Creating Coping Mechanism: An Anatomy of a Gallery-Based Installation and Performance Work

The project described in this paper is an exhibition of gallery-based durational performance art, and resulting three-dimensional artifacts, that was created through a tangled process of relapse and recovery from mental illness. The first section of this paper peers into the parameters of ephemeral artistic practice. I discuss the process of merging my recovery and creative practice through performance art, and then parse the discussion of the work into the categories of performer, audience, site, and time. Section II details various aspects of spectator experience through a second-person narrative tracing the crowd flow of the exhibition. I conclude with an epilogue, framing the work in the exhibition with a current snapshot of the blurred boundary between my practices of living and art

Structural and topological phase transitions on the German Stock Exchange

We find numerical and empirical evidence for dynamical, structural and topological phase transitions on the (German) Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FSE) in the temporal vicinity of the worldwide financial crash. Using the Minimal Spanning Tree (MST) technique, a particularly useful canonical tool of the graph theory, two transitions of the topology of a complex network representing FSE were found. First transition is from a hierarchical scale-free MST representing the stock market before the recent worldwide financial crash, to a superstar-like MST decorated by a scale-free hierarchy of trees representing the market's state for the period containing the crash. Subsequently, a transition is observed from this transient, (meta)stable state of the crash, to a hierarchical scale-free MST decorated by several star-like trees after the worldwide financial crash. The phase transitions observed are analogous to the ones we obtained earlier for the Warsaw Stock Exchange and more pronounced than those found by Onnela-Chakraborti-Kaski-Kert\'esz for S&P 500 index in the vicinity of Black Monday (October 19, 1987) and also in the vicinity of January 1, 1998. Our results provide an empirical foundation for the future theory of dynamical, structural and topological phase transitions on financial markets

Maximum likelihood analysis of balanced incomplete block models

Maximum likelihood analysis of balanced incomplete blocks, and amall-sample properties of maximum likelihood estimate

Mean Exit Time and Survival Probability within the CTRW Formalism

An intense research on financial market microstructure is presently in progress. Continuous time random walks (CTRWs) are general models capable to capture the small-scale properties that high frequency data series show. The use of CTRW models in the analysis of financial problems is quite recent and their potentials have not been fully developed. Here we present two (closely related) applications of great interest in risk control. In the first place, we will review the problem of modelling the behaviour of the mean exit time (MET) of a process out of a given region of fixed size. The surveyed stochastic processes are the cumulative returns of asset prices. The link between the value of the MET and the timescale of the market fluctuations of a certain degree is crystal clear. In this sense, MET value may help, for instance, in deciding the optimal time horizon for the investment. The MET is, however, one among the statistics of a distribution of bigger interest: the survival probability (SP), the likelihood that after some lapse of time a process remains inside the given region without having crossed its boundaries. The final part of the article is devoted to the study of this quantity. Note that the use of SPs may outperform the standard "Value at Risk" (VaR) method for two reasons: we can consider other market dynamics than the limited Wiener process and, even in this case, a risk level derived from the SP will ensure (within the desired quintile) that the quoted value of the portfolio will not leave the safety zone. We present some preliminary theoretical and applied results concerning this topic.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, revtex4; corrected typos, to appear in the APFA5 proceeding

Plankton studies in a mangrove environment II: the standing stock and some ecological factors

This work was undertaken to obtain information on seasonal variation of the plankton communities of the Cananéia mangrove system. The results provide a background for further investigations on primary and secondary productivity and the study of the interrelationships of ecological factors that affect the distribution and abundance of plankton. The correlation of data obtained shows that in the mangrove system under study there are different environments with distinct species.Durante 1962, em janeiro, abril, julho e outubro, foram feitas coletas em quatro estações oceanográficas, três na região lagunar de Cananéia e uma na região costeira. O objetivo foi o de efetuar um primeiro levantamento do bacterio, fito e zooplâncton, assim como estudar os fatores ecológicos atuantes nos diferentes locais, em diferentes épocas do ano. Amostras foram tomadas durante os períodos de maré alta e baixa, em superfície e profundidade, para determinação do plancton, material em suspensão, salinidade e oxigênio. Pelos resultados obtidos, verificou-se que o "standing stock" diminuiu gradualmente da estação I para a estação IV, mostrando uma correlação inversa com a salinidade. As condições extremamente variáveis da região lagunar constituem um fator seletivo para as diferentes espécies planctônicas. No fitoplâncton foram encontrados: Diatomáceas, Dinoflagelados, Silicoflagelados, Fitoflagelados e Cianofíceas. As Diatomáceas sempre predominaram, exceto na estação I, no mês de abril, quando apareceram os Fitoflagelados em proporções superiores. O máximo de organismos do fitoplâncton foi na estação I, em janeiro, havendo um decréscimo durante os meses de abril e julho e um novo aumento em outubro. O zooplâncton, constituído, predominantemente, por copépodos e estágios larvares, apresentou também Moluscos, Tintinoideos e em pequenas proporções Medusas, Chaetognatos e Cladoceros. O máximo de zooplâncton ocorreu em abril em todas as estações. A quantidade de matéria orgânica em suspensão, apresentou altos índices, nas estações lagunares em comparação com a costeira, isto devido a detritos levados pelos rios que circundam a região, ao plancton e à decomposição in situ da vegetação do mangue. Por outro lado, a matéria em suspensão, a concentração do plancton e as substâncias coloridas provenientes da vegetação do mangue, mostraram bastante influência sobre a transparência e coloração da água, diminuindo a extensão da camada eufótica

