Resident engagement in the regeneration of social housing: the case of Woodberry Down, London

In recent decades policies of renewing social housing in partnership with private developers have become widespread and critics have described such policies as state-led gentrification. Whilst resident participation in such regeneration is often viewed as tokenistic, this paper presents a case of estate renewal where a well established residents’ association is having some success in influencing the outcomes of redevelopment as a result of engaging in a regeneration partnership. The residents’ association faces considerable challenges as the local authority has entered a partnership with a major developer and the majority of new homes will be for sale. Nonetheless, the residents’ association has been able to influence the regeneration in terms of the offers of rehousing to existing residents and in terms of maintaining their sense of place. However, many leaseholders have been displaced and there is an ongoing struggle to ensure that there is not a net loss of social rented housing. The paper highlights how sustained organisation by residents can affect the outcomes of redevelopment, but also illustrates the limitations of developer-led regeneration meeting social objectives

Progress in use of carbon-black-polymer composite vapor detector arrays for land mine detection

Thin films of carbon black-organic polymer composites have been deposited across two metallic leads, with swelling- induced resistance changes of the films signaling the presence of vapors. To identify and classify vapors, arrays of such vapor sensing elements have been constructed. Each element contained a different organic polymer as the insulating phase. The differing gas-solid partition coefficients for the various polymers of the detector array produced a pattern of resistance changes that was used to classify vapors and vapor mixtures. The performance of this system towards DNT, the predominant signature in the vapor phase above land miens, has been evaluated in detail, with robust detection demonstrated in the laboratory in less than 5 s in air at DNT levels in the low ppb range

Sex and the Cinema: What American Pie Teaches the Young

This paper focuses upon the wildly successful blockbuster American Pie teenpics, especially American Pie 3 – the Wedding. I argue that these films, which are sited so securely within the visual and pedagogical machinery of Hollywood culture, are specifically designed to appeal to teenage male audiences, and to provide lessons in sex and romance. Movies like this are especially important as they are experienced by far more teenagers than, for example, instructional films or other classroom materials; indeed, as Henry Giroux has observed, "teens and youth learn how to define themselves outside of the traditional sites of instruction, such as the home and the school… Learning in the postmodern age is located elsewhere – in popular spheres that shape their identities, through forms of knowledge and desires that appear absent from what is taught in schools" (Giroux, 1997, p.49). In this paper I discuss whether the American Pie series is actually a "new age" effort which, via insubordinate performances of gender, contests the hegemonic field of signification which regulates the production of sex, gender and desire, or whether it is more accurately described as a retrogressive hetero-conservative opus with a veneer of sexual radicalism. In short, I intend to probe whether this filmic vector for sex education is all about the shaping of responsible, caring, vulnerable men, or is it guiding them to become just like their heterosexual, middle-class fathers? And whether, despite its riotous and raunchy advertising, American Pie really dishes up something spicy or something terribly wholesome instead

Structure and Vibrations of the Vicinal Copper (211) Surface

We report a first principles theoretical study of the surface relaxation and lattice dynamics of the Cu(211) surface using the plane wave pseudopotential method. We find large atomic relaxations for the first several atomic layers near the step edges on this surface, and a substantial step-induced renormalization of the surface harmonic force constants. We use the results to study the harmonic fluctuations around the equilibrium structure and find three new step-derived features in the zone center vibrational spectrum. Comparison of these results with previous theoretical work and weith experimental studies using inelastic He scattering are reported.Comment: 6 Pages RevTex, 7 Figures in Postscrip

Substitutions near the hemagglutinin receptor-binding site determine the antigenic evolution of influenza A H3N2 viruses in U.S. swine

Swine influenza A virus is an endemic and economically important pathogen in pigs, with the potential to infect other host species. The hemagglutinin (HA) protein is the primary target of protective immune responses and the major component in swine influenza A vaccines. However, as a result of antigenic drift, vaccine strains must be regularly updated to reflect currently circulating strains. Characterizing the cross-reactivity between strains in pigs and seasonal influenza virus strains in humans is also important in assessing the relative risk of interspecies transmission of viruses from one host population to the other. Hemagglutination inhibition (HI) assay data for swine and human H3N2 viruses were used with antigenic cartography to quantify the antigenic differences among H3N2 viruses isolated from pigs in the United States from 1998 to 2013 and the relative cross-reactivity between these viruses and current human seasonal influenza A virus strains. Two primary antigenic clusters were found circulating in the pig population, but with enough diversity within and between the clusters to suggest updates in vaccine strains are needed. We identified single amino acid substitutions that are likely responsible for antigenic differences between the two primary antigenic clusters and between each antigenic cluster and outliers. The antigenic distance between current seasonal influenza virus H3 strains in humans and those endemic in swine suggests that population immunity may not prevent the introduction of human viruses into pigs, and possibly vice versa, reinforcing the need to monitor and prepare for potential incursions

Pliocene Te Aute limestones, New Zealand: Expanding concepts for cool-water shelf carbonates

