Bibliographic Analysis on Research Publications using Authors, Categorical Labels and the Citation Network

Bibliographic analysis considers the author's research areas, the citation network and the paper content among other things. In this paper, we combine these three in a topic model that produces a bibliographic model of authors, topics and documents, using a nonparametric extension of a combination of the Poisson mixed-topic link model and the author-topic model. This gives rise to the Citation Network Topic Model (CNTM). We propose a novel and efficient inference algorithm for the CNTM to explore subsets of research publications from CiteSeerX. The publication datasets are organised into three corpora, totalling to about 168k publications with about 62k authors. The queried datasets are made available online. In three publicly available corpora in addition to the queried datasets, our proposed model demonstrates an improved performance in both model fitting and document clustering, compared to several baselines. Moreover, our model allows extraction of additional useful knowledge from the corpora, such as the visualisation of the author-topics network. Additionally, we propose a simple method to incorporate supervision into topic modelling to achieve further improvement on the clustering task.Comment: Preprint for Journal Machine Learnin

Regulation of reserve carbohydrates in hull-less barley grain

(1,3;1,4)-β-Glucans, which have many health benefits, represent the major cell wall component in barley endosperm. There have been a number of studies that have altered the amount of (1,3;1,4)-β-glucan in the grain, however, the effects of modifying (1,3;1,4)-β-glucan on various carbohydrate metabolic pathways and its impact on grain development have not previously been clearly defined. Here, we used transgenic grain with increased (1,3;1,4)-β-glucan and a (1,3;1,4)-β-glucanless (bgl) mutant (OUM125) supplied by Professor K. Sato (Okayama University), to investigate the link between carbohydrate metabolism and grain development in hull-less barley. Hull-less barley was investigated as it is more suitable for food use due to absence of maternal (husk) tissues. High (1,3;1,4)-β-glucan barley grain (cv Torrens) was successfully generated by over-expressing HvCslF6, via agrobacterium-mediated transformation. Transgenic grain had up to 70% more (1,3;1,4)-β-glucan than the wild type. Examination of developing transgenic grain revealed a large fluid filled cavity in the endosperm, which resulted in shrunken grain at maturity. The endosperm transfer region of the developing grain was ruptured by 10 days after pollination (DAP), which became more pronounced through development. Quantitative real-time PCR (QPCR) analysis uncovered genes related to cell wall, starch, sucrose and fructan biosynthesis that were differentially expressed across grain development. Starch metabolic genes were downregulated in the early storage phase and the fructan biosynthetic gene, 6-SFT, was upregulated during the later storage phase. Increased amounts of sucrose and fructan were found in the cavity and endosperm tissue of the transgenic grain. The link between altered sugar homeostasis, the large endosperm cavity and the poorly formed endosperm transfer region in transgenic grain was explored by immuno-histochemical microscopy. Cell walls in the endosperm transfer region were poorly formed and variations occurred in the abundance of mannan polysaccharides. Additionally, the development of both the subaleurone and aleurone layers were altered with regards to cell number, shape and position. To further understand the relationship between cell wall, starch and fructan metabolism in barley, transcript profiles of genes related to their metabolism were examined in the (1,3;1,4)- β-glucanless OUM125 mutant. Inactive CSLF6 synthase activity in OUM125 resulted in upregulation of the CslH1 gene from 19 DAP, resulting in traces of BG1 antibody labelling in the mutant pericarp. Other cell wall-related genes including CslF3, CslF7, CslF10, CesA2, CesA3 and Gsl2 were upregulated from 15 DAP in the mutant grain. Deposition of arabinoxylan, callose and cellulose was altered in the absence of (1,3;1,4)-β-glucan in the mutant endosperm. QPCR analysis identified changes in the expression of starch and fructan biosynthetic genes during the storage phase. At grain maturity, sucrose and fructan contents had increased, while the amount of starch remained unchanged. Research findings from this project provide fundamental knowledge about carbon partitioning in grain across development and suggest that small changes in polysaccharide synthesis and deposition can have significant effects on other metabolic processes important for correct grain development. While decreasing the amount of (1,3;1,4)-β-glucan in the barley endosperm had a low impact on grain morphology and carbon partitioning, significantly increasing the (1,3;1,4)-β-glucan content had major deleterious effects on a number of key processes.Thesis (Ph.D.) (Research by Publication) -- University of Adelaide, School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, 201

