African development and African studies

It is in part because of widespread concerns about the magnitude and posited intractability of problems facing African countries that development has become such a popular strand within African Studies. A sense of disappointment, within some academic circles and the popular press more widely, has arisen from the perceived lack of progress in the African context towards standard developmental goals such as longer life expectancy, greater opportunities for economic security and stability, or a more equitable distribution of profits made from the exploitation and sale of Africa’s natural resources. That disappointment, the extent to which it is warranted, and the appropriate response to it weave the common thread running through all three of the books reviewed here

Opthalmic impairment at 7 years of age in children born very preterm

Aims: To determine the prevalence of ophthalmic impairments in very preterm compared with term infants, the relation between impairments and cerebral ultrasound appearances and retinopathy, and the correlation with visual perception and motor and cognitive measures. Subjects: 279 children at 7 years of age born before 32 weeks gestation within Liverpool during 1991–92 and attending mainstream schools, and 210 term controls. Methods: Visual acuity was assessed by Snellen chart, and strabismus by the cover test. Stereopsis was determined using the TNO random dot test, and contrast sensitivity using the Cambridge low contrast gratings. Visual and motor abilities were assessed using the Developmental test of motor integration (VMI) and the Movement ABC. Intelligence was measured with the Wechsler intelligence scale for children UK. Perinatal cranial ultrasound and retinopathy data were extracted from clinical records. Results: Children born preterm were significantly more likely to wear glasses, to have poor visual acuity, reduced stereopsis, and strabismus than term controls, but they showed no significant decrease in contrast sensitivity. Ophthalmic impairments were significantly related to poorer scores on the VMI, Movement ABC, and Wechsler IQ tests, but were not significantly related to neonatal cranial ultrasound appearances. Stage 3 retinopathy was related to poorer subsequent acuity. Conclusions: Children born very preterm and without major neurodevelopmental sequelae have an increased prevalence of ophthalmic impairments at primary school age which are associated with visual perceptional, motor, and cognitive defects. The cause may be a generalised abnormality of cortical development rather than perinatally acquired focal lesions of the brain

Mariana Islands - US military strategy 'on hold'

For more about the East-West Center, see http://www.eastwestcenter.org/Grant Newsham, Senior Research Fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies, explains that “CNMI and Guam, both American territories, are strategically important given their locations in the Western Pacific close to Asia.

Narratives of transnational adolescent girls: Identity constructions and affiliation formations

This study explores through narrative analysis two transnational adolescent girls’ identities and their places of belonging. By examining their narratives in the formation of three different affiliations [(1) the heritage culture; (2) the heritage language; and (3) the family lifestyle], the study reveals that the two participants display contrasting stances in forming each affiliation. While one of the participants positions herself as someone who embraces her heritage cultures and proudly uses and maintains her heritage languages, the other participant displays her stance differently and less enthusiastically, although she shows respect and interest in her heritage culture and language. The study suggests the environment in which the participants grew up and the degree of their exposure to those heritage cultures and languages played a significant role in influencing their sensemaking

Mapping ms-ptc programmatic core competencies to emerging professionalization standards: are our students fully prepared?

This paper explores evaluation of graduate student preparedness for work in technical communication and emerging professionalization standards by way of an alumni survey. This paper argues that these core competencies can be evaluated and aligned and provides an example confirming both the New Jersey Institute of Technology Masters of Science in Professional and Technical Communication (NJIT MS-PTC) and the Society of Technical Communication (STC) Body of Knowledge (BOK) and core competencies used in STC certification. The study was conducted through the month of October 2013 and queried alumni of the NJIT MS-PTC program. This paper seeks to suggest a method to map core competencies of any university program to professionalization standards and contributes to the debate on student preparedness and program evaluation