Acceptance of a spectrum of warm- through cold-water shallow-marine carbonate facies has become of fundamental importance for correctly interpreting the origin and significance of all ancient platform limestones. Among other attributes, properties that have become a hallmark for characterising many Cenozoic non-tropical occurrences include: (1) the presence of common bryozoan and epifaunal bivalve skeletons; (2) a calcite-dominated mineralogy; (3) relatively thin deposits exhibiting low rates of sediment accumulation; (4) an overall destructive early diagenetic regime; and (5) that major porosity destruction and lithification occur mainly in response to chemical compaction of calcitic skeletons during moderate to deep burial. The Pliocene Te Aute limestones are non-tropical skeletal carbonates formed at paleolatitudes near 40-42°S under the influence of commonly strong tidal flows along the margins of an actively deforming and differentially uplifting forearc basin seaway, immediately inboard of the convergent Pacific-Australian plate boundary off eastern North Island, New Zealand. This dynamic depositional and tectonic setting strongly influenced both the style and subsequent diagenetic evolution of the limestones. Some of the Te Aute limestones exhibit the above kinds of "normal" non-tropical characteristics, but others do not. For example, many are barnacle and/or bivalve dominated, and several include attributes that at least superficially resemble properties of certain tropical carbonates. In this regard, a number of the limestones are infaunal bivalve rich and dominated by an aragonite over a calcite primary mineralogy, with consequently relatively high diagenetic potential. Individual limestone units are also often rather thick (e.g., up to 50-300 m), with accumulation rates from 0.2 to 0.5 m/ka, and locally as high as 1 m/ka. Moreover, there can be a remarkable array of diagenetic features in the limestones, involving grain alteration and/or cementation to widely varying extents within any, or some combination of, the marine phreatic, burial, and meteoric diagenetic environments, including locally widespread development of meteoric cement sourced from aragonite dissolution. The message is that non-tropical shelf carbonates include a more diverse array of geological settings, of skeletal and mineralogical facies, and of diagenetic features than current sedimentary models mainly advocate. While several attributes positively distinguish tropical from non-tropical limestones, continued detailed documentation of the wide spectrum of shallow-marine carbonate deposits formed outside tropical regions remains an important challenge in carbonate sedimentology

Characterization of co-circulating swine influenza A viruses in North America and the identification of a novel H1 genetic clade with antigenic significance.

Multiple genetically and antigenically distinct hemagglutinin genes of the H1 and H3 influenza A virus (IAV) subtypes co-circulate in North American swine. This diversity has evolved by repeated transmission of IAVs from humans to swine and subsequent antigenic drift in swine. To understand the evolutionary dynamics of these diverse HA lineages in North American swine, we undertook a phylogenetic analysis of 1576 H1 and 607 H3 HA gene segments, as well as 834 N1 and 1293 N2 NA gene segments, and 2126 M gene segments. These data revealed yearly co-circulation of H1N1, H1N2, and H3N2 viruses, with three HA clades representing the majority of the HA sequences: of the H1 viruses, 42% were classified as H1δ1 and 40.6% were classified as H1γ; and of the H3 viruses 53% were classified as cluster IV-A H3N2. We detected a genetically distinct minor clade consisting of 37 H1 viruses isolated between 2003 and 2013, which we classified as H1γ-2. We estimated that this clade circulated in swine since approximately 1995, but it was not detected in swine until 2003. Though this clade only represents 1.07% of swine H1 sequences reported over the past 10 years, hemagglutination inhibition (HI) assays demonstrated that representatives of this clade of viruses are antigenically distinct, and, when measured using antigenic cartography, were as many as 7 antigenic units from other H1γ viruses. Therefore vaccines against the contemporary H1γ viruses are not likely to cross-protect against γ-2 viruses. The long-term circulation of these γ-2 viruses suggests that minor populations of viruses may be underreported in the national dataset given the long branch lengths and gaps in detections. The identification of these γ-2 viruses demonstrates the need for robust surveillance to capture the full diversity IAVs in swine in the USA and the importance of antigenic drift in the diversification and emergence of new antigenic variants in swine, which complicates vaccine design.Funding was provided by USDA-ARS and USDA355 APHIS-VS by the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009. NSL was funded by USDA-ARS SCA agreement number 58-3625-2-103F and the EC FP7 award number 259949. TKA was funded by USDA ARS SCA agreement number 58-3625-4-070.This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168170215000799

A long-term optical - X-ray correlation in 4U 1957+11

[abridged] Three years of optical monitoring of the low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB) 4U 1957+11 is presented. The source was observed in V, R and i-bands using the Faulkes Telescopes North and South. The light curve is dominated by long-term variations which are correlated (at the > 3 sigma level) with the RXTE ASM soft X-ray flux. The variations span one magnitude in all three filters. We find no evidence for periodicities in our light curves, contrary to a previous short-timescale optical study in which the flux varied on a 9.3-hour sinusoidal period by a smaller amplitude. The optical spectral energy distribution is blue and typical of LMXBs in outburst, as is the power law index of the correlation beta = 0.5, where F_{nu,OPT} propto F_X^beta. The discrete cross-correlation function reveals a peak at an X-ray lag of 2 - 14 days, which could be the viscous timescale. However, adopting the least squares method the strongest correlation is at a lag of 0 +/- 4 days, consistent with X-ray reprocessing on the surface of the disc. We therefore constrain the optical lag behind X-ray to be between -14 and +4 days. In addition, we use the optical - X-ray luminosity diagram for LMXBs as a diagnostic tool to constrain the nature of the compact object in 4U 1957+11, since black hole (BH) and neutron star (NS) sources reside in different regions of this diagram. If the system contains a BH (as is the currently favoured hypothesis), its distance must exceed ~ 20 kpc for the optical and X-ray luminosities to be consistent with other soft state BH systems. For distances < 20 kpc, the data lie in a region of the diagram populated only by NS sources. 4U 1957+11 is unique: it is either the only BH LMXB to exist in an apparent persistent soft state, or it is a NS LMXB which behaves like a black hole.Comment: MNRAS accepted, 12 pages, 8 figure