Education, globalization and the nation state

Review of the book Education, globalization and the nation state by Prof. Ronald C. Sultanapeer-reviewe

Hobson’s choice? Constraints on accessing spaces of creative production

Successful creative production is often documented to occur in urban areas that are more likely to be diverse, a source of human capital and the site of dense interactions. These accounts chart how, historically, creative industries have clustered in areas where space was once cheap in the city centre fringe and inner city areas, often leading to the development of a creative milieu, and thereby stimulating further creative production. Historical accounts of the development of creative areas demonstrate the crucial role of accessible low-cost business premises. This article reports on the findings of a case study that investigated the location decisions of firms in selected creative industry sectors in Greater Manchester. The study found that, while creative activity remains highly concentrated in the city centre, creative space there is being squeezed and some creative production is decentralizing in order to access cheaper premises. The article argues that the location choices of creative industry firms are being constrained by the extensive city centre regeneration, with the most vulnerable firms, notably the smallest and youngest, facing a Hobson’s choice of being able to access low-cost premises only in the periphery. This disrupts the delicate balance needed to sustain production and begs the broader question as to how the creative economy fits into the existing urban fabric, alongside the competing demands placed on space within a transforming industrial conurbation

SN2007ax : An Extremely Faint Type Ia Supernova

We present multi-band photometric and optical spectroscopic observations of SN2007ax, the faintest and reddest Type Ia supernova (SNIa) yet observed. With M_B = -15.9 and (B-V)max = 1.2, this SN is over half a magnitude fainter at maximum light than any other SNIa. Similar to subluminous SN2005ke, SN2007ax also appears to show excess in UV emission at late time. Traditionally, Delta-m_15(B) has been used to parameterize the decline rate for SNeIa. However, the B-band transition from fast to slow decline occurs sooner than 15 days for faint SNeIa. Therefore we suggest that a more physically motivated parameter, the time of intersection of the two slopes, be used instead. Only by explaining the faintest (and the brightest) supernovae, we can thoroughly understand the physics of thermonuclear explosions. We suggest that future surveys should carefully design their cadence, depth, pointings and follow-up to find an unbiased sample of extremely faint members of this subclass of faint SNeIa.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ

Why does the environmental influence on group and cluster galaxies extend beyond the virial radius?

In the local Universe, galaxies in groups and clusters contain less gas and are less likely to be forming stars than their field counterparts. This effect is not limited to the central group/cluster regions, but is shown by recent observations to persist out to several virial radii. To gain insight into the extent and cause of this large-scale environmental influence, we use a suite of high-resolution cosmological hydrodynamic simulations to analyse galaxies around simulated groups and clusters of a wide range of mass (log10 Mhost/M⊙ = [13.0, 15.2]). In qualitative agreement with the observations, we find a systematic depletion of both hot and cold gas and a decline in the star forming fraction of galaxies as far out as ∼ 5 r200 from the host centre. A substantial fraction of these galaxies are on highly elliptical orbits and are not infalling for the first time (∼ 50 per cent at 2 r200, independent of host mass) or are affected by ‘preprocessing’ (less than 10 per cent of galaxies around groups, increasing to ∼ 50 per cent near a massive cluster), even a combination of these indirect mechanisms does not fully account for the environmental influence, particularly in the case of the hot gas content. Direct ram pressure interaction with an extended gas ‘halo’ surrounding groups and clusters is shown to be sufficiently strong to strip the hot gas atmospheres of infalling galaxies out to ∼ 5 r200. We show that this influence is highly anisotropic, with ram pressure along filaments enhanced by up to a factor of 100 despite significant co-flow of gas and galaxies

Urothelial Senescence in the Pathophysiology of Diabetic Bladder Dysfunction—A Novel Hypothesis

Diabetic bladder dysfunction (DBD) is a well-recognized and common symptom affecting up to 50% of all diabetic patients. DBD has a broad range of clinical presentations ranging from overactive to underactive bladder symptoms that develops in middle-aged to elderly patients with long standing and poorly controlled diabetes. Low efficacy of current therapeutics and lifestyle interventions combined with high national healthcare costs highlight the need for more research into bladder dysfunction pathophysiology and novel treatment options. Cellular senescence is an age-related physiologic process in which cells undergo irreversible growth arrest induced by replicative exhaustion and damaging insults. While controlled senescence negatively regulates cell proliferation and promotes tissue regeneration, uncontrolled senescence is known to result in tissue dysfunction through enhanced secretion of inflammatory factors. This review presents previous scientific findings and current hypotheses that characterize diabetic bladder dysfunction. Further, we propose the novel hypothesis that cellular senescence within the urothelial layer of the bladder contributes to the pro-inflammatory/pro-oxidant environment and symptoms of diabetic bladder dysfunction. Our results show increased cellular senescence in the urothelial layer of the bladder; however, whether this phenomenon is the cause or effect of DBD is unknown. The urothelial layer of the bladder is made up of transitional epithelia specialized to contract and expand with demand and plays an active role in transmission by modulating afferent activity. Transition from normal functioning urothelial cells to secretory senescence cells would not only disrupt the barrier function of this layer but may result in altered signaling and sensation of bladder fullness; dysfunction of this layer is known to result in symptoms of frequency and urgency. Future DBD therapeutics may benefit from targeting and preventing early transition of urothelial cells to senescent cells

