Writing the history of Gaelic Scotland: a provisional checklist of "Gaelic" genealogical histories

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The Inflation Hedging Characteristics of US and UK Investments: A Multi-Factor Error Correction Approach

Historic analysis of the inflation hedging properties of stocks produced anomalous results, with equities often appearing to offer a perverse hedge against inflation. This has been attributed to the impact of real and monetary shocks to the economy, which influence both inflation and asset returns. It has been argued that real estate should provide a better hedge: however, empirical results have been mixed. This paper explores the relationship between commercial real estate returns (from both private and public markets) and economic, fiscal and monetary factors and inflation for US and UK markets. Comparative analysis of general equity and small capitalisation stock returns in both markets is carried out. Inflation is subdivided into expected and unexpected components using different estimation techniques. The analyses are undertaken using long-run error correction techniques. In the long-run, once real and monetary variables are included, asset returns are positively linked to anticipated inflation but not to inflation shocks. Adjustment processes are, however, gradual and not within period. Real estate returns, particularly direct market returns, exhibit characteristics that differ from equitiesInvestment Returns, Real Estate, Inflation Hedging, Error Correction Model

Zero-dimensional chemical kinetic simulation of ROS/RNSin pulsed pulsed-discharge exposed water

The concentration variations of reactive oxygen/nitrogen species in water, such as H2O2, NO2 −, and NO3 − generated by pulsed-discharge plasma exposure, are calculated using reaction rates of chemical reactions and acid-base equilibrium in water. The calculated concentrations and pH values are in good agreement with measured data within the range where the significant changes of the measured data are observed. The rate constant for ONOOH generation is estimated to be 7.8 × 103 M−2 s−1, and this value is in good agreement with previously reported values. The generation rates of H2O2, NO2 −, and NO3 − are estimated to be 7.70 × 10−7, 4.10 × 10−7, and 1.10 × 10−7 M s−1, respectively

Polarity effects on breakdown of short gaps in a point-plane topology in air

Electrical breakdown in air in a point-plane topology involves complex processes that are still not fully understood. Unlike uniform-field topologies, the highly-divergent fields produced by point-plane topologies create pre-breakdown corona with volumetric space charge. It is known that space charges developed by corona discharge have significant impacts on the breakdown voltage in non-uniform electrode topologies. With large inter-electrode gaps (>cm) the breakdown voltage for a HV point cathode in air at atmospheric pressure is noticeably larger than a HV point anode. However, this paper shows that in shorter point-plane gaps in air (less than ~10 mm), in the air pressure range 0.1-0.35 MPa, an HV point anode has a similar breakdown voltage which eventually is surpassed by the HV point cathode as the inter-electrode gap is increased. The inter-electrode gap at which the HV cathode has a higher hold-off voltage is found to be dependent on the gas pressure and radius of the point electrode

Building a Culture of Evidence for Community College Student Success: Early Progress in the Achieving the Dream Initiative

Achieving the Dream is a multiyear, national initiative, launched by Lumina Foundation for Education, to help community college students stay in school and succeed. The 82 participating colleges commit to collecting and analyzing data to improve student outcomes, particularly for low-income students and students of color. This baseline report describes the early progress that the first 27 colleges have made after just one year of implementation

Efficacy of Pulsed 405-nm LEDs for antimicrobial photodynamic inactivation : effects of intensity, frequency, and duty cycle

Objective: This study investigates possible advantages in pulsed over continuous 405-nm LED-light for bacterial inactivation and energy efficiency. Background: Alternative non-antibiotic methods of disinfection and infection control have become of significant interest. Recent studies have demonstrated the application of systems using 405-nm light-emitting diodes for continuous disinfection of the clinical environment, and also for potential treatment of contaminated wounds. Methods: Liquid suspensions of 103 CFU/ml populations of Staphylococcus aureus were subject to pulsed 405-nm light of different frequencies, duty cycles and intensities, and for different lengths of time. Results: Pulsed exposures with the same average irradiance of 16 mWcm2 and varying duty cycle (25%, 50%, 75%), showed very similar performance compared with continuous exposures, with 95-98% reduction of S. aureus achieved for all duty cycles. The pulsing frequency was varied in intervals from 100 Hz - 10 kHz and appeared to have little effect on antimicrobial efficacy. However, when comparing pulsed with continuous exposure, an improvement in inactivation per unit optical energy was achieved, with results showing an increase of approximately 83% in optical efficiency. Conclusions: These results suggest that under pulsed conditions a lower energy consumption and lower perceived brightness could be achieved, thus potentially providing improved operating conditions for medical/infection-control applications without compromising antimicrobial efficacy

Measurements of mobility in aged mineral oil in the presence of nanoparticles

The addition of nanoparticles into insulating liquids has been a popular area of research for the last 20 years as improvements have been observed in the breakdown strength of aged insulating liquids. This paper reports on the changes in the conductivity and the mobility of charge carriers in oil as a result of ageing and how these are effected by the addition of nanoparticles to the aged insulation

Effects of GABRA2 variation on physiological, psychomotor and subjective responses in the Alcohol Challenge Twin Study

Multiple reports have identified variation in the GABRA2 gene as contributing to the genetic susceptibility to alcohol dependence. However, both the mechanism behind this association, and the range of alcohol-related phenotypes affected by variation in this gene, are currently undefined. Other data suggest that the risk of alcohol dependence is increased by relative insensitivity to alcohol's intoxicating effects. We have therefore tested whether GABRA2 variation is associated with variation in the subjective and objective effects of a standard dose of alcohol in humans. Data on responses to alcohol from the Alcohol Challenge Twin Study (Martin et al., 1985) have been tested against allelic and haplotype information obtained by typing 41 single-nucleotide polymorphisms in or close to the GABRA2 gene. Nominally significant allelic associations (p < .05, without correction for multiple testing) were found for body sway, motor coordination, pursuit rotor and arithmetical computation tasks, and for the personality dimension of Neuroticism. Because of the large number of phenotypes tested, these possibly significant findings will need to be confirmed in further studies