Development of a simple information pump.

The Information Pump (IP) is a methodology that aims to counter the problems arising from traditional subjective product data collection. The IP is a game theory based process that aims to maximise information extracted from a panel of subjects, while maintaining their interest in the process through a continuous panelist scoring method. The challenge with implementing this arises from the difficulty in executing the 'game'. In its original format, there is an assumption that the game is played with each player using their own PC to interact with the process. While this in theory allows information and scores to flow in a controlled manner between the players, it actually provides a major barrier to the wider adoption of the IP method. This barrier is two-fold: it is costly and complex, and it is not a natural manner for exchanging information. The core objective is to develop a low cost version of the IP method. This will use the game theory approach to maintain interest among participants and maximise information extraction, but remove the need for each participant to have their own PC interface to the game. This will require replacing both the inter-player communication method and the score keeping/reporting

Menurunnya Tradisi Mapalus Di Desa Kamangta Kecamatan Tombulu Kabupaten Minahasa

Tujuan dari penelitian ini yaitu Untuk mengetahui dampak menurunnya tradisi mapalus di Desa Kamangta Kecamatan Tombulu Kabupaten Minahasa. budaya mapalus di manado, Atau Tradisi Mapalus ini seringkali menjadi objek kesejahteraan hingga kerukunan di manado, banyak dari masyarakat manado yang berada di luar daerah manado seringkali membahas tentang budaya tersebut. Dikarenakan budaya ini sudah jarang di temui bahkan sampai ke pelosok desa yang ada di manado lebih jelasnya di desa desa yang ada di minahasa. Dengan hal ini kita harus mengenallebih lanjut TradisiMapalus serta apa yang di unggulkan di dalam tradisi itu tersebut sehingga kita harus menlestarikan Kembali tradis mapalus ini. Namun seiring perkembangan zaman tradisi tersebut mengalami gradasi dan penurunan baik intensitas maupun maknanya. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode penelitian kualitatif. Hasil penelitian disimpulkan bahwa enurunnya tradisi mapalus adalah di nilai sangat merugikan dan mempunyai dampak negatif di setiap individu karena pada masa lampau kehidupan hanya bergantung pada tradisi mapalus ini, menurunnya tradisi mapalus ini di karenakan masyarakat beraktivitas dan bekerja di kota Manado.     Kata Kunci : Tradisi, Mapalus, Penuruna

'Social Labor' and the Marxist Critique of Work

This paper argues that when it comes to thinking about work and labor, Marxism experiences a continued difficulty in holding theory and politics together without reliance on the concept of "social labor": a humanist ideological concept which mystifies the role of social relations in explaining work under capitalism. The evidence for this is collected through a reading of a number of important contributions within the Marxist sociology of work. At its conclusion, the paper turns back to Althusser and his critique of work and ideology in order to point towards the framework for an alternative critique of work that makes a conceptual move away from humanist ideas of alienation and social labor, towards materialist notions of interpellation and social relations

The Ideology of Work and the Pandemic in Britain

The celebration of “key workers” in Britain during the pandemic forms the basis of what Althusser described as an “ideology of work,” a largely humanistic ideological machinery deployed in the service of maintaining and reproducing capitalist relations of production in the face of the present crisis. As opposed to a benign expression of national unity in response to a threat, this essay argues that the ideological celebration of key workers in Britain has been crucial to the protection of key accumulation strategies threatened by the crisis and to the neutralization of any potential resistance by those workers endangered by these strategies. This ideology of work has underpinned the implementation of numerous social policies in the service of protecting these relations of production: a fact which this essay argues must be adequately confronted prior to the imagination of alternative social policies and social futures after the pandemic

Potential for the use of reconstructed IASI radiances in the detection of atmospheric trace gases

