We report the relaxation dynamics of keto and enol or keto-imino cytosine, photoexcited in the wavelength range of 260-290 nm. Three transients with femtosecond to hundreds of picoseconds lifetimes are observed for the biologically relevant keto tautomer and are assigned to internal conversion and excited-state tautomerization. Only two transients with femtosecond and picosecond lifetimes are identified for the enol or keto-imino tautomer and are assigned to internal conversion processes. The results are discussed in the context of published ab initio theory.

A compact and robust scheme for broadband excitation of whispering gallery mode (WGM) resonances into a microsphere is demonstrated. A polymer microsphere (10 μm) is encapsulated into the capillary of a microstructured optical fiber, in direct contact with the guiding core. Such a configuration allows efficient and reproducible excitation of the in-MOF-microsphere resonator that is characterized by two launch/collection schemes: core input/scattering output, and sphere input/core output. The latter allows an excitation of the microsphere WGMs externally to the fiber. Numerically calculated WGM spectra are in agreement with experiments. Q factors in the range of 10(3) are typically measured.

We investigated the association between a U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 applicant's self-identified race or ethnicity and the probability of receiving an award by using data from the NIH IMPAC II grant database, the Thomson Reuters Web of Science, and other sources. Although proposals with strong priority scores were equally likely to be funded regardless of race, we find that Asians are 4 percentage points and black or African-American applicants are 13 percentage points less likely to receive NIH investigator-initiated research funding compared with whites. After controlling for the applicant's educational background, country of origin, training, previous research awards, publication record, and employer characteristics, we find that black applicants remain 10 percentage points less likely than whites to be awarded NIH research funding. Our results suggest some leverage points for policy intervention.

Cultural heritage conservation is an active field of research, where there is an ever‐growing demand for nondestructive and noninvasive diagnostic techniques, for performing remote analysis and diagnosis of the condition of historical structures and pieces of art, often of very high cultural and historical value. In this context, holographic interferometry is a very well‐established optical technique for research in cultural heritage, which brings together some very basic and critical properties such as contactless examination and nondestructivity, accuracy, repeatability, and a wide range of applicability. In this paper, the optical technique of digital holographic interferometry is tested on mock‐up, art‐related targets, with 2 different light sources, in an attempt to expand the technique towards a new approach that will profit from an easy‐to‐operate, inexpensive, and tunable source, offering a broad spectrum and wavelength selectivity, according to the needs of the experiments. Examples are presented, and the results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed modified experimental scheme for defect mapping, to be used in structural documentation reports, and for its exploitation in future hybrid optical diagnostic systems and data processing.

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The Erasmus Plus programme ‘Innovative Education and Training in high power laser plasmas’, otherwise known as PowerLaPs, is described. The PowerLaPs programme employs an innovative paradigm in that it is a multi-centre programme where teaching takes place in five separate institutes with a range of different aims and styles of delivery. The ‘in class’ time is limited to four weeks a year, and the programme spans two years. PowerLaPs aims to train students from across Europe in theoretical, applied and laboratory skills relevant to the pursuit of research in laser–plasma interaction physics and inertial confinement fusion (ICF). Lectures are intermingled with laboratory sessions and continuous assessment activities. The programme, which is led by workers from the Technological Educational Institute (TEI) of Crete, and supported by co-workers from the Queen’s University Belfast, the University of Bordeaux, the Czech Technical University in Prague, Ecole Polytechnique, the University of Ioannina, the University of Salamanca and the University of York, has just completed its first year. Thus far three Learning Teaching Training (LTT) activities have been held, at the Queen’s University Belfast, the University of Bordeaux and the Centre for Plasma Physics and Lasers (CPPL) of TEI Crete. The last of these was a two-week long Intensive Programme (IP), while the activities at the other two universities were each five days in length. Thus far work has concentrated upon training in both theoretical and experimental work in plasma physics, high power laser–matter interactions and high energy density physics. The nature of the programme will be described in detail and some metrics relating to the activities carried out to date will be presented.

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