The impact of distribution activities on the Canadian urban system

vii, 23 p. : charts, maps ; 28 cm

Interview with James Simmons

James Simmons discusses growing up with a large family in small town Arkansas

The Formation of a Bubble from a Submerged Orifice

The formation of a single bubble from an orifice in a solid surface, submerged in an in- compressible, viscous Newtonian liquid, is simulated. The finite element method is used to capture the multiscale physics associated with the problem and to track the evolution of the free surface explicitly. The results are compared to a recent experimental analysis and then used to obtain the global characteristics of the process, the formation time and volume of the bubble, for a range of orifice radii; Ohnesorge numbers, which combine the material parameters of the liquid; and volumetric gas flow rates. These benchmark calculations, for the parameter space of interest, are then utilised to validate a selection of scaling laws found in the literature for two regimes of bubble formation, the regimes of low and high gas flow rates.Comment: Accepted for publication in the European Journal of Mechanics B/Fluid

The_InstaPrEP_Project: A Social Marketing Intervention on Instagram to Increase Oral HIV Prophylaxis in Black Men Who Have Sex with Men

Purpose: Incidence of HIV diagnoses is higher in Black men who have sex with men (BMSM) than any other socio-demographic population in the United States. BMSM account for 26% of all new HIV diagnoses in the U.S. yet make up an estimated 1% of the U.S population. In 2017, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) predicted 50% of BMSM would be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime. Oral HIV pre-exposure prophylactic (PrEP) medications developed to prevent sexual transmission of HIV are 95-99% effective. However, Blacks represent only 10% of PrEP prescriptions. Targeted Social Marketing initiatives on Instagram need to be explored as a potential channel for informing BMSM about the benefits of PrEP and encouraging use.Methods: To evaluate interest in a social marketing campaign to increase PrEP interest and use, we systematically deployed an advertisement on the online social media platforms Facebook and Instagram targeting user accounts that show high engagement with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ), Black LGBTQ, queer-identified, and Black queer-identified (Instagram) accounts. Those accessing the ad by either taping on the link through their mobile device or clicking the link with their computer mouse and agreeing to participate in the survey, completed up to 26 sociodemographic and sexual behavior questions adapted from other surveys of men who have sex with men. Thereafter, respondents were separately invited to follow @The_InstaPrEP_Project on Instagram where followers received 31 educational images developed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released individually over six weeks. Followers that engaged the Instagram account (@The_InstaPrEP_Project) could view the 31 social marketing interventions as they became available and throughout the intervention. Followers were asked to complete a post-test survey at completion of the intervention. Descriptive, and parametric and non-parametric statistics explored associations between race, age, geography, and sexual-behavioral characteristics and in relationship to engagement of and perceptions of PrEP-specific social marketing campaign materials distributed on Instagram. The study protocol was evaluated as not representing human research by the UCLA Institutional Review Board (IRB#20-000123, South Campus) and declared exempt.Results: Fifteen users completed the pre-intervention survey. Of the 550 followers gained through the six-week intervention, six (1%) completed the post-intervention survey. Among pre-survey respondents, fewer than half reported themselves as African American (27%, 4/15) or non-white (20%, 3/15), but most stated they were cis-males (93%, 14/15) who have sex with men or mostly men (80%, 12/15). Most reported their age to be between 18 and 39 years (73%) and the majority stated they never used PrEP to prevent HIV (60%). Overall, most reported being HIV-uninfected (73%) at the outset of the intervention. The intervention account generated 550 followers,19,601 content views by unique user accounts, and 1,326 indications of a favorable opinion (likes) over the six-week intervention. Post-survey data suggested the intervention should be recommended to people like me, is a good addition to regular health care, and increased access to care. Interestingly, the intervention did not invade personal privacy, daily routines, or cause feelings of discomfort. Conclusion: Greater engagement in the content, given the absence of robust survey participation, suggests Instagram may be an effective tool to engage MSM at high risk for primary HIV infection to use PrEP. Optimized content and engagement strategies may allow for primary prevention strategies using Instagram to improve PrEP uptake and adherence

The History of the Kings of Britain From the Fall of Troy to the Death of Gogmagog: An Edition with a Grammar of the Language and a Glossary

This thesis consists of three main parts, a grammar of the language of The History of the Kings of Britain from the Fall of Troy to the Death of Gogmagog, and edition of The History, and a glossary to the vocabulary of the edition. In the grammar the major points of accidence and syntax are taken up--verb classification and conjugation; declination of nouns and pronouns, and of adjectives; formation of adverbs; clause construction--and discussed synchronically and diachronically. The edition is of fols. 8r col. 2-13v col. 1 of MS. Arundel XXII in the College of Arms, London, a prose version of Book I of Geoffrey of Monmouth\u27s Historia Regum Britanniae, written in the middle of the fourteenth century. The edition presents a typescript of the MS. with abrivations expanded and errors emendei. The glossary contains the vocabulary of the edition with modern synonyms

Quality Assessment of Mesenchymal Stem Cells Using Deep Learning Based Image Analysis

Cell-based therapeutics is a current effective strategy for the potential curing of several human diseases. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are a heterogeneous group of cells that have been the subject of recent attention because of their clinically relevant therapeutic effects and transformative morphology. The success of MSCs to provide new remedies is dependent on their quality. Their quality can be assessed by examining their physical nature. Morphological evaluation has been a robust method for monitoring culture quality, but standard techniques are either subjective, destructive, or time consuming making real-time monitoring difficult. The goal is to develop an automated image analysis algorithm using deep learning to assess the viability of MSCs. An algorithm using Keras and TensorFlow libraries in Python will be our main method for phase contrast microscope images of MSCs. The cell images are first preprocessed and then given to the U-Net architecture model for the segmentation of cells in the images. Results were validated using the manual outlining of cells by MSC culture experts as the ground truth. . In summary, the proposed technique shows the potential to be incorporated into automated MSC quality control processes

Explaining European Union engagement with potential new member states

This is a comparative study which asked the central research question of whether domestic conditions or the European Union’s policy approach best explained whether the EU was able to engage with potential new member states. Three cases of post-Communist states in the EU’s immediate neighbourhood were studied: Poland, Croatia and Ukraine, over the time period 1990 to 2013. The interplay between external and domestic factors was studied in terms of the policy approach employed by the EU, the receptiveness of political elites to EU influence, and the level of pro-EU civil society activity. The evidence from this study seems to suggest that the EU policy approach was successful with potential member states in Central and Eastern Europe, such as Poland, although the problem of democratic backsliding post-accession later emerged, to which the EU had no immediate policy approach. The EU’s policy approach in the Western Balkans appears to have had some success, seen in the case of Croatia, but it is unclear whether this success will be replicated in the more problematic cases, such as Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. The EU’s policy approach through its European Neighbourhood Policy has not been successful in the East, exemplified in the case of Ukraine. Domestic factors, and in particular the receptivity of the political elite to EU influence, appear to remain the most important in explaining whether the EU is able to engage with potential new member states. The EU’s policy approach to engaging with pro-EU civil society does not appear to be successful, at least in the short to medium term. It is argued that the EU needs to develop a more flexible policy approach in order to be better able to take advantage of ‘windows of opportunity’ that arise. In addition, the EU should enhance its policy approach to co-ordinate its efforts more closely with other relevant external actors