Preserving the Sounds of the South

Joint paper delivered by Sean Street and David Lee, Director of the Wessex Film and sound Archive about the joint project, funded by the AHRC, to digitize and put online the Central Southern England Commercial Radio Archiv

Preserving The Sounds of the South

The Centre for Broadcasting History Research in the Media School at Bournemouth University, and the Wesse3x Film and Sound Archive at the Hampshire Record Office undertook a joint project to digitise audio from early commercial radio, held in the WFSA stock. This paper explores the project, which operated between 2006 and 2009

Enhanced Transport of Two Spheres in Viscous Fluid

We obtain a numerical solution for the synchronous motion of two spheres moving in viscous fluid. We find that for a given amount of work performed, the final distance travelled by each sphere is increased by the presence of the other sphere. The result suggests that the transport efficiency of molecular motor cargo in vivo may be improved due to an effective hydrodynamic interaction with neighboring cargos moving along the same direction.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, minor correction

EXPLAINING THE ADOPTION AND DISADOPTION OF SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE: THE CASE OF COVER CROPS IN NORTHERN HONDURAS

Although technology adoption has been the subject of a great deal of economic research, that focused on the economics of adoption of low-input "sustainable" systems has been much more limited and recent. This paper attempts to explain the recent decline in the use of cover crops using in maize farming in the Department of Atlantida, Honduras. In the early 1970's, farmers in the region began rotating maize with the velvetbean (mucuna ssp.), a system learned from Guatemalan immigrants. Tohe mucuna-maize system decreased the labor required for maize farming even as it increased yields, prevented erosion, and conferred a variety of other agronomic benefits. By 1992, estimates show that the system had diffused among more than 60% of farmers in the Department. Both due to this widespread dissemination, and the fact that diffusion was largely spontaneous (unassisted by extensions and NGOs), the maize-mucuna system has become a widely acknowledged "success story" of sustainable agriculture diffusion. However, recent anecdotal evidence, confirmed by the survey research reported here, shows that by the late 1990s, use of the system had begun to decline sharply. Various hypotheses about the cause of this decline were investigated in this research, including whether the abandonment of the mucuna-maize system is attributable to a generalized decline in maize cultivation, changes in land tenure and distribution, a burgeoning cattle industry, infrastructural improvements, widespread infestations of noxious weed (rottboellia cochinchinensis), or limitations in farmer management. Modeling techniques evaluated two land-use decisions: whether to adopt mucuna-maize and the contingent decision of whether to abandon the system, once adopted. Bivariate probit analysis is used in the econometric analysis. Descriptive statistics and econometric results indicate that age, level of income from non-maize sources, the presence of rottboellia, and access to a road or highway are significantly related to the abandonment of overcropping. Meanwhile, greater dedication to maize, diversification into high value crops, greater experience with the system, and annual reseeding of mucuna are associated with continued use of the mucuna-maize rotation. The empirical results overall demonstrate that the phenomenon of maize-muchuna adoption and abandonment is a highly complex process. The results have policy implications for the "farmer to farmer" model of extension as well as the promotion of mucuna-maize as a sustainable agriculture technique. In the first case, less emphasis on diffusion and greater attention to farmer-to-farmer teaching of crop system dynamics may be important for the durability of cover crop systems. Regarding the second, cover crop species like mucuna should not be viewed as "silver bullet" solution to sustaining low-input agriculture: indeed, exclusive rotation of mucuna with maize may eliminate critical sources of plant and animal species diversity, ultimately undermining the system itself.International development, Sustainable agriculture, Adoption, Disadoption, Farmer management, Crop Production/Industries,

WiseMove: A Framework for Safe Deep Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous Driving

