Online social lending: Borrower-generated content

This article explores online social lending, an innovative venture that represents a reintermediation in financial services. Borrowers and lenders now have access to online financial information services such as Motley Fool, http://www.fool.com/ , and the opportunity to communicate directly with each other online, sharing user-generated content, in the spirit of Web 2.0. In this environment, new possibilities emerge. Drawing on the literature of community banks, finance, and online banking, we conducted a structurational analysis of ZOPA(2007) a newly founded venture in online social lending whereby borrower/lender interactions take place within an open and transparent environment using discussion boards and blogs. ZOPA offers a service as an intermediary but one that differs from the intermediating role played by a traditional bank. We analyzed the possible attractions and risks of ZOPA’s service to customers, from the perspective of social lending and social networking, using public data from ZOPA’s website. Our intention is to understand the nature of this reintermediation and explain the development of this process through Giddens’ propositions

Active normal faults and coupled landscape response: bedrock variability in the southern Gulf of Corinth, central Greece

Fluvial erosion processes control landscape response to climatic and tectonic signals and its propagation into sedimentary basins. Considerable effort has gone into quantifying and modelling the effect of changes in uplift rates on fluvial erosion in bedrock rivers. However, current landscape models, based on stream power, tend to ignore the effects bedrock variability. The lack of available data relating rock strength to bedrock erodibility in fluvial settings has limited our ability to explore this question. Recent attempts at modelling to resolve this issue rely on indirect or theoretical rock strength properties. An alternative approach requires field measurements of rock strength together with geomorphological and tectonic constraints to quantify the effect of rock strength on river evolution. The Gulf of Corinth, central Greece, is one of the fastest extending rifts in the world and tectonic boundary conditions are well constrained. We (1) review published constraints on uplift along the active normal faults on the southern coast of the Gulf, and project uplift away from the faults into three catchments using a viscoelastic dislocation model; (2) test how channel width and slope vary in these rivers upstream of the active faults, and we use this data to estimate the distribution of stream power down-system; (3) systematically measure rock strength, using a Schmidt hammer, to constrain its effect on river response to uplift. All the rivers have knickpoints upstream of the active faults and we show they are responding transiently to active faulting. By assuming that our derived uplift rate equals stream power-driven erosion rate we calculate the erodibility, k, of bedrock. We demonstrate that stream powers in rivers crossing faults in the southern Gulf of Corinth correlate with rock strength and derive a non-linear power relationship between bedrock erodibility k and Schmidt hammer rebound. These findings highlight the need to incorporate bedrock variability into stream power erosion models

Marked long-term decline in ambient CO mixing ratio in SE England, 1997–2014:Evidence of policy success in improving air quality

Atmospheric CO at Egham in SE England has shown a marked and progressive decline since 1997, following adoption of strict controls on emissions. The Egham site is uniquely positioned to allow both assessment and comparison of ‘clean Atlantic background’ air and CO-enriched air downwind from the London conurbation. The decline is strongest (approximately 50ppb per year) in the 1997–2003 period but continues post 2003. A ‘local CO increment’ can be identified as the residual after subtraction of contemporary background Atlantic CO mixing ratios from measured values at Egham. This increment, which is primarily from regional sources (during anticyclonic or northerly winds) or from the European continent (with easterly air mass origins), has significant seasonality, but overall has declined steadily since 1997. On many days of the year CO measured at Egham is now not far above Atlantic background levels measured at Mace Head (Ireland). The results are consistent with MOPITT satellite observations and ‘bottom-up’ inventory results. Comparison with urban and regional background CO mixing ratios in Hong Kong demonstrates the importance of regional, as opposed to local reduction of CO emission. The Egham record implies that controls on emissions subsequent to legislation have been extremely successful in the UK

Gamma-Ray Background from Structure Formation in the Intergalactic Medium

The universe is filled with a diffuse and isotropic extragalactic background of gamma-ray radiation, containing roughly equal energy flux per decade in photon energy between 3 MeV-100 GeV. The origin of this background is one of the unsolved puzzles in cosmology. Less than a quarter of the gamma-ray flux can be attributed to unresolved discrete sources, but the remainder appears to constitute a truly diffuse background whose origin has hitherto been mysterious. Here we show that the shock waves induced by gravity during the formation of large-scale structure in the intergalactic medium, produce a population of highly-relativistic electrons with a maximum Lorentz factor above 10^7. These electrons scatter a small fraction of the microwave background photons in the present-day universe up to gamma-ray energies, thereby providing the gamma-ray background. The predicted diffuse flux agrees with the observed background over more than four decades in photon energy, and implies a mean cosmological density of baryons which is consistent with Big-Bang nucleosynthesis.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure. Accepted for publication in Nature. (Press embargo until published.

