The Perils Of Authorship: Literary Propoerty And Nineteenth-Century American Fiction

This chapter examines the perils associated with American authorship during the early nineteenth century, with particular reference to issue of intellectual property and copyright. It begins with an analysis of the impact of intellectual property rights on publishing and the culture of reprinting, along with the influence of copyright on the American novel. It then considers the problem concerning the definition of “American authorship” and how the unstable nature of American authorship subjected writers who wished to promote it to charges of fraudulence. It also explores the question of originality among writers before concluding with a discussion of the radical expansion of publishing in the post-Civil War era and its effects on literary property and literary nationalism

Feminists really do count : the complexity of feminist methodologies

We are delighted to be presenting this special issue on the topic of feminism and quantitative methods. We believe that such an issue is exceptionally timely. This is not simply because of ongoing debates around quantification within the field of feminism and women‟s studies. It is also because of debates within the wider research community about the development of appropriate methodologies that take account of new technological and philosophical concerns and are fit-for-purpose for researching contemporary social, philosophical, cultural and global issues. Two areas serve as exemplars in this respect and both speak to these combined wider social science and specifically feminist methodological concerns. The first is the increasing concern amongst social scientists with how the complexity of social life can be captured and analysed. Within feminism, this can be seen in debates about intersectionality that recognise the concerns arising from multiple social positions/divisions and associated power issues. As Denis (2008: 688) comments in respect of intersectional analysis „The challenge of integrating multiple, concurrent, yet often contradictory social locations into analyses of power relations has been issued. Theorising to accomplish this end is evolving, and we are struggling to develop effective methodological tools in order to marry theorising with necessary complex analyses of empirical data.‟ Secondly, new techniques and new data sources are now coming on line. This includes work in the UK of the ESRC National Data Strategy which has been setting out the priorities for the development of research data resources both within and across the boundaries of the social sciences. This will facilitate historical, longitudinal, interdisciplinary and mixed methodological research. And it may be the case that these developments facilitate the achievement of a longstanding feminist aim not simply for interdisciplinarity but for transdisciplinarity in epistemological and methodological terms

Finsler geometry on higher order tensor fields and applications to high angular resolution diffusion imaging.

We study 3D-multidirectional images, using Finsler geometry. The application considered here is in medical image analysis, specifically in High Angular Resolution Diffusion Imaging (HARDI) (Tuch et al. in Magn. Reson. Med. 48(6):1358–1372, 2004) of the brain. The goal is to reveal the architecture of the neural fibers in brain white matter. To the variety of existing techniques, we wish to add novel approaches that exploit differential geometry and tensor calculus. In Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), the diffusion of water is modeled by a symmetric positive definite second order tensor, leading naturally to a Riemannian geometric framework. A limitation is that it is based on the assumption that there exists a single dominant direction of fibers restricting the thermal motion of water molecules. Using HARDI data and higher order tensor models, we can extract multiple relevant directions, and Finsler geometry provides the natural geometric generalization appropriate for multi-fiber analysis. In this paper we provide an exact criterion to determine whether a spherical function satisfies the strong convexity criterion essential for a Finsler norm. We also show a novel fiber tracking method in Finsler setting. Our model incorporates a scale parameter, which can be beneficial in view of the noisy nature of the data. We demonstrate our methods on analytic as well as simulated and real HARDI data

The effects of self-awareness on body movement indicators of the intention to deceive

A study was conducted to investigate the body movements of participants waiting to be interviewed in one of two conditions: preparing to answer questions truthfully or preparing to lie. The effects of increased self-awareness were also investigated, with half of the participants facing a mirror; the other half facing a blank wall. Analysis of covertly obtained video footage showed a significant interaction for the duration of hand/arm movements between deception level and self-awareness. Without a mirror, participants expecting to lie spent less time moving their hands than those expecting to tell the truth; the opposite was seen in the presence of a mirror. Participants expecting to lie also had higher levels of anxiety and thought that they were left waiting for less time than those expecting to tell the truth. These findings led to the identification of further research areas with the potential to support deception detection in security applications

Radio interferometric observations of two core-dominated triple radio sources at z>3

Aims. We selected two radio quasars (J1036+1326 and J1353+5725) based on their 1.4-GHz radio structure, which is dominated by a bright central core and a pair of weaker and nearly symmetric lobes at ~10" angular separation. They are optically identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) at spectroscopic redshifts z>3. We investigate the possibility that their core-dominated triple morphology can be a sign of restarted radio activity in these quasars, involving a significant repositioning of the radio jet axis. Methods. We present the results of high-resolution radio imaging observations of J1036+1326 and J1353+5725, performed with the European Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) Network (EVN) at 1.6 GHz. These data are supplemented by archive observations from the Very Large Array (VLA).We study the large- and small-scale radio structures and the brightness temperatures, then estimate relativistic beaming parameters. Results. We show that the central emission region of these two high-redshift, core-dominated triple sources is compact but resolved at ~10 milli-arcsecond resolution. We find that it is not necessary to invoke large misalignment between the VLBI jet and the large-scale radio structure to explain the observed properties of the sources.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Task shifting and integration of HIV care into primary care in South Africa: The development and content of the streamlining tasks and roles to expand treatment and care for HIV (STRETCH) intervention

