1,594 research outputs found
Aggregation and Representation in the European Parliament Party Groups
While members of the European Parliament are elected in national constituencies, their votes are determined by the aggregation of MEPs in multinational party groups. The uncoordinated aggregation of national party programmes in multinational EP party groups challenges theories of representation based on national parties and parliaments. This article provides a theoretical means of understanding representation by linking the aggregation of dozens of national party programmes in different EP party groups to the aggregation of groups to produce the parliamentary majority needed to enact policies. Drawing on an original data source of national party programmes, the EU Profiler, the article shows that the EP majorities created by aggregating MEP votes in party groups are best explained by cartel theories. These give priority to strengthening the EP’s collective capacity to enact policies rather than voting in accord with the programmes they were nationally elected to represent
Correlated variability of Mkn 421 at X-ray and TeV wavelengths on timescales of hours
Mkn 421 was observed for about two days with BeppoSAX, prior to and partly
overlapping the start of a 1 week continuous exposure with ASCA in April 1998,
as part of a world-wide multiwavelength campaign. A pronounced, well defined,
flare observed in X-rays was also observed simultaneously at TeV energies by
the Whipple Observatory's 10 m gamma-ray telescope. These data provide the
first evidence that the X-ray and TeV intensities are well correlated on
time-scales of hours.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, presented at the VERITAS Workshop on the TeV
Astrophysics of Extragalactic Object
Liquid racism and the Danish Prophet Muhammad cartoons
This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2010 The Author.This article examines reactions to the October 2005 publication of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. It does so by using the concept of ‘liquid racism’. While the controversy arose because it is considered blasphemous by many Muslims to create images of the Prophet Muhammad, the article argues that the meaning of the cartoons is multidimensional, that their analysis is significantly more complex than most commentators acknowledge, and that this complexity can best be addressed via the concept of liquid racism. The article examines the liquidity of the cartoons in relation to four readings. These see the cartoons as: (1) a criticism of Islamic fundamentalism; (2) blasphemous images; (3) Islamophobic and racist; and (4) satire and a defence of freedom of speech. Finally, the relationship between postmodernity and the rise of fundamentalism is discussed because the cartoons, reactions to them, and Islamic fundamentalism, all contain an important postmodern dimension.ESR
Does Older Age Lead to Higher Risk for Neutropenia in Patients Treated with Paclitaxel?
Purpose: There is ongoing concern regarding increased toxicity from paclitaxel in elderly patients, particularly of severe neutropenia. Yet, data so far is controversial and this concern is not supported by a clinically relevant age-dependent difference in pharmacokinetics (PK) of paclitaxel. This study assessed whether age is associated with increased risk for paclitaxel-induced neutropenia. Methods: Paclitaxel plasma concentration-time data, pooled from multiple different studies, was combined with available respective neutrophil count data during the first treatment cycle. Paclitaxel pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic (PK-PD) d
Chaos assisted tunnelling with cold atoms
In the context of quantum chaos, both theory and numerical analysis predict
large fluctuations of the tunnelling transition probabilities when irregular
dynamics is present at the classical level. We consider here the
non-dissipative quantum evolution of cold atoms trapped in a time-dependent
modulated periodic potential generated by two laser beams. We give some precise
guidelines for the observation of chaos assisted tunnelling between invariant
phase space structures paired by time-reversal symmetry.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev. E ; 16 pages, 13 figures; figures of better
quality can be found at http://www.phys.univ-tours.fr/~mouchet
The PKC, HOG and Ca2+ signalling pathways co-ordinately regulate chitin synthesis in Candida albicans
Open Access via PMC2649417Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Unscreened Hartree-Fock calculations for metallic Fe, Co, Ni, and Cu from ab-initio Hamiltonians
Unscreened Hartree-Fock approximation (HFA) calculations for metallic Fe, Co,
Ni, and Cu are presented, by using a quantum-chemical approach. We believe that
these are the first HFA results to have been done for crystalline 3d transition
metals. Our approach uses a linearized muffin-tin orbital calculation to
determine Bloch functions for the Hartree one-particle Hamiltonian, and from
these obtains maximally localized Wannier functions, using a method proposed by
Marzari and Vanderbilt. Within this Wannier basis all relevant one-particle and
two-particle Coulomb matrix elements are calculated. The resulting
second-quantized multi-band Hamiltonian with ab-initio parameters is studied
within the simplest many-body approximation, namely the unscreened,
self-consistent HFA, which takes into account exact exchange and is free of
self-interactions. Although the d-bands sit considerably lower within HFA than
within the local (spin) density approximation L(S)DA, the exchange splitting
and magnetic moments for ferromagnetic Fe, Co, and Ni are only slightly larger
in HFA than what is obtained either experimentally or within LSDA. The HFA
total energies are lower than the corresponding LSDA calculations. We believe
that this same approach can be easily extended to include more sophisticated
ab-initio many-body treatments of the electronic structure of solids.Comment: 11 papes, 7 figures, 5 table
An Effective-Medium Tight-Binding Model for Silicon
A new method for calculating the total energy of Si systems is presented. The
method is based on the effective-medium theory concept of a reference system.
Instead of calculating the energy of an atom in the system of interest a
reference system is introduced where the local surroundings are similar. The
energy of the reference system can be calculated selfconsistently once and for
all while the energy difference to the reference system can be obtained
approximately. We propose to calculate it using the tight-binding LMTO scheme
with the Atomic-Sphere Approximation(ASA) for the potential, and by using the
ASA with charge-conserving spheres we are able to treat open system without
introducing empty spheres. All steps in the calculational method is {\em ab
initio} in the sense that all quantities entering are calculated from first
principles without any fitting to experiment. A complete and detailed
description of the method is given together with test calculations of the
energies of phonons, elastic constants, different structures, surfaces and
surface reconstructions. We compare the results to calculations using an
empirical tight-binding scheme.Comment: 26 pages (11 uuencoded Postscript figures appended), LaTeX,
CAMP-090594-
Fusion of secretory vesicles isolated from rat liver
Secretory vesicles isolated from rat liver were found to fuse after exposure to Ca2+. Vescle fusion is characterized by the occurrence of twinned vesicles with a continuous cleavage plane between two vesicles in freeze-fracture electron microscopy. The number of fused vesicles increases with increasing Ca2+-concentrations and is half maximal around 10–6 m. Other divalent cations (Ba2+, Sr2+, and Mg2+) were ineffective. Mg2+ inhibits Ca2+-induced fusion. Therefore, the fusion of secretory vesiclesin vitro is Ca2+ specific and exhibits properties similar to the exocytotic process of various secretory cells.
Various substances affecting secretionin vivo (microtubular inhibitors, local anethetics, ionophores) were tested for their effect on membrane fusion in our system.
The fusion of isolated secretory vesicles from liver was found to differ from that of pure phospholipid membranes in its temperature dependence, in its much lower requirement for Ca2+, and in its Ca2+-specificity. Chemical and enzymatic modifications of the vesicle membrane indicate that glycoproteins may account for these differences
The First VERITAS Telescope
The first atmospheric Cherenkov telescope of VERITAS (the Very Energetic
Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System) has been in operation since February
2005. We present here a technical description of the instrument and a summary
of its performance. The calibration methods are described, along with the
results of Monte Carlo simulations of the telescope and comparisons between
real and simulated data. The analysis of TeV -ray observations of the
Crab Nebula, including the reconstructed energy spectrum, is shown to give
results consistent with earlier measurements. The telescope is operating as
expected and has met or exceeded all design specifications.Comment: Accepted by Astroparticle Physic
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