Principal component (PC) analysis has received considerable attention as a technique for the extraction of meteorological signals from hyperspectral infra-red sounders such as the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS). In addition to achieving substantial bit-volume reductions for dissemination purposes, the technique can also be used to generate reconstructed radiances in which random instrument noise has been reduced. Studies on PC analysis of hyperspectral infrared sounder data have been undertaken in the context of numerical weather prediction, instrument monitoring and geophysical variable retrieval, as well as data compression. This study examines the potential of PC analysis for chemistry applications.A major concern in the use of PC analysis for chemistry is that the spectral features associated with trace gases may not be well represented in the reconstructed spectra, either due to deficiencies in the training set or due to the limited number of PC scores used in the radiance reconstruction. In this paper we show examples of reconstructed IASI radiances for several trace gases: ammonia, sulphur dioxide, methane and carbon monoxide. It is shown that care must be taken in the selection of spectra for the initial training set: an iterative technique, in which outlier spectra are added to a base training set, gives the best results. For the four trace gases examined, key features of the chemical signatures are retained in the reconstructed radiances, whilst achieving a substantial reduction in instrument noise.A new regional re-transmission service for IASI is scheduled to start in 2010, as part of the EUMETSAT Advanced Retransmission Service (EARS). For this EARS-IASI service it is intended to include PC scores as part of the data stream. The paper describes the generation of the reference eigenvectors for this new service

An oncogenic role for sphingosine kinase 2

While both human sphingosine kinases (SK1 and SK2) catalyze the generation of the pleiotropic signaling lipid sphingosine 1-phosphate, these enzymes appear to be functionally distinct. SK1 has well described roles in promoting cell survival, proliferation and neoplastic transformation. The roles of SK2, and its contribution to cancer, however, are much less clear. Some studies have suggested an antiproliferative/ pro-apoptotic function for SK2, while others indicate it has a prosurvival role and its inhibition can have anti-cancer effects. Our analysis of gene expression data revealed that SK2 is upregulated in many human cancers, but only to a small extent (up to 2.5-fold over normal tissue). Based on these findings, we examined the effect of different levels of cellular SK2 and showed that high-level overexpression reduced cell proliferation and survival, and increased cellular ceramide levels. In contrast, however, low-level SK2 overexpression promoted cell survival and proliferation, and induced neoplastic transformation in vivo. These findings coincided with decreased nuclear localization and increased plasma membrane localization of SK2, as well as increases in extracellular S1P formation. Hence, we have shown for the first time that SK2 can have a direct role in promoting oncogenesis, supporting the use of SK2-specific inhibitors as anti-cancer agents.Heidi A. Neubauer, Duyen H. Pham, Julia R. Zebol, Paul A.B. Moretti, Amanda L. Peterson, Tamara M. Leclercq, Huasheng Chan, Jason A. Powell, Melissa R. Pitman, Michael S. Samuel, Claudine S. Bonder, Darren J. Creek, Briony L. Gliddon and Stuart M. Pitso

Gauge fixing and the Hamiltonian for cylindrical spacetimes

We introduce a complete gauge fixing for cylindrical spacetimes in vacuo that, in principle, do not contain the axis of symmetry. By cylindrically symmetric we understand spacetimes that possess two commuting spacelike Killing vectors, one of them rotational and the other one translational. The result of our gauge fixing is a constraint-free model whose phase space has four field-like degrees of freedom and that depends on three constant parameters. Two of these constants determine the global angular momentum and the linear momentum in the axis direction, while the third parameter is related with the behavior of the metric around the axis. We derive the explicit expression of the metric in terms of the physical degrees of freedom, calculate the reduced equations of motion and obtain the Hamiltonian that generates the reduced dynamics. We also find upper and lower bounds for this reduced Hamiltonian that provides the energy per unit length contained in the system. In addition, we show that the reduced formalism constructed is well defined and consistent at least when the linear momentum in the axis direction vanishes. Furthermore, in that case we prove that there exists an infinite number of solutions in which all physical fields are constant both in the surroundings of the axis and at sufficiently large distances from it. If the global angular momentum is different from zero, the isometry group of these solutions is generally not orthogonally transitive. Such solutions generalize the metric of a spinning cosmic string in the region where no closed timelike curves are present.Comment: 12 pages, accepted for publication in Physical Review

Assessment of C, N, and Si Isotopes as Tracers of Past Ocean Nutrient and Carbon Cycling

