Apicii Coelii de opsoniis et condimentis siue arte coquinaria libri decem

Copia digital. Valladolid : Junta de Castilla y León. Consejería de Cultura y Turismo, 2012-201

Intractable policy failure: the case of bovine TB and badgers

The failure to eliminate bovine TB from the English and Welsh cattle herd represents a long-term intractable policy failure. Cattle-to-cattle transmission of the disease has been underemphasised in the debate compared with transmission from badgers despite a contested evidence base. Archival evidence shows that mythical constructions of the badger have shaped the policy debate. Relevant evidence was incomplete and contested; alternative framings of the policy problem were polarised and difficult to reconcile; and this rendered normal techniques of stakeholder management through co-option and mediation of little assistance

Radioactivity Backgrounds in ZEPLIN-III

We examine electron and nuclear recoil backgrounds from radioactivity in the ZEPLIN-III dark matter experiment at Boulby. The rate of low-energy electron recoils in the liquid xenon WIMP target is 0.75$\pm$0.05 events/kg/day/keV, which represents a 20-fold improvement over the rate observed during the first science run. Energy and spatial distributions agree with those predicted by component-level Monte Carlo simulations propagating the effects of the radiological contamination measured for materials employed in the experiment. Neutron elastic scattering is predicted to yield 3.05$\pm$0.5 nuclear recoils with energy 5-50 keV per year, which translates to an expectation of 0.4 events in a 1-year dataset in anti-coincidence with the veto detector for realistic signal acceptance. Less obvious background sources are discussed, especially in the context of future experiments. These include contamination of scintillation pulses with Cherenkov light from Compton electrons and from $\beta$ activity internal to photomultipliers, which can increase the size and lower the apparent time constant of the scintillation response. Another challenge is posed by multiple-scatter $\gamma$-rays with one or more vertices in regions that yield no ionisation. If the discrimination power achieved in the first run can be replicated, ZEPLIN-III should reach a sensitivity of $\sim 1 \times 10^{-8}$ pb$\cdot$year to the scalar WIMP-nucleon elastic cross-section, as originally conceived.Peer Reviewe

Collins effect and single spin azimuthal asymmetries in the HERMES and COMPASS experiments

Predictions are made for single spin azimuthal asymmetries due to the Collins effect in pion production from semi-inclusive deeply inelastic scattering off transversely and longitudinally polarized targets for the HERMES and COMPASS experiments. The x-dependence of the asymmetries is evaluated using the parton distribution functions from the chiral quark-soliton model. The overall normalization of the predicted asymmetries is determined by the information on the Collins fragmentation function extracted from previous HERMES data on azimuthal asymmetries from a longitudinally polarized target. The single spin asymmetries from the transversely polarized proton target are found to be about 20% for positive and neutral pions both at HERMES and COMPASS. For a longitudinally polarized target we obtain for COMPASS a sin(phi) asymmetry of 1% and a sin(2phi) asymmetry of about 3%.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, Ref.[29] adde

Genome-wide autozygosity is associated with lower general cognitive ability

Inbreeding depression refers to lower fitness among offspring of genetic relatives. This reduced fitness is caused by the inheritance of two identical chromosomal segments (autozygosity) across the genome, which may expose the effects of (partially) recessive deleterious mutations. Even among outbred populations, autozygosity can occur to varying degrees due to cryptic relatedness between parents. Using dense genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data, we examined the degree to which autozygosity associated with measured cognitive ability in an unselected sample of 4854 participants of European ancestry. We used runs of homozygosity-multiple homozygous SNPs in a row-to estimate autozygous tracts across the genome. We found that increased levels of autozygosity predicted lower general cognitive ability, and estimate a drop of 0.6 s.d. among the offspring of first cousins (P=0.003-0.02 depending on the model). This effect came predominantly from long and rare autozygous tracts, which theory predicts as more likely to be deleterious than short and common tracts. Association mapping of autozygous tracts did not reveal any specific regions that were predictive beyond chance after correcting for multiple testing genome wide. The observed effect size is consistent with studies of cognitive decline among offspring of known consanguineous relationships. These findings suggest a role for multiple recessive or partially recessive alleles in general cognitive ability, and that alleles decreasing general cognitive ability have been selected against over evolutionary time.Molecular Psychiatry advance online publication, 22 September 2015; doi:10.1038/mp.2015.120

Introducing middle school children to compulsory D&T : does it influence their choice of subject later on? A case study of Maltese state secondary schools.

