344 research outputs found
Does OO sync with the way we think?
No full textGiven that corrective-maintenance costs already dominate the software life cycle and look set to increase significantly, reliability in the form of reducing such costs should be the most important software improvement goal. Yet the results are not promising when we review recent corrective-maintenance data for big systems in general and for OO in particular-possibly because of mismatches between the OO paradigm and how we think
Hatton reference genome assembly
No full textThis is the reference assembly for the Hatton (SI) population of L. alabamica
Hatton variants in A2 read mapping reference
No full textThis file is a version of the A2 read mapping reference file with the Hatton SNP variants inserted. This file served as our ancestral sequence for polarizing the SFS
N-version Design vs. One Good Version
No full textEvidence indicates that n-version development techniques are more reliable than producing one "good" version-and cost effective in the long run. The author concludes that diverse, independent channels used in parallel are significantly superior to even the current state of the art, especially in situations where cost of failure is high
Lung cancer in never smokers (LCINS): development of a UK national research strategy
No full textIntroduction: lung cancer in never smokers (LCINS) accounts for 15% of lung cancers diagnosed in the UK, making it the 8th most common cancer. There are few robust studies specific to the LCINS population making data surrounding the incidence and mortality of LCINS incomplete, leaving many gaps in our understanding of the needs of this population.Methods: to address a lack of research in this important area, the UK National Cancer Research Institute Lung Study Group (NCRI-LSG) undertook a national survey and hosted a research strategy day to define key research priorities. A wide cross section of stakeholders, including patient advocates, the charitable sector, basic and translational researchers, and multi-disciplinary healthcare professionals contributed highlighting their research priorities.Results: one-hundred twenty-seven surveys were completed (52 by patients/patient advocates) prior to the strategy day. These identified themes for expert review presentations and subsequent workshop discussions at the national research strategy day, which registered 190 attendees (50 patients/patient advocates). The four key themes that emerged to form the basis of a research strategy for LCINS are (1) Raising awareness, (2) Risk assessment and early detection, (3) Disease biology, (4) Living with and beyond.Conclusion: this paper summarises current evidence and important gaps in our knowledge related to LCINS. We present recommendations for a national research strategy aimed at improving outcomes for patients
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Micromechanics of sea ice frictional slip from test basin scale experiments
No full textWe have conducted a series of high-resolution friction experiments on large floating saline ice floes in an environmental test basin. In these experiments, a central ice floe was pushed between two other floes, sliding along two interfacial faults. The frictional motion was predominantly stick–slip. Shear stresses, normal stresses, local strains and slip displacement were measured along the sliding faults, and acoustic emissions were monitored. High-resolution measurements during a single stick–slip cycle at several positions along the fault allowed us to identify two phases of frictional slip: a nucleation phase, where a nucleation zone begins to slip before the rest of the fault, and a propagation phase when the entire fault is slipping. This is slip-weakening behaviour. We have therefore characterized what we consider to be a key deformation mechanism in Arctic Ocean dynamics. In order to understand the micromechanics of sea ice friction, we have employed a theoretical constitutive relation (i.e. an equation for shear stress in terms of temperature, normal load, acceleration, velocity and slip displacement) derived from the physics of asperity–asperity contact and sliding (Hatton et al. 2009 Phil. Mag. 89, 2771–2799 (doi:10.1080/14786430903113769)). We find that our experimental data conform reasonably with this frictional law once slip weakening is introduced. We find that the constitutive relation follows Archard's law rather than Amontons' law, with Embedded Image (where τ is the shear stress and σn is the normal stress) and n = 26/27, with a fractal asperity distribution, where the frictional shear stress, τ = ffractal Tmlws, where ffractal is the fractal asperity height distribution, Tml is the shear strength for frictional melting and lubrication and ws is the slip weakening. We can therefore deduce that the interfacial faults failed in shear for these experimental conditions through processes of brittle failure of asperities in shear, and, at higher velocities, through frictional heating, localized surface melting and hydrodynamic lubrication
Engineering a Carboxyl Methyltransferase for the Formation of a Furan-Based Bioplastic Precursor
No full textFtpM from Aspergillus fumigatus was the first carboxyl methyltransferase reported to catalyse the dimethylation of dicarboxylic acids. Here the creation of mutant R166M that can catalyse the quantitative conversion of bio-derived 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) to its dimethyl ester (FDME), a bioplastics precursor, was reported. Wild type FtpM gave low conversion due to its reduced catalytic efficiency for the second methylation step. An AlphaFold 2 model revealed a highly electropositive active site, due to the presence of 4 arginine residues, postulated to favour the binding of the dicarboxylic acid over the intermediate monoester. The R166M mutation improved both binding and turnover of the monoester to permit near quantitative conversion to the target dimethyl ester product. The mutant also had improved activity for other diacids and a range of monoacids. R166M was incorporated into 2 multienzyme cascades for the synthesis of the bioplastics precursor FDME from bioderived 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) as well as from poly(ethylene furanoate) (PEF) plastic, demonstrating the potential to recycle waste plastic
The public voices of Daniel Defoe
No full textThis is a study of Daniel Defoe's political rhetoric and polemical strategies
between the years 1697 and 1717. It explores and analyses a representative selection
of what may be termed Defoe's `public voices'. In its broadest definition, these public
voices are understood to be the opinions expressed and the rhetorical stances taken by
Defoe in those pieces of his writing which directly or indirectly relate to the sphere of
official, governmental and national discourse and activity. In the most basic sense,
this thesis attempts to highlight and explain the way in which the language, imagery
and concerns of Defoe's publications were shaped by the events and attitudes of the
historical moment at which they were produced. In the process, this study re-situates,
and thus necessarily re-evaluates, the voices and apparent meanings of some of
Defoe's better known texts, while offering extensive investigations of the rhetorical
strategies of publications which have previously been neglected by Defoe scholars.
