Winning margins in British Thoroughbred Racehorses

In human sporting events the difference between finishing first and second is often less than 1%. For each sporting discipline it is important to know how large an enhancement of performance needs to be before it makes a difference to the medal winning prospects of that athlete. In contrast to the known winning margins in many human sporting disciplines, the winning margins in horse racing are unknown. The winning margins for group 1, 2 and 3 flat and national hunt races over a 5 year period were calculated. For flat races 3 categories were included: (1) flat races of 6 furlongs; (2) 1 mile; or (3) 1 mile 4 furlongs1. For national hunt 2 categories were included: (1) hurdle races over 2 miles; or (2) chase races over 3 miles. Race times from a total of 416 races were included (275 flat races and 141 national hunt races). Overall the percentage difference between first place and second place was only 0.32%, the difference between coming first and third was 0.75% and between first and fourth was 1.15%. Overall, the winning margins between first place and second place were closer for flat races than for national hunt races. When a 1% improvement was applied to the fourth placed horse this would result in the winning time in 76% of flat races and 50% of national hunt races. This study shows the very small margins between winning and placing in horseracing. These results are similar to those of elite human sporting disciplines. This suggests that training strategies and veterinary interventions that result in a small percentage improvement in performance may translate to a meaningful difference in terms of winning/placing. </jats:p

Durrington Walls to West Amesbury by way of Stonehenge: a major transformation of the Holocene landscape

A new sequence of Holocene landscape change has been discovered through an investigation of sediment sequences, palaeosols, pollen and molluscan data discovered during the Stonehenge Riverside Project. The early post-glacial vegetational succession in the Avon valley at Durrington Walls was apparently slow and partial, with intermittent woodland modification and the opening-up of this landscape in the later Mesolithic and earlier Neolithic, though a strong element of pine lingered into the third millennium BC. There appears to have been a major hiatus around 2900 cal BC, coincident with the beginnings of demonstrable human activities at Durrington Walls, but slightly after activity started at Stonehenge. This was reflected in episodic increases in channel sedimentation and tree and shrub clearance, leading to a more open downland, with greater indications of anthropogenic activity, and an increasingly wet floodplain with sedges and alder along the river’s edge. Nonetheless, a localized woodland cover remained in the vicinity of DurringtonWalls throughout the third and second millennia BC, perhaps on the higher parts of the downs, while stable grassland, with rendzina soils, predominated on the downland slopes, and alder–hazel carr woodland and sedges continued to fringe the wet floodplain. This evidence is strongly indicative of a stable and managed landscape in Neolithic and Bronze Age times. It is not until c 800–500 cal BC that this landscape was completely cleared, except for the marshy-sedge fringe of the floodplain, and that colluvial sedimentation began in earnest associated with increased arable agriculture, a situation that continued through Roman and historic times

Visual Narrative: A Technique to Enhance Secondary Students' Contribution to the Development of Inclusive, Socially Just School Environments - Lessons from a Box of Crayons

This paper reports on a project that involved Australian secondary school students working as participatory researchers in collaboration with a researcher and two teachers. Research methodology using visual narrative techniques provided the students with a conceptual lens to view their school community. The examples of visual narrative shared in this presentation depict problems, contradictions of exclusion and celebrations of inclusion in the lived world of the students. Photographs combined with narratives represent students' view of their social, cultural and political environment. This project illustrates how the insights of students can help break down assumptions, values and meanings that block progress to achieving more socially just schools

Seminar: access all areas

Sensory Objects presented their research and their Sensory Labels for the British Museum at a seminar called Access All Areas organised by the Visitor Users Group

The gammaretroviral p12 protein has multiple domains that function during the early stages of replication.

