Communicating You Are Worth It in a Noisy Marketplace

This paper provides guidance and specific examples of common elements needed for communicating the value proposition of liberal arts colleges to prospective students and families. In an environment where the worth of a college degree is questioned daily by the public and the mainstream media, this paper demonstrates how strategies that are distinctive, rooted in research and complementary to the institutional brand are imperative for communicating the worth of an institution. The paper suggests tactics to develop the key partnerships needed and provides metrics for how leaders can assess their value proposition initiatives

There goes the neighbourhood: Gentrification and marginality in modern life.

Gentrification is the term applied to the process whereby middle-class people move into working class areas in the inner city, either residential areas, or old warehouses or sweatshops. This thesis seeks on the one hand to explain gentrification as the consequence of the development of domestic technologies, and on the other to understand it as a metaphor rooted in the characteristic experience of marginality in modern life. Debate over the causes of gentrification have polarized around two themes: that gentrification is the consequence of the rise of a new middle class heralding the onset of a post-industrial or post-modern society; or that gentrification is just another example of the contradictions underpinning capitalist development (in this case, the contradiction between the value of a building and the value of the land on which it sits - the rent gap hypothesis). This thesis argues that the falling cost of domestic technologies such as washing machines and vacuum cleaners has made it possible to bring the value of housing services which can be supplied by a Victorian house into line with the value of the housing services provided by the most modern house. Gentrification is then explained as a consequence of the middle classes taking advantage of the opportunity offered by these developments. In contrast to the explanations currently dominating the gentrification debate, this thesis therefore argues that gentrifiers gentrify because they can, and not because they have to. Consequently, the explanation of gentrification has nothing to do with questions of class, nor indeed of gender. Gentrification is a transient, not a cyclical phenomenon, and would have occurred whether the process was carried out entirely by women or entirely by men. The currently dominant explanations of gentrification argue that gentrifiers gentrify because they have to as they are subject to forces beyond their control: the rise of post- industrial society; or the reappearance of accumulation crises in capitalist urban development. These explanations are then left with the problem, not of explaining the existence of gentrification in those inner-city areas where it does occur, but in explaining its absence from all those other inner-city areas in which it does not occur, since they are couched in such general terms that they could apply to every member of the middle classes or to every inner city area, not just those associated with gentrification. These explanations of gentrification therefore over-estimate its quantitative significance, also. The fact that this over-estimation occurs is however of great interest. Using arguments derived from Robert Park and Raymond Williams, this thesis suggests that the reason for this is that gentrification touches on many characteristic insecurities of modern life. Gentrification therefore has resonances far wider than its quantitative significance would suggest. 'Gentrification' is a metaphorical expression, derived from 'gentry', the rural landowning classes. Gentrification can best be understood, therefore, in terms of attempts to realize an Arcadian (and class) vision of the 'country': a stable retreat in the very heart of the everchanging and often threatening 'city'. Insofar as gentrification represents a particular strategy for dealing with a universally experienced condition, the study of gentrification illuminates the way we live now

Tissue biochemical diversity of 20 gooseberry cultivars and the effect of ethylene supplementation on postharvest life

The European gooseberry (Ribes uva-crispa) is still an understudied crop with limited data available on its biochemical profile and postharvest life. A variety of polyphenols were detected in the skin and flesh of 20 gooseberry cvs, representing mainly flavonol glycosides, anthocyanins and flavan-3-ols. In contrast, gooseberry seeds were for the first time characterised by the presence of considerable amounts of hydroxycinnamic acid glycosides tentatively identified by UPLC-QToF/MS. All cvs examined represented a good source of vitamin C while being low in sugar. Furthermore, the postharvest stability of bioactives was explored by supplementation of exogenous ethylene in air at 5 °C. Results suggest a low sensitivity of gooseberries to ethylene. The overall quality of gooseberries remained stable over two weeks, showing potential for extended bioactive life

An open-data, agent-based model of alcohol related crime

The allocation of resources to challenge city centre violent crime traditionally relies on historical data to identify hot-spots. The usefulness of such data-driven approaches is limited when historical data is scarce or unavailable (e.g. planning of a new city) or insufficiently representative (e.g. does not account for novel events, such as Olympic Games). In some cities, crime data is not systematically accumulated at all. We present a graph-constrained agent based simulation model of alcohol-related violent crime that is capable of predicting areas of likely violent crime without requiring any historical data. The only inputs to our simulation are publicly available geographical data, which makes our method immediately applicable to a wide range of tasks, such as optimal city planning, police patrol optimisation, devising alcohol licensing policies. In experiments, we evaluate our model and demonstrate agreement of our model's predictions on where and when violence will occur with real-world violent crime data. Analyses indicate that our agent based model may be able to make a significant contribution to attempts to prevent violence through deterrence or by design