Mars Spacecraft Power System Development Final Report

Development of optimum Mariner spacecraft power system for application to future flyby and orbiter mission

A Uniform CO Survey of the Molecular Clouds in Orion and Monoceros

We report the results of a new large scale survey of the Orion-Monoceros complex of molecular clouds made in the J = 1->0 line of CO with the Harvard-Smithsonian 1.2m millimetre-wave telescope. The survey consists of 52,288 uniformly spaced spectra that cover an area of 432 square degrees on the sky and is the most sensitive large-scale survey of the region to date. Distances to the constituent molecular clouds of the complex, estimated from an analysis of foreground and background stars, have provided information on the three dimensional structure of the entire complex.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics. 19 pages with 17 colour figures - 39 if you count the sub-figures separately. The figures here have been bit-mapped with some loss of quality and beauty. The paper version in A&A will be in greyscale with the on-line version in colour. In the meantime the colour version can be obtained by following links at http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/mrwm . The 9MB PostScript is recommended if you have appropriate bandwidth or otherwise the 2.3MB PDF is usabl

Palliative care and Parkinson's disease : meeting summary and recommendations for clinical research

Introduction: Palliative care is an approach to caring for patients and families affected by serious illnesses that focuses on the relief of suffering through the management of medical symptoms, psychosocial issues, advance care planning and spiritual wellbeing. Over the past decade there has been an emerging clinical and research interest in the application of palliative care approaches to Parkinson’s disease (PD) and outpatient palliative care services are now offered by several movement disorders centers. Methods: An International Working Group Meeting on PD and Palliative Care supported by the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation was held in October 2015 to review the current state of the evidence and to make recommendations for clinical research and practice. Results: Topics included: 1) Defining palliative care for PD; 2) Lessons from palliative care for heart failure and other chronic illnesses; 3) Patient and caregiver Needs; 4) Needs assessment tools; 5) Intervention strategies; 6) Predicting prognosis and hospice referrals; 7) Choice of appropriate outcome measures; 8) Implementation, dissemination and education research; and 9) Need for research collaborations. We provide an overview of these discussions, summarize current evidence and practices, highlight gaps in our knowledge and make recommendations for future research. Conclusions: Palliative Care for PD is a rapidly growing area which holds great promise for improving outcomes for PD patients and their caregivers. While clinical research in this area can build from lessons learned in other diseases, there is a need for observational, methodological and interventional research to address the unique needs of PD patients and caregivers

Results of the ESO-SEST Key Programme on CO in the Magellanic Clouds. IX. The giant LMC HII region complex N11

We present maps and a catalogue containing the J=1-0 12CO parameters of 29 individual molecular clouds in the second-brightest LMC star formation complex, N11. In the southwestern part of N11, molecular clouds occur in a ring or shell surrounding the major OB star association LH9. In the northeastern part, a chain of molecular clouds delineates the rim of one of the so-called supergiant shells in the LMC. The well-defined clouds have dimensions close to those of the survey beam (diameters of 25 pc or less). Some of the clouds were also observed in J=2-1 12CO, and in the lower two transitions of 13CO. Clouds mapped with a twice higher angular resolution in J=2-1 12CO show substructure with dimensions once again comparable to those of the mapping beam. The few clouds for which we could model physical parameters have fairly warm (T(kin) = 60 - 150 K) and moderately dense (n(H2) = 3000 cm-3) gas. The northeastern chain of CO clouds, although lacking in diffuse intercloud emission, is characteristic of the more quiescent regions of the LMC and appears to have been subject to relatively little photo-processing. The clouds forming part of the southwestern shell or ring, however, are almost devoid of diffuse intercloud emission and also exhibit other characteristics of an extreme photon-dominated region (PDR).Comment: 14 pages; accepted for publication in A&