State-Sponsored Homophobia: A World Survey of Sexual Orientation Laws - Criminalisation, Protection and Recognition, 11th Edition

This 11th edition of the State-Sponsored Homophobia report sees a remarkable increase in the amount of information and analysis provided when compared to the previous editions, but it also organises this information in a clearer and more reader-friendly format.Human rights defenders, legal experts, NGOs, allies, governmental and UN agencies, and media agencies will find the core information in relation to legislation affecting people on the basis of their sexual orientation, additional information and articles providing the necessary context to understand the impact of said legislation on the lives of people, and ways to initiate or follow up the process leading to change where needed.For the first time, a wealth of maps and charts makes it easier to see how each country is faring in terms of lesbian, gay, bisexual-related legislation and to compare one country with another. The importance of these tools cannot be overstated: they allow us to measure progress (or setbacks) in the course of the years, while the comparison exposes the arbitrariness of laws persecuting individual on the basis of their sexual orientation.For the first time you will also find the partial results of the ILGA-RIWI 2016 Global Attitudes Survey on LGBTI People in partnership with Logo (US-based LGBT media organisation). The survey, carried out in 65 countries generated the data (a tiny part of which is presented in this edition in 17 criminalising States) allows us to see whether or not a certain piece of legislation enjoys the support of the public in a given country. While more analysis of the survey will be provided in the course of 2016, it is important to highlight the innovative character of the methodology used, thanks to the technology of RIWI Corp., a global survey technology company based in Canada. Through this technology we were able to obtain randomized and statistically valid samples of the population for each country, and to reach countries (like Saudi Arabia) that are normally very difficult to survey in relation to LGBTI issues.The combined information of the State-Sponsored Homophobia report and the Global Attitudes Survey on LGBTI People – which will continue over the next years – together with a new report on Trans-related legislation that we will present at the next ILGA World Conference in Bangkok (28 November – 2 December 2016), will provide a powerful set of indicators for individual activists, NGOs and allies, to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns and initiatives over the years

Sensor web geoprocessing on the grid

Recent standardisation initiatives in the fields of grid computing and geospatial sensor middleware provide an exciting opportunity for the composition of large scale geospatial monitoring and prediction systems from existing components. Sensor middleware standards are paving the way for the emerging sensor web which is envisioned to make millions of geospatial sensors and their data publicly accessible by providing discovery, task and query functionality over the internet. In a similar fashion, concurrent development is taking place in the field of grid computing whereby the virtualisation of computational and data storage resources using middleware abstraction provides a framework to share computing resources. Sensor web and grid computing share a common vision of world-wide connectivity and in their current form they are both realised using web services as the underlying technological framework. The integration of sensor web and grid computing middleware using open standards is expected to facilitate interoperability and scalability in near real-time geoprocessing systems. The aim of this thesis is to develop an appropriate conceptual and practical framework in which open standards in grid computing, sensor web and geospatial web services can be combined as a technological basis for the monitoring and prediction of geospatial phenomena in the earth systems domain, to facilitate real-time decision support. The primary topic of interest is how real-time sensor data can be processed on a grid computing architecture. This is addressed by creating a simple typology of real-time geoprocessing operations with respect to grid computing architectures. A geoprocessing system exemplar of each geoprocessing operation in the typology is implemented using contemporary tools and techniques which provides a basis from which to validate the standards frameworks and highlight issues of scalability and interoperability. It was found that it is possible to combine standardised web services from each of these aforementioned domains despite issues of interoperability resulting from differences in web service style and security between specifications. A novel integration method for the continuous processing of a sensor observation stream is suggested in which a perpetual processing job is submitted as a single continuous compute job. Although this method was found to be successful two key challenges remain; a mechanism for consistently scheduling real-time jobs within an acceptable time-frame must be devised and the tradeoff between efficient grid resource utilisation and processing latency must be balanced. The lack of actual implementations of distributed geoprocessing systems built using sensor web and grid computing has hindered the development of standards, tools and frameworks in this area. This work provides a contribution to the small number of existing implementations in this field by identifying potential workflow bottlenecks in such systems and gaps in the existing specifications. Furthermore it sets out a typology of real-time geoprocessing operations that are anticipated to facilitate the development of real-time geoprocessing software.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceEngineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) : School of Civil Engineering & Geosciences, Newcastle UniversityGBUnited Kingdo

Editar la Estoria de Espanna: retos y problemas de la edición digital

La Estoria de Espanna Digital es el primer intento de emplear herramientas digitales para la edición de una obra medieval peninsular en prosa. El artículo sitúa la Estoria Digital en el marco de los debates actuales sobre la teoría de la edición digital –los cuales emergen de la teoría y la práctica de la edición anglosajona– para proponer maneras (r)evolucionarias e innovadoras de concebir el objeto de estudio

Elongation Factor TFIIS Prevents Transcription Stress and R-Loop Accumulation to Maintain Genome Stability

Although correlations between RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) transcription stress, R-loops, and genome instability have been established, the mechanisms underlying these connections remain poorly understood. Here, we used a mutant version of the transcription elongation factor TFIIS (TFIISmut), aiming to specifically induce increased levels of RNAPII pausing, arrest, and/or backtracking in human cells. Indeed, TFIISmut expression results in slower elongation rates, relative depletion of polymerases from the end of genes, and increased levels of stopped RNAPII; it affects mRNA splicing and termination as well. Remarkably, TFIISmut expression also dramatically increases R-loops, which may form at the anterior end of backtracked RNAPII and trigger genome instability, including DNA strand breaks. These results shed light on the relationship between transcription stress and R-loops and suggest that different classes of R-loops may exist, potentially with distinct consequences for genome stability.Cancer Research UK FC001166UK Medical Research Council FC001166Wellcome Trust FC001166European Research Council 693327, ERC2014 AdG669898Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad BFU2013-42918-P, BFU2016-75058-

Creative Experiments Using a System for Learning High-level Performance Structure in Ableton Live

(Abstract to follow