Using self-categorization theory to uncover the framing of the 2015 Rugby World Cup: a cross-cultural comparison of three nations’ newspapers

Research into the framing of sporting events has been extensively studied to uncover newspaper bias in the coverage of global sporting events. Through discourse, the media attempt to capture, build, and maintain audiences for the duration of sporting events through the use of multiple narratives and/or storylines. Little research has looked at the ways in which the same event is reported across different nations, and media representations of the Rugby World Cup have rarely featured in discussions of the framing of sport events. The present study highlights the different ways in which rugby union is portrayed across the three leading Southern Hemisphere nations in the sport. It also shows the prominence of nationalistic discourse across those nations and importance of self-categorizations in newspaper narratives.</jats:p

An Empirical Investigation of Debt Contract Design: The Determinants of the Choice of Debt Terms in Eurobond Issues

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the determinants for the optimal choice of contract terms on Eurobonds issued by UK companies. We examine predictions of extant theories that associate the choice of debt features namely, maturity, call options, convertible options, and protective covenants to firm and market characteristics. Like in Correia (2003), a simultaneous equations approach is adopted to test the alternative use of contract features for mitigating debt-contracting costs. The evidence provides strong support to the prediction that both callable and short-term debt and convertible and debt with protective covenants are used as alternative control devises to mitigate agency costs. Further evidence suggests, however, that contrary to the fundamentals guiding the choice of maturity and callability structures, the use of conversion options and protective covenants in Eurobond contracts seems to be determined by equity agency costs rather than debt agency costs. Also, some support is found for the risk uncertainty theory underlying the use of convertibles and for liquidity risk arguments regarding the choice to include protective covenants.

Mitofusins Mfn1 and Mfn2 coordinately regulate mitochondrial fusion and are essential for embryonic development

Mitochondrial morphology is determined by a dynamic equilibrium between organelle fusion and fission, but the significance of these processes in vertebrates is unknown. The mitofusins, Mfn1 and Mfn2, have been shown to affect mitochondrial morphology when overexpressed. We find that mice deficient in either Mfn1 or Mfn2 die in midgestation. However, whereas Mfn2 mutant embryos have a specific and severe disruption of the placental trophoblast giant cell layer, Mfn1-deficient giant cells are normal. Embryonic fibroblasts lacking Mfn1 or Mfn2 display distinct types of fragmented mitochondria, a phenotype we determine to be due to a severe reduction in mitochondrial fusion. Moreover, we find that Mfn1 and Mfn2 form homotypic and heterotypic complexes and show, by rescue of mutant cells, that the homotypic complexes are functional for fusion. We conclude that Mfn1 and Mfn2 have both redundant and distinct functions and act in three separate molecular complexes to promote mitochondrial fusion. Strikingly, a subset of mitochondria in mutant cells lose membrane potential. Therefore, mitochondrial fusion is essential for embryonic development, and by enabling cooperation between mitochondria, has protective effects on the mitochondrial population

Functional programming framework for GRworkbench

The software tool GRworkbench is an ongoing project in visual, numerical General Relativity at The Australian National University. Recently, the numerical differential geometric engine of GRworkbench has been rewritten using functional programming techniques. By allowing functions to be directly represented as program variables in C++ code, the functional framework enables the mathematical formalism of Differential Geometry to be more closely reflected in GRworkbench . The powerful technique of `automatic differentiation' has replaced numerical differentiation of the metric components, resulting in more accurate derivatives and an order-of-magnitude performance increase for operations relying on differentiation

LoCoH: nonparameteric kernel methods for constructing home ranges and utilization distributions.

Parametric kernel methods currently dominate the literature regarding the construction of animal home ranges (HRs) and utilization distributions (UDs). These methods frequently fail to capture the kinds of hard boundaries common to many natural systems. Recently a local convex hull (LoCoH) nonparametric kernel method, which generalizes the minimum convex polygon (MCP) method, was shown to be more appropriate than parametric kernel methods for constructing HRs and UDs, because of its ability to identify hard boundaries (e.g., rivers, cliff edges) and convergence to the true distribution as sample size increases. Here we extend the LoCoH in two ways: "fixed sphere-of-influence," or r-LoCoH (kernels constructed from all points within a fixed radius r of each reference point), and an "adaptive sphere-of-influence," or a-LoCoH (kernels constructed from all points within a radius a such that the distances of all points within the radius to the reference point sum to a value less than or equal to a), and compare them to the original "fixed-number-of-points," or k-LoCoH (all kernels constructed from k-1 nearest neighbors of root points). We also compare these nonparametric LoCoH to parametric kernel methods using manufactured data and data collected from GPS collars on African buffalo in the Kruger National Park, South Africa. Our results demonstrate that LoCoH methods are superior to parametric kernel methods in estimating areas used by animals, excluding unused areas (holes) and, generally, in constructing UDs and HRs arising from the movement of animals influenced by hard boundaries and irregular structures (e.g., rocky outcrops). We also demonstrate that a-LoCoH is generally superior to k- and r-LoCoH (with software for all three methods available at http://locoh.cnr.berkeley.edu)

