4,042 research outputs found

    Imagined and imaginary whales: Benedict Anderson, Salman Rushdie and George Orwell

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    George Orwell, anticipating many of the arguments made by Benedict Anderson in the “Patriotism and Racism” chapter of Imagined Communities, illuminated patriotism and nationalism as shifting aspects of a wider dialectical interplay between an identification with imagined communities and a loyalty to humanity. Orwell's essay “Inside the Whale” can be seen, contrary to Salman Rushdie's criticism that it advocates quietism, as an essay about imaginary homelands. In this reading the whale is a metaphor for a dialectical space created by a writer in order to gain purchase on the unceasing dialectic of history. Analysis of The Lion and the Unicorn in this article links Orwell's work with that of Anderson and Rushdie by exploring in his vision of a classless England the relationship between the personal imaginary homeland and the political imagined community

    Space-time structure of changes in atmospheric angular momentum

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    Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Meteorology and Physical Oceanography, 1982.Microfiche copy available in Archives and Science.Bibliography: leaves 75-77.by John Roberts Anderson.M.S

    Climate Change and the Integrity of Science

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    We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular. All citizens should understand some basic scientific facts. There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions; science never absolutely proves anything. When someone says that society should wait until scientists are absolutely certain before taking any action, it is the same as saying society should never take action. For a problem as potentially catastrophic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet

    Can improving working memory prevent academic difficulties? a school based randomised controlled trial

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    Background: Low academic achievement is common and is associated with adverse outcomes such as grade repetition, behavioural disorders and unemployment. The ability to accurately identify these children and intervene before they experience academic failure would be a major advance over the current &lsquo;wait to fail&rsquo; model. Recent research suggests that a possible modifiable factor for low academic achievement is working memory, the ability to temporarily store and manipulate information in a &lsquo;mental workspace&rsquo;. Children with working memory difficulties are at high risk of academic failure. It has recently been demonstrated that working memory can be improved with adaptive training tasks that encourage improvements in working memory capacity. Our trial will determine whether the intervention is efficacious as a selective prevention strategy for young children at risk of academic difficulties and is cost-effective.Methods/Design: This randomised controlled trial aims to recruit 440 children with low working memory after a school-based screening of 2880 children in Grade one. We will approach caregivers of all children from 48 participating primary schools in metropolitan Melbourne for consent. Children with low working memory will be randomised to usual care or the intervention. The intervention will consist of 25 computerised working memory training sessions, which take approximately 35 minutes each to complete. Follow-up of children will be conducted at 6, 12 and 24 months post-randomisation through child face-to-face assessment, parent and teacher surveys and data from government authorities. The primary outcome is academic achievement at 12 and 24 months, and other outcomes include child behaviour, attention, health-related quality of life, working memory, and health and educational serviceutilisation.Discussion: A successful start to formal learning in school sets the stage for future academic, psychological and economic well-being. If this preventive intervention can be shown to be efficacious, then we will have the potential to prevent academic underachievement in large numbers of at-risk children, to offer a ready-to-use intervention to the Australian school system and to build international research partnerships along the health education interface, in order to carry our further studies of effectiveness and generalisability.<br /

    Neural Ideal Large Eddy Simulation: Modeling Turbulence with Neural Stochastic Differential Equations

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    We introduce a data-driven learning framework that assimilates two powerful ideas: ideal large eddy simulation (LES) from turbulence closure modeling and neural stochastic differential equations (SDE) for stochastic modeling. The ideal LES models the LES flow by treating each full-order trajectory as a random realization of the underlying dynamics, as such, the effect of small-scales is marginalized to obtain the deterministic evolution of the LES state. However, ideal LES is analytically intractable. In our work, we use a latent neural SDE to model the evolution of the stochastic process and an encoder-decoder pair for transforming between the latent space and the desired ideal flow field. This stands in sharp contrast to other types of neural parameterization of closure models where each trajectory is treated as a deterministic realization of the dynamics. We show the effectiveness of our approach (niLES - neural ideal LES) on a challenging chaotic dynamical system: Kolmogorov flow at a Reynolds number of 20,000. Compared to competing methods, our method can handle non-uniform geometries using unstructured meshes seamlessly. In particular, niLES leads to trajectories with more accurate statistics and enhances stability, particularly for long-horizon rollouts.Comment: 18 page