Background: Task shifting and the integration of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) care into primary care services have been identified as possible strategies for improving access to antiretroviral treatment (ART). This paper describes the development and content of an intervention involving these two strategies, as part of the Streamlining Tasks and Roles to Expand Treatment and Care for HIV (STRETCH) pragmatic randomised controlled trial. Methods: Developing the intervention: The intervention was developed following discussions with senior management, clinicians, and clinic staff. These discussions revealed that the establishment of separate antiretroviral treatment services for HIV had resulted in problems in accessing care due to the large number of patients at ART clinics. The intervention developed therefore combined the shifting from doctors to nurses of prescriptions of antiretrovirals (ARVs) for uncomplicated patients and the stepwise integration of HIV care into primary care services. Results: Components of the intervention: The intervention consisted of regulatory changes, training, and guidelines to support nurse ART prescription, local management teams, an implementation toolkit, and a flexible, phased introduction. Nurse supervisors were equipped to train intervention clinic nurses in ART prescription using outreach education and an integrated primary care guideline. Management teams were set up and a STRETCH coordinator was appointed to oversee the implementation process. Discussion: Three important processes were used in developing and implementing this intervention: active participation of clinic staff and local and provincial management, educational outreach to train nurses in intervention sites, and an external facilitator to support all stages of the intervention rollout

Stress induced polarization of immune-neuroendocrine phenotypes in Gallus gallus

Immune-neuroendocrine phenotypes (INPs) stand for population subgroups differing in immune-neuroendocrine interactions. While mammalian INPs have been characterized thoroughly in rats and humans, avian INPs were only recently described in Coturnix coturnix (quail). To assess the scope of this biological phenomenon, herein we characterized INPs in Gallus gallus (a domestic hen strain submitted to a very long history of strong selective breeding pressure) and evaluated whether a social chronic stress challenge modulates the individuals’ interplay affecting the INP subsets and distribution. Evaluating plasmatic basal corticosterone, interferon-γ and interleukin-4 concentrations, innate/acquired leukocyte ratio, PHA-P skin-swelling and induced antibody responses, two opposite INP profiles were found: LEWIS-like (15% of the population) and FISCHER-like (16%) hens. After chronic stress, an increment of about 12% in each polarized INP frequency was found at expenses of a reduction in the number of birds with intermediate responses. Results show that polarized INPs are also a phenomenon occurring in hens. The observed inter-individual variation suggest that, even after a considerable selection process, the population is still well prepared to deal with a variety of immune-neuroendocrine challenges. Stress promoted disruptive effects, leading to a more balanced INPs distribution, which represents a new substrate for challenging situations.Fil: Nazar, Franco Nicolas. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas y Tecnológicas. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales. Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas y Tecnológicas; ArgentinaFil: Estevez, Inma. Centro de Investigación. Neiker - Tecnalia; EspañaFil: Correa, Silvia Graciela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones en Bioquímica Clínica e Inmunología; ArgentinaFil: Marin, Raul Hector. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas y Tecnológicas. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales. Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas y Tecnológicas; Argentin

Dynamical Patterns of Cattle Trade Movements

Despite their importance for the spread of zoonotic diseases, our understanding of the dynamical aspects characterizing the movements of farmed animal populations remains limited as these systems are traditionally studied as static objects and through simplified approximations. By leveraging on the network science approach, here we are able for the first time to fully analyze the longitudinal dataset of Italian cattle movements that reports the mobility of individual animals among farms on a daily basis. The complexity and inter-relations between topology, function and dynamical nature of the system are characterized at different spatial and time resolutions, in order to uncover patterns and vulnerabilities fundamental for the definition of targeted prevention and control measures for zoonotic diseases. Results show how the stationarity of statistical distributions coexists with a strong and non-trivial evolutionary dynamics at the node and link levels, on all timescales. Traditional static views of the displacement network hide important patterns of structural changes affecting nodes' centrality and farms' spreading potential, thus limiting the efficiency of interventions based on partial longitudinal information. By fully taking into account the longitudinal dimension, we propose a novel definition of dynamical motifs that is able to uncover the presence of a temporal arrow describing the evolution of the system and the causality patterns of its displacements, shedding light on mechanisms that may play a crucial role in the definition of preventive actions

Dynamical Patterns of Cattle Trade Movements

Despite their importance for the spread of zoonotic diseases, our understanding of the dynamical aspects characterizing the movements of farmed animal populations remains limited as these systems are traditionally studied as static objects and through simplified approximations. By leveraging on the network science approach, here we are able for the first time to fully analyze the longitudinal dataset of Italian cattle movements that reports the mobility of individual animals among farms on a daily basis. The complexity and inter-relations between topology, function and dynamical nature of the system are characterized at different spatial and time resolutions, in order to uncover patterns and vulnerabilities fundamental for the definition of targeted prevention and control measures for zoonotic diseases. Results show how the stationarity of statistical distributions coexists with a strong and non-trivial evolutionary dynamics at the node and link levels, on all timescales. Traditional static views of the displacement network hide important patterns of structural changes affecting nodes' centrality and farms' spreading potential, thus limiting the efficiency of interventions based on partial longitudinal information. By fully taking into account the longitudinal dimension, we propose a novel definition of dynamical motifs that is able to uncover the presence of a temporal arrow describing the evolution of the system and the causality patterns of its displacements, shedding light on mechanisms that may play a crucial role in the definition of preventive actions