A Feature-Augmented Grammar for Automated Media Production

The IST Polymnia project is creating a fully automated system for personalised video generation, including content creation, selection and composition. This paper presents a linguistically motivated solution using context-free feature-augmented grammar rules to describe editing tasks and hence automate video editing. The solution is media and application independent

Search for cosmic gamma radiation with a vidicon spark chamber Final report

Cosmic gamma radiation searched with vidicon spark chamber flown in high-altitude balloo

Tackling salinity on the Esperance sandplain

The Esperance sandplain has serious secondary salinity. Waterlogging and poor surface drainage compound the problems. The original aim of the project was to promote high water use pastures for areas of deep sands as a way of limiting rechrge to the saline groundwater. This aim was later broadened to include the promotion of deep-rooted perennial pastures on all suitable soils

Confidentiality and public protection: ethical dilemmas in qualitative research with adult male sex offenders

This paper considers the ethical tensions present when engaging in in-depth interviews with convicted sex offenders. Many of the issues described below are similar to those found in other sensitive areas of research. However, confidentiality and public protection are matters that require detailed consideration when the desire to know more about men who have committed serious and harmful offences is set against the possibility of a researcher not disclosing previously unknown sensitive information that relates to the risk of someone being harmed.</p

Identification of transcription-factor genes expressed in the Arabidopsis female gametophyte

Dongfang Wang, Changqing Zhang, David J. Hearn, Il-HO Kang, megan I. Skaggs, Karen S. Schumaker, and Ramin Yadegari are with the School of Plant Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721-0036, USA -- Il-Ho Kang, Jayson A. Punwani, and Gary N. Drews are with the Department of Biology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-0840, USA -- Changqing Zhang is with The Section of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712-0159, USA -- David J. Hearn is with the Department of Biological Sciences, Towson University, Towson, Maryland 21252-0001, USA -- Il-Ho Kang is with the Department of Horticulture, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011-1100, USA --Jayson A. Punwani is with the Department of Biology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-3280, USABackground In flowering plants, the female gametophyte is typically a seven-celled structure with four cell types: the egg cell, the central cell, the synergid cells, and the antipodal cells. These cells perform essential functions required for double fertilization and early seed development. Differentiation of these distinct cell types likely involves coordinated changes in gene expression regulated by transcription factors. Therefore, understanding female gametophyte cell differentiation and function will require dissection of the gene regulatory networks operating in each of the cell types. These efforts have been hampered because few transcription factor genes expressed in the female gametophyte have been identified. To identify such genes, we undertook a large-scale differential expression screen followed by promoter-fusion analysis to detect transcription-factor genes transcribed in the Arabidopsis female gametophyte. Results Using quantitative reverse-transcriptase PCR, we analyzed 1,482 Arabidopsis transcription-factor genes and identified 26 genes exhibiting reduced mRNA levels in determinate infertile 1 mutant ovaries, which lack female gametophytes, relative to ovaries containing female gametophytes. Spatial patterns of gene transcription within the mature female gametophyte were identified for 17 transcription-factor genes using promoter-fusion analysis. Of these, ten genes were predominantly expressed in a single cell type of the female gametophyte including the egg cell, central cell and the antipodal cells whereas the remaining seven genes were expressed in two or more cell types. After fertilization, 12 genes were transcriptionally active in the developing embryo and/or endosperm. Conclusions We have shown that our quantitative reverse-transcriptase PCR differential-expression screen is sufficiently sensitive to detect transcription-factor genes transcribed in the female gametophyte. Most of the genes identified in this study have not been reported previously as being expressed in the female gametophyte. Therefore, they might represent novel regulators and provide entry points for reverse genetic and molecular approaches to uncover the gene regulatory networks underlying female gametophyte development.Cellular and Molecular [email protected]

Rotating Relativistic Thin Disks

Two families of models of rotating relativistic disks based on Taub-NUT and Kerr metrics are constructed using the well-known "displace, cut and reflect" method. We find that for disks built from a generic stationary axially symmetric metric the "sound velocity", $(pressure/density)^{1/2}$, is equal to the geometric mean of the prograde and retrograde geodesic circular velocities of test particles moving on the disk. We also found that for generic disks we can have zones with heat flow. For the two families of models studied the boundaries that separate the zones with and without heat flow are not stable against radial perturbations (ring formation).Comment: 18 eps figures, to be published PR

Chandra Observations of Extended X-ray Emission in Arp 220

We resolve the extended X-ray emission from the prototypical ultraluminous infrared galaxy Arp 220. Extended, faint edge-brightened, soft X-ray lobes outside the optical galaxy are observed to a distance of 10 to 15 kpc on each side of the nuclear region. Bright plumes inside the optical isophotes coincide with the optical line emission and extend 11 kpc from end to end across the nucleus. The data for the plumes cannot be fit by a single temperature plasma, and display a range of temperatures from 0.2 to 1 keV. The plumes emerge from bright, diffuse circumnuclear emission in the inner 3 kpc centered on the Halpha peak, which is displaced from the radio nuclei. There is a close morphological correspondence between the Halpha and soft X-ray emission on all spatial scales. We interpret the plumes as a starburst-driven superwind, and discuss two interpretations of the emission from the lobes in the context of simulations of the merger dynamics of Arp 220.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ; see also astro-ph/0208477 (Paper 1

Integrable System Constructed out of Two Interacting Superconformal Fields

We describe how it is possible to introduce the interaction between superconformal fields of the same conformal dimensions. In the classical case such construction can be used to the construction of the Hirota - Satsuma equation. We construct supersymmetric Poisson tensor for such fields, which generates a new class of Hamiltonin systems. We found Lax representation for one of equation in this class by supersymmetrization Lax operator responsible for Hirota - Satsuma equation. Interestingly our supersymmetric equation is not reducible to classical Hirota - Satsuma equation. We show that our generalized system is reduced to the one of the supersymmetric KDV equation (a=4) but in this limit integrals of motion are not reduced to integrals of motion of the supersymmetric KdV equation.Comment: 15 pages,late