3,113 research outputs found
Heritability and Linkage Analysis of Appendicitis Utilizing Age at Onset
Get PDFAppendicitis usually afflicts the young, but there is a large tail in the distribution of onset age. The genetics of this disease are still not well understood. A heritability analysis and genome wide linkage analysis of a large twin dataset was undertaken. Treating age of onset of appendicitis as a censored survival trait revealed a heritability of 0.21, and found evidence of linkage to Chromosome 1p37.3. Author(s): Christopher Oldmeadow 1 * | Kerrie Mengersen 2 | Nicholas Martin 3 | David L. Duffy
Emergent associative memory as a local organising principle for global adaptation in adaptive networks
No full textComplex adaptive systems composed of self-interested agents can in some circumstances self-organise into structures that enhance global adaptation or efficiency. However, the general conditions for such an outcome are poorly understood. In contrast, sufficient conditions for artificial neural networks to form structures that perform collective computational processes such as associative memory/recall, generalisation and optimisation, are well-understood. While such global functions within a single agent or organism may arise from mechanisms (e.g., Hebbian learning) that were selected for this purpose, agents in a multi-agent system have no obvious reason to produce such global behaviours when acting from individual interest. However, Hebbian learning is actually a very simple and fully-distributed habituation or positive feedback principle. Here we use an adaptive network model in which agents can modify their behaviours (states) but also their interactions with other agents (network topology). We show that when self-interested agents can modify how they are affected by other agents then, in adapting these inter- agent relationships to maximise their own utility, they will necessarily alter them in a manner homologous with Hebbian learning. When the agents adapt their behaviours relatively quickly, and their relationships with other agents relatively slowly, we find that the overall network dynamics are modified to find better adapted states more reliably. This separation in timescales causes the state dynamics to spend most of their time at attractors. Thus, the network develops an associative memory that amplifies a subset of its own attractor states. This self-organised modification to the network dynamics enhances its ability to resolve conflicts between agents. Moreover, we show that the system is not merely ‘recalling’ high quality states that have been previously visited, but ‘predicting’ their location by generalising over local attractor states that have already been visited. Thus, globally adaptive behaviours can emerge from self-organising adaptive networks that follow organisational principles familiar in connectionist models of organismic learning
FIGURE 2 in Molecular and morphological evaluation of the aphid genus Hyalopterus Koch (Insecta: Hemiptera: Aphididae), with a description of a new species
No full textFIGURE 2. Phylogeny of the genus Hyalopterus constructed from 1322 concatenated base-pairs (plus two informative gaps) from all four genes. The data was partitioned by gene, using the models of evolution given in Table 2, in the program MrBAYES. Node support for each clade is given as a posterior probability value. See Table 1 for detailed sample information.Published as part of Lozier, Jeffrey D., Foottit, Robert G., Miller, Gary L., Mills, Nicholas J. & Roderick, George K., 2008, Molecular and morphological evaluation of the aphid genus Hyalopterus Koch (Insecta: Hemiptera: Aphididae), with a description of a new species, pp. 1-19 in Zootaxa 1688 on page 7, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18057
FIGURE 1. Locus specific phylogenies for COI, 12S in Molecular and morphological evaluation of the aphid genus Hyalopterus Koch (Insecta: Hemiptera: Aphididae), with a description of a new species
No full textFIGURE 1. Locus specific phylogenies for COI, 12S, EF-1α, and Buchnera 16S. All trees are from analyses performed with MRBAYES, with node support given as posterior probabilities. Collection data for each specimen are provided in Table 1 and models of sequence evolution used for each gene are provided in Table 2.Published as part of Lozier, Jeffrey D., Foottit, Robert G., Miller, Gary L., Mills, Nicholas J. & Roderick, George K., 2008, Molecular and morphological evaluation of the aphid genus Hyalopterus Koch (Insecta: Hemiptera: Aphididae), with a description of a new species, pp. 1-19 in Zootaxa 1688 on page 6, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18057
Industrial Energy from Water-Mills in the European Economy, Fifth to Eighteenth Centuries: the Limitations of Power
