Gas Dynamics in the Barred Seyfert Galaxy NGC4151 - II. High Resolution HI Study

We present sensitive, high angular resolution (6" x 5") 21-cm observations of the neutral hydrogen in the nearby barred Seyfert galaxy, NGC4151. These HI observations, obtained using the VLA in B-configuration, are the highest resolution to date of this galaxy, and reveal hitherto unprecedented detail in the distribution and kinematics of the HI on sub-kiloparsec scales. A complete analysis and discussion of the HI data are presented and the global properties of the galaxy are related to the bar dynamics presented in Paper I.Comment: 13 pages including 9 figures and 3 tables; accepted for publication in MNRA

Secure Proximity-Based Identity Pairing using an Untrusted Signalling Service

New protocols such as WebRTC promise seamless in-browser peer-to-peer communications that in theory remove the need for third-party services. In practice, widespread use of Firewalls, NATS and dynamic IP addresses mean that overlay addressing or use of some fixed rendezvous point is still needed. In this paper we describe a proximity-based pairing scheme that uses a signalling service to minimise the trust requirements on the third party, achieving anonymity and avoiding the need for PKI, while still requiring only a simple asymmetric pairing protocol

The Open Access Advantage Revisited

This paper is a revision of one that appeared in 2008, incorporating the many developments and changes that have happened since then.published_or_final_versio

The Open Access Advantage

Hong Kong Open Access Committeepublished_or_final_versio

The School Health Index as an Impetus for Change

BACKGROUND: The increase in childhood obesity and prevalence of chronic disease risk factors demonstrate the importance of creating healthy school environments. As part of the Border Health Strategic Initiative, the School Health Index was implemented in public schools in two counties along the Arizona, United States-Sonora, Mexico border. Developed in 2000 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the School Health Index offers a guide to assist schools in evaluating and improving opportunities for physical activity and good nutrition for their students. CONTEXT: Between 2000 and 2003, a total of 13 schools from five school districts in two counties participated in the School Health Index project despite academic pressures and limited resources. METHODS: The Border Health Strategic Initiative supported the hiring and training of an external coordinator in each county who was not part of the school system but who was an employee in an established community-based organization. The coordinators worked with the schools to implement the School Health Index, to develop action plans, and to monitor progress toward these goals. CONSEQUENCES: The School Health Index process and school team participation varied from school to school. Individual plans were different but all focused on reducing in-school access to unhealthy foods, identified as high-fat and/or of low nutritional value. Ideas for acting on this focus ranged from changing the content of school lunches to discontinuing the use of nonnutritious foods as classroom rewards. All plans included recommendations that could be implemented immediately as well as those that would require planning and perhaps the formation and assistance of a subcommittee (e.g., for developing or adopting a district-wide health curriculum). INTERPRETATION: After working with the School Health Index, most schools made at least one immediate change in their school environments. The external coordinator was essential to keeping the School Health Index results and action plans on the agendas of school administrators, especially during periods of staff turnover. Staff turnover, lack of time, and limited resources resulted in few schools achieving longer-term policy changes

The School Health Index as an Impetus for Change

Background The increase in childhood obesity and prevalence of chronic disease risk factors demonstrate the importance of creating healthy school environments. As part of the Border Health Strategic Initiative, the School Health Index was implemented in public schools in two counties along the Arizona, United States-Sonora, Mexico border. Developed in 2000 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the School Health Index offers a guide to assist schools in evaluating and improving opportunities for physical activity and good nutrition for their students. Context Between 2000 and 2003, a total of 13 schools from five school districts in two counties participated in the School Health Index project despite academic pressures and limited resources. Methods The Border Health Strategic Initiative supported the hiring and training of an external coordinator in each county who was not part of the school system but who was an employee in an established community-based organization. The coordinators worked with the schools to implement the School Health Index, to develop action plans, and to monitor progress toward these goals. Consequences The School Health Index process and school team participation varied from school to school. Individual plans were different but all focused on reducing in-school access to unhealthy foods, identified as high-fat and/or of low nutritional value. Ideas for acting on this focus ranged from changing the content of school lunches to discontinuing the use of nonnutritious foods as classroom rewards. All plans included recommendations that could be implemented immediately as well as those that would require planning and perhaps the formation and assistance of a subcommittee (e.g., for developing or adopting a districtwide health curriculum). Interpretation After working with the School Health Index, most schools made at least one immediate change in their school environments. The external coordinator was essential to keeping the School Health Index results and action plans on the agendas of school administrators, especially during periods of staff turnover. Staff turnover, lack of time, and limited resources resulted in few schools achieving longer term policy changes

A stochastic game framework for patrolling a border

In this paper we consider a stochastic game for modelling the interactions between smugglers and a patroller along a border. The problem we examine involves a group of cooperating smugglers making regular attempts to bring small amounts of illicit goods across a border. A single patroller has the goal of preventing the smugglers from doing so, but must pay a cost to travel from one location to another. We model the problem as a two-player stochastic game and look to find the Nash equilibrium to gain insight to real world problems. Our framework extends the literature by assuming that the smugglers choose a continuous quantity of contraband, complicating the analysis of the game. We discuss a number of properties of Nash equilibria, including the aggregation of smugglers, the discount factors of the players, and the equivalence to a zero-sum game. Additionally, we present algorithms to find Nash equilibria that are more computationally efficient than existing methods. We also consider certain assumptions on the parameters of the model that give interesting equilibrium strategies for the players

An Ensemble Detection Model using Multinomial Classification of Stochastic Gas Smart Meter Data to Improve Wellbeing Monitoring in Smart Cities

Fuel poverty has a negative impact on the wellbeing of individuals within a household; affecting not only comfort levels but also increased levels of seasonal mortality. Wellbeing solutions within this sector are moving towards identifying how the needs of people in vulnerable situations can be improved or monitored by means of existing supply networks and public institutions. Therefore, the focus of this research is towards wellbeing monitoring solution, through the analysis of gas smart meter data. Gas smart meters replace the traditional analogue electro-mechanical and diaphragm-based meters that required regular reading. They have received widespread popularity over the last 10 years. This is primarily due to the fact that by using this technology, customers are able to adapt their consumption behaviours based on real-time information provided by In-Home Devices. Yet, the granular nature of the datasets generated has also meant that this technology is ideal for further scalable wellbeing monitoring applications. For example, the autonomous detection of households at risk of energy poverty is possible and of growing importance in order to face up to the impacts of fuel poverty, quality of life and wellbeing of low-income housing. However, despite their popularity (smart meters), the analysis of gas smart meter data has been neglected. In this paper, an ensemble model is proposed to achieve autonomous detection, supported by four key measures from gas usage patterns, consisting of i) a tariff detection, ii) a temporally-aware tariff detection, iii) a routine consumption detection and iv) an age-group detection. Using a cloud-based machine learning platform, the proposed approach yielded promising classification results of up to 84.1% Area Under Curve (AUC), when the Synthetic Minority Over-sampling Technique (SMOTE) was utilised