H.C. Andersen og etikken

Der er mange filosoffer, der i tidens løb har arbejdet med etik og etiske spørgsmål, men H.C. Andersen er ikke filosof. Han er forfatter. Han skriver skønlitterære historier og eventyr i stedet for filosofiske værker. Men mange af hans historier behandler etiske spørgsmål og situationer, og de får os til at reflektere over, hvordan personerne i historierne tænker, reagerer og handler, og om vi ville have reageret på samme måde

Identifying Stars of Mass >150 Msun from Their Eclipse by a Binary Companion

We examine the possibility that very massive stars greatly exceeding the commonly adopted stellar mass limit of 150 Msun may be present in young star clusters in the local universe. We identify ten candidate clusters, some of which may host stars with masses up to 600 Msun formed via runaway collisions. We estimate the probabilities of these very massive stars being in eclipsing binaries to be >30%. Although most of these systems cannot be resolved at present, their transits can be detected at distances of 3 Mpc even under the contamination of the background cluster light, due to the large associated luminosities ~10^7 Lsun and mean transit depths of ~10^6 Lsun. Discovery of very massive eclipsing binaries would flag possible progenitors of pair-instability supernovae and intermediate-mass black holes.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, 1 table. Submitted to MNRA

A business model perspective for ICTs in public engagement

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published article can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2012 ElsevierPublic institutions, in their efforts to promote meaningful citizen engagement, are increasingly looking at the democratic potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Previous studies suggest that such initiatives seem to be impeded by socio-technical integration barriers such as low sustainability, poor citizen acceptance, coordination difficulties, lack of understanding and failure to assess their impact. Motivated by these shortcomings, the paper develops and applies a business model perspective as an interceding framework for analysis and evaluation. The underlying principle behind this approach is that it is not technology per se which determines success, but rather the way in which the businessmodel of the technological artifact is configured and employed to achieve the strategic goals. The business model perspective is empirically demonstrated with the case of an online petitioning system implemented by a UK local authority. The case illustrates the importance of considering ICTs in public engagement from a holistic view to make them more manageable and assessable

A specific group of genes respond to cold dehydration stress in cut Alstroemeria flowers whereas ambient dehydration stress accelerates developmental senescence expression patterns

Petal development and senescence entails a normally irreversible process. It starts with petal expansion and pigment production, and ends with nutrient remobilization and ultimately cell death. In many species this is accompanied by petal abscission. Post-harvest stress is an important factor in limiting petal longevity in cut flowers and accelerates some of the processes of senescence such as petal wilting and abscission. However, some of the effects of moderate stress in young flowers are reversible with appropriate treatments. Transcriptomic studies have shown that distinct gene sets are expressed during petal development and senescence. Despite this, the overlap in gene expression between developmental and stress-induced senescence in petals has not been fully investigated in any species. Here a custom-made cDNA microarray from Alstroemeria petals was used to investigate the overlap in gene expression between developmental changes (bud to first sign of senescence) and typical post-harvest stress treatments. Young flowers were stressed by cold or ambient temperatures without water followed by a recovery and rehydration period. Stressed flowers were still at the bud stage after stress treatments. Microarray analysis showed that ambient dehydration stress accelerates many of the changes in gene expression patterns that would normally occur during developmental senescence. However, a higher proportion of gene expression changes in response to cold stress were specific to this stimulus and not senescence related. The expression of 21 transcription factors was characterized, showing that overlapping sets of regulatory genes are activated during developmental senescence and by different stresses

