Digital Democracy: Episode IV—A New Hope*: How a Corporation for Public Software Could Transform Digital Engagement for Government and Civil Society

Although successive generations of digital technology have become increasingly powerful in the past 20 years, digital democracy has yet to realize its potential for deliberative transformation. The undemocratic exploitation of massive social media systems continued this trend, but it only worsened an existing problem of modern democracies, which were already struggling to develop deliberative infrastructure independent of digital technologies. There have been many creative conceptions of civic tech, but implementation has lagged behind innovation. This article argues for implementing one such vision of digital democracy through the establishment of a public corporation. Modeled on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in the United States, this entity would foster the creation of new digital technology by providing a stable source of funding to nonprofit technologists, interest groups, civic organizations, government, researchers, private companies, and the public. Funded entities would produce and maintain software infrastructure for public benefit. The concluding sections identify what circumstances might create and sustain such an entity

The characterisation and role of mighty during myogenesis

Myogenesis, or skeletal muscle formation, begins during embryogenesis and involves the proliferation of myoblasts followed by their exit from the cell-cycle to differentiate and form myotubes. This formation of skeletal muscle is a complex process involving many genes and various signalling pathways. Mighty is a novel myogenic gene discovered at AgResearch by the Functional Muscle Genomics (FMG) group in a genetic screen performed on the muscle of myostatin null and wild-type mice. It was found that heavily muscled mice, lacking myostatin, had increased expression of the mighty gene. This gene was found to be conserved, with cognates found in mammals, amphibians, teleosts, and arthropods. Mighty was found to be expressed in a variety of tissues, but only skeletal muscle showed increased mighty mRNA expression in myostatin null mice, indicating the specific regulation of mighty by myostatin in skeletal muscle (Marshall, 2005). The aim of this study was to characterise the mighty protein and examine its role in myogenesis to elucidate mighty's function. To undertake this study, antibodies specific for the full-length mighty protein and antibodies specific for a peptide region of mighty were characterised. Results using these antibodies, showed endogenous mighty, from myoblasts, to be a low-abundant, nuclear protein which shows a mobility of ~52 kDa in SDS gels, different to that of recombinant mighty protein. The mobility difference of endogenous mighty compared to recombinant mighty appears to be due to phosphorylation and may involve other post-translational modifications. In agreement, the determined isoelectric point (~5.7) of endogenous mighty also appears to be the result of phosphorylation. Interestingly, 52 kDa mighty was not detected in muscle extracts, but a ~30 kDa protein was specifically detected, indicating multiple forms, and subsequent roles, for mighty protein. Mass spectrometry (MS) was also performed for further characterisation of the mighty protein and possible post-translational modifications. Although hits were achieved with both recombinant mighty proteins, endogenous mighty MS analysis was not accomplished due to its low-abundance. The function of the mighty protein in myoblasts was investigated during proliferation and differentiation. The results indicate that proliferating myoblasts have low levels of mighty in G0 and increased levels in G1/S during the cell cycle. This differential expression of mighty may involve cell cycle exit at the G1/S phase. Differentiation results showed mighty to be upregulated before MyoD during differentiation, placing mighty very early in the differentiation hierarchy. This agrees with previous results by Marshall (2005) which showed mighty to upregulate MyoD through IGF-II expression. Enhanced differentiation was also seen in double muscle bovine myoblasts concomitantly with increased mighty expression. In conclusion, mighty appears to be a post-translationally modified protein that plays an early role in myogenic differentiation. This role in differentiation appears to be upstream of MyoD through the upregulation of IGF-II and may be linked to cell cycle exit in the G1 phase of the cell cycle

