Visual information seeking on palmtop devices

Ahlberg and Shneiderman's Starfield displays have been shown to provide fast and convenient access to large collections of data. However, the standard design requires a large, high-resolution, colour screen. This paper presents the results of a short project investigating this visual information seeking technique on a monochrome palmtop

Intergenerational justice: how reasonable man discounts climate damage

Moral philosophers and economists have evaluated the intergenerational problem of climate change by applying the whole gamut of theories on distributive justice. In this article, however, it is argued that intergenerational justice cannot imply the application of moral ideal theories to future generations. The formal principle of equality simply requires us to treat like cases as like. If intergenerational justice is to have any meaning, it would require future generations to receive the same treatment under the law and the same treatment from the authorities, as far as cases are like. In the context of climate change, the reasonable man standard from tort law is of particular relevance. There is no justification to handle pollution across generational boundaries according to norms which differ from the (international) laws for handling pollution across national borders. It is argued that this implies, for example, that a zero social rate of time preference should be used in cost-benefit analysis of climate policy: climate damage experienced by future generations should be discounted neither for their higher expected wealth, nor purely for their being remote

Organocatalysis for versatile polymer degradation

The use of a simple, cheap and effective organocatalyst, tetramethylammonium methyl carbonate, has been exploited for the transesterification of a range of commercial polymer samples. PLA, PCL, PC and PET have been successfully broken down into useful products, with the repolymerisation of DMT to PET demonstrated, highlighting a truly circular economy approach

Multilocus sequence typing of the pathogenic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus

A multilocus sequence typing (MLST) scheme was devised for Aspergillus fumigatus. The system involved sequencing seven gene fragments and was applied to a panel of 100 isolates of A. fumigatus from diverse sources. Thirty different sequence types were found among the 100 isolates, and 93% of the isolates differed from the other isolates by only one allele sequence, forming a single clonal cluster as indicated by the eBURST algorithm. The discriminatory power of the MLST method was only 0.93. These results strongly indicate that A. fumigatus is a species of a relatively recent origin, with low levels of sequence dissimilarity. Typing methods based on variable numbers of tandem repeats offer higher levels of strain discrimination. Mating type data for the 100 isolates showed that 71 isolates were type MAT1-2 and 29 isolates were MAT1-1

Geometry of Brane-Worlds

The most general geometrical scenario in which the brane-world program can be implemented is investigated. The basic requirement is that it should be consistent with the confinement of gauge interaction, the existence of quantum states and the embedding in a bulk with arbitrary dimensions, signature and topology. It is found that the embedding equations are compatible with a wide class of Lagrangians, starting with a modified Einstein-Hilbert Lagrangian as the simplest one, provided minimal boundaries are added to the bulk. A non-trivial canonical structure is derived, suggesting a canonical quantization of the brane-world geometry relative to the extra dimensions, where the quantum states are set in correspondence with high frequency gravitational waves. It is shown that in the cases of at least six dimensions, there exists a confined gauge field included in the embedding structure. The size of extra dimensions compatible with the embedding is calculated and found to be different from the one derived with product topology.Comment: Minor changes and a correction to equation (22). 9 pages twocolumn Revte

Efficacy of social cognition and interaction training in outpatients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders: randomized controlled trial

Given the relationship between social cognition and functional outcome in schizophrenia, a number of social cognitive interventions have been developed, including Social Cognition Interaction Training (SCIT), a group-based, comprehensive, manualized intervention. In the current trial, we examined SCIT efficacy as well as potential moderators of treatment effects. Fifty-one outpatients were randomized to SCIT or a wait-list-control (WLC), with assessments of social cognition, neurocognition, self-report, symptoms, and functioning conducted at baseline and end of the active phase. Relative to WLC, we did not find significant improvements for SCIT on neurocognition, social cognition, self-report, or symptoms, though there was a trend-level, medium effect favoring the SCIT condition on interpersonal and instrumental role function. Post-hoc analyses indicated that baseline neurocognition did not impact degree of social cognitive or functional change. Shorter duration of illness was significantly associated with better post-training neurocognition and self-esteem and, at trend-level with better symptoms and social functioning. We discuss the importance of outcome measure selection and the need for continued evaluation of potential treatment moderators in order to better match people to existing treatments. Clinical trial registration: Clinicaltrials.gov, Identifier NCT00587561