An analysis of the transformations of leadership and direction-setting in place marketing: a UK contextual view and case.

The marketing of places has experienced challenges in recent years. Prolonged and severe financial constraints have led to a considerable reduction in the public sector funding of initiatives. This is presenting new leadership imperatives. This paper elaborates place marketing and its changing identity and considers the nature and increasing need for effective leadership in the marketing of places. The study adopts an inductive approach and employs semi-structured interviews with senior executives from a range of destination marketing organisations. The research is contextualised within the UK and it uses places in North-West England to provide its focal setting developing two case studies with which to complement the wider data. The study identifies that the complexity of place marketing intertwined with financial pressures, creates a particular dynamic and a need for leadership to clarify, decode and respond to the resulting situations. The evidence presented points to a compelling need for leaders in the sector to accept and embrace the new realities and to provide a clear vision for the future

Upper atmospheres and ionospheres of planets and satellites

The upper atmospheres of the planets and their satellites are more directly exposed to sunlight and solar wind particles than the surface or the deeper atmospheric layers. At the altitudes where the associated energy is deposited, the atmospheres may become ionized and are referred to as ionospheres. The details of the photon and particle interactions with the upper atmosphere depend strongly on whether the object has anintrinsic magnetic field that may channel the precipitating particles into the atmosphere or drive the atmospheric gas out to space. Important implications of these interactions include atmospheric loss over diverse timescales, photochemistry and the formation of aerosols, which affect the evolution, composition and remote sensing of the planets (satellites). The upper atmosphere connects the planet (satellite) bulk composition to the near-planet (-satellite) environment. Understanding the relevant physics and chemistry provides insight to the past and future conditions of these objects, which is critical for understanding their evolution. This chapter introduces the basic concepts of upper atmospheres and ionospheres in our solar system, and discusses aspects of their neutral and ion composition, wind dynamics and energy budget. This knowledge is key to putting in context the observations of upper atmospheres and haze on exoplanets, and to devise a theory that explains exoplanet demographics.Comment: Invited Revie

So Small, So Loud: Extremely High Sound Pressure Level from a Pygmy Aquatic Insect (Corixidae, Micronectinae)

To communicate at long range, animals have to produce intense but intelligible signals. This task might be difficult to achieve due to mechanical constraints, in particular relating to body size. Whilst the acoustic behaviour of large marine and terrestrial animals has been thoroughly studied, very little is known about the sound produced by small arthropods living in freshwater habitats. Here we analyse for the first time the calling song produced by the male of a small insect, the water boatman Micronecta scholtzi. The song is made of three distinct parts differing in their temporal and amplitude parameters, but not in their frequency content. Sound is produced at 78.9 (63.6–82.2) SPL rms re 2.10−5 Pa with a peak at 99.2 (85.7–104.6) SPL re 2.10−5 Pa estimated at a distance of one metre. This energy output is significant considering the small size of the insect. When scaled to body length and compared to 227 other acoustic species, the acoustic energy produced by M. scholtzi appears as an extreme value, outperforming marine and terrestrial mammal vocalisations. Such an extreme display may be interpreted as an exaggerated secondary sexual trait resulting from a runaway sexual selection without predation pressure

PhyloSim - Monte Carlo simulation of sequence evolution in the R statistical computing environment

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Monte Carlo simulation of sequence evolution is routinely used to assess the performance of phylogenetic inference methods and sequence alignment algorithms. Progress in the field of molecular evolution fuels the need for more realistic and hence more complex simulations, adapted to particular situations, yet current software makes unreasonable assumptions such as homogeneous substitution dynamics or a uniform distribution of indels across the simulated sequences. This calls for an extensible simulation framework written in a high-level functional language, offering new functionality and making it easy to incorporate further complexity.</p> <p>Results</p> <p><monospace>PhyloSim</monospace> is an extensible framework for the Monte Carlo simulation of sequence evolution, written in R, using the Gillespie algorithm to integrate the actions of many concurrent processes such as substitutions, insertions and deletions. Uniquely among sequence simulation tools, <monospace>PhyloSim</monospace> can simulate arbitrarily complex patterns of rate variation and multiple indel processes, and allows for the incorporation of selective constraints on indel events. User-defined complex patterns of mutation and selection can be easily integrated into simulations, allowing <monospace>PhyloSim</monospace> to be adapted to specific needs.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Close integration with <monospace>R</monospace> and the wide range of features implemented offer unmatched flexibility, making it possible to simulate sequence evolution under a wide range of realistic settings. We believe that <monospace>PhyloSim</monospace> will be useful to future studies involving simulated alignments.</p

