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Qubit readout is an indispensable element of any quantum information processor. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate a nonperturbative cross-Kerr couplingbetween a transmon and polariton mode which enables an improved quantum nondemolition (QND) readout for superconducting qubits. The new mechanism uses the same experimental techniques as the standard QND qubit readout in the dispersive approximation, but due to its nonperturbative nature, it maximizes the speed, the single-shot fidelity, and the QND properties of the readout. In addition, it minimizes the effect of unwanted decay channels such as the Purcell effect. We observe a single-shot readout fidelity of 97.4% for short 50-ns pulses and we quantify a QND-ness of 99% for long measurement pulses with repeated single-shot readouts.

Bringing History Home: Postcolonial Immigrants and the Dutch Cultural ArenaThree Dutch-language monographs published in 2008-2009 by Ulbe Bosma, Lizzy van Leeuwen and Gert Oostindie in the context of the interdisciplinary research programme Bringing History Home, present a history of identity politics in relation to ‘postcolonial immigrants’. This term refers to some 500,000 people who since 1945 arrived in the Netherlands from Indonesia and the former Dutch New Guinea, Suriname or the Antillean islands in the Caribbean. Bosma traces the development of postcolonial immigrant organizations. In interaction with government policies, these organizations moved from mere socioeconomic emancipation struggles to mere cultural identity politics. Van Leeuwen takes such cultural identity politics as the starting point for her analysis of Indo-Dutch and Dutch Indies cultural initiatives and the competing interests at stake in the Indies heritage discourse. Oostindie discusses these developments in terms of community development and change within Dutch society at large. He introduces the notion of a ‘postcolonial bonus’. In postcolonial Netherlands, this bonus was available to immigrants on the grounds of a shared colonial past. Today, this bonus is (almost) spent. The review discusses the three monographs, as well as the coherence of Bringing History Home as a research programme. Legêne argues, that notwithstanding valuable research outcomes, the very category of postcolonial immigrants does not constitute a convincing category of analysis.

This work set out to establish the response equations for hepatic blood flows in sheep and the contribution of hepatic arterial flow to hepatic venous blood flow due to changes in intake levels at constant diet composition. The FLORA (FLuxes across Organs and tissues in Ruminant Animals) database was used, and meta-analysis performed. The meta-analysis involved selection of published papers, identification of studies, description and coding of the selected dataset and statistical analysis using a covariance model. Meta-analyses were carried out using a within-study approach. To ensure absence of bias, the analysis incorporated interfering variables and factors studied in between-study comparisons. Variables concerned diet composition; qualitative factors concerned the physiological state of the animals and the methods used to measure blood flow. The results obtained showed that hepatic blood flows were positively related to intake in sheep. The magnitude of the response (as indicated by the slope) varied with the level of intake and the blood vessel (portal, hepatic venous or arterial). Nine linear relationships were established for the portal, hepatic venous and arterial blood flows as a function of dry matter intake (DMI) with below- and above-maintenance levels considered separately. Data obtained at below- and above-maintenance levels were considered together and four quadratic relationships were established for hepatic blood flows as a function of DMI. These relationships expressed a strong effect of intake on hepatic blood flows. The contribution of hepatic arterial to hepatic venous blood flow averaged 18.2%, with a wide variability. It did not vary significantly with level of intake. Although in between-study comparisons the arterial/venous blood flow was positively influenced by the organic matter digestibility of the diet, the relationships we obtained were robust. They can be used in models of net hepatic nutrient fluxes to predict variations and absolute values of hepatic blood flows from variations and absolute values of DMI.

Рассмотрены проблемы функционирования массовой культуры. Рассмотрены особенности конструирования в массовой культуре идеологических концепций. В частности, представлены данные об изменении актуальных систем кодов и сюжетных и идеологических паттернов в жанровой литературе

