Gamma-ray bursts and X-ray melting of material as a potential source of chondrules and planets

The intense radiation from a gamma-ray burst (GRB) is shown to be capable of melting stony material at distances up to 300 light years which subsequently cool to form chondrules. These conditions were created in the laboratory for the first time when millimeter sized pellets were placed in a vacuum chamber in the white synchrotron beam at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF). The pellets were rapidly heated in the X-ray and gamma-ray furnace to above 1400 C melted and cooled. This process heats from the inside unlike normal furnaces. The melted spherical samples were examined with a range of techniques and found to have microstructural properties similar to the chondrules that come from meteorites. This experiment demonstrates that GRBs can melt precursor material to form chondrules that may subsequently influence the formation of planets. This work extends the field of laboratory astrophysics to include high power synchrotron sources.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figures. Proceedings of the 5th INTEGRAL Workshop, Munich 16-20 February 2004. High resolution figures available at http://bermuda.ucd.ie/%7Esmcbreen/papers/duggan_01.pd

Inclusive Masculinity and Facebook Photographs Among Early Emerging Adults at a British University

Central to debates about the construction of masculinity in sociology is the influence of culture and what constitutes acceptable displays of masculinity. This article adopts a novel approach in examining this question. It adopts a summative content analysis, combined with a semiotic analysis, of 1,100 Facebook photographs, in order to explore the underlying meanings within the photos and the performances of masculinity. Facebook photographs from 44, straight, White, male, early emerging adults attending the same university are used as a representation of an individual’s ideal self. These are then analyzed in order to determine the behaviors endorsed by peer culture. It was found that the sample overwhelmingly adopted inclusive behaviors (including homosocial tactility, dancing, and kissing each other), and inclusive masculinity theory was utilized to contextualize participants’ constructions of masculinity. Thus, this research shows that emerging adult males at this university construct their masculine identities away from previous orthodox archetypes. It is argued that the reducing importance of gendered behavior patterns may represent an adoption of what are perceived as wider cultural norms and act as a symbol of adulthood to these early emerging adults

Misappropriation of Shuar Traditional Knowledge (TK) and Trade Secrets: A Case Study on Biopiracy in the Amazon

Where the murkiness of biopiracy as a general matter leaves little room for legal theory to anchor, the relative clarity of specific instances of biopiracy may provide sufficient factual information from which to develop appropriate legal theories. In particular, the way biopiracy has been used to misappropriate the traditional knowledge (TK) of the Shuar Nation of Ecuador suggests that there may be legal theories for which the process of misappropriation may give rise to liability under international law as well as under developments in the domestic laws of the United States and Ecuador. The possible efficacy and legal coherence of any such theory are dependent upon an understanding of the background of the problem of biopiracy, the general and specific methods used by biopirates, and a clarification of the nature of the interests in question as misappropriated property. Part II of this Article provides an outline of the importance of biodiversity and TK for medical and pharmaceutical interests and develops a generic model of bioprospecting, which has been used as a cover for acts of biopiracy. The model is drawn from general experience as well as the specific facts in our possession. This section then details how the bioprospecting and biopiracy process actually works in practice, including an outline of the operations of biopiracy in the specific case of the Shuar. Part III raises the proposition-widely accepted as conventional wisdom-that indigenous societies have no legally recognizable concept of property and a fortiori cannot have a notion of TK as a property value. This section then addresses the ensuing question of whether TK has the requisite qualities to be considered protectable property at all, and proposes the central principle that indigenous people indeed have concepts of property well recognized in contemporary analytical jurisprudence. Moreover, this section suggests that these same insights are firmly established in legal anthropology as well as in conventional jurisprudence. Finally, the section deals specifically with TK as property, contained within the secretive Shaman tradition of the Amazon Rain Forest, recognizing that it is because the Shaman TK was held to be a secret in the first place that bioprospecters have used extraordinary means of deception to misappropriate such knowledge. Part IV explores the concept of TK in the context of the development of such ideas as the “new property,” which includes, in particular, intellectual property, providing an appraisal of the problems of protecting TK against the ideological assumptions and misconceptions of certain aspects of intellectual property law. This Article concludes by proposing that the concept of property under the Inter-American system may well include TK as property for the purpose of protecting such property under the Inter-American Convention

Reaction-Diffusion System in a Vesicle with Semi-Permeable Membrane

We study the Schloegl model in a vesicle with semi-permeable membrane. The diffusion constant takes a smaller value in the membrane region, which prevents the outflow of self-catalytic product. A nonequilibrium state is stably maintained inside of the vesicle. Nutrients are absorbed and waste materials are exhausted through the membrane by diffusion. It is interpreted as a model of primitive metabolism in a cell.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Machine learning to detect brain lesions in focal epilepsy

PURPOSE: Identifying areas of abnormality on MRI brain scans in individuals with focal epilepsy is funda- mental to the diagnosis and treatment of the condition. However, in about a third of patients with focal epilepsy, brain scans appear to be normal (MRI-negative) as human observers cannot detect any abnormality with cur- rent imaging technology. The objective of this paper is to provide a novel approach in presenting localization using machine learning in order to locate areas of abnormality on patients with focal epilepsy on a per-voxel basis by comparing them with healthy controls. As a proof-of-concept, the technique is first applied to patients with visible lesions providing a ground truth (MRI-positive), but future work will extend this to MRI-negative subjects. METHODS: Our data consists of multi-modal brain MR images from 62 healthy control subjects and 44 MRI- positive patients with focal epilepsy. We utilized a support vector machine (SVM) as our probabilistic classifier and train it with two classes of data. We generate probability maps applying our machine learning classifier on all voxels of a test subjects to visualize the predictions. Overlap scores are used to evaluate the classifier performance in MRI-positive patients. RESULTS: Our model reached 83% specificity, 91% sensitivity, and an Area Under the Curve (AUC) of 0.896 for the task of voxel-based classification of normal versus abnormal voxels. In addition, Dice scores of up to 0.66 were achieved for the overlap measure of lesion probability map and the ground truth labels annotated by a neurologist. CONCLUSION: We demonstrated a novel approach in presenting localization using machine learning tech- niques to localize focal epilepsy lesions from multi-modal MR images

Educational aspirations in inner city schools

The research aimed to assess the nature and level of pupils’ educational aspirations and to elucidate the factors that influence these aspirations. A sample of five inner city comprehensive secondary schools were selected by their Local Authority because of poor pupil attendance, below average examination results and low rates of continuing in full-time education after the age of 16. Schools were all ethnically mixed and co-educational. Over 800 pupils aged 12-14 completed a questionnaire assessing pupils’ experience of home, school and their peers. A sub-sample of 48 pupils selected by teachers to reflect ethnicity and ability levels in individual schools also participated in detailed focus group interviews. There were no significant differences in aspirations by gender or year group, but differences between ethnic groups were marked. Black African, Asian Other and Pakistani groups had significantly higher educational aspirations than the White British group, who had the lowest aspirations. The results suggest the high aspirations of Black African, Asian Other and Pakistani pupils are mediated through strong academic self-concept, positive peer support, a commitment to schooling and high educational aspirations in the home. They also suggest that low educational aspirations may have different mediating influences in different ethnic groups. The low aspirations of White British pupils seem to relate most strongly to poor academic self-concept and low educational aspirations in the home, while for Black Caribbean pupils disaffection, negative peers and low commitment to schooling appear more relevant. Interviews with pupils corroborated the above findings and further illuminated the factors students described as important in their educational aspirations. The results are discussed in relation to theories of aspiration which stress its nature as a cultural capacity