Synthesis of a model of the human operator engaged in a tracking task

Imperial Users onl

Identifying predictors of attitudes towards local onshore wind development with reference to an English case study

The threats posed by climate change are placing governments under increasing pressure to meet electricity demand from low-carbon sources. In many countries, including the UK, legislation is in place to ensure the continued expansion of renewable energy capacity. Onshore wind turbines are expected to play a key role in achieving these aims. However, despite high levels of public support for onshore wind development in principle, specific projects often experience local opposition. Traditionally this difference in general and specific attitudes has been attributed to NIMBYism (not in my back yard), but evidence is increasingly calling this assumption into question. This study used multiple regression analysis to identify what factors might predict attitudes towards mooted wind development in Sheffield, England. We report on the attitudes of two groups; one group (target) living close to four sites earmarked for development and an unaffected comparison group (comparison). We found little evidence of NIMBYism amongst members of the target group; instead, differences between general and specific attitudes appeared attributable to uncertainty regarding the proposals. The results are discussed with respect to literature highlighting the importance of early, continued and responsive community involvement in combating local opposition and facilitating the deployment of onshore wind turbines. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

The incidence of leukemia and related diseases in patients with rheumatoid (ankylosing) spondylitis treated with X-ray therapy

In a series of 496 rheumatoid spondylitis patients treated with x-ray, the authors have reported an incidence of leukemia over 17 times greater than expected in a comparable population. No conclusion can be drawn with respect to the exact nature of dose-response relationship in leukemogenesis. Four of the reported leukemias arose from myeloid reticular elements of the bone marrow; the fifth case is of undetermined origin. Since the chief use of x-ray therapy under these circumstances is as an analgesic, it would seem unwise to compound the risk of developing leukemia in these patients by its continued use unless all other forms of symptomatic treatment have failed and the patient and the physician mutually accept the possibility of this increased hazard.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/37686/1/1780030108_ftp.pd

LSST: from Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products

(Abridged) We describe here the most ambitious survey currently planned in the optical, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). A vast array of science will be enabled by a single wide-deep-fast sky survey, and LSST will have unique survey capability in the faint time domain. The LSST design is driven by four main science themes: probing dark energy and dark matter, taking an inventory of the Solar System, exploring the transient optical sky, and mapping the Milky Way. LSST will be a wide-field ground-based system sited at Cerro Pach\'{o}n in northern Chile. The telescope will have an 8.4 m (6.5 m effective) primary mirror, a 9.6 deg$^2$ field of view, and a 3.2 Gigapixel camera. The standard observing sequence will consist of pairs of 15-second exposures in a given field, with two such visits in each pointing in a given night. With these repeats, the LSST system is capable of imaging about 10,000 square degrees of sky in a single filter in three nights. The typical 5$\sigma$ point-source depth in a single visit in $r$ will be $\sim 24.5$ (AB). The project is in the construction phase and will begin regular survey operations by 2022. The survey area will be contained within 30,000 deg$^2$ with $\delta<+34.5^\circ$, and will be imaged multiple times in six bands, $ugrizy$, covering the wavelength range 320--1050 nm. About 90\% of the observing time will be devoted to a deep-wide-fast survey mode which will uniformly observe a 18,000 deg$^2$ region about 800 times (summed over all six bands) during the anticipated 10 years of operations, and yield a coadded map to $r\sim27.5$. The remaining 10\% of the observing time will be allocated to projects such as a Very Deep and Fast time domain survey. The goal is to make LSST data products, including a relational database of about 32 trillion observations of 40 billion objects, available to the public and scientists around the world.Comment: 57 pages, 32 color figures, version with high-resolution figures available from https://www.lsst.org/overvie

The twilight of the Liberal Social Contract? On the Reception of Rawlsian Political Liberalism