ABSTRACT: Many studies over the last 30 years have shown the effects of farming practices on milk compounds. Combinations of practices may have antagonistic or synergistic effects on milk compounds, but these combination effects remain underinvestigated. Research needs to focus on overall intrinsic milk quality (including sensory, technological, health, and nutritional dimensions) and identify the combinations that can optimize it. The aim of this study was to identify which combinations of farming practices achieved the best scores for sensory, technological, health, and nutritional dimensions and for overall intrinsic milk quality. Ninety-nine private farms were visited once each to sample their bulk tank milk and survey their farming practices. The surveyed practices concerned herd characteristics, feeding management, housing conditions, and milking and milk storage conditions on the day of test. Analyses of bulk tank milk were designed to evaluate the overall intrinsic quality of the milk for 2 target products: raw milk cheese and semi-skimmed UHT milk. Regression trees were then used to identify the combinations of farming practices that achieved the best scores on each dimension and on overall intrinsic quality of the milk. Breed and diet (type of forage) were the most influential factors for sensory and health dimensions and for technological and nutritional dimension scores, respectively, in the cheese assessment. Overall cheese quality was highly positively correlated with these 4 dimension scores. Therefore, breed and diet emerged as the most influential practices in the regression tree for overall cheese quality. However, the combinations of practices that resulted in the best quality scores differed according to dimension studied and product targeted. This suggests that advice on farming practices to improve intrinsic milk quality needs to be adapted according to the end-purpose of the collected milk. This innovative approach combining on-farm data and regression trees provides farm managers with a valuable and practical tool to prioritize practices in terms of their role in shaping milk quality, and to identify the combinations of practices that promote good milk quality and practice thresholds or modalities needed to achieve it.

Clean high-resolution mass spectra (HRMS) are essential to a successful structural elucidation of an unknown feature during nontarget analysis (NTA) workflows. This is a crucial step, particularly for the spectra generated during data-independent acquisition or during direct infusion experiments. The most commonly available tools only take advantage of the time domain for spectral cleanup. Here, we present an algorithm that combines the time domain and mass domain information to perform spectral deconvolution. The algorithm employs a probability-based cumulative neutral loss (CNL) model for fragment deconvolution. The optimized model, with a mass tolerance of 0.005 Da and a score CNL threshold of 0.00, was able to achieve a true positive rate (TPr) of 95.0%, a false discovery rate (FDr) of 20.6%, and a reduction rate of 35.4%. Additionally, the CNL model was extensively tested on real samples containing predominantly pesticides at different concentration levels and with matrix effects. Overall, the model was able to obtain a TPr above 88.8% with FD rates between 33 and 79% and reduction rates between 9 and 45%. Finally, the CNL model was compared with the retention time difference method and peak shape correlation analysis, showing that a combination of correlation analysis and the CNL model was the most effective for fragment deconvolution, obtaining a TPr of 84.7%, an FDr of 54.4%, and a reduction rate of 51.0%.

