2,632 research outputs found
Historical Calibration of a Water Account System
Models that are used for future based scenarios should be calibrated with historical water supply and use data. Historical water records in Australia are discontinuous, incomplete and often incongruently disaggregated. We present a systematic method to produce a coherent reconstruction of the historical provision and consumption of water in Victorian catchments. This is demonstrated using WAS: an accounting and simulation tool that tracks the stocks and flows of physical quantities relating to the water system. The WAS is also part of, and informed by, an integrated framework of stocks and flows calculators for simulating long-term interactions between other sectors of the physical economy. Both the WAS and related frameworks consider a wide scope of inputs regarding population, land use, energy and water. The physical history of the water sector is reconstructed by integrating water data with these information sources using a data modelling process that resolves conflicts and deduces missing information. The WAS allows strategic exploration of water and energy implications of scenarios of water sourcing, treatment, delivery and end use cognisant of historical records.water accounting, stocks and flows, historical time series, data modelling, calibration
Predicting sexual problems in women: The relevance of sexual excitation and sexual inhibition
This is the post-print version of the article. The official published version can be obtained from the link below.Data from a non-clinical sample of 540 heterosexual women were used to examine the relationships between scores on the Sexual Excitation/Sexual Inhibition Inventory for Women (SESII-W) and ratings of current sexual problems, lifetime arousal difficulty, lifetime orgasm difficulty, and lifetime problems with low sexual interest. Multiple regression analyses also included several demographic/background variables as predictors: age, full-time employment, completed college, children in household, married, health ratings, importance of sex, and whether the woman was in a sexual relationship. The strongest statistical predictors of both current and lifetime sexual problems were the SESII-W inhibition factors Arousal Contingency and Concerns about Sexual Function. Demographic factors did not feature largely in any of the models predicting sexual problems even when statistically significant relationships were found. If future research supports the predictive utility of the SESII-W in identifying women who are more likely to experience sexual difficulties, these scales may be used as prognostic factors in treatment studies.This study was funded, in part, by a grant from the Lilly Centre for Women's Health
Globular cluster systems in fossil groups: NGC6482, NGC1132 and ESO306-017
We study the globular cluster (GC) systems in three representative fossil
group galaxies: the nearest (NGC6482), the prototype (NGC1132) and the most
massive known to date (ESO306-017). This is the first systematic study of GC
systems in fossil groups. Using data obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope
Advanced Camera for Surveys in the F475W and F850LP filters, we determine the
GC color and magnitude distributions, surface number density profiles, and
specific frequencies. In all three systems, the GC color distribution is
bimodal, the GCs are spatially more extended than the starlight, and the red
population is more concentrated than the blue. The specific frequencies seem to
scale with the optical luminosities of the central galaxy and span a range
similar to that of the normal bright elliptical galaxies in rich environments.
We also analyze the galaxy surface brightness distributions to look for
deviations from the best-fit S\'ersic profiles; we find evidence of recent
dynamical interaction in all three fossil group galaxies. Using X-ray data from
the literature, we find that luminosity and metallicity appear to correlate
with the number of GCs and their mean color, respectively. Interestingly,
although NGC6482 has the lowest mass and luminosity in our sample, its GC
system has the reddest mean color, and the surrounding X-ray gas has the
highest metallicity.Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures. Accepted for publication in A&
Towards an Efficient Finite Element Method for the Integral Fractional Laplacian on Polygonal Domains
We explore the connection between fractional order partial differential
equations in two or more spatial dimensions with boundary integral operators to
develop techniques that enable one to efficiently tackle the integral
fractional Laplacian. In particular, we develop techniques for the treatment of
the dense stiffness matrix including the computation of the entries, the
efficient assembly and storage of a sparse approximation and the efficient
solution of the resulting equations. The main idea consists of generalising
proven techniques for the treatment of boundary integral equations to general
fractional orders. Importantly, the approximation does not make any strong
assumptions on the shape of the underlying domain and does not rely on any
special structure of the matrix that could be exploited by fast transforms. We
demonstrate the flexibility and performance of this approach in a couple of
two-dimensional numerical examples
Immunosuppressive niche engineering at the onset of human colorectal cancer