    Ploidy Variation in Multinucleate Cells Changes Under Stress

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    Ploidy variation is found in contexts as diverse as solid tumors, drug resistance in fungal infection, and normal development. Altering chromosome or genome copy number supports adaptation to fluctuating environments but is also associated with fitness defects attributed to protein imbalances. Both aneuploidy and polyploidy can arise from multinucleate states after failed cytokinesis or cell fusion. The consequences of ploidy variation in syncytia are difficult to predict because protein imbalances are theoretically buffered by a common cytoplasm. We examined ploidy in a naturally multinucleate fungus, Ashbya gossypii. Using integrated lac operator arrays, we found that chromosome number varies substantially among nuclei sharing a common cytoplasm. Populations of nuclei range from 1N to \u3e4N, with different polyploidies in the same cell and low levels of aneuploidy. The degree of ploidy variation increases as cells age. In response to cellular stress, polyploid nuclei diminish and haploid nuclei predominate. These data suggest that mixed ploidy is tolerated in these syncytia; however, there may be costs associated with variation as stress homogenizes the genome content of nuclei. Furthermore, the results suggest that sharing of gene products is limited, and thus there is incomplete buffering of ploidy variation despite a common cytosol

    Adult and adolescent exposure to tobacco and alcohol content in contemporary YouTube music videos in Great Britain: a population estimate

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    Background: We estimate exposure of British adults and adolescents to tobacco and alcohol content from a sample of popular YouTube music videos. Methods: British viewing figures were generated from 2 representative online national surveys of adult and adolescent viewing of the 32 most popular videos containing content. 2068 adolescents aged 11–18 years (1010 boys, 1058 girls), and 2232 adults aged 19+years (1052 male, 1180 female) completed the surveys. We used the number of 10 s intervals in the 32 most popular videos containing content to estimate the number of impressions. We extrapolated gross and per capita impressions for the British population from census data and estimated numbers of adults and adolescents who had ever watched the sampled videos. Results: From video release to the point of survey, the videos delivered an estimated 1006 million gross impressions of alcohol (95% CI 748 to 1264 million), and 203 million of tobacco (95% CI 151 to 255 million), to the British population. Per capita exposure was around 5 times higher for alcohol than for tobacco, and nearly 4 times higher in adolescents, who were exposed to an average of 52.1 (95% CI 43.4 to 60.9) and 10.5 (95% CI 8.8 to 12.3) alcohol and tobacco impressions, respectively, than in adults (14.1 (95% CI 10.2 to 18.1) and 2.9 (95% CI 2.1 to 3.6)). Exposure rates were higher in girls than in boys. Conclusions: YouTube music videos deliver millions of gross impressions of alcohol and tobacco content. Adolescents are exposed much more than adults. Music videos are a major global medium of exposure to such content

    Best Practices for Cataloging DVD-Video and Blu-ray Discs Using RDA and MARC21

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    Best Practices for Cataloging DVD-video and Blu-ray Discs Using RDA and MARC21 builds upon the work of the 2008 Guide to Cataloging DVD and Blu-ray Discs Using AACR2r and MARC21, which in turn updated the 2002 Guide to Cataloging DVDs Using AACR2r Chapters 7 and 9 created by the DVD Cataloging Task Force of OLAC. The focus of this new document is to provide a set of “best practice” recommendations rather than a step-by-step instruction manual for cataloging DVD-video and Blu-ray Discs. One reason for this shift is that RDA cataloging practice is far from settled, particularly in regard to special format materials. Best practice recommendations will likely be easier to manage as RDA instructions evolve. This document is intended for use with Resource Description and Access (RDA) and the MARC21 Format for Bibliographic Data. It should not be considered a substitute for the RDA Toolkit. The best practice recommendations and cataloging examples presented in the document are intended only to clarify RDA principles and instructions used in cataloging DVD-video and Blu- ray Disc formats
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