Maintaining safety : the social support and monitoring of men who have completed therapy for sexual offending : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Social Policy and Social Work at Massey University

Many consumers are conscious of the potential health problems incurred by the high consumption of fat. Consequently, they are discouraged from drinking whole milk due to its high fat content, despite its nutritional benefits, e.g. as a calcium source. A variety of low-fat milk products are currently available, with fat contents ranging from 0.1 % to 1.5 % fat. However, it is known that many consumers prefer the mouthfeel characteristics of high-fat milk. The consistency of low-fat milks was perceived as watery and the colour was often described as "green" or "grey". This identified a need for a low-fat milk product with mouthfeel characteristics and colour similar to high-fat milk. Attempts to improve the texture of low-fat milks have included the addition of non-fat milk solids to skim milk. Phillips et al. (1995) added 2 % non-fat dry milk powder to fluid skim milk. The addition of non-fat milk solids produced an objective measure of viscosity similar to milk with 2 % added fat. However, the colour and texture attributes of milk with 2 % added non-fat milk solids did not improve to such an extent that non-fat milk solids could be used as a substitute for fat

Variable damping controller for a prosthetic knee during swing extension

Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 39-40).Transfemoral amputees exhibit both increased metabolic consumption and gait asymmetry during level ground walking. A variable damping control strategy has been developed for swing extension in order to improve gait symmetry and reduce energy expenditure during level ground walking. Preliminary biomechanical studies suggest that the knee utilizes a variable damping control during swing extension. This thesis proposes a biologically inspired variable damping control strategy which can be simplified into a piecewise function with respect to the knee angle. The variable damping profile of the knee during swing extension has been modeled as an initial linear increase with respect to knee angle followed by a quadratic increase at the end of swing. A damping controller based on this proposed piecewise function has been implemented in a biomimetic, active, knee prosthesis (AAAKP) developed at MIT's Biomechatronics Lab. Preliminary studies on a unilateral, transfemoral amputee have shown that the AAAKP with the proposed damping control strategy is able to more closely emulate the damping profile of the unaffected leg, when compared to a conventional knee prosthesis (Otto Bock C-Leg®). This Initial study suggests that the proposed variable damping strategy for swing extension is able to more accurately emulate the joint mechanics of the unaffected knee. This work is intended to improve prosthetic knee behavior in order to reduce metabolic consumption and improve gait symmetry in transfemoral amputees during level ground walking.by Luke Matthewson Mooney.S.B

On the Functional Determination of Lexical Categories

Nous présentons d’abord des données de l’anglais et du st’át’imcets (famille salish) qui nous amènent à conclure que les racines doivent être spécifiées pour la valeur de leur catégorie lexicale, et ceci indépendamment du contexte syntaxique où elles se trouvent. Puis nous examinons la variation paramétrique entre les systèmes catégoriels de l’anglais et du st’át’imcets. En anglais, il y a une corrélation entre la catégorie fonctionnelle D (déterminant) et la présence de N, alors qu'en st’át’imcets il y a une corrélation entre D et le statut argumental d’une expression. Nous proposons que la différence principale se situe dans la nature même des noms. Dans les langues salish, tous les noms sont comptables et donc dénotent des ensembles d’individus précis. Par contre, en anglais, tous les noms sont non comptables et sont individualisés à l’aide de la catégorie fonctionnelle Num (nombre).First, we provide evidence from both English and St’át’imcets (Lillooet Salish) that roots must be inherently specified for lexical category, independently of any syntactic environment they might appear in. Then, we address the parametric difference between the English and the Salish systems: in English, the functional category Determiner seems to correlate with the presence of a noun, while in Salish, D strictly correlates with argumenthood and has no correlation with nounhood. We claim that the core difference lies in the nature of nouns. In Salish, all nouns are count nouns which denote sets of atomic individuals. In English, all nouns are mass until made otherwise by an 'individuating' Num head (ɑ)

(NON)-DETERMINING THE ORIGINAL SPEAKER: REPORTATIVE PARTICLES VERSUS VERBS

This work argues that the Basque reportative particle omen contributes to the propositional contents of the utterance, and it is not an illocutionary force indicator, contrary to what seems to be suggested by the standard view on omen. The results of the application of the assent/dissent test for the case of omen show that subjects not only accept a rejection of the reported content (p), but also a rejection of the evidential content (pomen) itself. The results are similar to those of the verb esan ‘to say’. It is, then, proposed that the difference between these two elements can be explained by distinguishing between the contents of the utterances (with Korta & Perry 2007, 2011), regarding the (non-)articulation of the original speaker

Approximate Analytical Model for the Squeeze-Film Lubrication of the Human Ankle Joint with Synovial Fluid Filtrated by Articular Cartilage