Visualizing spin degrees of freedom in atoms and molecules

In this work we show how constructing Wigner functions of heterogeneous quantum systems leads to new capability in the visualization of quantum states of atoms and molecules. This method allows us to display quantum correlations (entanglement) between spin and spatial degrees of freedom (spin-orbit coupling) and between spin degrees of freedom, as well as more complex combinations of spin and spatial entanglement. This is important as there is growing recognition that such properties affect the physical characteristics, and chemistry, of atoms and molecules. Our visualizations are sufficiently accessible that, with some preparation, those with a nontechnical background can gain an appreciation of subtle quantum properties of atomic and other systems. By providing insights and modeling capability, our phase-space representation will be of great utility in understanding aspects of atomic physics and chemistry not available with current techniques

Media Policy Norms for a Europe in Crisis

Europe is in crisis. Millions of its citizens are living in poverty and subject to sustained programmes of austerity that are widening the gap between rich and poor. Communicative possibilities are squeezed by the realities of media market behaviour: public service broadcasters are facing challenges of legitimacy and funding while established news outlets are increasingly distrusted by audiences. Despite the scale of the crisis, however, there appears to be little appetite amongst media researchers to develop a professional or policy response that rises to the challenge and attempts to offer necessary solutions. This article reflects on existing policy norms and suggests that we need fresh ones that better articulate how best to respond to neoliberalisation and both communicative and economic crisis. Rhetorical commitments to democracy, free speech, privacy and transparency are being squeezed by a more pragmatic emphasis on efficiency and competition, leaving little room for more expansive ambitions of social justice and equality. By focusing on several case studies, the article argues that we need more radical policy frames to confront the serious attacks we are facing on the public media and the public interest more generally

Crop Updates 2010 - Weeds

This session covers eighteen papers from different authors: Herbicides 1. Herbicide control of slender iceplant, Lorinda Hunt, and Andrew Blake Department of Agriculture and Food 2. Herbicide tolerance of saltbush and bluebush, Lorinda Hunt, and Andrew Blake Department of Agriculture and Food 3. Chemical control of windmill grass, Catherine Borger, Glen Riethmuller and Abul Hashem, Department of Agriculture and Food 4. Use high water rates when applying pre-seeding herbicides to fields with high stubble density, Catherine Borger and Abul Hashem, Department of Agriculture and Food 5. Herbicide tolerance of lupins – influence of soil type and rainfall, Harmohinder Dhammu and David Nicholson, Department of Agriculture and Food 6. Response of new barley varieties to herbicides, Harmohinder Dhammu, Vince Lambert and Russell Quartermaine, Department of Agriculture and Food 7. Herbicide tolerance of new wheat varieties, Harmohinder Dhammu and David Nicholson, Department of Agriculture and Food Herbicide Resistance 8. Use of below label rate can lead to evolution of herbicide resistant weeds, Roberto Busi , Todd Gaines, Sudheesh Manalil and Stephen Powles, Western Australian Herbicide Resistance Initiative, School of Plant Biology, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, The University of Western Australia 9. Herbicide mixtures can effectively kill herbicide-resistant weeds, Aik Cheam and Siew Lee, Department of Agriculture and Food 10. Selective spray-topping: Does it abort seed production of herbicide-resistant radish? Aik Cheam and Siew Lee, Department of Agriculture and Food 11. The search for a new lupin herbicide, Peter Newman, Department of Agriculture and Food Integrated Weed Management 12. Colonisation of agricultural regions in Western Australia by flaxleaf fleabane, Catherine Borger, Greg Doncon and Abul Hashem, Department of Agriculture and Food 13. Weed suppression by crop competition in barley, canola and wheat, Abul Hashem and Catherine Borger, Department of Agriculture and Food 14. Mouldboard plough continues to kick goals, Peter Newman and Dr Steve Davies, Department of Agriculture and Food 15. The answer my friend is to burn in light wind, Peter Newman, Department of Agriculture and Food, and Michael Walsh, Weeds Researcher, University of Melbourne 16. Using image analysis to detect three-horned bedstraw seed in grain samples, John Moore, Department of Agriculture and Food, Murray Gillespie, Lygil Holdings, Albany 17. Can we manage brome and barley grass in cereals? Sally Peltzer, Abul Hashem and Alex Douglas, Department of Agriculture and Food 18. Control of mature fleabane, Sally Peltzer, Department of Agriculture and Foo

