848 research outputs found
Reporting Crime in the North of England eighteenth-century Newspaper : a Preliminary Investigation
Cet article est une contribution aux travaux de plus en plus nombreux relatifs à la place consacrée au crime dans la presse du XVIIIe siècle. La majeure partie des travaux publiés sur ce sujet se sont concentrés sur la presse londonienne, ville où le problème criminel et la nature de la presse pourraient être différents de la situation en province. Il existe cependant une importante étude sur la presse provinciale, celle qu’Esther Snell a consacrée au Kentish Post. Il s’agit d’un travail de grande qualité qui fut à l’origine d’un certain nombre d’articles. Néanmoins, la lecture d’un certain nombre d’autres journaux provinciaux suggère une impression différente de celle produite par Snell, concernant le traitement du crime et la réaction qu’il suscitait chez les lecteurs. Le présent article s’appuie principalement sur le York Courant, un journal régional plus important que le Kentish Post, ainsi que sur d’autres journaux du nord. L’auteur soutient que le traitement de la criminalité y était généralement cursif et éloigné de tout sensationnalisme. Il examine également d’autres moyens  imprimés d’information et conclue par une discussion de la fonction intégratrice de la culture des élites provinciales et nationales des principaux journaux provinciaux, et de la manière dont le thème criminel s’insérait dans ce dispositif.This article is intended to contribute to a growing literature on newspaper reporting of crime during the eighteenth century. Most of the work completed on this subject has been focussed on London papers, where both the problem of crime and the nature of newspaper reporting may well have been different from the provinces. One important study of a provincial newspaper’s crime reporting has, however, been completed, by Esther Snell, based on the Kentish Post. Snell’s work is of a high quality, and has formed the basis of a number of published articles. But reading other provincial newspapers provides a different impression of crime reporting, and of readers’ probable reaction to it, from that given by Snell. This article draws most of its information from the York Courant, a more important regional paper that the Kentish Post, and also draws on information from other northern newspapers. It argues that the reporting of crime in the York Courant was normally brief and far from sensational. The article also considers other ways in which people could be informed about crime from print culture, and ends by raising the issue of how the more important regional newspapers played a role in integrating provincial and national elite culture, and how reporting crime may have fitted into that process
Stabilizing All Geometric Moduli in Heterotic Calabi-Yau Vacua
We propose a scenario to stabilize all geometric moduli - that is, the
complex structure, Kahler moduli and the dilaton - in smooth heterotic
Calabi-Yau compactifications without Neveu-Schwarz three-form flux. This is
accomplished using the gauge bundle required in any heterotic compactification,
whose perturbative effects on the moduli are combined with non-perturbative
corrections. We argue that, for appropriate gauge bundles, all complex
structure and a large number of other moduli can be perturbatively stabilized -
in the most restrictive case, leaving only one combination of Kahler moduli and
the dilaton as a flat direction. At this stage, the remaining moduli space
consists of Minkowski vacua. That is, the perturbative superpotential vanishes
in the vacuum without the necessity to fine-tune flux. Finally, we incorporate
non-perturbative effects such as gaugino condensation and/or instantons. These
are strongly constrained by the anomalous U(1) symmetries which arise from the
required bundle constructions. We present a specific example, with a consistent
choice of non-perturbative effects, where all remaining flat directions are
stabilized in an AdS vacuum.Comment: 24 pages, 2 figure
Heterologous prime-boost-boost immunisation of Chinese cynomolgus macaques using DNA and recombinant poxvirus vectors expressing HIV-1 virus-like particles
Background: There is renewed interest in the development of poxvirus vector-based HIV vaccines due to the protective effect observed with repeated recombinant canarypox priming with gp120 boosting in the recent Thai placebo-controlled trial. This study sought to investigate whether a heterologous prime-boost-boost vaccine regimen in Chinese cynomolgus macaques with a DNA vaccine and recombinant poxviral vectors expressing HIV virus-like particles bearing envelopes derived from the most prevalent clades circulating in sub-Saharan Africa, focused the antibody response to shared neutralising epitopes.
