Cancer reporting and news values: a case of PR?

An analysis of the reporing of cancer in the UK news medi

Civil judicial experts in cross border litigation: a common law perspective

European Parliament Directorate General for Internal Policies, Legal & Parliamentary Affairs. Constitutional Affair

A Search for Interstellar CH2_2D+^+

We report on a search for Interstellar CH2D+. Four transitions occur in easily accessible portions of the spectrum; we report on emission at the frequencies of these transitions toward high column density star-forming regions. While the observations can be interpreted as being consistent with a detection of the molecule, further observations will be needed to secure that identification. The CH2D+ rotational spectrum has not been measured to high accuracy. Lines are weak, as the dipole moment induced by the inclusion of deuterium in the molecule is small. Astronomical detection is favored by observations toward strongly deuterium-fractionated sources. However, enhanced deuteration is expected to be most significant at low temperatures. The sparseness of the available spectrum and the low excitation in regions of high fractionation make secure identification of CH2D+ difficult. Nonetheless, owing to the importance of CH3+ to interstellar chemistry, and the lack of rotational transitions of that molecule owing to its planar symmetric structure, a measure of its abundance would provide key data to astrochemical models.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure, submitted to IAU Symposium 251, Organic Matte

A METHOD FOR EVALUATING WORK GROUP PRODUCTIVITY PRODUCTS

Numerous software products claiming to improve work group productivity are making their way into the marketplace. How is a manager to decide whether or not to invest in these products? This paper proposes a suitable method of formulating the evaluation problem for work group application products. The issue of normal software evaluation is considered first. Then group work is described and contrasted with individual work activities. A two-level evaluation strategy consisting of broad coverage and detailed analysis is introduced. Detailed analysis consists of functional performance, administration, and fit applied across task, group and communications domains. Examples, drawn from some of the products demonstrated at this Symposium, are used to illustrate how this methodology may be applied.Information Systems Working Papers Serie

Valuing Avoided Soil Erosion by Considering Private and Public Net Benefits

The population in New Zealand is expected to increase to over five million by the mid 2020’s from the current level of 4.3 million (Statistics New Zealand, 2009). An increasing demand for primary produce as a result may put pressure on marginal land to be farmed. Understanding the economic value of avoided erosion in New Zealand is therefore an important factor in policy making to optimise the soil related activities in the economy. Establishing a methodology for estimating the economic value of avoided soil erosion is the first step in assessing the problem. This study uses the future forest scenarios developed by Scion to identify potential afforestation areas and thereby compare the current erosion/sedimentation status under current land-use (non woody vegetation) with potential future afforestation. The study aims to quantify the incremental public and private net benefits from the change in scenario. The notion has come under different headings in the literature, such as on-site and off-site erosion effects or sediment and soil erosion effects, all of which recognize the importance of separation of effects to avoid double-counting. The separation into public and private benefits and costs in this case, while avoiding double-counting, will also help identify appropriate policy instruments to avoid soil erosion damage using the private and public net benefit framework (Pannell, 2008).Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use,

Time-reversal frameness and superselection

We show that appropriate superpositions of motional states are a reference frame resource that enables breaking of time -reversal superselection so that two parties lacking knowledge about the other's direction of time can still communicate. We identify the time-reversal reference frame resource states and determine the corresponding frameness monotone, which connects time-reversal frameness to entanglement. In contradistinction to other studies of reference frame quantum resources, this is the first analysis that involves an antiunitary rather than unitary representation.Comment: 10 p

Interdisciplinary perspectives on the development, integration and application of cognitive ontologies

We discuss recent progress in the development of cognitive ontologies and summarize three challenges in the coordinated development and application of these resources. Challenge 1 is to adopt a standardized definition for cognitive processes. We describe three possibilities and recommend one that is consistent with the standard view in cognitive and biomedical sciences. Challenge 2 is harmonization. Gaps and conflicts in representation must be resolved so that these resources can be combined for mark-up and interpretation of multi-modal data. Finally, Challenge 3 is to test the utility of these resources for large-scale annotation of data, search and query, and knowledge discovery and integration. As term definitions are tested and revised, harmonization should enable coordinated updates across ontologies. However, the true test of these definitions will be in their community-wide adoption which will test whether they support valid inferences about psychological and neuroscientific data

Proficiency testing of laboratories for paralytic shellfish poisoning toxins in shellfish by QUASIMEME: A review

AbstractParalytic Shellfish Poisoning (PSP) toxins are some of the most toxic substances known to man and consumption of shellfish containing these naturally-occurring neurotoxins can lead to a range of different symptoms including death in extreme cases. It is imperative therefore, to implement robust shellfish monitoring programs to minimise the possibility of contaminated product reaching the marketplace. To improve the quality assurance of these programs, QUASIMEME, the proficiency test provider added to its scope PSP toxins in shellfish. Since 2009, six proficiency testing exercises have been delivered by QUASIMEME with a total of thirty-four different laboratories submitting data using a range of different methods. These include animal and antibody based assays, together with High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) techniques using post and pre-column oxidation and more recently LC-MS/MS methodologies.Data from these exercises is presented and laboratory performance is assessed to determine any changes in overall performance over the six rounds, together with any potential method-related performance issues. The data showed the improvement of laboratories over the six exercises with between laboratory CV% values decreasing from an average of 39% in the first year to 22% in 2014 and the average percentage of participants receiving satisfactory z-scores increasing from 50% in 2009 to over 66% in 2014

An Empirical Evaluation of Statistical Matching Methodologies

Using known data, the methodologies available for microdata file merging are compared. Results indicate that various techniques work or do not work in specific circumstances. An optimal-constrined merge model with an absolute difference distance function provide the best results