Digitised historical newspapers: chronicling America

Historical newspapers, often referred to as “the first draft of history”, are among the richest primary sources available for research into virtually aspect of the life of a nation, whether in the cultural, social, and political or economic sphere. They offer not only information about events in the past, but give us a window into how these were reported and packaged as news. Up till recently, to access these materials, a researcher had to be determined enough to make his way through either aged, often fragile, originals, or reels of microfilm, often difficult to locate and without the benefit of any index. This has now changed fundamentally with the advent of digitization, which has made newspapers both readily available and searchable. The digitization of American newspapers has been undertaken over the last 15 or 20 so years both by commercial companies, where access is charged for, and by various bodies and institutions making their material freely available. Within the first category, there are now a number of companies offering access to a vast range of titles, with sophisticated searching and viewing tools, but these come at a price: resources like ProQuest Historical Newspapers; Gale 19th Century US Newspapers; America’s Historical Newspapers from Readex (a division of Newsbank) are normally only available via a select number of institutions such as academic libraries that are able to afford the subscriptions. The alternative option of taking out a personal subscription to the back files of titles such as New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times is unlikely to appeal to any but the best-heeled researcher

Reading the "Negro Bible": online access to Jet and Ebony

This article gives a very brief account of the rise to prominence of the black owned and run Johnson Publishing Company, with particular emphasis on its earlier years and specifically on the role played by its two most important publications, Ebony and Jet. The late Redd Foxx called Jet "The Negro Bible," and a character in one of poet/playwright Maya Angelou's plays said that "if it wasn't in Jet, it didn't happen.". It then describes how runs of these 2 titles, and others from the same publishing house, are now available online from Google Book Search, before looking at some potential uses of these resources as primary source material for research

Away from home: A qualitative exploration of health experiences of Nigerian students in a U.K. university

© Journal of International Students. This study explored the factors that contribute to the health experience of Nigerian students in the United Kingdom. Challenges faced by international students include dietary issues, isolation, stress, depression and others. Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted combination of purposive sampling and snowball sampling techniques were used to recruit participants for the study. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed and analysed using thematic content analysis and Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to interpret themes. Two major themes from our findings were discussed under broad headings: Transitional changes and financial capability. These findings have practical implications for Nigerian students’ well being in a U.K. university. Cultural dimension is needed to reduce culture shock experience among international students during sojourning

Interpreting Dark Matter Direct Detection Independently of the Local Velocity and Density Distribution

We demonstrate precisely what particle physics information can be extracted from a single direct detection observation of dark matter while making absolutely no assumptions about the local velocity distribution and local density of dark matter. Our central conclusions follow from a very simple observation: the velocity distribution of dark matter is positive definite, f(v) >= 0. We demonstrate the utility of this result in several ways. First, we show a falling deconvoluted recoil spectrum (deconvoluted of the nuclear form factor), such as from ordinary elastic scattering, can be "mocked up" by any mass of dark matter above a kinematic minimum. As an example, we show that dark matter much heavier than previously considered can explain the CoGeNT excess. Specifically, m_chi < m_Ge} can be in just as good agreement as light dark matter, while m_\chi > m_Ge depends on understanding the sensitivity of Xenon to dark matter at very low recoil energies, E_R ~ 6 keVnr. Second, we show that any rise in the deconvoluted recoil spectrum represents distinct particle physics information that cannot be faked by an arbitrary f(v). As examples of resulting non-trivial particle physics, we show that inelastic dark matter and dark matter with a form factor can both yield such a rise

Successful elimination of factor VIII inhibitor using cyclosporin A

No abstract available

Low-cost filter media for removal of hydrogensulphide from piggery biogas

The presence of elevated concentrations of hydrogen sulphide (H2S) in piggery biogas is problematic due to its corrosiveness and toxicity. At small scale, the cost of using iron or carbon-based commercial filter media to remove H2S can act as a barrier to the uptake of on-farm biogas technology. To identify cost-effective, alternative options, this study tested and compared H2S removal by the commercial iron-oxide H2S scavenger (cg5) with the alternative solid media: granulated steel furnace slag (GSFS), red soil, compost, composted beef feedlot manure, granular activated carbon (GAC) and biochar. Experiments measured single-pass H2S removal from a pre-humidified standard gas (2000 ppm H2S in nitrogen) onto solid media contained in a cylindrical plastic column (DN 25 mm, depth 110–147 mm). The commercial medium (cg5) performed considerably better than the other media, achieving sulphur removal of 143 g S/kg medium at breakthrough (>10 ppm outlet H2S). A red soil was the most promising alternative medium (2–12 g S/kg medium at breakthrough). The crystalline structure of the iron-oxide minerals appeared to strongly influence the H2S removal capacity of the red soils, and pressure drop was generally high. Bulking with ground sugarcane mulch (SCM) was effective at reducing pressure drop. Interestingly, H2S removal with red soil improved when the soil was regenerated by exposure to air, followed by reuse in the column. Overall, red soil may be a suitable low-cost option, especially for polishing biogas after initial biological H2S removal

Proton Lifetime and Baryon Number Violating Signatures at the LHC in Gauge Extended Models

There exist a number of models in the literature in which the weak interactions are derived from a chiral gauge theory based on a larger group than SU(2)_L x U(1)_Y. Such theories can be constructed so as to be anomaly-free and consistent with precision electroweak measurements, and may be interpreted as a deconstruction of an extra dimension. They also provide interesting insights into the issues of flavor and dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking, and can help to raise the mass of the Higgs boson in supersymmetric theories. In this work we show that these theories can also give rise to baryon and lepton number violating processes, such as nucleon decay and spectacular multijet events at colliders, via the instanton transitions associated with the extended gauge group. For a particular model based on SU(2)_1 x SU(2)_2, we find that the $B+L$ violating scattering cross sections are too small to be observed at the LHC, but that the lower limit on the lifetime of the proton implies an upper bound on the gauge couplings.Comment: 36 page

Goal conflict and goal facilitation as predictors of accelerometer-assessed physical activity

Objective: To test whether perceptions of conflicting and facilitating personal goals, and actual daily time spent in their pursuit, predict accelerometer-assessed physical activity (PA). Methods: A prospective multilevel design with a daily accelerometer-based assessment of PA over 1 week was used (N = 106). Participants’ personal goals were elicited using personal projects analysis. Participants then rated their personal goals in terms of how they were perceived to facilitate and conflict with their regular PA. Items assessing PA-specific intention and perceived behavioral control (PBC) were also embedded within the baseline measures. For the subsequent 7 consecutive days, participants completed a daily diary based on the day reconstruction method, indicating the time spent in daily episodes involving each of their personal goals, and wore an RT3 tri-axial accelerometer. Main Outcome Measure: The main outcome was accelerometer-assessed daily time spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Results: Random intercept multilevel models indicated that perceived goal facilitation, but not perceived goal conflict, predicted MVPA over and above intention and PBC. Daily time pursuing conflicting goals negatively predicted MVPA when subsequently added to the model and in so doing, attenuated the association between perceived goal facilitation and MVPA. Conclusion: Perceived goal facilitation predicts objectively measured PA over and above intention and PBC, but daily time spent in pursuit of conflicting personal goals provides a better account of how alternative goals relate to engaging in regular PA