Get PDFThe water-mill, though known in the Roman Empire from the second century BCE, did not come to enjoy any widespread use until the 4 th or 5 th centuries CE, and then chiefly in the West, which was then experiencing not only a rapid decline in the supply of slaves, but also widespread depopulation, and thus a severe scarcity of labour. For the West -- those regions that came to form Europe -- the water-mill then became by far the predominant 'prime mover': i.e., an apparatus that converts natural energy into mechanical power. The classic study, as a monograph in technological and engineering history, is Terry S. Reynolds, Stronger than a Hundred Men: A History of the Vertical Water Wheel (Baltimore and London, 1983). Indeed he has calculated that even the early medieval watermills provided about 2 hp, enough to liberate from 30 to 60 persons from the wearisome task of grinding grain into flour, the mill's virtually sole use during the first millennium. He, and others, have neglected to note, however, that, apart from providing such economies in labour, water-mills also conserved on the capital and land resources (fodder crops) that would have been required to produce a comparable amount of power with animal-powered mills (horses, mules). The aim of this study is to analyse in greater depth the economic implications and consequences of the application of water-mills, their impact on European economic history up to the Industrial Revolution era, in those areas not well treated by Reynolds and other historians: in the fields of mining, metallurgy, and textiles -- including the cotton industry of the initial phase of the Industrial Revolution. The study also necessarily analyses as well the necessary technological innovations to achieve the productivity gains in these economic sectors: especially in the devices (cam and crankshafts) to convert the basic rotary power of mills into reciprocal power, initially to operate trip-hammers; and the more gradual, if only late-medieval, displacement of the original undershot wheels with the far more effective, if more capital costly, overshot wheels. The study thus begins with the late-medieval technological revolutions in both mining and metallurgy, providing the key transitions to the early-modern European economy. A demonstration of significant productivity gains is counterbalanced, however, in this study by an examination of the physical and economic limitations on the uses of water-power and, particularly in the field of woollen-cloth production, the negative consequences of water-powered machinery, in the form of both fulling-mills and gig-mills (cloth-finishing), in impairing the quality of the finer fabrics. In particular, cost-benefit analyses are provided to show why the late-medieval English cloth industry did indeed achieve significant gains in switching from foot- to mechanical-fulling, while, at the same time, the leading draperies of the late-medieval Low Countries were perfectly rational in eschewing such mills before the 16 th century -- when they did indeed adopt them, for rather different types of textiles. On the other hand, and indeed in striking contrast, the application of water-power in the medieval production of silks and then especially in the 18 th -century production of the new cotton textiles, with those major innovations of the Industrial Revolution era (water-frame and mule) had the opposite result: of greatly improving quality while also radically reducing production costs. Indeed quality-improvements in spinning cotton yarns was the chief goal of these entrepreneurs, with the ambition of displacing fine Asian textiles from world markets.technology, energy, hydraulic power, water-power, mills, textiles, cottons, woolens, silks, mining, metallurgy, blast smelters, forges, iron, silver, copper, Roman Empire, medieval Europe, Italy, Flanders, England, Industrial Revolution.
Intermittent Fasting Promotes Fat Loss with Lean Mass Retention, Increased Hypothalamic Norepinephrine Content, and Increased Neuropeptide Y Gene Expression in Diet-Induced Obese Male Mice
No full textClinical studies indicate alternate day, intermittent fasting (IMF) protocols result in meaningful weight loss in obese individuals. To further understand the mechanisms sustaining weight loss by IMF, we investigated the metabolic and neural alterations of IMF in obese mice. Male C57/BL6 mice were fed a high-fat diet (HFD; 45% fat) ad libitum for 8 weeks to promote an obese phenotype. Mice were divided into 4 groups and either maintained on ad libitum HFD (HFD), received alternate day access to HFD (IMF- HFD), switched to ad libitum low fat diet (LFD; 10% fat), or received IMF of LFD (IMF- LFD). After 4 weeks, IMF-HFD (~13%) and IMF-LFD (~18%) had significantly lower body weights than HFD. Body fat was also lower (~40-52%) in all diet interventions. Lean mass was increased in the IMF-LFD (~12-13%) compared with HFD and IMF-HFD groups. Oral glucose tolerance AUC was lower in the IMF-HFD (~50%), whereas insulin tolerance AUC was reduced in all diet interventions (~22-42%). HPLC measurements of hypothalamic tissue homogenates indicated higher (~55-60%) norepinephrine (NE) content in the anterior regions of the medial hypothalamus of IMF compared with ad libitum fed groups, whereas NE content was higher (~19-32%) in posterior regions in the IMF-LFD group only. Relative gene expression of Npy in the arcuate nucleus was increased (~65-75%) in IMF groups. Our novel findings indicate that intermittent fasting produces alterations in hypothalamic NE and NPY, suggesting an involvement in the counter regulatory processes of short-term weight loss are associated with an IMF dietary strategy.Peer reviewe
Characterization and structure in the development of Tudor comedy
Get PDFThe role of characterization in dramatic structure is assessed by theoretical criteria.
