The Liberal Self: Wordsworth and Barrett Browning

Chapter 2 addresses liberal philosophy’s defining commitment to the right of the individual subject to self-determination and explores poetry’s capacity to trace and to trouble the boundaries of the liberal self. It reads Wordsworth and Barrett Browning as two poets who share a Lockean inheritance and whose work enacts a transition from the absolutism of the Romantic liberal project to the more measured freedoms of nineteenth-century bourgeois liberalism, which adheres to a doctrine of freedom subject to divine law and human community. Focusing on Wordsworth’s philosophical epic, The Excursion, and Barrett Browning’s künstlerroman, Aurora Leigh, it considers poetry’s participation in the Lockean practice of reflective self-making. It begins with The Excursion, considering the Solitary, the Wanderer and the Pastor, as three models of selfhood that are tested against different kinds of physical and social space. It goes on to read Aurora Leigh in light of Barrett Browning’s admiration for The Excursion and as a poem that likewise rejects the egotism of absolute liberty in favour of a free self that exists in social relation

Singular solutions of the diffusion equation of population genetics

The forward diffusion equation for gene frequency dynamics is solved subject to the condition that the total probability is conserved at all times. This can lead to solutions developing singular spikes (Dirac delta functions) at the gene frequencies 0 and 1. When such spikes appear in solutions they signal gene loss or gene fixation, with the "weight" associated with the spikes corresponding to the probability of loss or fixation. The forward diffusion equation is thus solved for all gene frequencies, namely the absorbing frequencies of 0 and 1 along with the continuous range of gene frequencies on the interval (0; 1) that excludes the frequencies 0 and 1. Previously, the probabilities if the absorbing frequencies 0 and 1 were found by appeal to the backward diffusion equation, while those in the continuous range (0; 1) were found from the forward diffusion equation. Our uni fied approach does not require two separate equations for a complete dynamical treatment of all gene frequencies within a diffusion approximation framework. For cases involving mutation, migration and selection, it is shown that a property of the deterministic part of gene frequency dynamics determines when fixation and loss can occur. It is also shown how solution of the forward equation, at long times, leads to the standard result for the fixation probability

Assessing ecosystem services from multifunctional trees in pastures using Bayesian belief networks

A Bayesian belief network (BBN) was developed to assess preferred combinations of trees in live fences and on pastures in silvopastoral systems. The BBN was created with information from Rivas, Nicaragua, using local farmer knowledge on tree species, trees' costs and benefits, farmers' expressed needs and aspirations, and scientific knowledge regarding tree functional traits and their contribution to ecosystem services and benefits. The model identifies combinations of trees, which provide multiple ecosystem services from pastures, improving their productivity and contribution to farmer livelihoods. We demonstrate how the identification of portfolios of multifunctional trees can satisfy a profile of desired ecosystem services prioritized by the farmer. Diagnostics using Bayesian inference starts with an identification of farmer needs and ‘works backwards’ to identify a silvopastoral system structure. We conclude that Bayesian belief networks are a promising modeling technique for multi-criteria decisions in farm adaptation processes, where interventions must be adapted to specific contexts and farmer preferences

EQ-5D-5L versus 3L: the impact on cost-effectiveness

Objectives To model the relationship between EQ-5D-3L and EQ-5D-5L and examine how differences impact on cost-effectiveness in case studies. Methods We used two datasets that included both EQ-5D-3L and EQ-5D-3L from the same respondents. The EuroQoL dataset (n=3551) included patients with different diseases and a healthy cohort. The National Databank (NDB) dataset included patients with rheumatoid disease (n=5205). We estimated a system of ordinal regressions in each dataset using copula models, to link responses to the 3L instrument to 5L and its tariff, and vice versa. Results were applied to nine cost-effectiveness studies. Results Best-fitting models differed between EuroQoL and NDB datasets in terms of the explanatory variables, copulas and coefficients. In both cases the coefficients of the covariates and latent factor between -3L and -5L were significantly different, indicating that the two instruments are not a uniform realignment of the response levels for most dimensions. In the case studies, moving from 3L to 5L caused a decrease of up to 87% in incremental QALYs gained from effective technologies in almost all cases. ICERs increased, often substantially. Conversely, one technology with a significant mortality gain saw increased incremental QALYs. Conclusion 5L shifts mean utility scores up the utility scale towards full health and compresses them into a smaller range, compared to -3L. Improvements in quality of life are valued less using 5L than with 3L. 3L and 5L can produce substantially different estimates of cost effectiveness. There is no simple proportional adjustment that can be made to reconcile these differences

Influence of enhanced melt supply on upper crustal structure at a mid-ocean ridge discontinuity: A three-dimensional seismic tomographic study of 9°N East Pacific Rise