Machine learning can provide efficient solutions to the complex problems encountered in autonomous driving, but ensuring their safety remains a challenge. A number of authors have attempted to address this issue, but there are few publicly-available tools to adequately explore the trade-offs between functionality, scalability, and safety. We thus present WiseMove, a software framework to investigate safe deep reinforcement learning in the context of motion planning for autonomous driving. WiseMove adopts a modular learning architecture that suits our current research questions and can be adapted to new technologies and new questions. We present the details of WiseMove, demonstrate its use on a common traffic scenario, and describe how we use it in our ongoing safe learning research

A Shape Dynamical Approach to Holographic Renormalization

We provide a bottom-up argument to derive some known results from holographic renormalization using the classical bulk-bulk equivalence of General Relativity and Shape Dynamics, a theory with spatial conformal (Weyl) invariance. The purpose of this paper is twofold: 1) to advertise the simple classical mechanism: trading of gauge symmetries, that underlies the bulk-bulk equivalence of General Relativity and Shape Dynamics to readers interested in dualities of the type of AdS/CFT; and 2) to highlight that this mechanism can be used to explain certain results of holographic renormalization, providing an alternative to the AdS/CFT conjecture for these cases. To make contact with usual the semiclassical AdS/CFT correspondence, we provide, in addition, a heuristic argument that makes it plausible why the classical equivalence between General Relativity and Shape Dynamics turns into a duality between radial evolution in gravity and the renormalization group flow of a conformal field theory. We believe that Shape Dynamics provides a new perspective on gravity by giving conformal structure a primary role within the theory. It is hoped that this work provides the first steps towards understanding what this new perspective may be able to teach us about holographic dualities.Comment: 27 pages, no figures. Version to appear in EPJC. Title changed. Minor corrections to tex

Quasilocal Smarr relation for an asymptotically flat spacetime

A quasilocal Smarr relation is obtained from Euler's theorem for Einstein-Maxwell(-Dilaton) theory for an asymptotically flat spacetime, and its associated first law is studied. To check both, we calculate quasilocal variables by employing Brown-York quasilocal method along with Mann-Marolf counterterms, which are consistent with Tolman temperature. We also derive entropy by constructing a quasilocal thermodynamic potential via Euclidean method. Here we found that the Euclidean action value in a quasilocal frame just yields a usual thermodynamic potential form, which do not include a $PA$ term, and entropy just becomes the Bekenstein-Hawking one. Through the examples, we confirmed that our quasilocal Smarr relation is satisfied with all cases, and its first law is also exactly satisfied except the dyonic black hole with the dilaton coupling constant $a=\sqrt{3}$. In that case when making a large $R$ expansion, the first law is satisfied up to $1/R$ order but it does not hold for higher sub-leading order of $R$. This issue should be resolved in future.Comment: 24 page

Impact of COPD and anemia on motor and cognitive performance in the general older population: results from the English longitudinal study of ageing

Background: Cognitive and motor-performance decline with age and the process is accelerated by decline in general health. In this study, we aimed to estimate the effects of COPD and HB levels on cognitive and motor performance in the general older population and assess potential interaction. Methods: The English Longitudinal Study of Aging is a population-based cohort study including measurements of lung-function and HB levels together with cognitive and motor performance testing. Data were collected from 5709 participants including three measurement time over eight years. COPD was defined using lung-function-parameters and clinical symptoms. HB was assessed continuously and low HB was defined using clinical anemia cutoffs. Linear mixed-effects regression models were used to quantify the associations of COPD and HB with outcome measures, both individually and in combination. Results: Participants with both low HB and COPD demonstrated worse motor performance compared to individuals with only one exposure, resulting in up to 1 s (95%CI, 0.04–1.8) longer time needed to complete the five times sit to stand task than what would be expected based on purely additive effects. Additionally in individuals with COPD, the time to complete the motor-performance task per unit decrease in continuous HB levels was longer than in participants without COPD after full adjustment for confounding (up to 1.38 s/unit HB level, 95% CI: 0.65–2.11). Conclusion: In persons with COPD low HB levels may contribute to low motor-performance in a supra additive fashion. Further studies should re-evaluate whether earlier treatment of lower HB in these individuals might be beneficial