Characters who perform actions necessary for the completion of the narrative sequence are
said to be "bound" to the narrative; those without such obligations are "free". Characters
who maintain a single, constant meaning during the course of a play are said to be "static";
characters who change or develop into new roles are "dynamic". Horatian decorum
demanded that comic characters be static, and the characters of Plautine and Terentian
tradition were almost always bound to narrative intrigue. However, evaluations of six
Tudor comedies show an increasing use of non-classical characterization within the comic
form.
In the early comedies lohan lohan and Roister Doister all characters are bound and
static, yet the impetus to enlarge the role of characterization is evident. The characters of
lohan lohan are expanded from their French source, and Roister Doister includes
extraneous episodes in which Udall displays his braggart hero. Free characters abound in
Misogonus; as well the play brings dynamic characterization into the scope of comedy with
the conversion of its prodigal son.
Free characters offer new possibilities of non-narrative plotting. In comedies of the
1580s favourite traditional characters appear as diversions outside the action, and thematic
arrangements of characters inform the increasingly complex plots. Lyly stresses the
symbolic potential of characters in Endimion, whereas Greene uses dynamic
characterization to heighten the illusion of independent figures in Friar Bacon and Friar
Bungay. Love's Labour's Lost exposes the limitations of comic artifice by pulling the
characters between convention and individualization.
By the end of the sixteenth century free and dynamic characters had become
common, and characterization had established a sizable claim on the design of English
comedy. These developments set the English form apart from its neoclassical counterparts
Yeats's Mask
No full textYeats’s Mask, Yeats Annual No. 19 is a special issue in this renowned research-level series. Fashionable in the age of Wilde, the Mask changes shape until it emerges as Mask in the system of A Vision. Chronologically tracing the concept through Yeats’s plays and those poems written as ‘texts for exposition’ of his occult thought which flowers in A Vision itself (1925 and 1937), the volume also spotlights ‘The Mask before The Mask’ numerous plays including Cathleen Ni-Houlihan, The King’s Threshold, Calvary,The Words upon the Window-pane, A Full Moon in March and The Death of Cuchulain. There are excurses into studies of Yeats’s friendship with the Oxford don and cleric, William Force Stead, his radio broadcasts, the Chinese contexts for his writing of ‘Lapis Lazuli’. His self-renewal after The Oxford Book of Modern Verse, and the key occult epistolary exchange ‘Leo Africanus’, edited from MSS by Steve L. Adams and George Mills Harper, is republished from the elusive Yeats Annual No. 1 (1982). The essays are by David Bradshaw, Michael Cade-Stewart, Aisling Carlin, Warwick Gould, Margaret Mills Harper, Pierre Longuenesse, Jerusha McCormack, Neil Mann, Emilie Morin, Elizabeth Müller and Alexandra Poulain, with shorter notes by Philip Bishop and Colin Smythe considering Yeats’s quatrain upon remaking himself and the pirate editions of The Land of Heart’s Desire. Ten reviews focus on various volumes of the Cornell Yeats MSS Series, his correspondence with George Yeats, and numerous critical studies
Level 3: Sophie et sa grand-mère mystérieuse/ Sophie and her mysterious grandmother
No full textThis book is dedicated to all young students who want to learn. There is always more to learn and a way to learn it. Never stop dreaming.
About the Author: My name is Nicholas Fabiano. I\u27m American. I am a student at the University of Kennesaw State in the United States. I\u27m studying electronic engineering. I like traveling, horse riding, boxing and spending time with my friends and family.
Ce livre est dédié à tous les jeunes étudiants qui veulent apprendre. Il y a toujours plus à apprendre et un moyen de l\u27apprendre. N\u27arrêtez jamais de rêver.
Je m’appelle Nicholas Fabiano. Je suis américain. Je suis étudiant à l’Université de Kennesaw State aux États-Unis. J’étudie l’ingénierie électronique. J\u27aime voyager, faire du cheval, boxer et passer du temps avec mes amis et ma famille.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/globallib/1003/thumbnail.jp
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