28 pages, 6 figures, 1 box, 1 appendix.-- Data Availability Statement: Data sets presented in this research are available via the following repositories and study (listed by Figure): Figures 3 and 4: (1)δ13CDIC:(a) CLIVAR P16S (Feely et al., 2008) from GLODAPv2.2020 database (Olsen et al., 2020): https://www.glodap.info/index.php/merged-and-adjusted-data-product/. (b) GEOTRACES GA03 (Quay & Wu, 2015) and GP16 (P. Quay, unpublished data) from GEOTRACES IDP2017 (Schlitzer et al., 2018): https://www.bodc.ac.uk/geotraces/data/idp2017/. (2) δ15Nnitrate:(a) CLIVAR P16S (Rafter et al., 2013) from BCO-DMO: https://www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/651722. (b) GEOTRACES GA03 (Marconi et al., 2015) and GP16 (Peters et al., 2018) from GEOTRACES IDP2017 (Schlitzer et al., 2018): https://www.bodc.ac.uk/geotraces/data/idp2017/. (3) δ30Si: GEOTRACES GA03 (Brzezinski & Jones, 2015) and GIPY04 (Fripiat et al., 2012) from GEOTRACES IDP2017 (Schlitzer et al., 2018): https://www.bodc.ac.uk/geotraces/data/idp2017/. (4) Figure 4a POC Flux (DeVries & Weber, 2017): SIMPLE-TRIM Output from https://tdevries.eri.ucsb.edu/models-and-data-products/. Figure 5: (a) Antarctic CO2 composite: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo-search/study/17975. (b) ∆δ13Cthermocline-deep from Ziegler et al. (2013) supporting information: https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo1782; ∆δ13Cepifaunal-infaunal (Hoogakker et al., 2018): https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.891185. (c) SAZ FB-δ15N (Martínez-García et al., 2014): https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/18318; AZ DB-δ15N (Studer et al., 2015): https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.848271. (d) SAZ Fe flux (Martínez-García et al., 2014): https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/18318. (e) AZ diatom δ30Si (Robinson et al., 2014): https:// www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/17917. Figure 6: (a) and (b) Benthic foraminifera δ18O and δ13C (Zachos et al., 2001): https:// www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/8674. (c) FB-δ15N from Kast et al. (2019) supporting information data: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2019/04/24/364.6438.386.DC1. (d) and (e) Diatom, sponge, and radiolarian δ30Si in Egan et al. (2013) supporting information: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X13002185, Fontorbe et al. (2016) supporting information: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X16304265, and Fontorbe et al. (2017) supporting information: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017PA003090Biological productivity in the ocean directly influences the partitioning of carbon between the atmosphere and ocean interior. Through this carbon cycle feedback, changing ocean productivity has long been hypothesized as a key pathway for modulating past atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and hence global climate. Because phytoplankton preferentially assimilate the light isotopes of carbon and the major nutrients nitrate and silicic acid, stable isotopes of carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and silicon (Si) in seawater and marine sediments can inform on ocean carbon and nutrient cycling, and by extension the relationship with biological productivity and global climate. Here, we compile water column C, N, and Si stable isotopes from GEOTRACES-era data in four key ocean regions to review geochemical proxies of oceanic carbon and nutrient cycling based on the C, N, and Si isotopic composition of marine sediments. External sources and sinks as well as internal cycling (including assimilation, particulate matter export, and regeneration) are discussed as likely drivers of observed C, N, and Si isotope distributions in the ocean. The potential for C, N, and Si isotope measurements in sedimentary archives to record aspects of past ocean C and nutrient cycling is evaluated, along with key uncertainties and limitations associated with each proxy. Constraints on ocean C and nutrient cycling during late Quaternary glacial-interglacial cycles and over the Cenozoic are examined. This review highlights opportunities for future research using multielement stable isotope proxy applications and emphasizes the importance of such applications to reconstructing past changes in the oceans and climate systemThis workshop was funded by the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) through the GEOTRACES program, the international Past Global Changes (PAGES) project, which in turn received support from the Swiss Academy of Sciences and NSF, and the French national program LEFE (Les Enveloppes Fluides et l'Environnement). [...] This study was supported by PAGES, LEFE, and GEOTRACES through NSF. J. R. Farmer acknowledges support from the Max Planck Society, the Tuttle Fund of the Department of Geosciences of Princeton University, the Grand Challenges Program of the Princeton Environmental Institute, and through Exxon Mobil via the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment of Princeton University. Open access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. [...] With the institutional support of the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S