In the context of the above, an attempt is made to demonstrate that the poem
The True-Born Englishman (1701) was not only a response to xenophobic sentiments
prevalent in English society at the turn of the century but did, in fact, represent
Defoe's final, summative contribution to the standing army controversy of the late
1690s. On a similar note, this thesis aims to show that the verse satire Jure Divino
(1706) was the culmination of Defoe's involvement in the occasional conformity
controversy of the early 1700s and constituted on important element of his campaign
in favour of religious toleration. In addition, I argue that volume one of The Family
Instructor (1715) was Defoe's response to the Jacobite-inspired unrest of the years
1714-15 and, as such, represented an important political act. Finally, this study offers
an extensive investigation of one of Defoe's most problematic publications, An
Argument Proving that the Design of Employing and Tnobling Foreigners, Is a
Treasonable Conspiracy (1717). The pamphlet, I suggest, represented a highly ironic
attack on one of Defoe's old adversaries, John Toland, and only develops its full
rhetorical force if read in the context of the standing army controversy
(The) man, his body, and his society: masculinity and the male experience in English and Scottish medicine c.1640-c.1780.
No full textThis thesis examines the relationship(s) between medicine, the body and societal codes of masculinity in England and Scotland between c.1640 and c.1780. It responds to the way in which the men in histories of post-1660 masculinity are often disembodied, and to the comparative absence of men’s gendered experiences from the history of medicine. Its findings show that in both centuries the experience of being a man with a body that was the site of health and sickness was an open, candid, and often communal, one, inside and outside of the formal medical encounter. Thus, and on both sides of 1700, ill men had full freedom in the pursuit and acceptance of medical, familial and social assistance, while their physical suffering, and associated emotional distress, was met with sympathy. With their sick bodies the sites of honest self-examination and open discussion, it was in part this very public nature of their sicknesses that allowed men, as a gender and as individuals, independence and agency in their non-commercial health care. Indeed, later-seventeenth- and eighteenth-century men suffered no constraints in their ability to respond to the vulnerabilities of their bodies, even where this involved behaviours or attributes allegedly associated with women and femininity, or inconsistent with ideals of active, independent, masculinity.
These findings indicate, therefore, great continuity across the period 1640-1780, and not only in masculine ideals of and involving the male corporeality. There seems to have been significant consistency across time in men’s social and medical experiences of both sickness and their pre-emptive preparation for it, and in an apparent collective self-confidence concerning their corporeal masculinity, their sex, and, possibly, even their sexual potential. Indeed, these sources suggest that seventeenth- and eighteenth-century men had a resilient sense of self-identity (and personal masculinity), conceptually separable from the corporeal body and its known fragilities
The impacts of short break provision on disabled children and families: an international literature review
No full textFor over 30 years, short breaks have been part of the landscape of support provision for families with a disabled child. Historically, the term ‘respite care’ has been used in much of the research literature concerning short breaks for families with a disabled child. However, ‘short breaks’ has become the preferred term, partly due to the negative connotations of family carers requiring ‘respite’ from their children, and partly because short breaks now encompass a much wider range of supports than out-of-home placement in specialist residential facilities (Cramer and Carlin, 2008). As such, the term ‘short breaks’ will be used throughout this review, with the exception of direct quotes from research studies where the term ‘respite’ is used by study participants or study authors
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