Association of violence with urban points of interest

The association between alcohol outlets and violence has long been recognised, and is commonly used to inform policing and licensing policies (such as staggered closing times and zoning). Less investigated, however, is the association between violent crime and other urban points of interest, which while associated with the city centre alcohol consumption economy, are not explicitly alcohol outlets. Here, machine learning (specifically, LASSO regression) is used to model the distribution of violent crime for the central 9 km2 of ten large UK cities. Densities of 620 different Point of Interest types (sourced from Ordnance Survey) are used as predictors, with the 10 most explanatory variables being automatically selected for each city. Cross validation is used to test generalisability of each model. Results show that the inclusion of additional point of interest types produces a more accurate model, with significant increases in performance over a baseline univariate alcohol-outlet only model. Analysis of chosen variables for city-specific models shows potential candidates for new strategies on a per-city basis, with combined-model variables showing the general trend in POI/violence association across the UK. Although alcohol outlets remain the best individual predictor of violence, other points of interest should also be considered when modelling the distribution of violence in city centres. The presented method could be used to develop targeted, city-specific initiatives that go beyond alcohol outlets and also consider other locations

How do low horizontal forces produce disproportionately high torques in human locomotion?

Although horizontal ground forces are only ~15% of vertical forces, they account for 47% and 33% of the metabolic cost in walking and running. To explain these disproportionately high metabolic costs we hypothesized that low horizontal ground forces generate relatively high torques on body segments during locomotion and this is mediated by long moment arms. We compared external force moment arms and discreet torques applied to the body segments by horizontal and vertical forces during walking and running. Sixteen subjects (21.9 ± 1.9 years) walked at 1.5 m/s and 10 subjects (23.2 ± 2.0 years) ran at 3.83 m/s. Segmental torques in the sagittal plane were partitioned into components due to horizontal and vertical forces and quantified by their angular impulses. The mean (±S.E.) ratios of horizontal to vertical ground forces (GF ratio) and angular impulses (AI ratio) in walking were 0.131 (±0.003, 95% C.I. 0.124 to 0.137) and 0.530 (±0.018, C.I. 0.497 to 0.569). Results were similar in running. In both gaits the AI ratios were significantly greater than the GF ratios because the respective C.I.s did not overlap. The horizontal forces produced 53% and 41% as much angular impulse on the body segments as did the vertical forces in walking and running despite being only 13% as large. In the two movements the moment arms for the horizontal forces averaged across foot, leg, thigh, and trunk body segments were 3.8 fold larger than those for the vertical forces. The data supported the hypothesis and suggest that the relatively low horizontal vs vertical forces accounted for a disproportionately higher percentage of the angular impulses placed on the body segments and this effect was due to relatively long moment arms for horizontal forces. These results partially explain the relatively large metabolic cost of generating relatively low horizontal forces. Originally published Journal of Biomechanics, Vol. 41, No. 8, 200

Multidisciplinary consensus guideline for the diagnosis and management of spontaneous intracranial hypotension

BACKGROUND: We aimed to create a multidisciplinary consensus clinical guideline for best practice in the diagnosis, investigation and management of spontaneous intracranial hypotension (SIH) due to cerebrospinal fluid leak based on current evidence and consensus from a multidisciplinary specialist interest group (SIG). METHODS: A 29-member SIG was established, with members from neurology, neuroradiology, anaesthetics, neurosurgery and patient representatives. The scope and purpose of the guideline were agreed by the SIG by consensus. The SIG then developed guideline statements for a series of question topics using a modified Delphi process. This process was supported by a systematic literature review, surveys of patients and healthcare professionals and review by several international experts on SIH. RESULTS: SIH and its differential diagnoses should be considered in any patient presenting with orthostatic headache. First-line imaging should be MRI of the brain with contrast and the whole spine. First-line treatment is non-targeted epidural blood patch (EBP), which should be performed as early as possible. We provide criteria for performing myelography depending on the spine MRI result and response to EBP, and we outline principles of treatments. Recommendations for conservative management, symptomatic treatment of headache and management of complications of SIH are also provided. CONCLUSIONS: This multidisciplinary consensus clinical guideline has the potential to increase awareness of SIH among healthcare professionals, produce greater consistency in care, improve diagnostic accuracy, promote effective investigations and treatments and reduce disability attributable to SIH