Predictors of chronic breathlessness: a large population study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Breathlessness causes significant burden in our community but the underlying socio-demographic and lifestyle factors that may influence it are not well quantified. This study aims to define these predictors of chronic breathlessness at a population level.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data were collected from adult South Australians in 2007 and 2008 (n = 5331) as part of a face-to-face, cross-sectional, whole-of-population, multi-stage, systematic area sampling population health survey. The main outcome variable was breathlessness in logistic regression models. Lifestyle factors examined included smoking history, smoke-free housing, level of physical activity and body mass index (obesity).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The participation rate was 64.1%, and 11.1% of individuals (15.0% if aged ≥50 years) chronically had breathlessness that limited exertion. Significant bivariate associations with chronic breathlessness for the whole population and only those ≥50 included: increasing age; female gender; being separated/divorced/widowed; social disadvantage; smoking status; those without a smoke-free home; low levels of physical activity; and obesity. In multi-variate analyses adjusted for age, marital status (p < 0.001), physical activity (p < 0.001), obesity (p < 0.001), gender (p < 0.05) and social disadvantage (p < 0.05) remained significant factors. Smoking history was <it>not </it>a significant contributor to the model.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>There is potential benefit in addressing reversible lifestyle causes of breathlessness including high body mass index (obesity) and low levels of physical activity in order to decrease the prevalence of chronic breathlessness. Clinical intervention studies for chronic breathlessness should consider stratification by body mass index.</p

Interaction Between Convection and Pulsation

This article reviews our current understanding of modelling convection dynamics in stars. Several semi-analytical time-dependent convection models have been proposed for pulsating one-dimensional stellar structures with different formulations for how the convective turbulent velocity field couples with the global stellar oscillations. In this review we put emphasis on two, widely used, time-dependent convection formulations for estimating pulsation properties in one-dimensional stellar models. Applications to pulsating stars are presented with results for oscillation properties, such as the effects of convection dynamics on the oscillation frequencies, or the stability of pulsation modes, in classical pulsators and in stars supporting solar-type oscillations.Comment: Invited review article for Living Reviews in Solar Physics. 88 pages, 14 figure

Utilisation of an operative difficulty grading scale for laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background A reliable system for grading operative difficulty of laparoscopic cholecystectomy would standardise description of findings and reporting of outcomes. The aim of this study was to validate a difficulty grading system (Nassar scale), testing its applicability and consistency in two large prospective datasets. Methods Patient and disease-related variables and 30-day outcomes were identified in two prospective cholecystectomy databases: the multi-centre prospective cohort of 8820 patients from the recent CholeS Study and the single-surgeon series containing 4089 patients. Operative data and patient outcomes were correlated with Nassar operative difficultly scale, using Kendall’s tau for dichotomous variables, or Jonckheere–Terpstra tests for continuous variables. A ROC curve analysis was performed, to quantify the predictive accuracy of the scale for each outcome, with continuous outcomes dichotomised, prior to analysis. Results A higher operative difficulty grade was consistently associated with worse outcomes for the patients in both the reference and CholeS cohorts. The median length of stay increased from 0 to 4 days, and the 30-day complication rate from 7.6 to 24.4% as the difficulty grade increased from 1 to 4/5 (both p < 0.001). In the CholeS cohort, a higher difficulty grade was found to be most strongly associated with conversion to open and 30-day mortality (AUROC = 0.903, 0.822, respectively). On multivariable analysis, the Nassar operative difficultly scale was found to be a significant independent predictor of operative duration, conversion to open surgery, 30-day complications and 30-day reintervention (all p < 0.001). Conclusion We have shown that an operative difficulty scale can standardise the description of operative findings by multiple grades of surgeons to facilitate audit, training assessment and research. It provides a tool for reporting operative findings, disease severity and technical difficulty and can be utilised in future research to reliably compare outcomes according to case mix and intra-operative difficulty

Molecular biology of breast cancer metastasis: The use of mathematical models to determine relapse and to predict response to chemotherapy in breast cancer

Breast cancer mortality rates have shown only modest improvemen despite the advent of effective chemotherapeutic agents which have been administered to a large percentage of women with breast cancer. In an effort to improve breast cancer treatment strategies, a variety of mathematical models have been developed that describe the natural history of breast cancer and the effects of treatment on the cancer. These models help researchers to develop, quantify, and test various treatment hypotheses quickly and efficiently. The present review discusses several of these models, with a focus on how they have been used to predict the initiation time of metastatic growth, the effect of operative therapy on the growth of metastases, and the optimal administration strategy for chemotherapy