The evolutionary dynamics of tumor initiation remain undetermined, and the interplay between neoplastic cells and the immune system is hypothesized to be critical in transformation. Colorectal cancer (CRC) presents a unique opportunity to study the transition to malignancy as pre-cancers (adenomas) and early-stage cancers are frequently resected. Here, we examine tumor-immune eco-evolutionary dynamics from pre-cancer to carcinoma using a computational model, ecological analysis of digital pathology data, and neoantigen prediction in 62 patient samples. Modeling predicted recruitment of immunosuppressive cells would be the most common driver of transformation. As predicted, ecological analysis reveals that progressed adenomas co-localized with immunosuppressive cells and cytokines, while benign adenomas co-localized with a mixed immune response. Carcinomas converge to a common immune “cold” ecology, relaxing selection against immunogenicity and high neoantigen burdens, with little evidence for PD-L1 overexpression driving tumor initiation. These findings suggest re-engineering the immunosuppressive niche may prove an effective immunotherapy in CRC
Young people, crime and school exclusion: a case of some surprises
During the 1990s the number of young people being permanently excluded from schools in England and Wales increased dramatically from 2,910 (1990/91) to a peak of 12,700 (1996/97). Coinciding with this rise was a resurgence of the debate centring on lawless and delinquent youth. With the publication of Young People and Crime (Graham and Bowling 1995) and Misspent Youth (Audit Commission 1996) the 'common sense assumption' that exclusion from school inexorably promoted crime received wide support, with the school excludee portrayed as another latter day 'folk devil'. This article explores the link between school exclusion and juvenile crime, and offers some key findings from a research study undertaken with 56 young people who had experience of being excluded from school. Self-report interview questions reveal that whilst 40 of the young people had offended, 90% (36) reported that the onset of their offending commenced prior to their first exclusion. Moreover, 50 (89.2% of the total number of young people in the sample), stated that they were no more likely to offend subsequent to being excluded and 31 (55.4%) stated that they were less likely to offend during their exclusion period. Often, this was because on being excluded, they were 'grounded' by their parents
HST and UKIRT imaging observations of z~1 6C radio galaxies - II. Galaxy morphologies and the alignment effect
(abridged) Powerful radio galaxies often display enhanced optical/UV emission
regions, elongated and aligned with the radio jet axis. The aim of this series
of papers is to separately investigate the effects of radio power and redshift
on the alignment effect, together with other radio galaxy properties. In this
second paper, we present a deeper analysis of the morphological properties of
these systems, including both the host galaxies and their surrounding aligned
emission. The host galaxies of our 6C subsample are well described as de
Vaucouleurs ellipticals, with typical scale sizes of ~10kpc. This is comparable
to the host galaxies of low-z radio sources of similar powers, and also the
more powerful 3CR sources at the same redshift. The contribution of nuclear
point source emission is also comparable, regardless of radio power. The 6C
alignment effect is remarkably similar to that seen around more powerful 3CR
sources at the same redshift in terms of extent and degree of alignment with
the radio source axis, although it is generally less luminous. The bright,
knotty features observed in the case of the z~1 3CR sources are far less
frequent in our 6C subsample; neither do we observe such strong evidence for
evolution in the strength of the alignment effect with radio source size/age.
However, we do find a very strong link between the most extreme alignment
effects and emission line region properties indicative of shocks, regardless of
source size/age or power. In general, the 6C alignment effect is still
considerably stronger than that seen around lower redshift galaxies of similar
radio powers. (abridged)Comment: 23 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS. See
http://www.mrao.cam.ac.uk/~kji/MorphPaper/ for version of paper with full
resolution images of Figs 1-1
Visitor expenditure estimation for grocery store location planning: a case study of Cornwall
Visitor expenditure is an important driver of demand in many local economies, supporting a range of services and facilities which may not be viable based solely on residential demand. In areas where self-catering accommodation is prevalent visitor demand makes up a considerable proportion of sales and revenue within grocery stores, yet this form of visitor consumption is commonly overlooked in supply and demand-side estimates of visitor spend. As such, store location planning in tourist resorts, decisions about local service provision and the local economic impacts of tourism are based on very limited demand-side estimates of visitor spend. Using Cornwall, South West England as a study area, we outline a methodology and data sources to estimate small-area visitor grocery spend. We use self-catering accommodation provision, utilisation and visitor expenditure rates as key factors driving visitor spend. We identify that the use of visitor accommodation accounts for the spatial and temporal complexities of visitor demand that may be overlooked when using alternative approaches, such as the up-scaling of residential demand. Using a spatial interaction model, we demonstrate that our expenditure estimates can be used to generate store level revenue estimation within tourist resorts, and we make a number of recommendations for service provision and store location planning in these areas
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