Extra patient movement during mammographic imaging : an experimental study

Objectives: To determine if movement external to the patient occurring during mammography may be a source of image blur. Methods: Four mammography machines with seven flexible and nine fixed paddles were evaluated. In the first stage, movement at the paddle was measured mechanically using two calibrated linear potentiometers. A deformable breast phantom was used to mimic a female breast. For each paddle, the movement in millimeters and change in compression force in Newton was recorded at 0.5 and 1 second intervals respectively for 40 seconds with the phantom in an initially compressed state under a load of 80N. In the second stage, clinical audit on 28 females was conducted on one mammography machine with the 18x24cm and 24x29cm flexible paddles. Results: Movement at the paddle followed an exponential decay with a settling period of approximately 40 seconds. The compression force readings for both fixed and flexible paddles decreased exponentially with time while fixed paddles have a larger drop in compression force than flexible paddles. There is a linear relationship between movement at the paddle and change in compression force. Conclusions: Movement measured at the paddle during an exposure can be represented by a second order system. The amount of extra-patient movement during the actual exposure can be estimated using the linear relationship between movement at the paddle and the change in compression force. Advances in knowledge: This research provides a possible explanation to mammography image blurring caused by extra patient movement and proposes a theoretical model to analyze the movement

Determinants of the voltage dependence of G protein modulation within calcium channel β subunits

CaVβ subunits of voltage-gated calcium channels contain two conserved domains, a src-homology-3 (SH3) domain and a guanylate kinase-like (GK) domain with an intervening HOOK domain. We have shown in a previous study that, although Gβγ-mediated inhibitory modulation of CaV2.2 channels did not require the interaction of a CaVβ subunit with the CaVα1 subunit, when such interaction was prevented by a mutation in the α1 subunit, G protein modulation could not be removed by a large depolarization and showed voltage-independent properties (Leroy et al., J Neurosci 25:6984–6996, 2005). In this study, we have investigated the ability of mutant and truncated CaVβ subunits to support voltage-dependent G protein modulation in order to determine the minimal domain of the CaVβ subunit that is required for this process. We have coexpressed the CaVβ subunit constructs with CaV2.2 and α2δ-2, studied modulation by the activation of the dopamine D2 receptor, and also examined basal tonic modulation. Our main finding is that the CaVβ subunit GK domains, from either β1b or β2, are sufficient to restore voltage dependence to G protein modulation. We also found that the removal of the variable HOOK region from β2a promotes tonic voltage-dependent G protein modulation. We propose that the absence of the HOOK region enhances Gβγ binding affinity, leading to greater tonic modulation by basal levels of Gβγ. This tonic modulation requires the presence of an SH3 domain, as tonic modulation is not supported by any of the CaVβ subunit GK domains alone

Developing a digital intervention for cancer survivors: an evidence-, theory- and person-based approach

This paper illustrates a rigorous approach to developing digital interventions using an evidence-, theory- and person-based approach. Intervention planning included a rapid scoping review which identified cancer survivors’ needs, including barriers and facilitators to intervention success. Review evidence (N=49 papers) informed the intervention’s Guiding Principles, theory-based behavioural analysis and logic model. The intervention was optimised based on feedback on a prototype intervention through interviews (N=96) with cancer survivors and focus groups with NHS staff and cancer charity workers (N=31). Interviews with cancer survivors highlighted barriers to engagement, such as concerns about physical activity worsening fatigue. Focus groups highlighted concerns about support appointment length and how to support distressed participants. Feedback informed intervention modifications, to maximise acceptability, feasibility and likelihood of behaviour change. Our systematic method for understanding user views enabled us to anticipate and address important barriers to engagement. This methodology may be useful to others developing digital interventions