Charitable Deductions for Rail-Trail Conversions: Reconciling the Partial Interest Rule and the National Trails System Act

This Article examines an undeveloped legal topic at the intersection of tax law and real property law: charitable deductions from income tax liability for donations of railroad corridors that are to be converted into recreational trails. The very popular rails-to-trails program assists in the conversion of abandoned railroad corridors into hiking and biking trails. However, the legal questions surrounding the property rights of these corridors have been complex and highly litigated. In 1983, Congress amended the National Trails System Act to provide a mechanism for facilitating these conversions, a process called railbanking. In essence, a railroad transfers its real property interests in its corridor to a trail sponsor for interim trail use and retains a right to re-enter in the event that rail service needs to be reactivated on the line. Thus, the dual purposes of the statute -- interim trail use and rail preservation -- are furthered by a process that prevents the corridor from being broken up and irrevocably lost. An important element of railbanking and trail conversion is the prospect for the railroads of a deduction from their income tax liability when they donate these corridors for public trail use. Recently, however, the Internal Revenue Service ( IRS ) has begun to question the donations by invoking the so-called partial interest rule. Should the IRS prevail in applying this rule, the deduction would be entirely disallowed under current Internal Revenue Code provisions. This Article discusses the interaction of these two areas of law and proposes ways the railroads can draft their trail use agreements to minimize the likelihood of being challenged by the IRS, and ways the IRS, the Surface Transportation Board, Congress, and the railroads can work together to reconcile the conflict in these different laws. In the end, we believe that the rail preservation function is critical to the public welfare and that it is in everyone\u27s best interest to further railbanking and interim trail use. However, doing so requires careful drafting and perhaps regulatory changes to ensure that railroads do not unfairly take advantage of the tax system, while at the same time maintaining an incentive for railroads to railbank and offer their corridors for future public use

Exploring the Variable Sky with LINEAR. I. Photometric Recalibration with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

We describe photometric recalibration of data obtained by the asteroid survey LINEAR. Although LINEAR was designed for astrometric discovery of moving objects, the data set described here contains over 5 billion photometric measurements for about 25 million objects, mostly stars. We use Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data from the overlapping ~10,000 deg^2 of sky to recalibrate LINEAR photometry and achieve errors of 0.03 mag for sources not limited by photon statistics with errors of 0.2 mag at r ~ 18. With its 200 observations per object on average, LINEAR data provide time domain information for the brightest four magnitudes of the SDSS survey. At the same time, LINEAR extends the deepest similar wide-area variability survey, the Northern Sky Variability Survey, by 3 mag. We briefly discuss the properties of about 7000 visually confirmed periodic variables, dominated by roughly equal fractions of RR Lyrae stars and eclipsing binary stars, and analyze their distribution in optical and infrared color-color diagrams. The LINEAR data set is publicly available from the SkyDOT Web site

Numerical wave optics and the lensing of gravitational waves by globular clusters

We consider the possible effects of gravitational lensing by globular clusters on gravitational waves from asymmetric neutron stars in our galaxy. In the lensing of gravitational waves, the long wavelength, compared with the usual case of optical lensing, can lead to the geometrical optics approximation being invalid, in which case a wave optical solution is necessary. In general, wave optical solutions can only be obtained numerically. We describe a computational method that is particularly well suited to numerical wave optics. This method enables us to compare the properties of several lens models for globular clusters without ever calling upon the geometrical optics approximation, though that approximation would sometimes have been valid. Finally, we estimate the probability that lensing by a globular cluster will significantly affect the detection, by ground-based laser interferometer detectors such as LIGO, of gravitational waves from an asymmetric neutron star in our galaxy, finding that the probability is insignificantly small.Comment: To appear in: Proceedings of the Eleventh Marcel Grossmann Meetin