This chapter discusses the Rawlsian project of public reason, or public justification-based 'political' liberalism, and its reception. After a brief philosophical rather than philological reconstruction of the project, the chapter revolves around a distinction between idealist and realist responses to it. Focusing on political liberalism’s critical reception illuminates an overarching question: was Rawls’s revival of a contractualist approach to liberal legitimacy a fruitful move for liberalism and/or the social contract tradition? The last section contains a largely negative answer to that question. Nonetheless the chapter's conclusion shows that the research programme of political liberalism provided and continues to provide illuminating insights into the limitations of liberal contractualism, especially under conditions of persistent and radical diversity. The programme is, however, less receptive to challenges to do with the relative decline of the power of modern states

Constitutivism

A brief explanation and overview of constitutivism

When is enough, enough? Identifying predictors of capacity estimates for onshore wind-power development in a region of the UK

The level of ‘wind-prospecting’ presently occurring in the UK is increasing the likelihood that new wind-power developments will conflict with other existing and/or proposed schemes. This study reports multiple-regression analyses performed on survey data obtained in a region of the UK (i.e. Humberhead Levels, near Doncaster) simultaneously subject to nine wind-farm proposals (September 2008). The aim of the analysis was to identify which survey-items were predictors of respondents' estimates of the number of wind turbines they believed the region could reasonably support (i.e. capacity estimates). The results revealed that the majority of respondents would endorse some local development; however, there was substantial variability in the upper level that was considered acceptable. Prominent predictors included general attitude, perceived knowledge of wind power, community attachment, environmental values, visual attractiveness of wind turbines, and issues relating to perceived fairness and equity. The results have implications for Cumulative Effects Assessment (CEA) – and in particular the assessment of Cumulative Landscape and Visual Impacts (CLVI) – and support calls for greater community involvement in decisions regarding proposed schemes

The Youngest Victims: Children and Youth Affected by War

In 1989, the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child declared, “[state parties] shall take all feasible measures to ensure protection and care of children who are affected by an armed conflict.” In addition to attempting to secure the welfare of children in armed conflict, the Convention went on to ban the recruitment and deployment of children during armed conflict. Despite the vast majority of sovereign nations signing and ratifying this agreement, this treaty, unfortunately, has not prevented children and youth from witnessing, becoming victims of, or participating in political, ethnic, religious, and cultural violence across the past three decades. This chapter offers an “ecological perspective” on the psychosocial consequences of exposure to the trauma of war-related violence and social disruption

Philosophy of action

The philosophical study of human action begins with Plato and Aristotle. Their influence in late antiquity and the Middle Ages yielded sophisticated theories of action and motivation, notably in the works of Augustine and Aquinas.1 But the ideas that were dominant in 1945 have their roots in the early modern period, when advances in physics and mathematics reshaped philosophy

Implicating genes, pleiotropy, and sexual dimorphism at blood lipid loci through multi-ancestry meta-analysis

Publisher Copyright: © 2022, The Author(s).Background: Genetic variants within nearly 1000 loci are known to contribute to modulation of blood lipid levels. However, the biological pathways underlying these associations are frequently unknown, limiting understanding of these findings and hindering downstream translational efforts such as drug target discovery. Results: To expand our understanding of the underlying biological pathways and mechanisms controlling blood lipid levels, we leverage a large multi-ancestry meta-analysis (N = 1,654,960) of blood lipids to prioritize putative causal genes for 2286 lipid associations using six gene prediction approaches. Using phenome-wide association (PheWAS) scans, we identify relationships of genetically predicted lipid levels to other diseases and conditions. We confirm known pleiotropic associations with cardiovascular phenotypes and determine novel associations, notably with cholelithiasis risk. We perform sex-stratified GWAS meta-analysis of lipid levels and show that 3–5% of autosomal lipid-associated loci demonstrate sex-biased effects. Finally, we report 21 novel lipid loci identified on the X chromosome. Many of the sex-biased autosomal and X chromosome lipid loci show pleiotropic associations with sex hormones, emphasizing the role of hormone regulation in lipid metabolism. Conclusions: Taken together, our findings provide insights into the biological mechanisms through which associated variants lead to altered lipid levels and potentially cardiovascular disease risk.Peer reviewe