Book review: cultural politics of targeted killing: on drones, counter-insurgency and violence by Kyle Grayson

In Cultural Politics of Targeted Killing: On Drones, Counter-Insurgency and Violence, Kyle Grayson analyses the cultural conditions that have rendered targeted killing a seemingly appropriate, even common-sense, technology of warfare. While its array of insights could at times benefit from further space than permitted in this concise volume, this is an impressive book that will be of great use to those looking to better understand ..

Book review: uranium by Anthony Burke

In Uranium, Anthony Burke offers a short, digestible survey of the global nuclear landscape that positions uranium as an actant in the world whose agency cannot be fully determined by or reduced to human intention, will or control. The book succeeds in being a valuable teaching resource, an accessible entry point into critical nuclear politics and an impassioned call for fundamental change in how we think about our world’s most volatile natural assets, writes Tom Vaughan

How dawn turned into dusk:Scoping and closing possible nuclear futures after the Cold War

How was the scope of nuclear weapons policy change immediately after the Cold War determined? Nuclear learning and worst-case thinking are common but not satisfactory answers. On the basis of primary sources in multiple languages, we posit that a particular temporalization of nuclear events in the beginning of the 1990s took place: nonproliferation timescaping. The Iraqi case of opaque proliferation was treated as the harbinger of future nuclear danger, while the breakup of the nuclear-armed USSR was depicted as not repeatable or not to worry about, and South African nuclear disarmament was reframed as a non-proliferation success.</p

Book review: grappling with the bomb: Britain's Pacific H-bomb tests by Nic Maclellan

In Grappling with the Bomb: Britain's Pacific H-Bomb Tests, Nic Maclellan gathers together oral history and archival materials to bring forth a more democratic history of the British hydrogen bomb test series Operation Grapple, conducted in the South Pacific between 1957-58. Centralising the experiences and voices of Pacific islanders still affected by the detonations and still fighting for recognition and recompense from the UK government, this book — available to download here for free — offers a textured, multi-layered story that gives urgent attention to historical legacies of nuclear harm and injustice, writes Tom Vaughan

In vitro bioconversion of polyphenols from black tea and red wine/grape juice by human intestinal microbiota displays strong interindividual variability

Dietary polyphenols in tea and wine have been associated with beneficial health effects. After ingestion, most polyphenols are metabolized by the colonic microbiota. The current study aimed at exploring the interindividual variation of gut microbial polyphenol bioconversion from 10 healthy human subjects. In vitro fecal batch fermentations simulating conditions in the distal colon were performed using polyphenols from black tea and a mixture of red wine and grape juice. Microbial bioconversion was monitored by NMR- and GC-MS-based profiling of diverse metabolites and phenolics. The complex polyphenol mixtures were degraded to a limited number of key metabolites. Each subject displayed a specific metabolite profile differing in composition and time courses as well as levels of these metabolites. Moreover, clear differences depending on the polyphenol sources were observed. In conclusion, varying metabolite pathways among individuals result in different metabolome profiles and therefore related health effects are hypothesized to differ between subjects

Prospectus Magazine, July 1980

JULY 4 FESTIVITIES WILL BE REAL BLAST; Welcome; Summer is best for aid applicants; Stu-go president wants to greet, meet students; When lights go down; Looking ahead: College for Kids, Thunderbirds, Roadeo, Reviews; Hardee\u27s -- best eatin\u27 at Parkland; Notice; Remodeling continues; It\u27s a kid\u27s world, for sure; Up, Up, Up, and away --all in formation; Mosquitos are coming, can carry encephalitis; Kids and TV get reviewed; Don\u27t blame neighbors for nature\u27s own faults; What d\u27ya say?; Sunshine Theatre is a first for C-U; The only chills come from drinking soda; Ride \u27em busboy?https://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_1980/1025/thumbnail.jp

