Investigating dark matter substructure with pulsar timing: I. Constraints on ultracompact minihalos

Small-scale dark matter structure within the Milky Way is expected to affect pulsar timing. The change in gravitational potential induced by a dark matter halo passing near the line of sight to a pulsar would produce a varying delay in the light travel time of photons from the pulsar. Individual transits produce an effect that would either be too rare or too weak to be detected in 30-year pulsar observations. However, a population of dark matter subhalos would be expected to produce a detectable effect on the measured properties of pulsars if the subhalos constitute a significant fraction of the total halo mass. The effect is to increase the dispersion of measured period derivatives across the pulsar population. By statistical analysis of the ATNF pulsar catalogue, we place an upper limit on this dispersion of $\log \sigma_{\dot{P}} \leq -17.05$. We use this to place strong upper limits on the number density of ultracompact minihalos within the Milky Way. These limits are completely independent of the particle nature of dark matter.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figues, includes erratum published in MNRA

Visual world studies of conversational perspective taking: similar findings, diverging interpretations

Visual-world eyetracking greatly expanded the potential for insight into how listeners access and use common ground during situated language comprehension. Past reviews of visual world studies on perspective taking have largely taken the diverging findings of the various studies at face value, and attributed these apparently different findings to differences in the extent to which the paradigms used by different labs afford collaborative interaction. Researchers are asking questions about perspective taking of an increasingly nuanced and sophisticated nature, a clear indicator of progress. But this research has the potential not only to improve our understanding of conversational perspective taking. Grappling with problems of data interpretation in such a complex domain has the unique potential to drive visual world researchers to a deeper understanding of how to best map visual world data onto psycholinguistic theory. I will argue against this interactional affordances explanation, on two counts. First, it implies that interactivity affects the overall ability to form common ground, and thus provides no straightforward explanation of why, within a single noninteractive study, common ground can have very large effects on some aspects of processing (referential anticipation) while having negligible effects on others (lexical processing). Second, and more importantly, the explanation accepts the divergence in published findings at face value. However, a closer look at several key studies shows that the divergences are more likely to reflect inconsistent practices of analysis and interpretation that have been applied to an underlying body of data that is, in fact, surprisingly consistent. The diverging interpretations, I will argue, are the result of differences in the handling of anticipatory baseline effects (ABEs) in the analysis of visual world data. ABEs arise in perspective-taking studies because listeners have earlier access to constraining information about who knows what than they have to referential speech, and thus can already show biases in visual attention even before the processing of any referential speech has begun. To be sure, these ABEs clearly indicate early access to common ground; however, access does not imply integration, since it is possible that this information is not used later to modulate the processing of incoming speech. Failing to account for these biases using statistical or experimental controls leads to over-optimistic assessments of listeners’ ability to integrate this information with incoming speech. I will show that several key studies with varying degrees of interactional affordances all show similar temporal profiles of common ground use during the interpretive process: early anticipatory effects, followed by bottom-up effects of lexical processing that are not modulated by common ground, followed (optionally) by further late effects that are likely to be post-lexical. Furthermore, this temporal profile for common ground radically differs from the profile of contextual effects related to verb semantics. Together, these findings are consistent with the proposal that lexical processes are encapsulated from common ground, but cannot be straightforwardly accounted for by probabilistic constraint-based approaches

Evaluation of the INSPiRED teenager programme

The INSPiRED Teenager programme is a variant of the existing INSPiRED framework (RE -INSPiRED Professional and INSPiRED Team programmes) that was successfully developed and tested in 2015. The framework provides an easy to learn self or facilitated coaching process by which participants can conduct regular career reviews throughout their working life. INSPiRED Teenager in particular is grounded in helping parents and carers to enable their teenagers to identify a purpose and combine this with their potential to improve career clarity and confidence in a radically changing labour market. While research suggests some 70% of teenagers turn to their parents for help, and that 56% of parents feel ill-equipped to help, the world of work is continuing to change due to technological developments. In response to this, the INSPiRED Teenager programme was developed as many young people are now need to adapt, pivot and continually learn new skills as new careers and training routes open up. The evaluation set out to assess the effectiveness of the two delivery formats, the effectiveness of the programme in helping to improve teenagers’ career confidence and clarity, and the effectiveness of the programme to support parents/carers to have informed conversations with their teenagers about their future careers.NESTA Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS

