Ab initio calculations reveal that radiative lifetime of the lowest excited singlet state of 2-aminopyridine molecule should be around 20 ns, consistent with the molecules of the same type but is about one order of magnitude larger than the claimed experimental fluorescent lifetime in recent years. An S(1)/S(0) conical intersection close to the S(1) state has been located, which could be the po...

The proteins of any organism evolve at disparate rates. A long list of factors affecting rates of protein evolution have been identified. However, the relative importance of each factor in determining rates of protein evolution remains unresolved. The prevailing view is that evolutionary rates are dominantly determined by gene expression, and that other factors such as network centrality have o...

In response to rapidly rising home health spending from the late 1980s through the mid-1990s, the Congress enacted major changes to Medicares home health payments in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA).1 These and subsequent changes culminated in the implementation of a prospective payment system (PPS) on October 1, 2000, which provides incentives to home health agencies (HHAs) to operate eff...

We have compared the behavior of ovotransferrin at the air-solution interface in the presence of a monovalent ion (acetate), or a divalent ion (citrate), the latter being known to induce conformational changes of this protein upon interaction with its iron-binding sites. We have characterised the adsorption layer at the air-water interface in terms of homogeneity, surface concentration excess a...

This paper is intended to describe the roles and responsibilities of the small school head and is based on the personal experiences of a serving headteacher. It seems an accepted element of academic discourse that recent governmental initiatives have impacted on the leadership and management of educational institutions in such a way that they have offered both opportunities and challenges for s...