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The article discusses about strenuous domestic and international posturing and the degree of stress which Iranian leadership groups and individuals have felt. The threats includes domestic unrest including economic extreme drought, power shortages, and corruption, international isolation and prestige loss and an unpredictable external military threat.

Abstract: The Lotts Creek coal mine fire developed in an abandoned underground and surface mine in the Hindman (Hazard No. 9) coalbed in the Hazard North 7 ½ -minute quadrangle. In a study conducted in April and May, 2012, an array of five thermocouples, with 1-m vertical separation between individual thermocouples, was suspended in an active vent of the fire. Data were collected from each thermocouple for >21days at 1-min intervals. For many days, small thermal gradients were noted. On 3 May 2012, the 10th day of the investigation, a relatively extreme thermal event occurred, with a nearly 95°C difference in the 2m between the 2nd and 4th thermocouples. Other extreme heating events were noted, but none as intense as the latter event. Such events were overprinted on the diurnal, and shorter, breathing cycles of the fire and the complications induced by changing atmospheric conditions and the shifting of the fire front as the coal burned. The 3 May thermal event may have been a result of a sudden opening of a vent, with the consequent influx of air increasing the intensity of the fire. Since the experiment was run remotely without visits to the site between the time of placement and pick-up of the data logger assembly, no one witnessed the incident. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We report the production, isolation and structure elucidation of the sesquiterpene isopterocarpolone from an Appalachian isolate Streptomyces species RM-14-6. While isopterocarpolone was previously put forth as a putative plant metabolite, this study highlights the first native bacterial production of isopterocarpolone and the first full characterisation of isopterocarpolone using 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopy and HR-ESI mass spectrometry. Considering the biosynthesis of closely related metabolites (geosmin or 5-epiaristolochene), the structure of isopterocarpolone also suggests the potential participation of one or more unique enzymatic transformations. In this context, this work also sets the stage for the elucidation of potentially novel bacterial biosynthetic machinery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Lotts Creek coal mine fire is burning in abandoned works of the Pennsylvanian Hazard No. 9 coal, Perry County, Kentucky. Over the few months separating sampling trips, the fire showed a definite migration to the south. Several vents sampled on the first trip were extinct on the second trip. The flux of major gases varies from 1100 to 440,000 mg/s/m 2 CO 2 and < 100 to 12,000 mg/s/m 2 CO, with the gas temperature being one of the principal drivers of the emissions variations; the higher the temperature, the more CO 2 produced. Mercury, also showing wide variation, from 45 to 740 ng/s/m 2 , could not be measured at all vents due to temperature limitations inherent in the instrument. In addition to CO 2 , CO, and Hg, a number of gases among the volatile aliphatic and volatile aromatic compounds are emitted in potentially dangerous amounts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lanthanide- and yttrium-bearing minerals were examined by transmission electron microscopy - energy-dispersive spectroscopy (TEM-EDS) and related diffraction techniques in the combustion ash produced from the burning of an eastern Kentucky coal in a stoker boiler. The feed coal has nearly 2000 ppm and the stoker ash has over 1400-ppm lanthanides + Y + Sc In one section, zircon with trace amounts of Y was noted. Hafnium was noted in the preliminary scanning electron microscopy - EDS examination of a zircon. In the TEM procedure, the Hf peaks overlap with other peaks and, thus, the presence of Hf could not be confirmed. Both La-, Ce-, Nd-monazite and a La-, Ce-bearing Ti-Fe mineral were observed in the ash. The latter mineral corresponds both in composition and in aspects of the diffraction pattern to crichtonite or davidite or loveringite, all minerals within the Dana-class crichtonite group. • The source of stoker ash was from the combustion of high-REE coal. • TEM-EDS studies were conducted to better understand the mineral associations of the REE. • Y-bearing zircons were noted. • Lanthanides occur in monazite and crichtonite-group minerals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]