A Cartesian co-ordinate system for representing the second to fifth metacarpals in the human hand

Description: This is tha authors' PDF version of an article published in Radiography© 2004. The definitive version is available at www.elsevierhealth.comPurpose The use of hand radiographs has both clinical and anthropometric applications. However, a method for converting standard bony points within the metacarpus to Cartesian co-ordinates does not exist. Methods A simple method for converting standard bony points of the second to fifth metacarpals to Cartesian co-ordinates is described for the first time. Results Using a small set of measurements and treating these with equations of known voracity, this method is accurate and allows the metacarpus to be interro¬gated via a much wider range of geometrical techniques than has so far been available. Conclusions This method allows naked-eye assessments to be supported or re¬placed by metrical evaluations. It is likely to have both clinical and anthropometric uses.University of Liverpool research development grant

Open versus closed surgical exposure of canine teeth that are displaced in the roof of the mouth

Background: Palatal canines are upper permanent canine (eye) teeth that have become displaced in the roof of the mouth. They are a frequently occurring anomaly, present in 2% to 3% of the population. Management of this problem is both time consuming and expensive and involves surgical exposure (uncovering) followed by fixed braces for 2 to 3 years to bring the canine into alignment within the dental arch. Two techniques for exposing palatal canines are routinely used in the UK: one method (the closed technique) involves orthodontically moving the canine into its correct position beneath the palatal mucosa and the second method (the open technique) involves orthodontically moving the canine into its correct position above the palatal mucosa. Objectives: To establish if clinical, patient centred and economic outcomes are different according to whether an ’open’ or ’closed’ technique is employed for uncovering palatal canines. Search strategy: MEDLINE, EMBASE, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) and the Cochrane Oral Health Group’s Trials Register were searched (to 29th February 2008). There were no restrictions with regard to publication status or language. Selection criteria: Patients receiving surgical treatment to correct upper palatally impacted canines.Therewas no restriction for age, presenting malocclusion or the type of active orthodontic treatment undertaken. Unilateral and bilaterally displaced canines were included. Trials including participants with craniofacial deformity/syndrome were excluded. Data collection and analysis: Two review authors independently and in duplicate assessed studies for inclusion. The Cochrane Collaboration statistical guidelines were to be followed for data synthesis

Introduction: the Problem of the Color Line

The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line. Fifty years after Dr. W. E. B. DuBois wrote these words in The Souls of Black Folk, the 1954 Brown v. the Board of Education case dramatized them. This legal action forced the United States to confront the explicit racial caste system imposed on African Americans prior to the constitutional protections guaranteed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The Brown decision also highlighted how politics, wedded to the maintenance of white supremacy, supported the well-organized de Jure terror system common in many areas of the United States. This verdict fueled a decade of unparalleled grass-roots activism and thrust the United States into its most dynamic era of change

Studies of alkali metals

Studies of the alkali metals have directness that leads to progress in both our general knowledge of chemistry and in common usefulness, which so encourages and rewards the advance of pure knowledge. As commonly studied, in combination, they react so simply that we study them when we look for simplicity

A Brief Economic History of the City of Rockland, Maine

In writing this Brief Economic History of the City of Rockland, Maine there has been no desire or attempt to name the businesses that have been in existence in the City of Rockland, or to give the history of any particular business or industry. Indeed, the only attempt made has been to indicate those industrial movements and financial factors that have largely influenced the economic progress of the City. Contents: Historical Sketch; City Finances; The Knox and Lincoln Railroad; Banks; The Lime Industry; Shipbuilding Industry and Shipping; The Fish Industry; and Miscellaneous

Duty and Fast Living : The Diary of Mary Johnson Sprow, Domestic Worker

In the fall of 1979 my great-aunt Mary Johnson Sprow found a diary she had written while working as a domestic servant more than 60 years before. For more than seven years I had conducted interviews with her, her three other siblings, and their spouses; finally, I would touch the paper on which she so tenderly placed her thoughts as a young live-in servant from rural Virginia. The diary and oral history interviews helped me flesh out the history of young women who migrated to Washington from the rural South before and during the Great Migration. This research became the underpinning of my University of Maryland dissertation and articles on African-American migration to Washington during the period 1900 to 1940