Contributions in the field of palaeopalynology at the Bernard Price Institute, past, present and future

Main articleA brief chronological summary of the palynological research carried out by students and past members of the staff at the Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research is presented. The contribution that each of these studies has made to the understanding of stratigraphic relationships in the southern African region is highlighted. A correlation chart of palynological biozones documented from South African localities is presented (Table 1).Non

Evaluation of enzyme immunoassays in the diagnosis of camel (Camelus dromedarius) trypanosomiasis:a preliminary investigation

Three enzyme immunoassays were used for the serodiagnosis of Trypanosoma evansi in camels in the Sudan in order to evaluate their ability to discriminate between infected and non-infected animals. Two assays were used for the detection of trypanosomal antibodies, one using specific anti-camel IgG conjugate and another using a non-specific Protein A conjugate. The third assay detected the presence of trypanosomal antigens using anti-T. evansi antibodies in a double antibody sandwich assay. Inspection of the frequency distribution of assay results suggested that the ELISA for circulating trypanosomal antibodies using specific antisera and the ELISA for circulating antigens can distinguish between non-infected camels and infected camels exhibiting patent infections or not. The ELISA using Protein A conjugate to bind non-specifically to camel immunoglobulin did not appear to discriminate between infected and non-infected animals

Impact of birth weight and gender on early postnatal hypothalamic energy balance regulatory gene expression in the young lamb

Peer reviewedPreprin

High Resolution Millimeter-Wave Mapping of Linearly Polarized Dust Emission: Magnetic Field Structure in Orion

We present 1.3 and 3.3 mm polarization maps of Orion-KL obtained with the BIMA array at approximately 4 arcsec resolution. Thermal emission from magnetically aligned dust grains produces the polarization. Along the Orion ``ridge'' the polarization position angle varies smoothly from about 10 degrees to 40 degrees, in agreement with previous lower resolution maps. In a small region south of the Orion ``hot core,'' however, the position angle changes by 90 degrees. This abrupt change in polarization direction is not necessarily the signpost of a twisted magnetic field. Rather, in this localized region processes other than the usual Davis-Greenstein mechanism might align the dust grains with their long axes parallel with the field, orthogonal to their normal orientation.Comment: AAS preprint:14 pages, 2 figures (3mm.eps and 1mm.eps); requires aaspp4.sty To be published in Astrophysical Journal Letter

Identities for hyperelliptic P-functions of genus one, two and three in covariant form

We give a covariant treatment of the quadratic differential identities satisfied by the P-functions on the Jacobian of smooth hyperelliptic curves of genera 1, 2 and 3

Psoriatic arthritis and psoriasis : the role and impact of psychosocial factors

This thesis is concerned with the psychosocial impact of psoriatic arthritis (PsA) - an inflammatory arthritis associated with psoriasis. Although an extensive literature exists on the nature and impact of psoriasis, little is known about the effect that psoriatic arthritis can have on an individual, and the bearing it may have on their quality of life. In order to address this gap in the literature, this study utilised a mixed methods research design, employing a qualitative study with semi-structured interviews, followed by a quantitative, cross-sectional postal survey. In the qualitative study, interviews were conducted with ten people living with psoriatic arthritis. Analysis of the data, using Interpretative Phenomenological Approach (JPA; Smith, 2003) resulted in five emerging themes; pain, functionality (including fatigue), emotions (including depression), coping and treatment experience/management. The quantitative study used a postal survey to measure the variables of interest and explore the associations between them. Survey respondents consisted of a sample (n = 313) drawn from The Psoriasis Association membership and also 44 from a hospital rheumatology clinic. AA participants completed a piloted questionnaire containing questions about their demographic characteristics and validated measures of quality of life. Analysis confirmed that the group with PsA fared less well on all measures of quality of life, than those with just psoriasis. Correlations identified highly significant relationships between most study variables, however of note were the relationships between fatigue and current pain (r = .547) and depression (r = .670). Within the Psoriasis Group correlations of interest included those between anxiety and social functioning (r = -.606) and DLQI and social functioning (r = -.546). Comparison of the correlations identified 18 that were significantly different between the groups. Of these, relationships between physical functioning, pain, fatigue and self efficacy were of particular interest, whilst in the psoriasis group the associations between self efficacy, social functioning and psychological health were noteworthy. This research provides some evidence that different psychosocial variables appear to be involved in the reductions in quality of life experienced by the two clinical populations in this study. The results suggest that in rheumatology and dermatology clinics, the routine measurement of fatigue, self efficacy and psychological health could be used to inform the prescribing of therapies, psychosocial interventions and drugs to improve emotional functioning, so impacting on health-related quality of life. Furthermore, these fmdings have highlighted the need to elucidate the symptom of fatigue in PsA and position it as an appropriate target not only for clinical management, but also psychological management. By advocating fatigue as a legitimate concern, this may offer patients the chance to discuss fatigue explicitly and obtain appropriate health advice

Fast computation by block permanents of cumulative distribution functions of order statistics from several populations

The joint cumulative distribution function for order statistics arising from several different populations is given in terms of the distribution function of the populations. The computational cost of the formula in the case of two populations is still exponential in the worst case, but it is a dramatic improvement compared to the general formula by Bapat and Beg. In the case when only the joint distribution function of a subset of the order statistics of fixed size is needed, the complexity is polynomial, for the case of two populations.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figure

Reflective writing analytics for actionable feedback

© 2017 ACM. Reflective writing can provide a powerful way for students to integrate professional experience and academic learning. However, writing reflectively requires high quality actionable feedback, which is time-consuming to provide at scale. This paper reports progress on the design, implementation, and validation of a Reflective Writing Analytics platform to provide actionable feedback within a tertiary authentic assessment context. The contributions are: (1) a new conceptual framework for reflective writing; (2) a computational approach to modelling reflective writing, deriving analytics, and providing feedback; (3) the pedagogical and user experience rationale for platform design decisions; and (4) a pilot in a student learning context, with preliminary data on educator and student acceptance, and the extent to which we can evidence that the software provided actionable feedback for reflective writing

Entropy, non-ergodicity and non-Gaussian behaviour in ballistic transport

Ballistic transportation introduces new challenges in the thermodynamic properties of a gas of particles. For example, violation of mixing, ergodicity and of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem may occur, since all these processes are connected. In this work, we obtain results for all ranges of diffusion, i.e., both for subdiffusion and superdiffusion, where the bath is such that it gives origin to a colored noise. In this way we obtain the skewness and the non-Gaussian factor for the probability distribution function of the dynamical variable. We put particular emphasis on ballistic diffusion, and we demonstrate that in this case, although the second law of thermodynamics is preserved, the entropy does not reach a maximum and a non-Gaussian behavior occurs. This implies the non-applicability of the central limit theorem.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure