Google+ vs Facebook: The Comparison

Social networks are a varyingly popular tool used to connect with friends, colleagues and/or family. Recently, Facebook has been at the top of the social network food chain, with Bebo and MySpace decreasing in users and the huge increase of users joining Facebook in such a short time. Google have just recently launched Google+, a social networking site. This is not the first time that Google have attempted to break into the social networking scene but it is possible that these failed attempts may have taught them something. As Facebook’s user base is extremely diverse, spreading across different countries, races, ages, professions, and interests, to name a few, this network is a good model to compare new rival Google+ to. Google+ has set out to do the same things as Facebook but better to try and steal away some of that high power and necessity that Facebook has gained. Facebook has News feed, Google has Stream. Facebook has Lists, Google has circles. Facebook has like’s, Google has +1. Facebook accounts for 10% of overall internet usage. This paper will look at various comparables between the two social networks and analyse the better functionality, design and ease of use. It will then conclude a verdict on which is the better social network to use overall.

Repeatability of plantar pressure assessment during barefoot walking in people with stroke

Stroke-related changes in foot structure and function affect balance and mobility and quantifying foot function following stroke could offer clinically useful information to inform rehabilitation. The aim of this work was to explore the feasibility of undertaking plantar pressure assessment during barefoot walking in people with stroke, and evaluate the repeatability of the assessment protocol and regional footprint analysis as a measure of dynamic foot characteristics

Save reefs to rescue all ecosystems

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Nature Research via the DOI in this recor

Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia: Insights from Lymph Nodes & Bone Marrow and Clinical Perspectives

B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) is characterized by highly variable distribution of tumor mass between peripheral blood, bone marrow and lymphoid organs which is important for staging, classification and prognosis. These clinical findings with novel data about importance of B-cell receptor and its stimulation with the support of microenvironment indicate important role of tissues (lymphoid organs and bone marrow) in the pathogenesis of B-CLL. Here is presented the novel approach of simultaneous characterization of B-CLL cells form peripheral blood, bone marrow and lymph nodes by flow cytometry and immunocytochemistry, defining inter- and intraclonal diversity with respect to various molecules. These include adhesion molecules (integrins, immunoglobulins, selectins), chemokine receptors (including CXCR-4), signaling molecules and prognostic factors (CD38 and ZAP-70), proliferation and apoptosis markers (including Ki67, AgNORs with PK index, survivin, bcl-2) and therapeutic targets (CD20 and CD52) and residual hematopoietic stem cells. A number of interesting significant interactions have been discovered, pointing to the important role of neoplastic cell microenvironment. These may in addition to insights in pathogenesis and roles of different microenvironments add to diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of B-CLL patients

Mitigation and adaptation in polycentric systems: sources of power in the pursuit of collective goals

This is the final version of the article. Available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.Polycentric governance involves multiple actors at multiple scales beyond the state. The potential of polycentric governance for promoting both climate mitigation and adaptation is well established. Yet, dominant conceptualizations of polycentric governance pay scant attention to how power dynamics affect the structure and the outcomes of climate action. We review emerging evidence on power within polycentric and distributed governance across the climate, forestry, marine, coastal, urban, and water sectors, and relate them to established positions on power within research on federalism, decentralization, international relations, and networked governance. We develop a typology of design, pragmatic, and framing power that focuses on how and in whose interests power is mobilized to achieve outcomes. We propose that the conceptual model helps to explain power dynamics across different sectors and across both climate change mitigation and adaptation. Significant research challenges arising from the analysis include the measurement and monitoring of the outcomes of power asymmetries over time.The Australian Research Council supported this work

COVID-19 impacts equine welfare : Policy implications for laminitis and obesity

Funding: This study was funded by Mars Petcare and is part of a PhD studentship funded by the Scottish Funding Council Research Excellence Grant (REG). Authors WR and MN receive salary support from the Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division (RESAS). With the exception of PH (employed by the funding organization), the funding organization did not have any additional role in the conceptualization, methodology, investigation, data curation, formal analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. PH was involved in study design, data interpretation, and manuscript preparation. Acknowledgments We wish to extend our gratitude to the local horse owners, veterinarians, farriers and welfare centre managers who volunteered their time to take part in this research. Our thanks also to Dr Charlotte Maltin for supporting recruitment for the study and to World Horse Welfare for their continued interest in the key welfare issues addressed in the present study.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The Dawn of Open Access to Phylogenetic Data