Rapid optimization of gradient liquid chromatographic (LC) separations often utilizes analyte retention modelling to predict retention times as function of eluent composition. However, due to the dwell volume and technical imperfections, the actual gradient may deviate from the set gradient in a fashion unique to the employed instrument. This makes accurate retention modelling for gradient LC challenging, in particular when very fast separations are pursued. Although gradient deformation has been addressed in method-transfer situations, it is rarely taken into account when reporting analyte retention parameters obtained from gradient LC data, hampering the comparison of data from various sources. In this study, a response-function-based algorithm was developed to determine analyte retention parameters corrected for geometry-induced deformations by specific LC instruments. Out of a number of mathematical distributions investigated as response-functions, the so-called "stable function" was found to describe the formed gradient most accurately. The four parameters describing the model resemble the statistical moments of the distribution and are related to chromatographic parameters, such as dwell volume and flow rate. The instrument-specific response function can then be used to predict the actual shape of any other gradient programmed on that instrument. To incorporate the predicted gradient in the retention modelling of the analytes, the model was extended to facilitate an unlimited number of linear gradient steps to solve the equations numerically. The significance and impact of distinct gradient deformation for fast gradients was demonstrated using three different LC instruments. As a proof of principle, the algorithm and retention parameters obtained on a specific instrument were used to predict the retention times on different instruments. The relative error in the predicted retention times went down from an average of 9.8% and 12.2% on the two other instruments when using only a dwell-volume correction to 2.1% and 6.5%, respectively, when using the proposed algorithm. The corrected retention parameters are less dependent on geometry-induced instrument effects., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The pharmaceutical torasemide is an important loop diuretic and was 2017 one of the ten most prescribed drugs in Germany. Despite its detection in different compartments of the urban water cycle including drinking water, no studies were so far performed to elucidate its fate in the environment and the occurrence of transformation products (TPs). Therefore, we investigated the phototransformation, microbial degradation, transformation with human liver microsomes and anodic oxidation of torasemide to obtain good coverage of environmentally relevant degradation products. Overall sixteen products were identified, covering the following reaction mechanisms: aromatic and aliphatic hydroxylation, including further oxidation to carboxylic acids and quinone imines, amide cleavage, N-dealkylation, N-dearylation, and sulfonamide hydrolysis to sulfonic acids. Especially the formation of quinone imines could be of concern as they are highly reactive electrophiles. Torasemide itself was observed in all investigated wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) samples and wastewater-impacted surface waters. The maximum detected concentration was about 350 ng L -1 . Only three of the sixteen transformation products were generally observed in at least one of the samples and the most frequently detected TPs were the human metabolites hydroxytorasemide (TP 364a) and carboxytorasemide (TP 378a). The complete removal of TP 364a during wastewater treatment was in agreement with the results of microbial degradation experiments. TP 364a was most likely transformed into TP 378a, which was microbially less degraded in lab experiments. Based on estimated concentrations, TP 378a could reach about 1 μg L -1 in the investigated wastewater matrices., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Denatonium, one of the bitterest substances known to man, was recently identified as wastewater borne micropollutant in surface waters. Therefore, photodegradation experiments and electrochemical degradation were performed to identify abiotic and putative biotic transformation products (TPs). Indirect rather than direct photodegradation proved to be important for denatonium removal by solar irradiation and produced seven TPs. Amide hydrolysis, hydroxylation, N-dealkylation, and N-dearylation were revealed as the main mechanisms. Anodic oxidation of denatonium was related to the formation of overall ten products and despite considerable different yields, all TPs from indirect photodegradation were mimicked electrochemically. Among them, lidocaine was the only TP detected after conventional wastewater treatment and in surface waters. The occurrence of lidocaine was however associated with its application as local anesthetic rather than to a degradation of denatonium. The absence of additional products suggests that denatonium degradation is negligible under environmental conditions, supporting the previously described persistent nature of this compound. Advanced water treatment techniques however have the potential to degrade denatonium. About 74% of the initial denatonium load was removed from wastewater during pilot-scale ozonation. The degradation of denatonium was accompanied here with the formation of at least two polar products, which are passing unchanged through a sand filter after ozonation. Both substances have completely unknown (toxicological) properties and this study seems to be the first report about their structures in general, as none of them was found in any of the large compound libraries (e.g. PubChem)., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Denatonium is one of the bitterest substances known to man and therefore applied in numerous consumer products to prevent an accidental or intentional consumption. So far no information was available on the occurrence of this compound in the environment. A sensitive targeted method was developed and applied to water samples taken in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Denatonium was detected in 100% of the investigated 22 wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluents with a maximum concentration of 341 ng L -1 . Additionally, water samples were taken from the Ammer river over a period of one week and all wastewater impacted samples showed denatonium at concentrations up to 195 ng L -1 . Retrospective analysis of high-resolution mass spectrometric measurements of WWTP effluents from Italy and Switzerland confirmed and therefore point to an international occurrence of denatonium as anthropogenic contaminant., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Worldwide, ozonation of secondary wastewater effluents is increasingly considered in order to decrease the load of organic contaminants before environmental discharge. However, despite the constantly growing knowledge of ozonation over the past few years, the characterization of transformation products (TPs) is still a major concern, particularly because such TPs might remain biologically active. It has been shown for selected tertiary amine pharmaceuticals that they react with ozone and form the corresponding N-oxides. This study therefore applies liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) to assess the overall N-oxide formation during the pilot-scale ozonation of a secondary wastewater effluent from a major city in Germany. Sample analysis by LC-HRMS revealed the occurrence of 1,229 compounds, among which 853 were precursors attenuated by ozone and 165 were TPs. Further examination of precursors and TPs using Kendrick mass and Kendrick mass defect analysis revealed 34 pairs of precursors and products corresponding to a mono-oxygenation. Among these, 27 pairs (16% of all TPs) were consistent with N-oxides since the TP had a higher retention time than the precursor, a characteristic of these compounds. Using high resolution tandem mass spectrometry, 10 of these N-oxides could be identified and were shown to be stable during a subsequent filtration step.