Methods: Three Chinese cynomolgus macaques were immunised via intramuscular injections using a regimen composed of a prime with two DNA vaccines expressing clade A Env/clade B Gag followed by boosting with recombinant fowlpox virus expressing HIV-1 clade D Gag, Env and cholera toxin B subunit followed by the final boost with recombinant modified vaccinia virus Ankara expressing HIV-1 clade C Env, Gag and human complement protein C3d. We measured the macaque serum antibody responses by ELISA, enumerated T cell responses by IFN-gamma ELISpot and assessed seroneutralisation of HIV-1 using the TZM-bl beta-galactosidase assay with primary isolates of HIV-1.
Results: This study shows that large and complex synthetic DNA sequences can be successfully cloned in a single step into two poxvirus vectors: MVA and FPV and the recombinant poxviruses could be grown to high titres. The vaccine candidates showed appropriate expression of recombinant proteins with the formation of authentic HIV virus-like particles seen on transmission electron microscopy. In addition the b12 epitope was shown to be held in common by the vaccine candidates using confocal immunofluorescent microscopy. The vaccine candidates were safely administered to Chinese cynomolgus macaques which elicited modest T cell responses at the end of the study but only one out of the three macaques elicited an HIV-specific antibody response. However, the antibodies did not neutralise primary isolates of HIV-1 or the V3-sensitive isolate SF162 using the TZM-bl b-galactosidase assay.
Conclusions: MVA and FP9 are ideal replication-deficient viral vectors for HIV-1 vaccines due to their excellent safety profile for use in humans. This study shows this novel prime-boost-boost regimen was poorly immunogenic in Chinese cynomolgus macaques
The Relationship Between Diet, Activity, and Other Factors, and Postpartum Weight Change by Race
Objective: To identify the impact of dietary intake and activity level on postpartum weight change.
Methods: White (n = 121) and black (n = 224) women, 7-12 months postpartum, participating in the Special Supplemental Feeding Program for Women, Infants, and Children were assessed for dietary intake, activity level, body weight, and other maternal characteristics.
Results: For both black and white women, the most important variables in predicting postpartum weight loss were pre-pregnancy weight, gestational weight gain, parity, and prenatal exercise. After these factors were controlled, race predicted that black women retained 6.4 lb more than white women. These results may be due to the finding that black women reported significantly higher mean energy intake (2039 versus 1552 kcal, P \u3c .001), higher percent fat in diet (41 versus 38%, P \u3c .001), and significantly lower amounts of prenatal and postpartum activity.
Conclusion: Higher energy intake and lower activity levels in black postpartum mothers compared with white mothers may contribute to the significantly higher rates of obesity found in black mothers. This study suggests the need for intervention strategies in the prenatal and postpartum periods to help those at risk of retaining weight gained during pregnancy
Place matters: but does local leadership?
The arrival of New Labour into Government witnessed the prominent re-emergence of place onto the policy agenda. This heralded a range of area-based-initiatives designed to both tackle neighbourhood forms of deprivation and to re-establish a sense of identity and connection between individuals and their local community. In terms of place-making, effective and inclusive participation, representation and leadership were all identified as prerequisites for the creation of sustainable communities . But how important is local leadership and strategic vision within local public service organisations in achieving the desired place-making outcomes? This paper examines the extent to which local leadership and strategic vision represents a significant factor in promoting higher levels of satisfaction, belonging, cohesion and participation across single tier councils in England. The ensuing empirical evidence raises significant questions not only about the importance of local leadership in place-making, but also the environmental and organizational factors that shape local places
Backflashes from fast-gated avalanche photodiodes in quantum key distribution
InGaAs single-photon avalanche photodiodes (APDs) are key enablers for high-bit rate quantum key distribution. However, the deviation of such detectors from ideal models can open side-channels for an eavesdropper, Eve, to exploit. The phenomenon of backflashes, whereby APDs reemit photons after detecting a photon, gives Eve the opportunity to passively learn the information carried by the detected photon without the need to actively interact with the legitimate receiver, Bob. While this has been observed in slow-gated detectors, it has not been investigated in fast-gated APDs where it has been posited that this effect would be lessened. Here, we perform the first experiment to characterize the security threat that backflashes provide in a GHz-gated self-differencing APD using the metric of information leakage. We find that, indeed, the information leakage is lower than that reported for slower-gated detectors, and we show that its effect on the secure key rate is negligible. We also relate the rate of backflash events to the APD dark current, thereby suggesting that their origin is the InP multiplication region in the APD
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