F-regular semigroups

A semigroup S is called F-regular if S is regular and if there exists a group congruence rho on S such that every rho-class contains a greatest element with respect to the natural partial order of S (see [K.S. Nambooripad, Proc. Edinburgh Math. Soc. 23 (1980) 249-260]). These semigroups were investigated in [C.C. Edwards, Semigroup Forum 19 (1980) 331-345] where a description similar to the F-inverse case (see [R. McFadden, L. O'Carroll, Proc. London Math. Soc. 22 (1971) 652-666]) is given. Further characterizations of F-regular semigroups, including an axiomatic one, are provided. The main objective is to give a new representation of such semigroups by means of Szendrei triples (see [M. Szendrei, Acta Sci. Math. 51 (1987) 229-249]). The particular case of F-regular semigroups S satisfying the identity (xy)* = y*x*, where x* epsilon S denotes the greatest element of the rho-class containing x epsilon S, is considered. Also the F-inversive semigroups, for which this identity holds, are characterized. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - POCTI

Upsilon cross section in p+p collisions at STAR

The main focus of the heavy flavor program at RHIC is to investigate the properties of the dense matter produced in heavy-ion collisions by studying its effect on open heavy flavor and quarkonia production. This in turn requires a detailed understanding of their production in elementary p+p collisions so that the dense matter effects can be later unfolded. In this paper, we present the first mid-rapidity cross section measurement of bottomonium at $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV with the STAR experiment. We compare our results with perturbative QCD calculations. A brief status on the study of charmonium in STAR is given.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. To appear in the proceedings of Quark Matter 2006 as a special issue of Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physic

TELLUS: A combined surface temperature, soil moisture and evaporation mapping approach

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Flow in a slowly-tapering channel with oscillating walls

The flow of a fluid in a channel with walls inclined at an angle to each other is investigated at arbitrary Reynolds number. The flow is driven by an oscillatory motion of the wall incorporating a time-periodic displacement perpendicular to the channel centreline. The gap between the walls varies linearly with distance along the channel and is a prescribed periodic function of time. An approximate solution is constructed assuming that the angle of inclination of the walls is small. At leading order the flow corresponds to that in a channel with parallel, vertically oscillating walls examined by Hall and Papageorgiou \cite{HP}. A careful study of the governing partial differential system for the first order approximation controlling the tapering flow due to the wall inclination is conducted. It is found that as the Reynolds number is increased from zero the tapering flow loses symmetry and undergoes exponential growth in time. The loss of symmetry occurs at a lower Reynolds number than the symmetry-breaking for the parallel-wall flow. A window of asymmetric, time-periodic solutions is found at higher Reynolds number, and these are reached via a quasiperiodic transient from a given set of initial conditions. Beyond this window stability is again lost to exponentially growing solutions as the Reynolds number is increased

A Proof of Tarski’s Fixed Point Theorem by Application of Galois Connections

Two examples of Galois connections and their dual forms are considered. One of them is applied to formulate a criterion when a given subset of a complete lattice forms a complete lattice. The second, closely related to the first, is used to prove in a short way the Knaster-Tarski’s fixed point theore

The Third Way for the Third Sector: Using Design to Transfer Knowledge and Improve Service in a Voluntary Community Sector Organisation

This paper describes a two-year Knowledge Transfer Partnership that concluded in September 2011. Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP) is a UK-wide activity that helps organisations to improve their competitiveness and productivity by making better use of knowledge, technology and skills within universities, colleges and research organisations. This paper details the outcome of a KTP between Age UK Newcastle and Northumbria University’s School of Design that aimed to use Design approaches to improve the charity’s services. This paper will describe the recent context for organisations operating in the Voluntary Community Sector and discuss the relevance of a Design approach to both the improvement of customer services in this circumstance, as well as the transfer of knowledge to a capacity-starved organisation. It will also document how Design was used to achieve both of these aims, and the resulting impact of this engagement on the organisation and stakeholders

Evaluation of work-related psychosocial factors and regional musculoskeletal pain: results from a EULAR Task Force