Differing preferences of Antarctic soil nematodes for microbial prey

We tested the preferences of three nematode taxa, Geomonhystera villosa, Plectus spp. and Teratocephalus spp., extracted from moss at Signy Island in the Maritime Antarctic, for two microalgae, three microfungi and six heterotrophic bacteria, each also from soils at Signy Island. Choice test experiments on water agar medium, in which nematodes were enumerated in wells containing microbes at 24 and 48 h, indicated that there were differing preferences between nematodes for distinct prey. G. villosa was significantly attracted to the alga Chlorella cf. minutissima and the fungus Mortierella hyalina, and was more attracted to all algae and fungi than either of the other two nematodes. Both G. villosa and Teratocephalus spp. were attracted to an actinobacterium. Plectus spp. were significantly attracted to the alga Stichococcus bacillaris and bacteria with close taxonomic affinities to Arthrobacter, Pseudomonas and Polaromonas. Experiments using 0.5 μm diameter fluorescent beads indicated significantly increased ingestion by nematodes in the presence of each of these microbes compared with controls, except by Plectus spp. in the presence of S. bacillaris. We conclude that complex trophic interactions may occur in apparently simple Antarctic soil food webs

Tau functions for linear systems

Let $(-A,B,C)$ be a linear system in continuous time $t>0$ with input and output space $\mathbb{C}$ and state space $H$. The function $\phi_{(x)}(t)=Ce^{-(t+2x)A}B$ determines a Hankel integral operator $\Gamma_{\phi_{(x)}}$ on $L^2((0, \infty ); \mathbb{C})$; if $\Gamma_{\phi_{(x)}}$ is trace class, then the Fredholm determinant $\tau (x)=\det (I+ \Gamma_{\phi_{(x)}})$ defines the tau function of $(-A,B,C)$. Such tau functions arise in Tracy and Widom's theory of matrix models, where they describe the fundamental probability distributions of random matrix theory. Dyson considered such tau functions in the inverse spectral problem for Schr\"odinger's equation $-f''+uf=\lambda f$, and derived the formula for the potential $u(x)=-2{{d^2}\over{dx^2}}\log \tau (x)$ in the self-adjoint scattering case {\sl Commun. Math. Phys.} {\bf 47} (1976), 171--183. This paper introduces a operator function $R_x$ that satisfies Lyapunov's equation ${{dR_x}\over{dx}}=-AR_x-R_xA$ and $\tau (x)=\det (I+R_x)$, without assumptions of self-adjointness. When $-A$ is sectorial, and $B,C$ are Hilbert--Schmidt, there exists a non-commutative differential ring ${\mathcal A}$ of operators in $H$ and a differential ring homomorphism $\lfloor\,\,\rfloor :{\mathcal A}\rightarrow \mathbb{C}[u,u', \dots ]$ such that $u=-4\lfloor A\rfloor$, which extends the multiplication rules for Hankel operators considered by P\"oppe, and McKean {\sl Cent. Eur. J. Math.} {\bf 9} (2011), 205--243. \pa

Molecular diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi colonising Hyacinthoides non-scripta (bluebell) in a seminatural woodland

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi form symbiotic associations with plant roots. Around 150 species have been described and it is becoming clear that many of these species have different functional properties. The species diversity of AM fungi actively growing in roots is therefore an important component of ecosystem diversity. However, it is difficult to identify AM fungi below the genus level from morphology in planta, as they possess few informative characters. We present here a molecular method for identifying infrageneric sequence types that estimate the taxonomic diversity of AM fungi present in actively growing roots. Bluebell roots were sampled from beneath two different canopy types, oak and sycamore, and DNA sequences were amplified from roots by the polymerase chain reaction with fungal-specific primers for part of the small subunit ribosomal RNA gene. Restriction fragment length polymorphism among 141 clones was assessed and 62 clones were sequenced. When aligned, discrete sequence groups emerged that cluster into the three families of AM fungi: Acaulosporaceae, Gigasporaceae and Glomaceae. The sequence variation is consistent with rRNA secondary structure. The same sequence types were found at both sampling times. Frequencies of Scutellospora increased in December, and Acaulospora increased in abundance in July. Sites with a sycamore canopy show a reduced abundance of Acaulospora, and those with oak showed a reduced abundance of Glomus. These distribution patterns are consistent with previous morphological studies carried out in this woodland. The molecular method provides an alternative method of estimating the distribution and abundance of AM fungi, and has the potential to provide greater resolution at the infrageneric level