We present a three-dimensional upper crustal model of the 9°03′N overlapping spreading center (OSC) on the East Pacific Rise that assists in understanding the relationship between melt sills and upper crustal structure at a ridge discontinuity with enhanced melt supply at crustal levels. Our P wave velocity model obtained from tomographic inversion of ∼70,000 crustal first arrival travel times suggests that the geometry of extrusive emplacement are significantly different beneath the overlapping spreading limbs. Extrusive volcanic rocks above the western melt sill are inferred to be thin (∼250 m). More extensive accumulation of extrusives is inferred to the west than to the east of the western melt sill. The extrusive layer inferred above the eastern melt sill thickens from ∼350 (at the neovolcanic axis) to 550 m (to the west of the melt sill). Volcanic construction is likely to be significant in the formation of ridge crest morphology at the OSC, particularly at the tip of the eastern limb. On the basis of our interpretation of the velocity model, we propose that enhanced magma supply at crustal levels at the OSC may provide an effective mechanism for the migration of ridge discontinuities. This “dynamic magma supply model” may explain the commonly observed nonsteady migration pattern of ridge discontinuities by attributing this to the temporal fluctuations in melt availability to the overlapping spreading limbs

On generation-integrated energy storage

Generation-integrated energy storage (GIES) systems store energy at some point along the transformation between the primary energy form and electricity. Instances exist already in natural hydro power, biomass generation, wave power, and concentrated solar power. GIES systems have been proposed for wind, nuclear power and they arise naturally in photocatalysis systems that are in development. GIES systems can compare very favourably in both performance and total cost against equivalent non-integrated systems comprising both generation and storage. Despite this, they have not hitherto been recognised as a discrete class of systems. Consequently policy decisions affecting development or demonstration projects and policy approaches concerning low-carbon generation are not fully informed. This paper highlights that policy structures exist militating against the development and introduction of GIES systems-probably to the detriment of overall system good

Collisionless hydrodynamics for 1D motion of inhomogeneous degenerate electron gases: equivalence of two recent descriptions

Recently I. Tokatly and O. Pankratov (''TP'', Phys. Rev. B 60, 15550 (1999)) used velocity moments of a semiclassical kinetic equation to derive a hydrodynamic description of electron motion in a degenerate electron gas. Independently, the present authors (Theochem 501-502, 327 (2000)) used considerations arising from the Harmonic Potential Theorem (Phys. Rev. Lett. 73, 2244 (1994)) to generate a new form of high-frequency hydrodynamics for inhomogeneous degenerate electron gases (HPT-N3 hydrodynamics). We show here that TP hydrodynamics yields HPT-N3 hydrodynamics when linearized about a Thomas-Fermi groundstate with one-dimensional spatial inhomnogeneity.Comment: 17p

Decoupling in an expanding universe: boundary RG-flow affects initial conditions for inflation

We study decoupling in FRW spacetimes, emphasizing a Lagrangian description throughout. To account for the vacuum choice ambiguity in cosmological settings, we introduce an arbitrary boundary action representing the initial conditions. RG flow in these spacetimes naturally affects the boundary interactions. As a consequence the boundary conditions are sensitive to high-energy physics through irrelevant terms in the boundary action. Using scalar field theory as an example, we derive the leading dimension four irrelevant boundary operators. We discuss how the known vacuum choices, e.g. the Bunch-Davies vacuum, appear in the Lagrangian description and square with decoupling. For all choices of boundary conditions encoded by relevant boundary operators, of which the known ones are a subset, backreaction is under control. All, moreover, will generically feel the influence of high-energy physics through irrelevant (dimension four) boundary corrections. Having established a coherent effective field theory framework including the vacuum choice ambiguity, we derive an explicit expression for the power spectrum of inflationary density perturbations including the leading high energy corrections. In accordance with the dimensionality of the leading irrelevant operators, the effect of high energy physics is linearly proportional to the Hubble radius H and the scale of new physics L= 1/M.Comment: LaTeX plus axodraw figures. v2: minor corrections; refs added. JHEP style: 34 pages + 18 pages appendi

A mitochondria-targeted mass spectrometry probe to detect glyoxals: implications for diabetes

The glycation of protein and nucleic acids that occurs as a consequence of hyperglycaemia disrupts cell function and contributes to many pathologies, including those associated with diabetes and aging. Intracellular glycation occurs following the generation of the reactive 1,2-dicarbonyls methylglyoxal and glyoxal and disruption to mitochondrial function is associated with hyperglycemia. However, the contribution of these reactive dicarbonyls to mitochondrial damage in pathology is unclear due to uncertainties about their levels within mitochondria in cells and in vivo. To address this we have developed a mitochondria-targeted reagent (MitoG) designed to assess the levels of mitochondrial dicarbonyls within cells. MitoG comprises a lipophilic triphenylphosphonium cationic function, which directs the molecules to mitochondria within cells and an o-phenylenediamine moiety that reacts with dicarbonyls to give distinctive and stable products. The extent of accumulation of these diagnostic heterocyclic products can be readily and sensitively quantified by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), enabling changes to be determined. Using the MitoG-based analysis we assessed the formation of methylglyoxal and glyoxal in response to hyperglycaemia in cells in culture and in the Akita mouse model of diabetes in vivo. These findings indicated that the levels of methylglyoxal and glyoxal within mitochondria increase during hyperglycaemia in both cells and in vivo, suggesting that they can contribute to the pathological mitochondrial dysfunction that occurs in diabetes and aging