TESS Discovery of an ultra-short-period planet around the nearby M dwarf LHS 3844

Data from the newly-commissioned \textit{Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite} (TESS) has revealed a "hot Earth" around LHS 3844, an M dwarf located 15 pc away. The planet has a radius of $1.32\pm 0.02$ $R_\oplus$ and orbits the star every 11 hours. Although the existence of an atmosphere around such a strongly irradiated planet is questionable, the star is bright enough ($I=11.9$, $K=9.1$) for this possibility to be investigated with transit and occultation spectroscopy. The star's brightness and the planet's short period will also facilitate the measurement of the planet's mass through Doppler spectroscopy.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures. Submitted to ApJ Letters. This letter makes use of the TESS Alert data, which is currently in a beta test phase, using data from the pipelines at the TESS Science Office and at the TESS Science Processing Operations Cente

FAS promoter polymorphism: outcome of childhood acute myeloid leukemia. A children's oncology group report.

PURPOSE: FAS is a cell surface receptor involved in apoptotic signal transmission. Deregulation of this pathway results in down-regulation of apoptosis and subsequent persistence of a malignant clone. A single nucleotide polymorphism resulting in guanine-to-adenine transition in the FAS promoter region (position -1377) is thought to reduce stimulatory protein 1 transcription factor binding and decrease FAS expression. Previous work has shown increased risk of developing acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in adult patients with a variant allele at this site. The same authors have shown that the presence of an adenine residue rather than a guanine residue at -1,377 bp significantly attenuates transcription factor stimulatory protein 1 binding and may contribute to a reduction in FAS expression and ultimately to the enrichment of apoptosis-resistant clones in AML. We hypothesized that FAS genotype by altering susceptibility to apoptosis might affect outcome of childhood AML therapy. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: Four hundred forty-four children treated for de novo AML on a uniform protocol were genotyped for FAS 1377. RESULTS: There were no significant differences in overall survival, event-free survival, treatment-related mortality, or relapse rate between patients with FAS 1377GG genotype versus 1377GA/1377AA genotypes. CONCLUSIONS: FAS 1377 genotype does not alter outcome of de novo AML in children

The Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment: Exploring Fundamental Symmetries of the Universe

The preponderance of matter over antimatter in the early Universe, the dynamics of the supernova bursts that produced the heavy elements necessary for life and whether protons eventually decay --- these mysteries at the forefront of particle physics and astrophysics are key to understanding the early evolution of our Universe, its current state and its eventual fate. The Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment (LBNE) represents an extensively developed plan for a world-class experiment dedicated to addressing these questions. LBNE is conceived around three central components: (1) a new, high-intensity neutrino source generated from a megawatt-class proton accelerator at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, (2) a near neutrino detector just downstream of the source, and (3) a massive liquid argon time-projection chamber deployed as a far detector deep underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility. This facility, located at the site of the former Homestake Mine in Lead, South Dakota, is approximately 1,300 km from the neutrino source at Fermilab -- a distance (baseline) that delivers optimal sensitivity to neutrino charge-parity symmetry violation and mass ordering effects. This ambitious yet cost-effective design incorporates scalability and flexibility and can accommodate a variety of upgrades and contributions. With its exceptional combination of experimental configuration, technical capabilities, and potential for transformative discoveries, LBNE promises to be a vital facility for the field of particle physics worldwide, providing physicists from around the globe with opportunities to collaborate in a twenty to thirty year program of exciting science. In this document we provide a comprehensive overview of LBNE's scientific objectives, its place in the landscape of neutrino physics worldwide, the technologies it will incorporate and the capabilities it will possess.Comment: Major update of previous version. This is the reference document for LBNE science program and current status. Chapters 1, 3, and 9 provide a comprehensive overview of LBNE's scientific objectives, its place in the landscape of neutrino physics worldwide, the technologies it will incorporate and the capabilities it will possess. 288 pages, 116 figure