Glamour girls: Cleomania in mass culture

While Elizabeth Taylor was in Rome shooting the spectacular Hollywood epicCleopatra, women’s magazines began to advise their readers how to create “a new Egyptian look” whose models were Nefertiti and Cleopatra, Egypt’s two most iconic queens.¹ An article inLookmagazine for 27 February 1962 predicted: Superimpose two such famous glamour girls as Elizabeth Taylor and Cleopatra, and you are in for a beauty boom. In her role as Egypt’s seductive queen, actress Taylor’s exotic eye makeup, diverse hair styles (devised with 30 wigs), magnificent jewels and gowns are bound to inspire a new Egyptian look every bit as..

Likelihood-Based Approaches to Modeling Demand for Medical Care

We review recent likelihood-based approaches to modeling demand for medical care. A semi-nonparametric model along the lines of Cameron and Johansson's Poisson polynomial model, but using a negative binomial baseline model, is introduced. We apply these models, as well a semiparametric Poisson, hurdle semiparametric Poisson, and finite mixtures of negative binomial models to six measures of health care usage taken from the Medical Expenditure Panel survey. We conclude that most of the models lead to statistically similar results, both in terms of information criteria and conditional and unconditional prediction. This suggests that applied researchers may not need to be overly concerned with the choice of which of these models they use to analyze data on health care demand.Health care demand, count data, maximum likelihood

Using context-aware sub sorting of received signal strength fingerprints for indoor localisation

Mobile indoor localisation has numerous uses for logistics, health, sport and social networking applications. Current wireless localisation systems experience reliability difficulties while operating within indoor environments due to interference caused by the presence of metallic infrastructure. Current position localisation use wireless channel propagation characteristics, such as RF receive signal strength to localise a user\u27s position, which is subject to interference. To overcome this, we developed a Fingerprint Context Aware Partitioning tracking model for tracking people within a building. The Fingerprint Context Aware Partitioning tracking model used received RF signal strength fingerprinting, combined with localised context aware information about the user\u27s immediate indoor environment surroundings. We also present an inexpensive and robust wireless localisation network that can track the location of users in an indoor environment, using the Zigbee/802.15.4 wireless communications protocol. The wireless localisation network used reference nodes placed at known positions in a building. The reference nodes are used by mobile nodes, carried by users to localise their position. We found that the Fingerprint Context Aware Partitioning model had improved performance than using only multilateration, in locations that were not in range of multiple reference nodes. Further work includes investigating how multiple mobile nodes can be used by Fingerprint Context Aware Partition model to improve position accuracy

A bluetooth wireless network infrastructure for multimedia guidebooks on mobile computing devices

This paper describes the implementation of a Bluetooth Village Guide Book (VGB) scenario for use in the Kelvin Grove Urban Village located in Brisbane, Australia. An Information Point Station Network (IPSN) was developed, along with software for two types of mobile computing devices. The implementation consists of several Information Point Stations (IPSs) placed at locations of significance, with access to information items on a centralized server. Once registered, the user is given the opportunity to experience context-aware information on demand and in various multimedia formats. These information items are selected by the user, either by way of a menu system appearing on their mobile computing device or a more intuitive pointer-tag system. Information items are then ‘beamed’ via Bluetooth to the user’s mobile computing device for the user to view The implementation was found to be successful and was tested with multiple users accessing information items from a given IPS as well as multiple IPSs attached to the centralized server. Still, there is further work to be done on the VBG software, the user registration system and on creating an embedded solution for the individual Information Point Stations

International business tourism : a growth rate model

The aim of this paper is to understand the factors influencing business tourism on a global scale, in order to assess the competence of the countries in this tourism segment and prescribe them guidelines for action. For the development of data analysis, a growth rate model was estimated and a sample of 136 countries for the years 2005 and 2009 was collected. Results reveal that, for the development of policies to stimulate the growth in the business tourism segment, countries should develop measures that encourage capital investment in tourism, leisure tourism and trade openness.8316-FD77-85EB | Pedro Miguel Fonseca Moreira de CarvalhoN/

FRET-Based Localization of Fluorescent Protein Insertions Within the Ryanodine Receptor Type 1

Fluorescent protein (FP) insertions have often been used to localize primary structure elements in mid-resolution 3D cryo electron microscopic (EM) maps of large protein complexes. However, little is known as to the precise spatial relationship between the location of the fused FP and its insertion site within a larger protein. To gain insights into these structural considerations, Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) measurements were used to localize green fluorescent protein (GFP) insertions within the ryanodine receptor type 1 (RyR1), a large intracellular Ca2+ release channel that plays a key role in skeletal muscle excitation contraction coupling. A series of full-length His-tagged GFP-RyR1 fusion constructs were created, expressed in human embryonic kidney (HEK)-293T cells and then complexed with Cy3NTA, a His-tag specific FRET acceptor. FRET efficiency values measured from each GFP donor to Cy3NTA bound to each His tag acceptor site were converted into intermolecular distances and the positions of each inserted GFP were then triangulated relative to a previously published X-ray crystal structure of a 559 amino acid RyR1 fragment. We observed that the chromophoric centers of fluorescent proteins inserted into RyR1 can be located as far as 45 Å from their insertion sites and that the fused proteins can also be located in internal cavities within RyR1. These findings should prove useful in interpreting structural results obtained in cryo EM maps using fusions of small fluorescent proteins. More accurate point-to-point distance information may be obtained using complementary orthogonal labeling systems that rely on fluorescent probes that bind directly to amino acid side chains

Differential expression of genes involved in iron metabolism in Aspergillus fumigatus

The ability of fungi to survive in many environments is linked to their capacity to acquire essential nutrients. Iron is generally complexed and available in very limited amounts. Like bacteria, fungi have evolved highly specific systems for iron acquisition. Production and uptake of iron-chelating siderophores has been shown to be important for certain human bacterial pathogens, as well as in fungal pathogens such as Cryptococcus neoformans and Fusarium graminearum. This system also enables the opportunistic fungal pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus to infect and subsequently colonize the human lung. In this study, advantage was taken of genome sequence data available for both Aspergillus nidulans and A. fumigatus either to partially clone or to design PCR primers for 10 genes putatively involved in siderophore biosynthesis or uptake in A. fumigatus. The expression of these genes was then monitored by semi-quantitative and quantitative real-time PCR over a range of iron concentrations. As expected, the putative biosynthetic genes sidA, sidC and sidD were all strongly up-regulated under iron starvation conditions, although the variable degree of induction indicates complex regulation by a number of transcriptional factors, including the GATA family protein SreA. In contrast, the gene sidE shows no iron-regulation, suggesting that SidE may not be involved in siderophore biosynthesis. The characterisation of the expression patterns of this subset of genes in the iron regulon facilitates further studies into the importance of iron acquisition for pathogenesis of A. fumigatus. [Int Microbiol 2006; 9(4):281-287