Cyberbullying - when does a school authority\u27s liability in tort end?

Cyberbullying in schools is increasing on an alarming rate. The development of the Internet and smartphone technology have increased the potential scope of a school authority’s duty of care for its students. A question frequently asked by educators is “Where does a school authority’s duty of care end in the interconnected, 24/7 world of the Internet?” This paper argues that a duty of care will be owed where the school is in a school/student relationship with its students. That relationship can exist outside the school gates and outside of school hours. There are no decisions of senior appellate courts that deal with a school authority’s liability for cyberbullying. The authors, therefore, analyse the nature of the relationship to identify the key features that must be present to establish the existence of a duty of care. Three features are identified as critical to the existence of the duty of care outside of the normal school hours. They are the extent to which the school authority controls or ought to control a given situation, the extent to which it has encouraged students to participate in a particular activity and the extent to which a school authority is aware or ought to be aware of risks associated with the relevant activity of its students

Descriptive Metaphysics, Natural Language Metaphysics, Sapir-Whorf, and All That Stuff: Evidence from the Mass-Count Distinction

Strawson (1959) described ‘descriptive metaphysics’, Bach (1986a) described ‘natural language metaphysics’, Sapir (1929) and Whorf (1940a,b, 1941) describe, well, Sapir-Whorfianism. And there are other views concerning the relation between correct semantic analysis of linguistic phenomena and the “reality” that is supposed to be thereby described. I think some considerations from the analyses of the mass-count distinction can shed some light on that very dark topic

The Effect of Syntactic Form on Simple Belief Revisions and Updates

In this paper we report preliminary results on how people revise or update a previously held set of beliefs. When intelligent agents learn new things which conflict with their current belief set, they must revise their belief set. When the new information does not conflict, they merely must update their belief set. Various AI theories have been proposed to achieve these processes. There are two general dimensions along which these theories differ: whether they are syntactic-based or model-based, and what constitutes a minimal change of beliefs. This study investigates how people update and revise semantically equivalent but syntactically distinct belief sets, both in symbolic-logic problems and in quasi-real-world problems. Results indicate that syntactic form affects belief revision choices. In addition, for the symbolic problems, subjects update and revise semantically-equivalent belief sets identically, whereas for the quasi-real-world problems they both update and revise differently. Further, contrary to earlier studies, subjects are sometimes reluctant to accept that a sentence changes from false to true, but they are willing to accept that it would change from true to false

Power performance evaluation and improvement of operational wind power plants

The operation of wind farms on an industrial scale is relatively recent. With this new industrial era, wind farm operators are sometimes inclined to apply to wind the same methods of assessment and performance improvement (economic, energy, environmental, etc.) as those used for their so-called conventional power plants. The evaluation of energy performance is unquestionably one of the parameters most analyzed by operators. Energy performance can be evaluated by comparing the energy production of a plant (usually electricity) and the energy intake required for the said facility (e.g. coal, oil, wind, etc.). This assessment does not usually represent a significant technical challenge for so-called conventional plants. However, the complex nature of wind and its interaction with wind turbines makes this evaluation difficult for the wind energy sector. At present, the IEC 61400-12-1 standard is the only method accepted by the industry and which allows the energy performance of a single turbine to be evaluated. However, this approach is relatively costly. Further, the application of this standard in the industry over the past 15+ years has clearly established a number of associated limits. Thus, the first objective of this project was to try to improve current methods for assessing the energy performance of operational wind turbines and wind farms. In this context, the power curves of two wind turbines were able to be deducted by means of a model based on a neural network with six inputs and a multi-step technique. The results of this model were compared to several other modelling techniques and an increased accuracy was demonstrated for the cases analyzed. The second objective of this project consisted of attempting to improve the performance of turbines already in operation. After developing a more accurate method for power performance evaluation, tests on two operational turbines were conducted. The method used in an effort to increase energy production was based on optimizing the orientation of the nacelle-mounted wind vanes. Tests were conducted to assess the effect of wind vane orientation on the energy performance and the results obtained suggested that potential energy gains in the order of 1-3% could be achieved. Lastly, a number of findings from this project have been applied to various industrial projects in different contexts. Specifically, one wind farm owner has requested the services of the author to analyze the energy gain achieved pursuant to the installation of an improvement package on some of its wind turbines. A side-by-side comparison has been completed on two turbines fitted with this improvement package. Statistical tests have been developed in order to properly assess and quantify the energy gain and the associated uncertainty level

