Philo of Alexandria

The first author in which the traditions of Judaic thought and Greek philosophy flow together in a significant way is Philo of Alexandria.This study presents a detailed and comprehensive examination of Philo's knowledge and utilization of the most popular philosophical work of his day, the Timaeus of Plato. A kind of "commentary" is given on all passages in Philo's oeuvre in which the Timaeus is used or referred to, followed by a "synthetic" account of the influence that it had on Philo's thought.; Readership

A neohookean model of plates

This article is about hyperelastic deformations of plates (planar domains) which minimize a neohookean-type energy. Particularly, we investigate a stored energy functional introduced by J. M. Ball [Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinb. Sect. A, 88 (1981), pp. 315-328]. The mappings under consideration are Sobolev homeomorphisms and their weak limits. They are monotone in the sense of C. B. Morrey. One major advantage of adopting monotone Sobolev mappings lies in the existence of the energy-minimal deformations. However, injectivity is inevitably lost, so an obvious question to ask is, what are the largest subsets of the reference configuration on which minimal deformations remain injective? The fact that such subsets have full measure should be compared with the notion of global invertibility, which deals with subsets of the deformed configuration instead. In this connection we present a Cantor-type construction to show that both the branch set and its image may have positive area. Another novelty of our approach lies in allowing the elastic deformations to be free along the boundary, known as frictionless problems

Philo of Alexandria

The first author in which the traditions of Judaic thought and Greek philosophy flow together in a significant way is Philo of Alexandria.This study presents a detailed and comprehensive examination of Philo's knowledge and utilization of the most popular philosophical work of his day, the Timaeus of Plato. A kind of "commentary" is given on all passages in Philo's oeuvre in which the Timaeus is used or referred to, followed by a "synthetic" account of the influence that it had on Philo's thought.; Readership

Do Timing and Pattern of Myogenesis Correlate with Life History Mode in Anurans?

The timing and pattern of myogensis varies among anurans that have been studied and the different patterns may provide useful phylogenetic information. Specific myogenic markers have been described (Muntz, 1975; Kielbowna, 1981; Boudjelida & Muntz, 1987; Radice et al., l989) and they can provide information on evolutionary changes for closely related lineages within a clade. For example, we previously compared first appearance of a muscle-specific protein, first twitch of axial muscle, onset of multinucleation within axial myotome, and first heartbeat in two pipid genera (Smetanick, et al., 1999). We found that although the timing of myogensis differed, the sequence of events was the same for these two pipids. The similarities we saw in the two pipids could be due their common lineage, or alternatively, be a result of sharing a life history mode. For example, appearance of muscle twitch prior to multinucleation could be an adaptation for rapid development, an advantage in frogs with free-swimming tadpoles. If so, it might occur in other lineages with free-swimming tadpoles regardless of phylogenetic distance

The Timing and Pattern of Myogenesis in \u3cem\u3eHymenochirus boettgeri\u3c/em\u3e

Differences in the relative timing of homologous developmental events among closely related species, known as heterochronies, may provide valuable clues in understanding evolutionary relationships (McKinney, 1988; McNamara, 1995). Examining the timing of myogenic events is a relatively easy and effective method for finding heterochronic events. For example, whether muscle proteins and myofibrils appear before or after multinucleation can be determined through histological techniciques (Kielbowna, 1981). Simple observations of live specimens can pinpoint functional landmarks such as first twitch (spontaneous or due to external stimuli) and first heartbeat

Assessment of Natural Resources Use for Sustainable Development - DPSIR Framework for Case Studies in Portsmouth and Thames Gateway, U.K.

This chapter reports on the uses of the DPSIR framework to assess the sustainability of the intertidal environments within the two UK case study areas, Portsmouth and Thames Gateway. It focuses on statutory conservation areas dominated by intertidal habitats. Two are located in Portsmouth (Portsmouth and Langstone Harbours) and four in the Thames Gateway (Benfleet Marshes, South Thames Estuary, Medway Estuary and the Swale in the Thames Gateway). Based on the reduction of a number of pressures and impacts observed in recent decades and the improvement of overall environmental quality, all six SSSIs are considered to be sustainable in the short and medium term. In the future, it is possible that the impacts of climate change, especially sea-level rise, might result in further reduction in the area and/or quality of intertidal habitats. Further integration between conservation and planning objectives (both for urban development and management of flood risk) at local level is needed to support the long-term sustainability of intertidal habitats

Trading HIV for sheep: Risky sexual behavior and the response of female sex workers to Tabaski in Senegal