The aim of this article is to propose an analytical approximate squeeze-film lubrication model of the human ankle joint for a quick assessment of the synovial pressure field and the load carrying due to the squeeze motion. The model starts from the theory of boosted lubrication for the human articular joints lubrication (Walker et al., Rheum Dis 27:512–520, 1968; Maroudas, Lubrication and wear in joints. Sector, London, 1969) and takes into account the fluid transport across the articular cartilage using Darcy’s equation to depict the synovial fluid motion through a porous cartilage matrix. The human ankle joint is assumed to be cylindrical enabling motion in the sagittal plane only. The proposed model is based on a modified Reynolds equation; its integration allows to obtain a quick assessment on the synovial pressure field showing a good agreement with those obtained numerically (Hlavacek, J Biomech 33:1415–1422, 2000). The analytical integration allows the closed form description of the synovial fluid film force and the calculation of the unsteady gap thickness

Studying the effects of thalamic interneurons in a thalamocortical neural mass model

Neural mass models of the thalamocortical circuitry are often used to mimic brain activity during sleep and wakefulness as observed in scalp electroencephalogram (EEG) signals [1]. It is understood that alpha rhythms (8-13 Hz) dominate the EEG power-spectra in the resting-state [2] as well as the period immediately before sleep [3]. Literature review shows that the thalamic interneurons (IN) are often ignored in thalamocortical population models; the emphasis is on the connections between the thalamo cortical relay (TCR) and the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN). In this work, we look into the effects of the IN cell population on the behaviour of an existing thalamocortical model containing the TCR and TRN cell populations [4]. A schematic of the extended model used in this work is shown in Fig.1. The model equations are solved in Matlab using the Runge-Kutta method of the 4th/5th order. The model shows high sensitivity to the forward and reverse rates of reactions during synaptic transmission as well as on the membrane conductance of the cell populations. The input to the model is a white noise signal simulating conditions of resting state with eyes closed, a condition well known to be associated with dominant alpha band oscillations in EEG e.g. [5]. Thus, the model parameters are calibrated to obtain a set of basal parameter values when the model oscillates with a dominant frequency within the alpha band. The time series plots and the power spectra of the model output are compared with those when the IN cell population is disconnected from the circuit (by setting the inhibitory connectivity parameter from the IN to the TCR to zero). We observe (Fig. 2 inset) a significant difference in time series output of the TRN cell population with and without the IN cell population in the model; this in spite of the IN having no direct connectivity to and from the TRN cell population (Fig. 1). A comparison of the power spectra behaviour of the model output within the delta (1-3.5Hz), theta (3.75-7.5Hz), alpha (7.75-13.5Hz) and beta (13.75-30.5Hz) bands is shown in Fig. 2. Disconnecting the IN cell population shows a significant drop in the alpha band power and the dominant frequency of oscillation now lies within the theta band. An overall ‘slowing’ (left-side shift) of the power spectra is observed with an increase within the delta and theta bands and a decrease in the alpha and beta bands. Such a slowing of EEG is a signature of slow wave sleep in healthy individuals, and this suggests that the IN cell population may be centrally involved in the phase transition to slow wave sleep [6]. It is also characteristic of the waking EEG in Alzheimer’s disease, and may help us to understand the role of the IN cell population in modulating TCR and TRN cell behaviour in pathological brain conditions

Probing the primordial Universe using the SKA in combination with other cosmological surveys

>Magister Scientiae - MScNext-generation surveys of the large-scale structure of the Universe will be of great importance in allowing us to extract invaluable information about the nature of the Universe and the physical laws that govern it, at a higher precision than previously possible. In particular, they will allow us to more closely study primordial non-Gaussianity, a feature which leaves an imprint on the power spectrum of galaxies on the ultra-large scales and which acts as a powerful probe of the physics of the early Universe. To investigate the extent to which upcoming surveys will be able to improve our knowledge of primordial non-Gaussianity, we perform a forecast to predict the observational constraints on local-type primordial non-Gaussianity, as well as an extension that includes a scale dependence. We study the constraining power of a multi-tracer approach, where information from different surveys is combined to help suppress cosmic variance and break parameter degeneracies. More specifically, we consider the combination of a 21cm intensity mapping survey with each of two different photometric galaxy surveys, and also examine the effect of including CMB lensing as an additional probe. The forecast constraint from a combination of SKA1, a Euclid-like (LSST-like) survey and a CMB Stage 4 lensing experiment is (fNL) ' 0:9 (1:4) which displays a factor of 2 improvement over the case without CMB lensing, indicating that the surveys considered are indeed complementary. The constraints on the running index of the scale-dependent model are forecast as (nNL) ' 0:12 (0:22) from the same combination of surveys