BACKGROUND: The Moloney murine leukaemia virus (Mo-MLV) gag gene encodes three main structural proteins, matrix, capsid and nucleocapsid and a protein called p12. In addition to its role during the late stages of infection, p12 has an essential, but undefined, function during early post-entry events. As these stages of retroviral infection remain poorly understood, we set out to investigate the function of p12. RESULTS: Examination of the infectivity of Mo-MLV virus-like particles containing a mixture of wild type and mutant p12 revealed that the N- and C-terminal regions of p12 are sequentially acting domains, both required for p12 function, and that the N-terminal activity precedes the C-terminal activity in the viral life cycle. By creating a panel of p12 mutants in other gammaretroviruses, we showed that these domains are conserved in this retroviral genus. We also undertook a detailed mutational analysis of each domain, identifying residues essential for function. These data show that different regions of the N-terminal domain are necessary for infectivity in different gammaretroviruses, in stark contrast to the C-terminal domain where the same region is essential for all viruses. Moreover, chimeras between the p12 proteins of Mo-MLV and gibbon ape leukaemia virus revealed that the C-terminal domains are interchangeable whereas the N-terminal domains are not. Finally, we identified potential functions for each domain. We observed that particles with defects in the N-terminus of p12 were unable to abrogate restriction factors, implying that their cores were impaired. We further showed that defects in the C-terminal domain of p12 could be overcome by introducing a chromatin binding motif into the protein. CONCLUSIONS: Based on these data, we propose a model for p12 function where the N-terminus of p12 interacts with, and stabilizes, the viral core, allowing the C-terminus of p12 to tether the preintegration complex to host chromatin during mitosis, facilitating integration

Surface passivation of carbon nanoparticles with branched macromolecules influences near infrared bioimaging

A superior and commercially exploitable 'green synthesis' of optically active carbon nanoparticle (OCN) is revealed in this work. The naked carbon particles (<20 nm) were derived from commercial food grade honey. The fluorescence properties of these particles were significantly enhanced by utilizing hyberbranched polymer for surface passivation. A dramatic increase in near infrared emission was achieved compared to a linear polymer (PEG) coated carbon nanoparticles. Interestingly, as passivating agent becomes more extensively branched (pseudo generation 2 to 4), the average radiant efficiency amplifies considerably as a direct result of the increasing surface area available for light passivation. The particles showed negligible loss of cell viability in presence of endothelial cells in vitro. Preliminary in vivo experiment showed high contrast enhancement in auxiliary lymphnode in a mouse model. The exceptionally rapid lymphatic transport of these particles suggests that such an approach may offer greater convenience and reduced procedural expense, as well as improved surgical advantage as the patient is positioned on the table for easier resection

Stop and Smell the Romans: Odor in Roman Literature.

In this dissertation, I examine the role of smell in Latin literature. Looking specifically at Roman comedy, epic, and epigram, I demonstrate both how smells function as literary devices and how these texts reveal particularly Roman ways of thinking about the power and meaning of scents. My first chapter treats the connection between odor and identity, illustrated in the comedies of Plautus (late 3rd-early 2nd century BC). Like masks and costume, smell provides information about character and role and is an important element of comic role-play and identity-switching. Interestingly, however, characters who use smell to improve or alter themselves frequently fail; instead they draw attention to the disparity between their true identity and the role they are trying to assume. In Chapter 2, I examine how Latin epic, which chronicles both heroic quests and civil discord, links disgust at foul odors to anxieties about death by emphasizing odor’s ability to cross boundaries and spread contagion. These qualities suggest the threat of death, the shame of dying unheroically, the distinction between plague and war death, and the injustice suffered by the unburied. Moreover, olfactory signs of civil strife recall the lingering stain of civil war in the Roman collective memory, as well as the impossibility of determining a single guilty party in civil war. In my third chapter, Martial’s Epigrams (1st century AD) combine an interest in olfactory identity and contagion. While Martial highlights the scents of his literary subjects, these odors simultaneously pose a threat to the poet’s persona, whose exposure to an array of questionable scents threatens his bodily integrity and poetic and moral authority. Additionally, I suggest that odor mirrors qualities of Martial’s poems themselves: short-lived but enduring, insignificant but powerful, truthful (so Martial claims) yet frequently open to (mis)interpretation. Through his poems about smell, Martial teaches his audience not only how to read his epigrams, but even how to become critics themselves. As a literary study which accounts for the cultural significance of smell, this dissertation highlights the importance of odors in literature while simultaneously shedding light on Roman ideas about disgust, contagion, identity, and the body.PhDClassical StudiesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116729/1/ktallen_1.pd