We use a cohort of female sex workers (FSWs) in Senegal to show how large anticipated economic shocks lead to increased risky sexual behavior. Exploiting the exogenous timing of interviews, we study the effect of Tabaski, the most important Islamic festival celebrated in Senegal, in which most households purchase an expensive animal for sacrifice. Condom use, measured robustly via the list experiment, falls by between 27.3 percentage points (pp) (65.5%) and 43.1 pp (22.7%) in the 9 days before Tabaski, or a maximum of 49.5 pp (76%) in the 7 day period preceding Tabaski. The evidence suggests the economic pressures from Tabaski are key to driving the behavior change observed through the price premium for condomless sex. Those most exposed to the economic pressure from Tabaski were unlikely to be using condoms at all in the week before the festival. Our findings show that Tabaski leads to increased risky behaviors for FSWs, a key population at high risk of HIV infection, for at least 1 week every year and has implications for FSWs in all countries celebrating Tabaski or similar festivals. Because of the scale, frequency, and size of the behavioral response to shocks of this type, policy should be carefully designed to protect vulnerable women against anticipated shocks

Critical Phenomena in Neutron Stars I: Linearly Unstable Nonrotating Models

We consider the evolution in full general relativity of a family of linearly unstable isolated spherical neutron stars under the effects of very small, perturbations as induced by the truncation error. Using a simple ideal-fluid equation of state we find that this system exhibits a type-I critical behaviour, thus confirming the conclusions reached by Liebling et al. [1] for rotating magnetized stars. Exploiting the relative simplicity of our system, we are able carry out a more in-depth study providing solid evidences of the criticality of this phenomenon and also to give a simple interpretation of the putative critical solution as a spherical solution with the unstable mode being the fundamental F-mode. Hence for any choice of the polytropic constant, the critical solution will distinguish the set of subcritical models migrating to the stable branch of the models of equilibrium from the set of subcritical models collapsing to a black hole. Finally, we study how the dynamics changes when the numerically perturbation is replaced by a finite-size, resolution independent velocity perturbation and show that in such cases a nearly-critical solution can be changed into either a sub or supercritical. The work reported here also lays the basis for the analysis carried in a companion paper, where the critical behaviour in the the head-on collision of two neutron stars is instead considered [2].Comment: 15 pages, 9 figure

A Test of the Standard Hypothesis for the Origin of the HI Holes in Holmberg II

The nearby irregular galaxy Holmberg II has been extensively mapped in HI using the Very Large Array (VLA), revealing intricate structure in its interstellar gas component (Puche et al. 1992). An analysis of these structures shows the neutral gas to contain a number of expanding HI holes. The formation of the HI holes has been attributed to multiple supernova events occurring within wind-blown shells around young, massive star clusters, with as many as 10-200 supernovae required to produce many of the holes. From the sizes and expansion velocities of the holes, Puche et al. assigned ages of ~10^7 to 10^8 years. If the supernova scenario for the formation of the HI holes is correct, it implies the existence of star clusters with a substantial population of late-B, A and F main sequence stars at the centers of the holes. Many of these clusters should be detectable in deep ground-based CCD images of the galaxy. In order to test the supernova hypothesis for the formation of the HI holes, we have obtained and analyzed deep broad-band BVR and narrow-band H-alpha images of Ho II. We compare the optical and HI data and search for evidence of the expected star clusters in and around the HI holes. We also use the HI data to constrain models of the expected remnant stellar population. We show that in several of the holes the observed upper limits for the remnant cluster brightness are strongly inconsistent with the SNe hypothesis described in Puche et al. Moreover, many of the HI holes are located in regions of very low optical surface brightness which show no indication of recent star formation. Here we present our findings and explore possible alternative explanations for the existence of the HI holes in Ho II, including the suggestion that some of the holes were produced by Gamma-ray burst events.Comment: 30 pages, including 6 tables and 3 images. To appear in Astron. Journal (June 1999

GFP-Fragment Reassembly Screens for the Functional Characterization of Variants of Uncertain Significance in Protein Interaction Domains of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 Genes

Genetic testing for BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes has led to the identification of many unique variants of uncertain significance (VUS). Multifactorial likelihood models that predict the odds ratio for VUS in favor or against cancer causality, have been developed, but their use is conditioned by the amount of necessary data, which are difficult to obtain if a variant is rare. As an alternative, variants mapping to the coding regions can be examined using in vitro functional assays. BRCA1 and BRCA2 proteins promote genome protection by interacting with different proteins. In this study, we assessed the functional effect of two sets of variants in BRCA genes by exploiting the green fluorescent protein (GFP)-reassembly in vitro assay, which was set-up to test the BRCA1/BARD1, BRCA1/UbcH5a, and BRCA2/DSS1 interactions. Based on the findings observed for the validation panels of previously classified variants, BRCA1/UbcH5a and BRCA2/DSS1 binding assays showed 100% sensitivity and specificity in identifying pathogenic and non-pathogenic variants. While the actual efficiency of these assays in assessing the clinical significance of BRCA VUS has to be verified using larger validation panels, our results suggest that the GFP-reassembly assay is a robust method to identify variants affecting normal protein functioning and contributes to the classification of VUS