Bioactive Trace Metals and Their Isotopes as Paleoproductivity Proxies: An Assessment Using GEOTRACES-Era Data

86 pages, 33 figures, 2 tables, 1 appendix.-- Data Availability Statement: The majority of the dissolved data were sourced from the GEOTRACES Intermediate Data Products in 2014 (Mawji et al., 2015) and 2017 (Schlitzer et al., 2018), and citations to the primary data sources are given in the caption for each figure. Data sources for Figure 1 are given below. Figure 1: Iron: Conway & John, 2014a (Atlantic); Conway & John, 2015a (Pacific); Abadie et al., 2017 (Southern). Zinc: Conway & John, 2014b (Atlantic); Conway & John, 2015a (Pacific); R. M. Wang et al., 2019 (Southern). Copper: Little et al., 2018 (Atlantic); Takano et al., 2017 (Pacific); Boye et al., 2012 (Southern). Cadmium: Conway and John, 2015b (Atlantic); Conway & John, 2015a (Pacific); Abouchami et al., 2014 (Southern). Molybdenum: Nakagawa et al., 2012 (all basins). Barium: Bates et al., 2017 (Atlantic); Geyman et al., 2019 (Pacific); Hsieh & Henderson, 2017 (Southern). Nickel: Archer et al., 2020 (Atlantic); Takano et al., 2017 (Pacific); R. M. Wang et al., 2019 (Southern). Chromium: Goring-Harford et al., 2018 (Atlantic); Moos & Boyle, 2019 (Pacific); Rickli et al., 2019 (Southern). Silver: Fischer et al., 2018 (Pacific); Boye et al., 2012 (Southern)Phytoplankton productivity and export sequester climatically significant quantities of atmospheric carbon dioxide as particulate organic carbon through a suite of processes termed the biological pump. Constraining how the biological pump operated in the past is important for understanding past atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and Earth's climate history. However, reconstructing the history of the biological pump requires proxies. Due to their intimate association with biological processes, several bioactive trace metals and their isotopes are potential proxies for past phytoplankton productivity, including iron, zinc, copper, cadmium, molybdenum, barium, nickel, chromium, and silver. Here, we review the oceanic distributions, driving processes, and depositional archives for these nine metals and their isotopes based on GEOTRACES-era datasets. We offer an assessment of the overall maturity of each isotope system to serve as a proxy for diagnosing aspects of past ocean productivity and identify priorities for future research. This assessment reveals that cadmium, barium, nickel, and chromium isotopes offer the most promise as tracers of paleoproductivity, whereas iron, zinc, copper, and molybdenum do not. Too little is known about silver to make a confident determination. Intriguingly, the trace metals that are least sensitive to productivity may be used to track other aspects of ocean chemistry, such as nutrient sources, particle scavenging, organic complexation, and ocean redox state. These complementary sensitivities suggest new opportunities for combining perspectives from multiple proxies that will ultimately enable painting a more complete picture of marine paleoproductivity, biogeochemical cycles, and Earth's climate historyThis contribution grew (and grew) out of a joint workshop between GEOTRACES and Past Global Changes (PAGES) held in Aix-en-Provence in December 2018. The workshop was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) through the GEOTRACES program, the international PAGES project, which received support from the Swiss Academy of Sciences and NSF, and the French program Les Envelopes Fluides et l'Environnement. [...] T. J. Horner acknowledges support from NSF; S. H. Little from the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NE/P018181/1); T. M. Conway from the University of South Florida; and, J. R. Farmer from the Max Planck Society, the Tuttle Fund of the Department of Geosciences of Princeton University, the Grand Challenges Program of the Princeton Environmental Institute, and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment of Princeton University. [...] With the institutional support of the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000928-S

Abelian and nonabelian vector field effective actions from string field theory

The leading terms in the tree-level effective action for the massless fields of the bosonic open string are calculated by integrating out all massive fields in Witten's cubic string field theory. In both the abelian and nonabelian theories, field redefinitions make it possible to express the effective action in terms of the conventional field strength. The resulting actions reproduce the leading terms in the abelian and nonabelian Born-Infeld theories, and include (covariant) derivative corrections.Comment: 49 pages, 1 eps figur