Pristess of the Year

Non-fiction by Bertie M. Layn

Master\u27s Project: Identifying the Variation in Perceptions to Waste and Waste Management Behaviours in Albouystown (Georgetown, Guyana)

Albouystown is a community in Georgetown (Guyana) where the issue of improper waste disposal is so significant that the community oftentimes experiences excessive flooding due to drain networks being clogged with garbage from continuous littering by residents. This project explored how perceptions of and attitudes towards waste management in Albouystown have been shaped by and are rooted in structures, ideologies, dynamics and histories which are unique to the community. The project explored the benefits of promoting dialogue to investigate an existing community issue. Through this process, it became clear that systems of racial oppression and political marginalisation have negatively affected solid waste management systems and wider development in Albouystown. These community conversations have also helped to support the community in acting to overcome these challenges with a desired outcome of empowerment and sustainability for Albouystown

The effects of hippotherapy in children and adolescents with autism : a systematic review

The purpose of this systematic review was to investigate the effectiveness of hippotherapy, also known as horse- or equine-assisted therapy, for improving the socialization and communication behaviors of children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The PubMed research database was used to search for relevant studies. Six studies were evaluated and demonstrated overall mixed findings for the use of hippotherapy as an effective treatment technique for communication and socialization skills. To further analyze the strength of these findings, the selected studies were evaluated for limitations related to outcome measure selected and treatment design. The present analysis revealed four main limitations: 1) lack of established treatment protocol led to differences with how hippotherapy was delivered; 2) most assessment measures were based on parent report; 3) small sample sizes; and 4) multiple treatment interference. While these limitations do not detract from the information gleaned from the treatment and research, implementing a standard protocol would make the replicability easier for future clinicians.Communication Sciences and Disorder

The effects of deuterium on static posture control

A significant operational problem impacting upon the Space Shuttle program involves the astronaut's ability to safely egress from the Orbiter during an emergency situation. Following space flight, astronauts display significant movement problems. One variable which may contribute to increased movement ataxia is deuterium (D2O). Deuterium is present in low levels within the Orbiter's water supply but may accumulate to significant physiological levels during lengthy missions. Deuterium was linked to a number of negative physiological responses, including motion sickness, decreased metabolism, and slowing of neural conduction velocity. The effects of D2O on static postural control in response to a range of dosage levels were investigated. Nine sugjects were divided into three groups of three subjects each. The groups were divided into a low, medium, and a high D2O dosage group. The subjects static posture was assessed with the use of the EquiTest systems, a commercially available postural control evaluation system featuring movable force plates and a visual surround that can be servoed to the subject's sway. In addition to the force plate information, data about the degree of subject sway about the hips and shoulders was obtained. Additionally, surface electromyographic (EMG) data from the selected lower limb muscles were collected along with saliva samples used to determine the amount of deuterium enrichment following D2O ingestion. Two baseline testing sessions were performed using the EquiTest testing protocol prior to ingestion of the D2O. Thirty minutes after dosing, subjects again performed the tests. Two more post-dosing tests were run with an interest interval of one hour. Preliminary data anlaysis indicates that only subjects in the igh dose group displayed any significant static postural problems. Future analyses of the sway and EMG is expected to reveal significant variations in the subject's postural control strategy following D2O dosing. While functionally significant static postural problems were not commonly observed, subjects in both the medium and high dosage groups displayed significant, and in some cases, severe voluntary movement problems

The Expected Fitness Cost of a Mutation Fixation under the One-dimensional Fisher Model

This paper employs Fisher’s model of adaptation to understand the expected fitness effect of fixing a mutation in a natural population. Fisher’s model in one dimension admits a closed form solution for this expected fitness effect. A combination of different parameters, including the distribution of mutation lengths, population sizes, and the initial state that the population is in, are examined to see how they affect the expected fitness effect of state transitions. The results show that the expected fitness change due to the fixation of a mutation is always positive, regardless of the distributional shapes of mutation lengths, effective population sizes, and the initial state that the population is in. The further away the initial state of a population is from the optimal state, the slower the population returns to the optimal state. Effective population size (except when very small) has little effect on the expected fitness change due to mutation fixation. The always positive expected fitness change suggests that small populations may not necessarily be doomed due to the runaway process of fixation of deleterious mutations

Localization of Control Synthesis Problem for Large-Scale Interconnected System Using IQC and Dissipativity Theories

The synthesis problem for the compositional performance certification of interconnected systems is considered. A fairly unified description of control synthesis problem is given using integral quadratic constraints (IQC) and dissipativity. Starting with a given large-scale interconnected system and a global performance objective, an optimization problem is formulated to search for admissible dissipativity properties of each subsystems. Local control laws are then synthesized to certify the relevant dissipativity properties. Moreover, the term localization is introduced to describe a finite collection of syntheses problems, for the local subsystems, which are a feasibility certificate for the global synthesis problem. Consequently, the problem of localizing the global problem to a smaller collection of disjointed sets of subsystems, called groups, is considered. This works looks promising as another way of looking at decentralized control and also as a way of doing performance specifications for components in a large-scale system

Licensing Complementary Patents: “Patent Trolls”, Market Structure, and “Excessive” Royalties

The infamous Blackberry case brought new attention to so-called “patent trolls” and began the general association of trolls with “non-practicing” patent holders. This has had important legal consequences: Namely, patent holders have been denied injunctive relief because they did not practice the patents themselves. In this paper we analyze how patent holders –– both non-practicing and vertically integrated –– choose their royalties depending on the structure of the upstream and downstream markets and the types of licensing agreements available. We show that a vertically integrated firm has an incentive to raise its rivals’ costs and to restrict entry on the downstream market; incentives that do not hold for non-integrated patent holders. An automatic presumption that a non-integrated patent holder will charge higher royalties than a vertically integrated company is therefore unfounded. Whether a company charges “excessive” royalties depends on whether there is scope for hold-up, either because of sunk investments on the part of potential licensees or because of “weak” patents held by the licensor. These factors are orthogonal to whether patent holders are practicing or no