The scientific enterprise depends critically on the preservation of and open access to published data. This basic tenet applies acutely to phylogenies (estimates of evolutionary relationships among species). Increasingly, phylogenies are estimated from increasingly large, genome-scale datasets using increasingly complex statistical methods that require increasing levels of expertise and computational investment. Moreover, the resulting phylogenetic data provide an explicit historical perspective that critically informs research in a vast and growing number of scientific disciplines. One such use is the study of changes in rates of lineage diversification (speciation - extinction) through time. As part of a meta-analysis in this area, we sought to collect phylogenetic data (comprising nucleotide sequence alignment and tree files) from 217 studies published in 46 journals over a 13-year period. We document our attempts to procure those data (from online archives and by direct request to corresponding authors), and report results of analyses (using Bayesian logistic regression) to assess the impact of various factors on the success of our efforts. Overall, complete phylogenetic data for ~60% of these studies are effectively lost to science. Our study indicates that phylogenetic data are more likely to be deposited in online archives and/or shared upon request when: (1) the publishing journal has a strong data-sharing policy; (2) the publishing journal has a higher impact factor, and; (3) the data are requested from faculty rather than students. Although the situation appears dire, our analyses suggest that it is far from hopeless: recent initiatives by the scientific community -- including policy changes by journals and funding agencies -- are improving the state of affairs

On the early evolution of the Galactic Halo

It is shown that the low metallicity tail of the stellar metallicity distribution predicted by simple Outflow models for the Milky Way halo depends sensitively on whether Instantaneous Recycling is adopted or relaxed. In both cases, current - and still preliminary - data suggest a ``G-dwarf problem'' for the halo (reminiscent of the local disk). We suggest that the problem can be solved by introducing a (physically motivated) early infall phase. We point out several important implications of such a modification, concerning: the putative Pop. III (super)massive stars, the number of stars expected at very low metallicities, the questions of primary nitrogen and of the dispersion in abundance ratios of halo stars.Comment: Astronomy and Astrophysics, accepted for publication (5 pages, 1 fig.

Evolution of associative learning in chemical networks

Organisms that can learn about their environment and modify their behaviour appropriately during their lifetime are more likely to survive and reproduce than organisms that do not. While associative learning – the ability to detect correlated features of the environment – has been studied extensively in nervous systems, where the underlying mechanisms are reasonably well understood, mechanisms within single cells that could allow associative learning have received little attention. Here, using in silico evolution of chemical networks, we show that there exists a diversity of remarkably simple and plausible chemical solutions to the associative learning problem, the simplest of which uses only one core chemical reaction. We then asked to what extent a linear combination of chemical concentrations in the network could approximate the ideal Bayesian posterior of an environment given the stimulus history so far? This Bayesian analysis revealed the ’memory traces’ of the chemical network. The implication of this paper is that there is little reason to believe that a lack of suitable phenotypic variation would prevent associative learning from evolving in cell signalling, metabolic, gene regulatory, or a mixture of these networks in cells

The incidence of scarring on the dorsum of the hand

When undertaking image comparison of the hand between accused and perpetrator, it is not unusual for scars to be identified on the back of the hand. To investigate the occurrence of scarring in a discreet sample, a database of 238 individuals was examined, and the dorsum of the right and left hands was gridded for each individual. The position, size and type of scar were recorded within each grid. It was found that, in general, males exhibited a higher incidence of scarring than females. However, males were more likely to show scarring on their left hand whereas females were more likely to exhibit scarring on their right hand. Contrary to the literature, scarring was not most prevalent along the borders of the hand but occurred more frequently in association with the index and middle finger corridor regions. Surgical scars were rare as were large scars whereas linear scars smaller than 6 mm were the most frequently identified. Close to half of the sample did not exhibit scarring on one hand. The importance of understanding the pattern of scarring on the back of the hand is discussed in the light of forensic image comparison analysis