Polychromatic guide star: feasibility study

International audienceAdaptive optics at astronomical telescopes aims at correcting in real time the phase corrugations of incoming wavefronts caused by the turbulent atmosphere, as early proposed by Babcock. Measuring the phase errors requires a bright source located within the isoplanatic patch of the program source. The probability that such a reference source exists is a function of the wavelength, of the required image quality (Strehl ratio), of the turbulence optical properties, and of the direction of the observation. It turns out that the sky coverage is disastrously low in particular in the visible wavelength range where, unfortunately, the gain in spatial resolution brought by adaptive optics is the largest. Foy and Labeyrie have proposed to overcome this difficulty by creating an artificial point source in the sky in the direction of the observation relying on the backscattered light due to a laser beam. This laser guide star (hereinafter referred to as LGS) can be bright enough to allow us to accurately measure the wavefront phase errors, except for two modes which are the piston (not relevant in this case) and the tilt. Pilkington has emphasized that the round trip time of the laser beam to the mesosphere, where the LGS is most often formed, is significantly shorter than the typical tilt coherence time; then the inverse-return-of-light principle causes deflections of the outgoing and the ingoing beams to cancel. The apparent direction of the LGS is independent of the tilt. Therefore the tilt cannot be measured only from the LGS. Until now, the way to overcome this difficulty has been to use a natural guide star to sense the tilt. Although the tilt is sensed through the entire telescope pupil, one cannot use a faint source because $APEX 90% of the variance of the phase error is in the tilt. Therefore, correcting the tilt requires a higher accuracy of the measurements than for higher orders of the wavefront. Hence current adaptive optics devices coupled with a LGS face low sky coverage. Several methods have been proposed to get a partial sky coverage for the tilt. The only one providing us with a full sky coverage is the polychromatic LGS (hereafter referred to as PLGS). We present here a progress report of the R&D; program Etoile Laser Polychromatique et Optique Adaptative (ELP-OA) carried out in France to develop the PLGS concept. After a short recall of the principles of the PLGS, we will review the goal of ELP-OA and the steps to get over to bring it into play. We finally shortly described the effort in Europe to develop the LGS

Polychromatic guide star: feasibility study

International audienceAdaptive optics at astronomical telescopes aims at correcting in real time the phase corrugations of incoming wavefronts caused by the turbulent atmosphere, as early proposed by Babcock. Measuring the phase errors requires a bright source located within the isoplanatic patch of the program source. The probability that such a reference source exists is a function of the wavelength, of the required image quality (Strehl ratio), of the turbulence optical properties, and of the direction of the observation. It turns out that the sky coverage is disastrously low in particular in the visible wavelength range where, unfortunately, the gain in spatial resolution brought by adaptive optics is the largest. Foy and Labeyrie have proposed to overcome this difficulty by creating an artificial point source in the sky in the direction of the observation relying on the backscattered light due to a laser beam. This laser guide star (hereinafter referred to as LGS) can be bright enough to allow us to accurately measure the wavefront phase errors, except for two modes which are the piston (not relevant in this case) and the tilt. Pilkington has emphasized that the round trip time of the laser beam to the mesosphere, where the LGS is most often formed, is significantly shorter than the typical tilt coherence time; then the inverse-return-of-light principle causes deflections of the outgoing and the ingoing beams to cancel. The apparent direction of the LGS is independent of the tilt. Therefore the tilt cannot be measured only from the LGS. Until now, the way to overcome this difficulty has been to use a natural guide star to sense the tilt. Although the tilt is sensed through the entire telescope pupil, one cannot use a faint source because $APEX 90% of the variance of the phase error is in the tilt. Therefore, correcting the tilt requires a higher accuracy of the measurements than for higher orders of the wavefront. Hence current adaptive optics devices coupled with a LGS face low sky coverage. Several methods have been proposed to get a partial sky coverage for the tilt. The only one providing us with a full sky coverage is the polychromatic LGS (hereafter referred to as PLGS). We present here a progress report of the R&D; program Etoile Laser Polychromatique et Optique Adaptative (ELP-OA) carried out in France to develop the PLGS concept. After a short recall of the principles of the PLGS, we will review the goal of ELP-OA and the steps to get over to bring it into play. We finally shortly described the effort in Europe to develop the LGS