Objectives: to establish whether review articles provide consistent conclusions on associations between workplace psychosocial factors and musculoskeletal pain and, if differences exist, to explore whether this is related to the methods used.Methods: reviews, reported up to February 2007, that included consideration of workplace psychosocial factors and upper limb, back or knee pain were identified through searches of multiple databases. The specific work-related psychosocial factors considered were job demands, support, job autonomy and job satisfaction. The conclusions of each review on one or more of the psychosocial/musculoskeletal pain associations were extracted.Results: 15 review articles were identified that considered one or more of the regional pain syndromes included in the study. For back pain, the most consistent conclusions (four reviews positive out of six) were with high job demands and low job satisfaction. The studies of upper limb pain were exclusively related to shoulder and/or neck pain, and the most consistent positive conclusions were with high and low job demands (four reviews positive out of six and two reviews positive out of three, respectively). For knee pain, only a single review was identified. For individual reviews of back and upper limb pain, there were marked differences in the number of associations concluded to be positive between reviews.Conclusions: the reasons for reviews coming to different conclusions included that they were often evaluating different bodies of evidence (according to their search criteria, the year when the review was conducted, the role that quality assessment played in whether studies contributed to evidence, and the combination of risk factors addressed in individual studies), but more important was whether the review specified explicit criteria for making conclusions on strength of evidence. These conclusions emphasise the importance of developing standardised methods for conducting such evaluations of existing evidence and the importance of new longitudinal studies for clarifying the temporal relationship between psychosocial factors and musculoskeletal pain in the workplac

‘This neo- natal ménage à trois’: British media framing of transnational surrogacy

Background: Media framing can influence people’s perceptions of social changes in family building, and has the potential to influence their future actions. Objectives: to analyse the type of framing and construction used in British news print of transnational commercial surrogacy. Methods: UK newspapers were searched using the search engine Lexis-Nexis. One hundred ninety seven articles were analysed. Content analysis was undertaken to identify the use of gain, loss, neutral, alarm and vulnerability frames, as well as type of construction (i.e. ethical, social, legal, financial and medical). Four researchers independently analysed articles using a coding strategy. Results: Differences between serious (mainly legal, financial), middle market (legal) and tabloid (social, financial) newspapers were found. There were three main foci; buying babies - affordable only to those wealthy enough to pay for it; the legal complications of transnational surrogacy - reporting a sense of the legal system lagging behind this practice; and gay families - repeatedly questioning their suitability as parents - demonstrating a prevailing heterosexual stereotype about reproduction and parenting. Conclusions: Stereotyping was prevalent and the welfare of children and medical aspects of transnational surrogacy were minimally addressed, indicating the media selectively influences its readership

The Impact of Hard Disk Firmware Steganography on Computer Forensics

<p class="JDFSLParagraph">The hard disk drive is probably the predominant form of storage media and is a primary data source in a forensic investigation. The majority of available software tools and literature relating to the investigation of the structure and content contained within a hard disk drive concerns the extraction and analysis of evidence from the various file systems which can reside in the user accessible area of the disk. It is known that there are other areas of the hard disk drive which could be used to conceal information, such as the Host Protected Area and the Device Configuration Overlay. There are recommended methods for the detection and forensic analysis of these areas using appropriate tools and techniques. However, there are additional areas of a disk that have currently been overlooked.  The Service Area or Platter Resident Firmware Area is used to store code and control structures responsible for the functionality of the drive and for logging failing or failed sectors.</p><p class="JDFSLParagraph">This paper provides an introduction into initial research into the investigation and identification of issues relating to the analysis of the Platter Resident Firmware Area. In particular, the possibility that the Platter Resident Firmware Area could be manipulated and exploited to facilitate a form of steganography, enabling information to be concealed by a user and potentially from a digital forensic investigator.</p

Can soil moisture be mapped onto the terrain?

International audienceSoil moisture heterogeneity has an effect on the rainfall?runoff characteristics of a landscape. The aggregate effect on the mean water balance over an area can be quantified successfully using models such as the PDM (Moore, 1986) and TOPMODEL (Beven and Kirkby, 1979). These rainfall?runoff models have been embedded in the large-scale land surface schemes used in meteorological models. However, there is also a requirement (e.g. model validation) to identify the spatial structure of the fine-scale soil moisture heterogeneity that makes up these aggregate models. In some types of landscape, this will be dictated by topography, in others by soil characteristics, or by a combination of both. A method to distribute area-average soil moisture according to the likely effect of local topography is presented and tested. The heterogeneity of the soil moisture is described by the Xinanxiang distribution (Zhao et al., 1980), commonly used to describe the natural spatial heterogeneity of the landscape. This distribution is then mapped onto the terrain using a topographic index to locate the wettest and driest areas. Soil moisture data from the Wye catchment in Wales and from the Pang catchment in Berkshire, England, are used to test the method. It is found that soil moisture data from the Wye catchment follow the topographic index reasonably well, whereas data from the quick-draining, chalky Pang catchment do not. The conclusion that topographic index is a useful indicator only in some landscapes applies equally to using this mapping method and those models that use topographic index directly. Keywords: soil moisture, heterogeneity, topographic index, dat