Carbon nanotube (CNT) membranes were produced from multi-walled CNTs by a filtration technique and used for the removal of the betablocker metoprolol by adsorptive and reactive processes. The reactivity of CNT membranes was enhanced by nanoparticulate zero-valent iron (NZVI) which was deposited on the CNT membranes by pulsed voltammetry applying defined number of pulses (Fe-CNT (100) and Fe-CNT (400) membranes). Surface analysis with SEM showed iron nanoparticle sizes between 19 and 425 nm. Pore size distribution for the different membranes was determined by capillary flow porometry (Galwick fluid). Pore size distribution for all membranes was similar (40 nm), which resulted in a water permeability typical for microfiltration membranes. Metoprolol was removed by the CNT membrane only by sorption, whereas the Fe-CNT membrane revealed also metoprolol degradation due to Fenton type reactions. Further application of electrochemical potentials on both the CNT and the Fe-CNT membranes improved the removal efficiencies to 74% for CNT membranes at 1 V and to 97% for Fe-CNT (400) membranes at 1 V. Seven transformation products have been identified for metoprolol by high-resolution mass spectrometry when electrochemical degradation was performed with CNT and Fe-CNT membranes. Additionally, two of the identified transformation products (TPs) were also observed for Fe-CNT membranes without the application of electrochemical potential. However, only 10% of the degraded metoprolol could be explained by the formation of TPs., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Unlabelled: The mechanisms and organisms involved in the natural formation of volatile organohalogen compounds (VOX) are largely unknown. We provide evidence that the common and widespread soil bacterium Sinorhizobium meliloti strain 1021 is capable of producing up to 3338·6 ± 327·8 ng l(-1) headspace volume of chloroform (CHCl3 ) and 807·8 ± 13·5 ng l(-1)  headspace volume of tetrachloroethene (C2 Cl4 ) within 1 h when grown in soil extract medium. Biotic VOX formation has been suggested to be linked to the activity of halogenating enzymes such as haloperoxidases. We tested if the observed VOX formation by S. meliloti can be attributed to one of its chloroperoxidases (Smc01944) that is highly expressed in the presence of H2 O2. However, addition of 10 mmol l(-1) H2 O2 to the S. meliloti cultures decreased VOX formation by 52% for chloroform and 25% for tetrachloroethene, while viable cell numbers decreased by 23%. Interestingly, smc01944 gene expression increased 450-fold. The quantification of extracellular chlorination activity in cell suspension experiments did not provide evidence for a role of S. meliloti chloroperoxidases in the observed VOX formation. This suggests that a momentarily unknown mechanism which requires no H2 O2 might be responsible for the VOX formation by S. meliloti. Regardless of the underlying mechanism our results suggest that the soil bacterium S. meliloti might be an important source of VOX in soils., Significance and Impact of the Study: Volatile organohalogen compounds (VOX) strongly influence atmospheric chemistry and Earth's climate. Besides anthropogenic emissions they are naturally produced by either abiotic or biotic pathways in various environments. Particularly in soils, microbial processes drive the natural halogen cycle but the direct link to microbial VOX formation has not been studied in detail yet. In this study we provide evidence that the common and widespread soil bacterium Sinorhizobium meliloti strain 1021 forms chloroform and tetrachloroethene. The potential contribution of S. meliloti to soil VOX release could significantly influence soil and atmospheric chemistry., (© 2015 The Society for Applied Microbiology.)

Carbon stable isotope fractionation during 1,2-dichloroethane (1,2-DCA), dichloroethene (DCE) and vinyl chloride (VC) dechlorination was analysed for two Dehalococcoides strains, Dehalococcoides mccartyi strain 195 (formerly Dehalococcoides ethenogenes strain 195) and D. mccartyi strain BTF08, and used to characterize the reaction. The isotope enrichment factors (εC) determined for 1,2-DCA were -30.8 ± 1.3‰ and -29.0 ± 3.0‰ for D. mccartyi strain BTF08 and D. mccartyi strain 195, respectively. Enrichment factors (εC) determined for chlorinated ethenes with strain BTF08 were -28.8 ± 1.5‰ (VC), -30.5 ± 1.5‰ (cis-DCE) and -12.4 ± 1.1‰ (1,1-DCE). Product, ethene, related enrichment factors (εC1,2-DCA-ethene) calculated for 1,2-DCA (-34.1 and -32.3‰ for strain BTF08 and strain 195, respectively) were similar to substrate based enrichment factors (εC1,2-DCA), supporting the hypothesis that ethene is the direct product of 1,2-DCA dichloroelimination but that VC was a side product as result of branching in the reaction., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)