Riverside One, Middlesbrough

Riverside One is an apartment block in Middlesbrough built as part of the regeneration of the former industrial Middlehaven Docks. The brief for the building was to deliver a highly sustainable, landmark housing project exceeding Eco Homes ‘Excellent’, in line with ‘One Planet Living’ sustainability goals. The building addresses the following research questions: How can a memorable building challenge the flatness of generic urban planning within the framework of market driven regeneration? How can the communicative surface perform architecturally? How can environmental principles be incorporated into an art based architecture practice? The design of Riverside One was driven by contextual concerns involving detailed fieldwork and a close reading of the site to discover the narratives of place and the specifics of its history. Found models were then reworked through collagist / dada-ist methods to create a new assemblage that carried with it old associations and meanings and created new ones. Methods used to reorganise existing information into a new constellation were the appropriation of images, references, history and values; collage, juxtaposition and humour. At the same time as this visual, aesthetic research, Riverside One required considerable environmental and technical research to meet its sustainability standards. This involved participation in numerous sustainability workshops and in depth, detail design of the building’s external façade to ensure water and airtightness. Riverside One is a contentious building that has been widely disseminated and debated in the architectural and public media. This includes articles in dezeen, Building Design, Architects Journal and The Guardian. Built at a time of financial plenty and when there was a great deal of optimism about urban regeneration, it is seen as both representative of that optimism and all that was unreal about it. Griffiths was the lead architect for FAT on the project

Limits on muon-neutrino to tau-neutrino oscillations induced by a sterile neutrino state obtained by OPERA at the CNGS beam

The OPERA experiment, exposed to the CERN to Gran Sasso $\nu_\mu$ beam, collected data from 2008 to 2012. Four oscillated $\nu_\tau$ Charged Current interaction candidates have been detected in appearance mode, which are consistent with $\nu_\mu \to \nu_\tau$ oscillations at the atmospheric $\Delta m^2$ within the "standard" three-neutrino framework. In this paper, the OPERA $\nu_\tau$ appearance results are used to derive limits on the mixing parameters of a massive sterile neutrino.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures; reference to Planck result updated in the Introduction. Submitted to JHE

Latent regulatory potential of human-specific repetitive elements

At least half of the human genome is derived from repetitive elements, which are often lineage specific and silenced by a variety of genetic and epigenetic mechanisms. Using a transchromosomic mouse strain that transmits an almost complete single copy of human chromosome 21 via the female germline, we show that a heterologous regulatory environment can transcriptionally activate transposon-derived human regulatory regions. In the mouse nucleus, hundreds of locations on human chromosome 21 newly associate with activating histone modifications in both somatic and germline tissues, and influence the gene expression of nearby transcripts. These regions are enriched with primate and human lineage-specific transposable elements, and their activation corresponds to changes in DNA methylation at CpG dinucleotides. This study reveals the latent regulatory potential of the repetitive human genome and illustrates the species specificity of mechanisms that control it

Blending Learning: The Evolution of Online and Face-to-Face Education from 20082015

In 2008, iNACOL produced a series of papers documenting promising practices identified throughout the field of K–12 online learning. Since then, we have witnessed a tremendous acceleration of transformative policy and practice driving personalized learning in the K–12 education space. State, district, school, and classroom leaders recognize that the ultimate potential for blended and online learning lies in the opportunity to transform the education system and enable higher levels of learning through competency-based approaches.iNACOL's core work adds significant value to the field by providing a powerful practitioner voice in policy advocacy, communications, and in the creation of resources and best practices to enable transformational change in K–12 education.We worked with leaders throughout the field to update these resources for a new generation of pioneers working towards the creation of student-centered learning environments.This refreshed series, Promising Practices in Blended and Online Learning, explores some of the approaches developed by practitioners and policymakers in response to key issues in K–12 education, including:Blended Learning: The Evolution of Online and Face-to-Face Education from 2008-2015;Using Blended and Online Learning for Credit Recovery and At-Risk Students;Oversight and Management of Blended and Online Programs: Ensuring Quality and Accountability; andFunding and Legislation for Blended and Online Education.Personalized learning environments provide the very best educational opportunities and personalized pathways for all students, with highly qualified teachers delivering world-class instruction using innovative digital resources and content. Through this series of white papers, we are pleased to share the promising practices in K–12 blended, online, and competency education transforming teaching and learning today

Success factors of Internet-based business models

The NASDAQ crash in April 2000 and the widespread stock market upheavals seem to question the success of the Internet economy. Alongside spectacular failures of dotcomes such as boo.com and webvan.com, however, there are also very on successful e-businesses such as eBay. In this paper, key results of empirical studies on critical success factors of Internet-based business models are presented and discussed. Because of several research limitations and the premature stage of development of e-business, much more sophisticated studies are needed in this new field of empirical research. --

Natural Degradation of Earthworks, Trenches, Walls and Moats, Northern Thailand

“………..structures of this kind are hidden away securely under the thick overgrowth: thus does nature preserve what man would surely destroy” (from Sumet Jumsai, 1970) We investigate the geometry, age, and history of several enigmatic northern Thailand earthwork entrenchments that are mostly located on hills and could not have held water to form moats. The earthworks are either oval or rectangular in map view; and they typically encircle 0.3-to-1-km2 areas that do not have potsherd debris indicative of former towns. Most trenches are 3-5 m deep with inner walls 4.5-8 m high. Some encircling earthworks are concentric double trenches spaced approximately 10 m apart. Historians have suggested these earthworks enclosed defensible areas where people in outlying villages sought refuge when under attack by neighboring rulers, the Chinese Ho, or the Burmese. We believe that some encircling entrenchments may have been for the capture or containment of elephants. Nearly all of the once near-vertical original walls have degraded to slopes of 32-47°. Fitting calculated curves of the diffusion-based scarp-degradation model to our height-slope data, and assuming most scarps have degraded since the end of La Na Kingdom time A.D. 1558. We derive a diffusion coefficient of 0.002 m2 y-1. Slopes of the rectangular earthwork at Souvannkhomkham, Laos, across the Mekong River from Chiang Saen Noi, are significantly more degraded (approximately 32°), indicating an age of 800-1200 years. Locations of these earthworks are established in hope that they will be preserved as part of the Thai and Lao archaeological legacy

Menorah Review (No. 33, Winter, 1995)

Current Feminist Critiques -- Ideological Passion -- The Voices of Silent Dialogues -- The Covenantal Relationship: Ethical Implications -- The Perennial Shylock -- Talmud -- Book Briefing