Manuscript transcription by crowdsourcing: Transcribe Bentham

Transcribe Bentham is testing the feasibility of outsourcing the work of manuscript transcription to members of the public. UCL Library Services holds 60,000 folios of manuscripts of the philosopher and jurist Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). Transcribe Bentham will digitise 12,500 Bentham folios, and, through a wiki-based interface, allow volunteer transcribers to take temporary ownership of manuscript images and to create TEI-encoded transcription text for final approval by UCL experts. Approved transcripts will be stored and preserved, with the manuscript images, in UCL's public Digital Collections repository. The project makes innovative use of traditional Library material. It will stimulate public engagement with UCL's scholarly archive collections and the challenges of palaeography and manuscript transcription; it will raise the profile of the work and thought of Jeremy Bentham; and it will create new digital resources for future use by professional researchers. Towards the end of the project, the transcription tool will be made available to other projects and services

Indefinitely Oscillating Martingales

We construct a class of nonnegative martingale processes that oscillate indefinitely with high probability. For these processes, we state a uniform rate of the number of oscillations and show that this rate is asymptotically close to the theoretical upper bound. These bounds on probability and expectation of the number of upcrossings are compared to classical bounds from the martingale literature. We discuss two applications. First, our results imply that the limit of the minimum description length operator may not exist. Second, we give bounds on how often one can change one's belief in a given hypothesis when observing a stream of data.Comment: ALT 2014, extended technical repor

Low-energy interaction of composite spin-half systems with scalar and vector fields

We consider a composite spin-half particle moving in spatially-varying scalar and vector fields. The vector field is assumed to couple to a conserved charge, but no assumption is made about either the structure of the composite or its coupling to the scalar field. A general form for the piece of the spin-orbit interaction of the composite with the scalar and vector fields which is first-order in momentum transfer ${\bf Q}$ and second-order in the fields is derived.Comment: 10 pages, RevTe

The GPRIME approach to finite element modeling

GPRIME, an interactive modeling system, runs on the CDC 6000 computers and the DEC VAX 11/780 minicomputer. This system includes three components: (1) GPRIME, a user friendly geometric language and a processor to translate that language into geometric entities, (2) GGEN, an interactive data generator for 2-D models; and (3) SOLIDGEN, a 3-D solid modeling program. Each component has a computer user interface of an extensive command set. All of these programs make use of a comprehensive B-spline mathematics subroutine library, which can be used for a wide variety of interpolation problems and other geometric calculations. Many other user aids, such as automatic saving of the geometric and finite element data bases and hidden line removal, are available. This interactive finite element modeling capability can produce a complete finite element model, producing an output file of grid and element data

An AGN Identification for 3EG J2006-2321

We present a multiwavelength analysis of the high-energy gamma-ray source 3EG J2006-2321. The flux of this source above 100 MeV is shown to be variable on time scales of days and months. Optical observations and careful examination of archived radio data indicate that its radio counterpart is PMN J2005-2310, a flat-spectrum radio quasar with a 5-GHz flux density of 260 mJy. Study of the $V=18.7$ optical counterpart indicates a redshift of 0.833 and variable linear polarization. No X-ray source has been detected near the position of PMN J2005-2310, but an X-ray upper limit is derived from ROSAT data. This upper limit provides for a spectral energy distribution with global characteristics similar to those of known gamma-ray blazars. Taken together, these data indicate that 3EG J2006-2321, listed as unidentified in the 3rd EGRET Catalog, is a member of the blazar class of AGN. The 5-GHz radio flux density of this blazar is the lowest of the 68 EGRET-detected AGN. The fact that EGRET has detected such a source has implications for unidentified EGRET sources, particularly those at high latitudes ($|b|>30^{\circ}$), many of which may be blazars.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures. To appear in ApJ v569 n1, 10 April 200

A Survey of Old Persons in Aberdeen, 1956/57

A comprehensive survey of the circumstances and needs of elderly citizens of Aberdeen was carried out in 1956/57. The survey comprised two main sections; (a) Domiciliary Investigation of a 5% representative sample of old people in the City, and (b) Institutional Investigation of all Aberdeen citizens in different institutions, both public and private, throughout the north-east of Scotland. As it is considered that it may be of some general interest particularly to others contemplating surveys of similar nature, the method of survey is described in detail and copies of proformata used are appended. The representative nature of the domiciliary sample was checked by comparison with the 1951 Census findings of the sex distribution, age grouping, and marital status of the sample population. It was cross-checked by ancillary investigation of the total number of old people in receipt of certain services, in particular, the chiropody and home help services. The domiciliary survey involved investigation of 2,806 households, and of the 1,051 old persons found in these households 1,005 (over 95%) were willing to supply information for the purposes of the survey. The institutional investigation covered a total of 1,273 old people in more than 40 hospitals, convalescent homes, nursing homes, eventide homes and lodging-houses. Details are furnished of findings in regard to the residential circumstances of elderly persons, their housing conditions, their physical capabilities and capacity for work, their disabilities, the various domiciliary services they require, and the number of hospital and hostel beds they occupy. The main needs of old persons living at home were found to be, in descending order of frequency of requirement, health visiting, general practitioner visits, chiropody, financial assistance, rehousing, home help, club membership and home nursing. The main unmet needs, also in descending order of frequency were health visiting, chiropody and rehousing. It is emphasised that in the care of the aged the prime requirement is education towards health which is necessary now, and will be in the future even more necessary, for the prevention of further increase in the material needs of the elderly

Molecular astronomy of cool stars and sub-stellar objects

The optical and infrared spectra of a wide variety of `cool' astronomical objects including the Sun, sunspots, K-, M- and S-type stars, carbon stars, brown dwarfs and extrasolar planets are reviewed. The review provides the necessary astronomical background for chemical physicists to understand and appreciate the unique molecular environments found in astronomy. The calculation of molecular opacities needed to simulate the observed spectral energy distributions is discussed

Fixed points and limit cycles in the population dynamics of lysogenic viruses and their hosts

Starting with stochastic rate equations for the fundamental interactions between microbes and their viruses, we derive a mean field theory for the population dynamics of microbe-virus systems, including the effects of lysogeny. In the absence of lysogeny, our model is a generalization of that proposed phenomenologically by Weitz and Dushoff. In the presence of lysogeny, we analyze the possible states of the system, identifying a novel limit cycle, which we interpret physically. To test the robustness of our mean field calculations to demographic fluctuations, we have compared our results with stochastic simulations using the Gillespie algorithm. Finally, we estimate the range of parameters that delineate the various steady states of our model.Comment: 20 pages, 16 figures, 4 table

Letter, J. M. Wallace to Thomas P. Darden, September 16, 1862

This handwritten letter, dated September 16, 1862, is written from J. M. Wallace to Thomas P. Darden concerning a visit to Wallace\u27s home by Darden\u27s nephew, L. W. Darden. The letter goes on to describe the instances the sickness and eventual death of Darden\u27s nephew at Wallace\u27s home.https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/mss-darden-papers/1148/thumbnail.jp

Fast track children's hearing pilot: final report of the evaluation of the pilot

This report presents key findings of the evaluation of the Fast Track children’s hearings pilot in Scotland1. The research was undertaken by staff at the Universities of Glasgow, Stirling and Strathclyde between February 2003 and January 2005