A4_7 Supermassive (Interstellar) Black Hole

This paper considers the plausibility of an event from the 2014 film Interstellar. It states that an hour on a planet orbiting a supermassive back hole is equivalent to 7 years passing on Earth. Calculations made state that the planet is inside the minimum orbit for a planet around a black hole and would thus fall with a ballistic trajectory into the centre.However, a static system was assumed, so with an optically spinning black hole the planet may be in a stable orbit. A spacecraft orbiting at a distance unaffected by time dilation is also considered and found to be largely implausible

A4_8 The Power of Mjolnir

This paper calculates the maximum kinetic energy of Mjolnir can achieve being thrown by Thor and how much energy he can use from the redirection of lightning strikes during thunderstorms. The kinetic energy achieved from a throw was calculated to be 5.97 x 1018 J and the energy redirected from a single lightning flash was 108 J. It was also calculated that Thor could use the total power output of a thunderstorm equivalent to 2 x 1012 W

A4_4 Deeper Than Any Elephant Has Gone Before

 In this paper, the depth of an Olympic size swimming pool required to crush an elephant is calculated. The depth of the swimming pool required to half the volume of an elephant was calculated to be 1.02 x 106 m (1020km) equivalent to a pressure of 1.004 x 1010 Pa (approximately 100000 times that of atmospheric pressure). Although this is an overestimate, it shows the strength of bone

A4_3 The Human Barbecue

This paper considers the feasibility of the Human Torch, calculating the energy taken to turn a human body to plasma, generate a large amount of heat for long periods of time, and how much food would need to be consumed to provide the necessary energy. Johnny Storm's secondary power of absorbing thermal energy from his surroundings is also calculated as another way of fuelling his flames

A4_1 It's a-me Density!

This paper considers the composition of small scale planets as seen in the video game Super Mario Galaxy. With an approximate radius for these planets set at 50m, the required density to maintain Earth-like surface gravity is calculated and compared to known super-dense structures such as white-dwarfs. The stability of such a planet is then discussed and it is concluded that it would likely explode due to the severe imbalance of gravitational pressure to degeneracy and coulomb pressures

ARCHANGEL: Tamper-proofing Video Archives using Temporal Content Hashes on the Blockchain

We present ARCHANGEL; a novel distributed ledger based system for assuring the long-term integrity of digital video archives. First, we describe a novel deep network architecture for computing compact temporal content hashes (TCHs) from audio-visual streams with durations of minutes or hours. Our TCHs are sensitive to accidental or malicious content modification (tampering) but invariant to the codec used to encode the video. This is necessary due to the curatorial requirement for archives to format shift video over time to ensure future accessibility. Second, we describe how the TCHs (and the models used to derive them) are secured via a proof-of-authority blockchain distributed across multiple independent archives. We report on the efficacy of ARCHANGEL within the context of a trial deployment in which the national government archives of the United Kingdom, Estonia and Norway participated.Comment: Accepted to CVPR Blockchain Workshop 201

Multimorbidity and socioeconomic deprivation in primary care consultations

Purpose: The influence of multimorbidity on the clinical encounter is poorly understood, especially in areas of high socioeconomic deprivation where burdensome multimorbidity is concentrated. The aim of the current study was to examine the effect of multimorbidity on general practice consultations, in areas of high and low deprivation. Methods: We conducted secondary analyses of 659 video-recorded routine consultations involving 25 general practitioners (GPs) in deprived areas and 22 in affluent areas of Scotland. Patients rated the GP’s empathy using the Consultation and Relational Empathy (CARE) measure immediately after the consultation. Videos were analyzed using the Measure of Patient-Centered Communication. Multilevel, multi-regression analysis identified differences between the groups. Results: In affluent areas, patients with multimorbidity received longer consultations than patients without multimorbidity (mean 12.8 minutes vs 9.3, respectively; P = .015), but this was not so in deprived areas (mean 9.9 minutes vs 10.0 respectively; P = .774). In affluent areas, patients with multimorbidity perceived their GP as more empathic (P = .009) than patients without multimorbidity; this difference was not found in deprived areas (P = .344). Video analysis showed that GPs in affluent areas were more attentive to the disease and illness experience in patients with multimorbidity (P < .031) compared with patients without multimorbidity. This was not the case in deprived areas (P = .727). Conclusions: In deprived areas, the greater need of patients with multimorbidity is not reflected in the longer consultation length, higher GP patient centeredness, and higher perceived GP empathy found in affluent areas. Action is required to redress this mismatch of need and service provision for patients with multimorbidity if health inequalities are to be narrowed rather than widened by primary care

CancerGenes: a gene selection resource for cancer genome projects

The genome sequence framework provided by the human genome project allows us to precisely map human genetic variations in order to study their association with disease and their direct effects on gene function. Since the description of tumor suppressor genes and oncogenes several decades ago, both germ-line variations and somatic mutations have been established to be important in cancer—in terms of risk, oncogenesis, prognosis and response to therapy. The Cancer Genome Atlas initiative proposed by the NIH is poised to elucidate the contribution of somatic mutations to cancer development and progression through the re-sequencing of a substantial fraction of the total collection of human genes—in hundreds of individual tumors and spanning several tumor types. We have developed the CancerGenes resource to simplify the process of gene selection and prioritization in large collaborative projects. CancerGenes combines gene lists annotated by experts with information from key public databases. Each gene is annotated with gene name(s), functional description, organism, chromosome number, location, Entrez Gene ID, GO terms, InterPro descriptions, gene structure, protein length, transcript count, and experimentally determined transcript control regions, as well as links to Entrez Gene, COSMIC, and iHOP gene pages and the UCSC and Ensembl genome browsers. The user-friendly interface provides for searching, sorting and intersection of gene lists. Users may view tabulated results through a web browser or may dynamically download them as a spreadsheet table. CancerGenes is available at

ARCHANGEL: Trusted Archives of Digital Public Documents

We present ARCHANGEL; a de-centralised platform for ensuring the long-term integrity of digital documents stored within public archives. Document integrity is fundamental to public trust in archives. Yet currently that trust is built upon institutional reputation --- trust at face value in a centralised authority, like a national government archive or University. ARCHANGEL proposes a shift to a technological underscoring of that trust, using distributed ledger technology (DLT) to cryptographically guarantee the provenance, immutability and so the integrity of archived documents. We describe the ARCHANGEL architecture, and report on a prototype of that architecture build over the Ethereum infrastructure. We report early evaluation and feedback of ARCHANGEL from stakeholders in the research data archives space.Comment: Submitted to ACM Document Engineering 201

The Grizzly, August 30, 2007

Ursinus Opens the New Building on the Block • Ursinus Battles U.S. News: Interview with President Strassburger • Sex at Ursinus • Who are the New RDs? • Spotlight: Student Emergency Response Volunteers (SERV) • Fresh Faces at Ursinus • Opinions: Freeganism: The New, Gentle Face of Anarchy; Global Warming: Modern Day Witch Hunt • Dubble Vision: Football Forecast • Ready, Set, Go Bears!https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1740/thumbnail.jp