The afterglow of GRB050709 and the nature of the short-hard gamma-ray bursts

The final chapter in the long-standing mystery of the gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) centres on the origin of the short-hard class, suspected on theoretical grounds to result from the coalescence of neutron star or black hole binary systems. Numerous searches for the afterglows of short-hard bursts have been made, galvanized by the revolution in our understanding of long-duration GRBs that followed the discovery in 1997 of their broadband (X-ray, optical, and radio) afterglow emission. Here we present the discovery of the X-ray afterglow of a short-hard burst whose accurate position allows us to unambiguously associate it with a star-forming galaxy at redshift z=0.160, and whose optical lightcurve definitively excludes a supernova association. Together with results from three other recent short-hard bursts, this suggests that short-hard bursts release much less energy than the long-duration GRBs. Models requiring young stellar populations, such as magnetars and collapsars, are ruled out, while coalescing degenerate binaries remain the most promising progenitor candidates.Comment: Nature in press (Oct 6 issue). 23 pages, 4 figure

Relativistic ejecta from XRF 060218 and the rate of cosmic explosions

Over the last decade, long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) including the subclass of X-ray flashes (XRFs) have been revealed to be a rare variety of Type Ibc supernova (SN). While all these events result from the death of massive stars, the electromagnetic luminosities of GRBs and XRFs exceed those of ordinary Type Ibc SNe by many orders of magnitude. The essential physical process that causes a dying star to produce a GRB or XRF, and not just an SN, remains the crucial open question. Here we present radio and X-ray observations of XRF 060218 (associated with SN 2006aj), the second nearest GRB identified to-date, which allow us to measure its total energy and place it in the larger context of cosmic explosions. We show that this event is 100 times less energetic but ten times more common than cosmological GRBs. Moreover, it is distinguished from ordinary Type Ibc SNe by the presence of 10^48 erg coupled to mildly-relativistic ejecta, along with a central engine (an accretion-fed, rapidly rotating compact source) which produces X-rays for weeks after the explosion. This suggests that the production of relativistic ejecta is the key physical distinction between GRBs/XRFs and ordinary SNe, while the nature of the central engine (black hole or magnetar) may distinguish typical bursts from low-luminosity, spherical events like XRF 060218.Comment: To appear in Nature on August 31 2006 (15 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, including Supplementary Information

The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Analysis of potential systematics

We analyze the density field of galaxies observed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) included in the SDSS Data Release Nine (DR9). DR9 includes spectroscopic redshifts for over 400,000 galaxies spread over a footprint of 3,275 deg^2. We identify, characterize, and mitigate the impact of sources of systematic uncertainty on large-scale clustering measurements, both for angular moments of the redshift-space correlation function and the spherically averaged power spectrum, P(k), in order to ensure that robust cosmological constraints will be obtained from these data. A correlation between the projected density of stars and the higher redshift (0.43 < z < 0.7) galaxy sample (the `CMASS' sample) due to imaging systematics imparts a systematic error that is larger than the statistical error of the clustering measurements at scales s > 120h^-1Mpc or k < 0.01hMpc^-1. We find that these errors can be ameliorated by weighting galaxies based on their surface brightness and the local stellar density. We use mock galaxy catalogs that simulate the CMASS selection function to determine that randomly selecting galaxy redshifts in order to simulate the radial selection function of a random sample imparts the least systematic error on correlation function measurements and that this systematic error is negligible for the spherically averaged correlation function. The methods we recommend for the calculation of clustering measurements using the CMASS sample are adopted in companion papers that locate the position of the baryon acoustic oscillation feature (Anderson et al. 2012), constrain cosmological models using the full shape of the correlation function (Sanchez et al. 2012), and measure the rate of structure growth (Reid et al. 2012). (abridged)Comment: Matches version accepted by MNRAS. Clarifications and references have been added. See companion papers that share the "The clustering of galaxies in the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey:" titl

Effect of betaine supplementation on plasma nitrate/nitrite in exercise-trained men

Background: Betaine, beetroot juice, and supplemental nitrate have recently been reported to improve certain aspects of exercise performance, which may be mechanistically linked to increased nitric oxide. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of betaine supplementation on plasma nitrate/nitrite, a surrogate marker or nitric oxide, in exercise-trained men.Methods: We used three different study designs (acute intake of betaine at 1.25 and 5.00 grams, chronic intake of betaine at 2.5 grams per day for 14 days, and chronic [6 grams of betaine per day for 7 days] followed by acute intake [6 grams]), all involving exercise-trained men, to investigate the effects of orally ingested betaine on plasma nitrate/nitrite. Blood samples were collected before and at 30, 60, 90, and 120 min after ingestion of 1.25 and 5.00 grams of betaine (Study 1); before and after 14 days of betaine supplementation at a dosage of 2.5 grams (Study 2); and before and after 7 days of betaine supplementation at a dosage of 6 grams, followed by acute ingestion of 6 grams and blood measures at 30 and 60 min post ingestion (Study 3).Results: In Study 1, nitrate/nitrite was relatively unaffected and no statistically significant interaction (p = 0.99), dosage (p = 0.69), or time (p = 0.91) effects were noted. Similar findings were noted in Study 2, with no statistically significant interaction (p = 0.57), condition (p = 0.98), or pre/post intervention (p = 0.17) effects noted for nitrate/nitrite. In Study 3, no statistically significant changes were noted in nitrate/nitrite between collection times (p = 0.97).Conclusion: Our data indicate that acute or chronic ingestion of betaine by healthy, exercise-trained men does not impact plasma nitrate/nitrite. These findings suggest that other mechanisms aside from increasing circulating nitric oxide are likely responsible for any performance enhancing effect of betaine supplementation. © 2011 Bloomer et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd