Education for Empire Settlement: a study of juvenile migration

Of the many attempts that have been made to bring about a better distribution of the population of the Empire, few have met with such Aide approval or such uniform success as juvenile migration. The movement has come to be recognized as one of great value both to the mother-country and to the Dominions. In the one, besides reducing the surplus of young workers at ages when unemployment is most demoralizing, it offers to boys and girls of every class opportunities for healthy employment and useful service to the Empire. In the other, it fulfills a persistent demand for young agricultural workers and supplies a type of settler who, on account of hie youth and adaptability, is readily absorbed into the community. The selection, training and transfer of young oversea settlers, the supervision required for their welfare and the assistance necessary to establish them in their new life form the subject of this study. Part I shows how the movement originated, .how it outgrew its early penal, reformatory and rescue stages and developed into an important factor in Empire Settlement. Part 2 deals with. recent developments and describe the systems of juvenile migration operating at the present time in various parts of the Empire; while, Part 3 discusses from the points of view of both Great Britain and the Dominions the economic, medical and educational aspects of the. problems The information that follows was collected in 1928 and 1929, during the course of a visit to Great Britain and a journey back to Australia by way of Canada and Nev Zealand. Wherever possible the facts are documented, but since many particulars have been gathered orally and from a diversity of sources, it is often possible to make only general acknowledgements. Both in Great Britain and in the Dominions it, was the willing cooperation of Government Departments and voluntary organizations which made the carrying out of the investigation possible. I must here express my indebtedness to the many migration workers who, in the midst of their exacting duties, either found time to supply information personally or allowed inspection of their records

Breeding Biology and Longevity of Russet-Crowned Motmots in Central Mexico

Motmots, with their distinctive racketed-tails, represent one of the most easily recognized tropical birds, yet little is known about the basic natural history of most species in the family Momotidae. We report basic breeding biology and longevity of Russet-crowned Motmots (Momotus mexicanus), a medium-sized Neotropical bird that ranges from northwest Mexico to central Guatemala. We monitored nest success of eight pairs from 1 May to 17 July 1998 in tropical deciduous forests in central Mexico. Motmots laid an average of 4.1 eggs and incubated for approximately 20 d. Four of eight nests fledged young. Of these four nests, average hatching success was 69% and average fledgling success was 56%. The mean duration of the nestling period at three nests was 33.7 d. Based on the recapture of one individual bird in April 2008, we provide a longevity estimate that Russet-crowned Motmots can survive at least 11 yr in the wild. These data on nesting success and longevity add to our limited knowledge of the natural history of this understudied species

Ab-Initio Calculation of Molecular Aggregation Effects: a Coumarin-343 Case Study

We present time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) calculations for single and dimerized Coumarin-343 molecules in order to investigate the quantum mechanical effects of chromophore aggregation in extended systems designed to function as a new generation of sensors and light-harvesting devices. Using the single-chromophore results, we describe the construction of effective Hamiltonians to predict the excitonic properties of aggregate systems. We compare the electronic coupling properties predicted by such effective Hamiltonians to those obtained from TDDFT calculations of dimers, and to the coupling predicted by the transition density cube (TDC) method. We determine the accuracy of the dipole-dipole approximation and TDC with respect to the separation distance and orientation of the dimers. In particular, we investigate the effects of including Coulomb coupling terms ignored in the typical tight-binding effective Hamiltonian. We also examine effects of orbital relaxation which cannot be captured by either of these models

Partisan impacts on the economy: evidence from prediction markets and close elections

Analyses of the effects of election outcomes on the economy have been hampered by the problem that economic outcomes also influence elections. We sidestep these problems by analyzing movements in economic indicators caused by clearly exogenous changes in expectations about the likely winner during election day. Analyzing high frequency financial fluctuations following the release of flawed exit poll data on election day 2004, and then during the vote count we find that markets anticipated higher equity prices, interest rates and oil prices, and a stronger dollar under a George W. Bush presidency than under John Kerry. A similar Republican–Democrat differential was also observed for the 2000 Bush–Gore contest. Prediction market based analyses of all presidential elections since 1880 also reveal a similar pattern of partisan impacts, suggesting that electing a Republican president raises equity valuations by 2–3 percent, and that since Ronald Reagan, Republican presidents have tended to raise bond yields

Association between frailty and disability among rural community-dwelling older adults in Sri Lanka: a cross-sectional study

OBJECTIVE: We examined the association between frailty and disability in rural community-dwelling older adults in Kegalle district of Sri Lanka. DESIGN: A population-based cross-sectional study. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 746 community-dwelling adults aged ≥60 years. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Frailty was assessed using the Fried phenotype. Disability was operationalised in terms of having one or more activity limitation/s in instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) and basic activities of daily living (BADL). RESULTS: The median age of the sample was (median 68; IQR 64-75) years and 56.7% were female. 15.2% were frail and 48.5% were prefrail. The prevalence of ≥1 IADL limitations was high, 84.4% among frail adults. 38.7% of frail adults reported ≥1 BADL limitations. Over half of frail older adults (58.3%) reported both ≥1 physical and cognitive IADL limitations. Being frail decreased the odds of having no IADL limitations, and was associated with a higher count of IADL limitations. No significant association was found between prefrailty and number of IADL limitations. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of ≥1 IADL limitations was high among rural community-dwelling frail older adults. Findings imply the greater support and care required for rural Sri Lankan frail older adults to live independently in the community

Exploring the protonation properties of photosynthetic phycobiliprotein pigments from molecular modeling and spectral line shapes

In photosynthesis, specialized light harvesting pigment- protein complexes (PPCs) are used to capture incident sunlight and funnel its energy to the reaction center. In Cryptophyte algae these complexes are suspended in the lumen, where the pH ranges between ~5-7, depending on the prolongation of the incident sunlight. However, the pKa of the several kinds of bilin chromophores encountered in these complexes and the effect of its protonation state on the energy transfer process is still unknown. Here, we combine quantum chemical and continuum solvent calculations to estimate the intrinsic aqueous pKas of different bilin pigments. We then use Propka and APBS classical electrostatic calculations to estimate the change in protonation free energies when the bilins are embedded inside five different phycobiliproteins (PE545, PC577, PC612, PC630 and PC645), and critically asses our results by analysis of the changes in the absorption spectral line shapes measured within a pH range from 4.0 to 9.4. Our results suggest that each individual protein environment strongly impacts the intrinsic pKa of the different chomophores, being the final responsible of their protonation state

Figure 1 Theory Meets Figure 2 Experiments in the Study of Gene Expression

It is tempting to believe that we now own the genome. The ability to read and rewrite it at will has ushered in a stunning period in the history of science. Nonetheless, there is an Achilles’ heel exposed by all of the genomic data that has accrued: We still do not know how to interpret them. Many genes are subject to sophisticated programs of transcriptional regulation, mediated by DNA sequences that harbor binding sites for transcription factors, which can up- or down-regulate gene expression depending upon environmental conditions. This gives rise to an input–output function describing how the level of expression depends upon the parameters of the regulated gene—for instance, on the number and type of binding sites in its regulatory sequence. In recent years, the ability to make precision measurements of expression, coupled with the ability to make increasingly sophisticated theoretical predictions, has enabled an explicit dialogue between theory and experiment that holds the promise of covering this genomic Achilles’ heel. The goal is to reach a predictive understanding of transcriptional regulation that makes it possible to calculate gene expression levels from DNA regulatory sequence. This review focuses on the canonical simple repression motif to ask how well the models that have been used to characterize it actually work. We consider a hierarchy of increasingly sophisticated experiments in which the minimal parameter set learned at one level is applied to make quantitative predictions at the next. We show that these careful quantitative dissections provide a template for a predictive understanding of the many more complex regulatory arrangements found across all domains of life

High-efficiency non-thermal plasma synthesis of imine macrocycles

Macrocycles are candidates for wide-ranging applications, yet their synthesis can be low-yielding, poorly reproducible, and resource-intensive, limiting their use. Here, we explore the use of Non-Thermal Plasma (NTP) as an efficient method for the synthesis of imine macrocycles at the gram scale. NTP-mediated macrocyclisations consistently achieved high yields of up to 97% in reduced reaction times compared to the standard non-plasma method, and were successfully carried out with a range of different aldehyde substrates. Control experiments were performed to explore the origin of the observed improvements. The results indicate that NTP methods could be advantageous for macrocycle synthesis, particularly for substrates that are sensitive to elevated temperature, and other materials formed via imine condensation