Finding the far right online: an exploratory study of white supremacist websites

White supremacists and the Far Right political movement in the UK have, had considerable success in spreading their messages through Web sites. Some of these Web sites clearly contribute to an enabling environment for racially motivated violence in our towns and cities and possibly help to underpin also the rise of, and support for, the Far Right in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. From a position that acknowledges the enduring issue of white hegemony in Western societies, this paper provides a number of research-based recommendations for further research and future policy and practice in tackling white supremacist racial hatred on the Net

Convergence of the restricted Nelder-Mead algorithm in two dimensions

The Nelder-Mead algorithm, a longstanding direct search method for unconstrained optimization published in 1965, is designed to minimize a scalar-valued function f of n real variables using only function values, without any derivative information. Each Nelder-Mead iteration is associated with a nondegenerate simplex defined by n+1 vertices and their function values; a typical iteration produces a new simplex by replacing the worst vertex by a new point. Despite the method's widespread use, theoretical results have been limited: for strictly convex objective functions of one variable with bounded level sets, the algorithm always converges to the minimizer; for such functions of two variables, the diameter of the simplex converges to zero, but examples constructed by McKinnon show that the algorithm may converge to a nonminimizing point. This paper considers the restricted Nelder-Mead algorithm, a variant that does not allow expansion steps. In two dimensions we show that, for any nondegenerate starting simplex and any twice-continuously differentiable function with positive definite Hessian and bounded level sets, the algorithm always converges to the minimizer. The proof is based on treating the method as a discrete dynamical system, and relies on several techniques that are non-standard in convergence proofs for unconstrained optimization.Comment: 27 page

CO2 removal by solid amine sorbents. 1: Experimental studies of amine resin IR-45 with regard to spacecraft applications. 2: Computer program for predicting the transient performance of solid amine sorbent systems

The sorbent behavior of solid amine resin IR-45 with regard to potential use in regenerative CO2-removal systems for manned spacecraft is considered. Measurements of equilibrium sorption capacity of IR-45 for water and for CO2 are reported, and the dynamic mass transfer behavior of IR-45 beds is studied under conditions representative of those expected in a manned spacecraft. A digital computer program was written for the transient performance prediction of CO2 removal systems comprised of solid amine beds. Also evaluated are systems employing inorganic molecular-sieve sorbents. Tests show that there is definitely an effect of water loading on the absorption rate

Transverse imaging of the proton in exclusive diffractive pp scattering

In a recent paper (hep-ph/0608271) we describe a new approach to rapidity gap survival (RGS) in the production of high-mass systems (H = dijet, Higgs, etc.) in exclusive double-gap diffractive pp scattering, pp -> p + H + p. It is based on the idea that hard and soft interactions are approximately independent (QCD factorization), and allows us to calculate the RGS probability in a model-independent way in terms of the gluon generalized parton distributions (GPDs) in the colliding protons and the pp elastic scattering amplitude. Here we focus on the transverse momentum dependence of the cross section. By measuring the "diffraction pattern," one can perform detailed tests of the interplay of hard and soft interactions, and even extract information about the gluon GPD in the proton from the data.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, uses ws-procs9x6.cls. Proceedings of XIV International Workshop on Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS2006), Tsukuba City, Japan, Apr 20 - 24, 200

Directional genetic differentiation and asymmetric migration

Understanding the population structure and patterns of gene flow within species is of fundamental importance to the study of evolution. In the fields of population and evolutionary genetics, measures of genetic differentiation are commonly used to gather this information. One potential caveat is that these measures assume gene flow to be symmetric. However, asymmetric gene flow is common in nature, especially in systems driven by physical processes such as wind or water currents. Since information about levels of asymmetric gene flow among populations is essential for the correct interpretation of the distribution of contemporary genetic diversity within species, this should not be overlooked. To obtain information on asymmetric migration patterns from genetic data, complex models based on maximum likelihood or Bayesian approaches generally need to be employed, often at great computational cost. Here, a new simpler and more efficient approach for understanding gene flow patterns is presented. This approach allows the estimation of directional components of genetic divergence between pairs of populations at low computational effort, using any of the classical or modern measures of genetic differentiation. These directional measures of genetic differentiation can further be used to calculate directional relative migration and to detect asymmetries in gene flow patterns. This can be done in a user-friendly web application called divMigrate-online introduced in this paper. Using simulated data sets with known gene flow regimes, we demonstrate that the method is capable of resolving complex migration patterns under a range of study designs.Comment: 25 pages, 8 (+3) figures, 1 tabl