In 2005, Design and Technology (D&T) was introduced in Maltese Secondary schools and it has been offered as an optional subject till the present situation. In 2014, D&T has been introduced as a compulsory subject during the first and second year of middle secondary schools yet there was no study indicating its’ impact on student’s perception linked to gender. Issues have surged where low gender representation from females were noticed within schools. Diekman, Weisgram, and Belanger (2015) argue that women in STEM fields of occupation are generally underrepresented, D&T included. Sonja Niiranen (2018), states that despite the work developed on gender equality, technology education appears to have issues related to gender. The number of women in technical careers in EU countries has not increased. This might be due to how childhood experiences set future interactions within technology education. This research investigates the relationship between students’ perceptions of D&T with respect to gender during their compulsory exposure to the subject in Maltese middle schools. Questionnaires were used to build a quantitative case study for exploring the criteria used by students to decide whether to opt for or drop D&T after middle school. Results indicate that students’ perception concerning D&T is generally positive for both genders and the female population has progressively increased, although it is still considered low. The students enjoy D&T in class and value it as a life enhancing subject however, they do not wish to continue studying it further than middle school. Results also indicate that exposure at school had minimal effect on students’ decisions to continue their studies in D&T. The prime variables influencing and ultimately driving students’ decisions seem to be sociocultural factors and future career aspirations. The research concludes that the creation of future employments for D&T graduates and the recognition of D&T courses and qualifications by employers will probably be the most influential factor governing the uptake of the study of D&T at the level of secondary school.peer-reviewe

Measurement of the LT-asymmetry in \pi^0 electroproduction at the energy of the \Delta (1232) resonance

The reaction p(e,e'p)pi^0 has been studied at Q^2=0.2 (GeV/c)^2 in the region of W=1232 MeV. From measurements left and right of q, cross section asymmetries \rho_LT have been obtained in forward kinematics \rho_LT(\theta_\pi^0=20deg) = (-11.68 +/- 2.36_stat +/- 2.36_sys)$ and backward kinematics \rho_LT(\theta_\pi^0=160deg) =(12.18 +/- 0.27_stat +/- 0.82_sys). Multipole ratios \Re(S_1+^* M_1+)/|M_1+|^2 and \Re(S_0+^* M_1+)/|M_1+|^2 were determined in the framework of the MAID2003 model. The results are in agreement with older data. The unusally strong negative \Re(S_0+^* M_1+)/|M_1+|^2 required to bring also the result of Kalleicher et al. in accordance with the rest of the data is almost excluded.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, 4 tables. Changed content. Accepted for publication in EPJ

Elliptic flow of charged particles in Pb-Pb collisions at 2.76 TeV

We report the first measurement of charged particle elliptic flow in Pb-Pb collisions at 2.76 TeV with the ALICE detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The measurement is performed in the central pseudorapidity region (|$\eta$|<0.8) and transverse momentum range 0.2< $p_{\rm T}$< 5.0 GeV/$c$. The elliptic flow signal v$_2$, measured using the 4-particle correlation method, averaged over transverse momentum and pseudorapidity is 0.087 $\pm$ 0.002 (stat) $\pm$ 0.004 (syst) in the 40-50% centrality class. The differential elliptic flow v$_2(p_{\rm T})$ reaches a maximum of 0.2 near $p_{\rm T}$ = 3 GeV/$c$. Compared to RHIC Au-Au collisions at 200 GeV, the elliptic flow increases by about 30%. Some hydrodynamic model predictions which include viscous corrections are in agreement with the observed increase.Comment: 10 pages, 4 captioned figures, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/389