Exploring the Impact of Single-Nucleotide Polymorphisms on Translation

Over the past 15 years, sequencing of the human genome and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project have led to comprehensive lists of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and gene mutations across a large number of human samples. However, our ability to predict the functional impact of SNPs and mutations on gene expression is still in its infancy. Here, we provide key examples to help understand how mutations present in genes can affect translational output

Conception d'un site d'évaluation des performances d'éoliennes hors réseau en milieu complexe

Le développement technologique des éoliennes dites autonomes est fortement en retard comparativement aux éoliennes branchées à un réseau électrique. Cet écart technologique peut s'expliquer par le fait que la rentabilité des systèmes installés sur le réseau est beaucoup plus importante que pour les éoliennes hors réseau. Pour cette raison, les systèmes autonomes (hors réseau) ne possèdent aucune norme permettant l'évaluation de leur performance énergétique. Ainsi, aucun fournisseur d'éoliennes autonomes ne peut garantir la validité de sa méthode. Il est alors impossible aux consommateurs de comparer de façon objective les performances de ce type d'éolienne. De plus, la croissance de la production énergétique éolinene au cours des dernières années oblige de plus en plus les concepteurs de parcs éoliens à utiliser des terrains ayant une complexité topographique de plus en plus importante. Ces sites "complexes" entourant les éoliennes engendrent des distributions de vent non uniformes, qui ont un impact sur la courbe de performance des éoliennes. Cependant, ces effets sont encore mal connus. Ainsi, aucune méthode fiable d'évaluation des performances d'une éolienne en milieu complexe n'existe. L'objectif final ce de projet consiste à développer une méthode d'évaluation de performance dse éoliennes dites autonomes en milieu complexe. Pour ce faire, un site permettant l'évaluation de la performance des éoliennes sera installé sur le toit de l'École de Technologie Supérieure. Dans le cadre de ce projet de maîtrise, une méthode de conception mécanique d'un site d'évaluation de performance d'éoliennes sur le toit de l'ETS a été développée. Un système d'acquisition de données, ainsi que l'analyse d'erreur de chacun des instruments, ont été élaborés. Finalement, une méthode de calibration de sites complexes a été comparée à celle proposée par l'IEC. Des suggestions d'amélioration ont également été avancées

Twenty-Five Years Of Linguistics And Philosophy

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43170/1/10988_2004_Article_5089033.pd

Rocaglates induce gain-of-function alterations to eIF4A and eIF4F

Rocaglates are a diverse family of biologically active molecules that have gained tremendous interest in recent years due to their promising activities in pre-clinical cancer studies. As a result, this family of compounds has been significantly expanded through the development of efficient synthetic schemes. However, it is unknown whether all of the members of the rocaglate family act through similar mechanisms of action. Here, we present a comprehensive study comparing the biological activities of >200 rocaglates to better understand how the presence of different chemical entities influences their biological activities. Through this, we find that most rocaglates preferentially repress the translation of mRNAs containing purine-rich 5' leaders, but certain rocaglates lack this bias in translation repression. We also uncover an aspect of rocaglate mechanism of action in which the pool of translationally active eIF4F is diminished due to the sequestration of the complex onto RNA.P50 GM067041 - NIGMS NIH HHS; R24 GM111625 - NIGMS NIH HHS; R35 GM118173 - NIGMS NIH HHSPublished versio