Structural, vibrational and thermal properties of densified silicates : insights from Molecular Dynamics

Structural, vibrational and thermal properties of densified sodium silicate (NS2) are investigated with classical molecular dynamics simulations of the glass and the liquid state. A systematic investigation of the glass structure with respect to density was performed. We observe a repolymerization of the network manifested by a transition from a tetrahedral to an octahedral silicon environment, the decrease of the amount of non-bridging oxygen atoms and the appearance of three-fold coordinated oxygen atoms (triclusters). Anomalous changes in the medium range order are observed, the first sharp diffraction peak showing a minimum of its full-width at half maximum according to density. The previously reported vibrational trends in densified glasses are observed, such as the shift of the Boson peak intensity to higher frequencies and the decrease of its intensity. Finally, we show that the thermal behavior of the liquid can be reproduced by the Birch-Murnaghan equation of states, thus allowing us to compute the isothermal compressibility

Team Cognitive Ability as a Predictor of Team Performance

This manuscript presents two studies of the relationship between team cognitive ability (average Scholastic Aptitude Test score of team members) and team performance (a subjective coach\u27s evaluation and an objective measure using Sagarin\u27s Power Rankings) among NCAA Division 1 Men\u27s Basketball teams. Study 1 was conducted following the 1991-92 season whereas Study 2 was conducted during the 1993-94 season. Both studies indicated that team cognitive ability was significantly related to the coach\u27s evaluation but not to the power ranking measure, and that team strategy moderated the relationship between cognitive ability and the coach\u27s evaluation of performance. Cognitive ability moderated the relationship between team strategy and power ranking, but the nature of the interaction was different across the two studies

Time and dose-dependent effects of phenobarbital on the rat liver miRNAome.

In a previous study we had shown that treatment of male Fischer rats with exogenous chemicals for three months resulted in prominent, mode-of-action dependent effects on liver microRNA (miRNA) (Koufaris et al., 2012). Here we investigated how the effects of chemicals on liver miRNA in male Fischer rats relate to the length and dose of exposure to phenobarbital (PB), a drug with multiple established hepatic effects. Importantly, although acute PB treatment (1-7 days) had significant effects on liver mRNA and the expected effects on the liver phenotype (transient hyperplasia, hepatomegaly, cytochrome P450 induction), limited effects on liver miRNA were observed. However, at 14 days of PB treatment clear dose-dependent effects on miRNA were observed. The main effect of PB treatment from days 1 to 90 on liver miRNA was found to be the persistent, progressive, and highly correlated induction of the miR-200a/200b/429 and miR-96/182 clusters, occurring after the termination of the xenobiotic-induced transient hyperplasia. Moreover, in agreement with their reported functions in the literature we found associations between perturbations of miR-29b and miR-200a/200b by PB with global DNA methylation and zeb1/zeb2 proteins respectively. Our data suggest that miRNA are unlikely to play an important role in the acute responses of the adult rodent liver to PB treatment. However, the miRNA responses to longer PB exposures suggest a potential role for maintaining liver homeostasis in response to sub-chronic and chronic xenobiotic-induced perturbations. Similar studies for more chemicals are needed to clarify whether the temporal and dose pattern of miRNA-toxicant interaction identified here for PB are widely applicable to other xenobiotics. © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd

Kinetics of phase-separation in the critical spherical model and local scale-invariance

The scaling forms of the space- and time-dependent two-time correlation and response functions are calculated for the kinetic spherical model with a conserved order-parameter and quenched to its critical point from a completely disordered initial state. The stochastic Langevin equation can be split into a noise part and into a deterministic part which has local scale-transformations with a dynamical exponent z=4 as a dynamical symmetry. An exact reduction formula allows to express any physical average in terms of averages calculable from the deterministic part alone. The exact spherical model results are shown to agree with these predictions of local scale-invariance. The results also include kinetic growth with mass conservation as described by the Mullins-Herring equation.Comment: Latex2e with IOP macros, 28 pp, 2 figures, final for