The Adoption of Internet Technologies by Independent Hotels in the UK

Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/670 on 27.02.2017 by CS (TIS)The growth of the technology and its range of possible uses have made it a necessity for independent hoteliers to examine their use of the internet, specifically its effectiveness for marketing and distribution purposes. It is widely recognised that the independent hotel sector makes up the bulk of the hotel industry in the UK and often do not have the resources or desire to keep up with new technologies. This study scrutinizes, evaluates and establishes the factors that influence the decision to adopt a range of internet technologies for marketing and distribution within the UK Independent hotel sector. The conceptual framework of this study is underpinned by Davis's Technology Acceptance Model (1989) and Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations model (1995). The study's findings have confirmed, challenged and extended these two theories. Critically, it has established that the ease-of-use of a technology and its affordability do not affect hoteliers' deployment decisions, when numerous studies have suggested otherwise. The study also revealed that the hotel sector as a whole had not only expanded the range of internet technologies adopted, but the proportion of adopters had also increased. A series of qualitative exploratory interviews were carried out and analysed to inform a larger quantitative survey. Survey data was collected from 408 independent hoteliers and analysed to contribute to the conceptual development of a taxonomy. In the process, hypotheses testing, regression, discriminant and cluster analysis were carried out, linking various hotel characteristics, hotelier perceptions and their propensity to deploy internet technology for marketing and distribution. The core of the developed taxonomy illustrated three groups of hoteliers: the internet application (IA) reticent; the IA realist; and the IA rationalist. This taxonomy, supported by a more precise profile and definition of independent hoteliers, facilitated the identification of managerial implications for various stakeholders. A significant implication of the study inferred that travel intermediaries' will continue to have a sustained stronghold on independent hoteliers

Evaluation Of Pdms-Based Uv-Crosslinked Hydrogels Properties For Tissue Engineering Applications

This work presents the fabrication of PDMS-based hydrogels with tunable properties via direct blending. Two UV-crosslinkable PDMS with different molecular weights (Mn=1k & 6k g/mol) were first synthesized and then UV-cured with PEGDA (Mn=0.7k g/mol) at various wt.% ratio, in the presence of Irgacure as photoinitiator. For the medium Mn PDMS (6k), allyl methacrylate (AMA) was used as reactive modifier to enhance compatibility of the two highly immiscible polymers. The liquid mixtures were converted into hydrogels after exposed to UV irradiation at a wavelength region of 315-400 nm at the average intensity of 10 mW/cm2 for 30 minutes. Compatibility, thermal, swelling, wetting, mechanical, protein adsorption and cytotoxicity properties of these PDMS hydrogels were evaluated. From differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) study, although two Tg were observed in the hydrogels fabricated from the low Mn PDMS (1k), they were all compatible since the hydrogel surface was homogeneous at any PEG wt.% ratio, as supported by AFM result. The hydrogels fabricated from the PDMS (6k) were highly incompatible and this was especially the case for the 30 wt.% PEG with the occurrence of macrophase separation. This problem was solved with addition of AMA. The phase separation of these PDMS (6K) hydrogels affected other properties in which the more hydrophobic gel surface, after the addition of AMA, had lowered their swelling and wetting properties since there was a fewer amount of PEG domains to render the hydrophilic surface. Protein adsorption to these hydrogel was higher if the surface was dominated by the PDMS surfaces, yet the adsorption was still lower than the bare PDMS. Stiffness of the hydrogel was fall within an acceptable range of soft tissue at ~ 0.5-1 MPa, with the stiffness increased with the increased of PEG loading, and/or the decreased of AMA loading. Coupled with their non-cytotoxic property, the fabricated PDMS-based hydrogels could potentially be used as scaffolds for tissue engineering applications

Architecture and globality

Wissenschaftliches Kolloquium vom 14. bis 16. Oktober 1999 in Weimar an der Bauhaus-Universität zum Thema: ‚global village - Perspektiven der Architektur