-ZSM5 has been studied using (29)Si NMR and (27)Al triple quantum magic angle spinning (3QMAS) NMR. A series of samples were studied, the parent material, the wet ion exchanged Fe-ZSM5 and Fe-ZSM5 that has been used in the decomposition of N(2)O with varying reaction conditions. Various framework and extra-framework aluminium species have been identified.

Melting of graphene: from two to one dimension.

The high temperature behaviour of graphene is studied by atomistic simulations based on an accurate interatomic potential for carbon. We find that clustering of Stone-Wales defects and formation of octagons are the first steps in the process of melting which proceeds via the formation of carbon chains. The molten state forms a three-dimensional network of entangled chains rather than a simple liquid.

Gall's visit to The Netherlands.

In March 1805, Franz Joseph Gall left Vienna to start what has become known as his cranioscopic tour. He traveled through Germany, Denmark, and The Netherlands. In this article, we will describe his visit to The Netherlands in greater detail, as it has not yet received due attention.

Theory of optically forbidden d-d transitions in strongly correlated crystals.

A general multiband formulation of the linear and nonlinear optical response functions for realistic models of correlated crystals is presented. Dipole-forbidden d-d optical transitions originate from vertex functions, which we consider assuming the locality of an irreducible four-leg vertex. The unified formulation for second- and third-order response functions in terms of the three-leg vertex is suitable for practical calculations in solids.

Learning new movement patterns: a study on good and poor writers comparing learning conditions emphasizing spatial, timing or abstract characteristics.

In the earliest stages of motor-skill learning cognitive, visuo-spatial and dynamic processes play an important role. Which of these should be addressed first when children need to learn a new complex movement sequence? This study compares three learning methods in a within-subject design by having 18 good and 18 poor 8-year-old writers master unfamiliar, letter-like patterns by (1) tracing a trajectory on a screen, (2) tracking a moving target (pursuit), and (3) performing the pattern using written explicit instructions. Following each 10-trial learning phase, the children completed a short test phase.

Motivation for body donation to science: more than an altruistic act.

Background: In recent years the Netherlands has witnessed a steep increase in the number of bodies donated for medical research and training. To explore this upward trend and motives for donation, a survey was conducted among registered body donors in the database of the Department of Anatomy at the University Medical Center of Groningen (UMCG).

Methods: In November 2008, postal questionnaires were sent to 996 people enrolled at the UMCG body donor database.

A computational neural model of goal-directed utterance selection.

It is generally agreed that much of human communication is motivated by extra-linguistic goals: we often make utterances in order to get others to do something, or to make them support our cause, or adopt our point of view, etc. However, thus far a computational foundation for this view on language use has been lacking. In this paper we propose such a foundation using Markov Decision Processes.

The unstable part of the apical stem of duck hepatitis B virus epsilon shows enhanced base pair opening but not pico- to nanosecond dynamics and is essential for reverse transcriptase binding.

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) replication starts with binding of reverse transcriptase (RT) to the apical stem-loop region of epsilon, a conserved element of the RNA pregenome. For duck HBV, an in vitro replication system has provided molecular details of this interaction. Further insights can be obtained from the structure and dynamics of the duck and human apical stem-loops.

The significance of reciprocal and unilateral friendships for peer victimization in adolescence.

The present study examined to what extent the number of friends and their social and personal characteristics were related to peer victimization in adolescence. Participants were 2,180 adolescents (1,143 girls), aged 11-18 (M = 14.2), who were classified as victims, bully-victims, or non-involved (i.

Biochemistry and molecular biology of anammox bacteria.

Anaerobic ammonium-oxidizing (anammox) bacteria are one of the latest additions to the biogeochemical nitrogen cycle. These bacteria derive their energy for growth from the conversion of ammonium and nitrite into dinitrogen gas in the complete absence of oxygen. These slowly growing microorganisms belong to the order Brocadiales and are affiliated to the Planctomycetes.

Introducing a new entity into discourse: comprehension and production evidence for the status of Dutch er "there" as a higher-level expectancy monitor.

This paper reports on the ways in which new entities are introduced into discourse. First, we present the evidence in support of a model of indefinite reference processing based on three principles: the listener's ability to make predictive inferences in order to decrease the unexpectedness of upcoming words, the availability to the speaker of grammatical constructions that customize predictive inferences, and the use of "expectancy monitors" to signal and facilitate the introduction of highly unpredictable entities. We provide evidence that one of these expectancy monitors in Dutch is the post-verbal variant of existential er (the equivalent of the unstressed existential "there" in English).

The relation between venous reserve capacity and low plasma volume.

Objective: Prepregnant low plasma volume (LPV) is associated with subsequent gestational hypertensive disease. It is unknown to what extent an LPV affects the venous reserve capacity (VRC). We tested the hypothesis that LPV reduces the VRC, as indicated by presyncope or altered cardiovascular changes in response to head-up tilt.

Conceptual knowledge for understanding other's actions is organized primarily around action goals.

Semantic knowledge about objects entails both knowing how to grasp an object (grip-related knowledge) and what to do with an object (goal-related knowledge). Considerable evidence suggests a hierarchical organization in which specific hand-grips in action execution are most often selected to accomplish a remote action goal. The present study aimed to investigate whether a comparable hierarchical organization of semantic knowledge applies to the recognition of other's object-directed actions as well.

Cerebral localization in the Netherlands in the nineteenth century: emphasizing the work of Aletta Jacobs.

This paper gives an overview of the ideas on cerebral localization as they were formulated in the Netherlands in the nineteenth century. In general, it appears that, given the discussions in France, Germany, and Britain, surprisingly little was written and hardly any serious research was performed. Special attention is given to the dissertation on the localization of sensory-motor functions by Aletta Jacobs (1854-1929), known for her social and political activities to improve the position of women.

Structure and dynamics of human apolipoprotein CIII.

Human apolipoprotein CIII (apoCIII) is a surface component of chylomicrons, very low density lipoproteins, and high density lipoproteins. ApoCIII inhibits lipoprotein lipase as well as binding of lipoproteins to cell surface heparan sulfate proteoglycans and receptors. High levels of apoCIII are often correlated with elevated levels of blood lipids (hypertriglyceridemia).

Rats that differentially respond to cocaine differ in their dopaminergic storage capacity of the nucleus accumbens.

Cocaine (COC) inhibits the re-uptake of dopamine. However, the dopamine response to COC also depends on dopamine inside storage vesicles. The aim of this study was to investigate whether rats that differentially respond to COC differ in their dopaminergic storage capacity of the nucleus accumbens.

Electron scattering on microscopic corrugations in graphene.

We discuss various scattering mechanisms for Dirac fermions in single-layer graphene. It is shown that scattering on a short-range potential (e.g.

Visualisation and interpretation of Support Vector Regression models.

This paper introduces a technique to visualise the information content of the kernel matrix and a way to interpret the ingredients of the Support Vector Regression (SVR) model. Recently, the use of Support Vector Machines (SVM) for solving classification (SVC) and regression (SVR) problems has increased substantially in the field of chemistry and chemometrics. This is mainly due to its high generalisation performance and its ability to model non-linear relationships in a unique and global manner.