Atypical audiovisual speech integration in infants at risk for autism

The language difficulties often seen in individuals with autism might stem from an inability to integrate audiovisual information, a skill important for language development. We investigated whether 9-month-old siblings of older children with autism, who are at an increased risk of developing autism, are able to integrate audiovisual speech cues. We used an eye-tracker to record where infants looked when shown a screen displaying two faces of the same model, where one face is articulating/ba/and the other/ga/, with one face congruent with the syllable sound being presented simultaneously, the other face incongruent. This method was successful in showing that infants at low risk can integrate audiovisual speech: they looked for the same amount of time at the mouths in both the fusible visual/ga/− audio/ba/and the congruent visual/ba/− audio/ba/displays, indicating that the auditory and visual streams fuse into a McGurk-type of syllabic percept in the incongruent condition. It also showed that low-risk infants could perceive a mismatch between auditory and visual cues: they looked longer at the mouth in the mismatched, non-fusible visual/ba/− audio/ga/display compared with the congruent visual/ga/− audio/ga/display, demonstrating that they perceive an uncommon, and therefore interesting, speech-like percept when looking at the incongruent mouth (repeated ANOVA: displays x fusion/mismatch conditions interaction: F(1,16) = 17.153, p = 0.001). The looking behaviour of high-risk infants did not differ according to the type of display, suggesting difficulties in matching auditory and visual information (repeated ANOVA, displays x conditions interaction: F(1,25) = 0.09, p = 0.767), in contrast to low-risk infants (repeated ANOVA: displays x conditions x low/high-risk groups interaction: F(1,41) = 4.466, p = 0.041). In some cases this reduced ability might lead to the poor communication skills characteristic of autism

Computation of free energy differences through nonequilibrium stochastic dynamics: the reaction coordinate case

The computation of free energy differences through an exponential weighting of out of equilibrium paths (known as the Jarzynski equality) is often used for transitions between states described by an external parameter $\lambda$ in the Hamiltonian. We present here an extension to transitions between states defined by different values of some reaction coordinate, using a projected Brownian dynamics. In contrast with other approaches, we use a projection rather than a constraining potential to let the constraints associated with the reaction coordinate evolve. We show how to use the Lagrange multipliers associated with these constraints to compute the work associated with a given trajectory. Appropriate discretizations are proposed. Some numerical results demonstrate the applicability of the method for the computation of free energy difference profiles.Comment: 23 pages, 4 Figures, 2 Table

Genome sequence of <i>Arenibacter algicola</i> strain TG409, a hydrocarbon-degrading bacterium associated with marine eukaryotic phytoplankton

Arenibacter algicola strain TG409 was isolated from Skeletonema costatum and exhibits the ability to utilize polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as sole sources of carbon and energy. Here, we present the genome sequence of this strain, which is 5,550,230 bp with 4,722 genes and an average G+C content of 39.7%

University Reporter Issue 4

Alaska Methodist University Back in Business By: Jim Kelly (2) Readers/Writers By: Unknown (2) Students Speak Out: By: Unknown (2) Editorial Educational Alternatives By: Unknown (2) No One’s In Charge By: Bill Parker (3) Surviving As a Public Servant By: Gene Johnson (3) More Than 2500 UAA Students Benefit A Guide To Financial Aid By: Unknown (4) Glossary – The Language of Financial Aid By: Unknown (5) The Myth of Objectivity By: Unknown (6) Recommended Readings By: Unknown (7) LAO TZU And TAI CHI CHUAN Oriental Guide To Eternal Youth BY; Frank Marino (8) Local Doctor Says Good Health Is Simpler Than You Think A Naturopath’s Perspective By: Doris M. Williams (9) Good Food at Good Prices How To Start A Food Co-op By: Unknown (10) Free of Charge Open Door Clinic Serves Community By: Jim Kelly (10) Knowles Says ‘Deck Stacked’ in Unification Report Anchorage Government Reviewed By: Tony Knowles (11) Student Challenges Professional Medical Establishment Health care For People Not Profit By: Megan Andersen (12) Women Alive! By: Sue Drew (14) Hormone Cycles By: Unknown (14) One Proud Homeowner’s Story Anchorage Tipi Dwellers Live Close To The Land By: Jim Ellis (15) A Meditation For Survival By: Nirvair Singh Gibbs (17) ACC Teacher & Student Tackle Mt. McKinley By: Unknown (17) True Cheating By: Barbara Jackson (17) The Student Ombudsman Tell It To Ray BY: Ray Huard (18) Theatre Is a Better Way of Living Than Living Is By: Kim DeLong (18) Visual Arts Center Asks For Help By: Unknown (19) Academy Award Winner, Hearts and Minds, To Show On Campus By: Unknown (19) Majors’ to be offered Alaska Methodist University By: Unknown (20) The Mission Of AMU By: Unknown (21) Simple Guide TO Earthquake Survival By: Unknown (21) Could you be a nuclear expert? By: Unknown (21) Corrections (22) Foreign Students Must Work Hard to Survive By: Unknown (22) The Print Switchboard (23) Community Calendar (24