Sim2Real for Environmental Neural Processes

Machine learning (ML)-based weather models have recently undergone rapid improvements. These models are typically trained on gridded reanalysis data from numerical data assimilation systems. However, reanalysis data comes with limitations, such as assumptions about physical laws and low spatiotemporal resolution. The gap between reanalysis and reality has sparked growing interest in training ML models directly on observations such as weather stations. Modelling scattered and sparse environmental observations requires scalable and flexible ML architectures, one of which is the convolutional conditional neural process (ConvCNP). ConvCNPs can learn to condition on both gridded and off-the-grid context data to make uncertainty-aware predictions at target locations. However, the sparsity of real observations presents a challenge for data-hungry deep learning models like the ConvCNP. One potential solution is 'Sim2Real': pre-training on reanalysis and fine-tuning on observational data. We analyse Sim2Real with a ConvCNP trained to interpolate surface air temperature over Germany, using varying numbers of weather stations for fine-tuning. On held-out weather stations, Sim2Real training substantially outperforms the same model architecture trained only with reanalysis data or only with station data, showing that reanalysis data can serve as a stepping stone for learning from real observations. Sim2Real could thus enable more accurate models for weather prediction and climate monitoring.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, To be published in Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning workshop at NeurIP

Risk prediction models to predict emergency hospital admission in community-dwelling adults: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Risk prediction models have been developed to identify those at increased risk for emergency admissions, which could facilitate targeted interventions in primary care to prevent these events. OBJECTIVE: Systematic review of validated risk prediction models for predicting emergency hospital admissions in community-dwelling adults. METHODS: A systematic literature review and narrative analysis was conducted. Inclusion criteria were as follows; POPULATION: community-dwelling adults (aged 18 years and above); Risk: risk prediction models, not contingent on an index hospital admission, with a derivation and ≥1 validation cohort; PRIMARY OUTCOME: emergency hospital admission (defined as unplanned overnight stay in hospital); STUDY DESIGN: retrospective or prospective cohort studies. RESULTS: Of 18,983 records reviewed, 27 unique risk prediction models met the inclusion criteria. Eleven were developed in the United States, 11 in the United Kingdom, 3 in Italy, 1 in Spain, and 1 in Canada. Nine models were derived using self-report data, and the remainder (n=18) used routine administrative or clinical record data. Total study sample sizes ranged from 96 to 4.7 million participants. Predictor variables most frequently included in models were: (1) named medical diagnoses (n=23); (2) age (n=23); (3) prior emergency admission (n=22); and (4) sex (n=18). Eleven models included nonmedical factors, such as functional status and social supports. Regarding predictive accuracy, models developed using administrative or clinical record data tended to perform better than those developed using self-report data (c statistics 0.63-0.83 vs. 0.61-0.74, respectively). Six models reported c statistics of \u3e0.8, indicating good performance. All 6 included variables for prior health care utilization, multimorbidity or polypharmacy, and named medical diagnoses or prescribed medications. Three predicted admissions regarded as being ambulatory care sensitive. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that risk models developed using administrative or clinical record data tend to perform better. In applying a risk prediction model to a new population, careful consideration needs to be given to the purpose of its use and local factors

Conformity to masculine norms: Differences between men with and without a disability

There is a noted paucity of quantitative research examining the interrelationship between masculinity and disability. We analyzed a sample of 12,418 men aged 18 to 55 years from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Male Health (the Ten to Men Study) to investigate associations between disability and conformity to norms of masculinity viewed as traditional in Western societies. To assess masculinity, we used the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory–22, both as an overall scale and across 11 different subscales. We found little difference between men with and without a disability on the overall masculinity scale; however, differences were observed on subscales. Men with a disability reported greater conformity to Self-Reliance norms and lower conformity to Pursuit of Status, Heterosexual Presentation, and Primacy of Work. These results suggest that men with disabilities reformulate masculinity to assemble a masculine identity that draws on norms such as self-reliance but places less importance on other elements of masculinity seen as traditional in Western societies

Development of an enhanced CPT system for Dogger Bank

An enhanced seafloor CPT system has been developed to support completion of the soil investigation campaign for Dogger Bank. This enhanced system has a demonstrable and significant performance increase over standard seafloor CPT systems; capable of pushing through dense sand layers with qc>100 MPa and through tens of meters of very stiff clays. At Dogger Bank, this enhanced system has enabled CPT penetrations of more than 40 m below seafloor, in soils where standard systems could only average in the twenties. The system enhancement has been achieved through the application and adaption of techniques well known in the geotechnical industry (water lubrication and water injection), but which have never before been combined in an offshore seafloor CPT system. The performance of the enhanced CPT system has enabled a reliance on seafloor CPTs to acquire data to beyond monopile toe depths, therefore removing absolute reliance on boreholes to acquire data at turbine locations and facilitating the fast and efficient development of a geotechnical design basis.Development of an enhanced CPT system for Dogger BankpublishedVersio