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Selected AbstractsThe curious letters of Friar BrackleyHISTORICAL RESEARCH, Issue 211 2008Alison Hanham Surviving letters in the Paston collection make it clear that Friar John Brackley played a key part in the famous dispute between William Worcester and John Paston over Sir John Fastolf's will. Unhappily, those written by Brackley himself, variously in Latin and English, have presented problems for historians and editors alike. Their chronology has also been confused. This article seeks, for the first time, to give a full picture of the man and his concerns. [source] Empirical orthogonal functions and related techniques in atmospheric science: A reviewINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLIMATOLOGY, Issue 9 2007A. Hannachi Abstract Climate and weather constitute a typical example where high dimensional and complex phenomena meet. The atmospheric system is the result of highly complex interactions between many degrees of freedom or modes. In order to gain insight in understanding the dynamical/physical behaviour involved it is useful to attempt to understand their interactions in terms of a much smaller number of prominent modes of variability. This has led to the development by atmospheric researchers of methods that give a space display and a time display of large space-time atmospheric data. Empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs) were first used in meteorology in the late 1940s. The method, which decomposes a space-time field into spatial patterns and associated time indices, contributed much in advancing our knowledge of the atmosphere. However, since the atmosphere contains all sorts of features, e.g. stationary and propagating, EOFs are unable to provide a full picture. For example, EOFs tend, in general, to be difficult to interpret because of their geometric properties, such as their global feature, and their orthogonality in space and time. To obtain more localised features, modifications, e.g. rotated EOFs (REOFs), have been introduced. At the same time, because these methods cannot deal with propagating features, since they only use spatial correlation of the field, it was necessary to use both spatial and time information in order to identify such features. Extended and complex EOFs were introduced to serve that purpose. Because of the importance of EOFs and closely related methods in atmospheric science, and because the existing reviews of the subject are slightly out of date, there seems to be a need to update our knowledge by including new developments that could not be presented in previous reviews. This review proposes to achieve precisely this goal. The basic theory of the main types of EOFs is reviewed, and a wide range of applications using various data sets are also provided. Copyright © 2007 Royal Meteorological Society [source] Study of the Segmental Dynamics in Semi-Crystalline Poly(lactic acid) using Mechanical SpectroscopiesMACROMOLECULAR BIOSCIENCE, Issue 4 2005Joăo F. Mano Abstract Summary: The glass transition of poly(L -lactic acid) (PLLA) occurs not far above typical service temperatures (room or body temperatures) which has consequences on the material properties during its use, such as damping or the occurrence of structural relaxation. This work aims at characterising the glass transition dynamics of a semi-crystalline PLLA using both dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and thermally stimulated recovery (TSR). The main viscoelastic parameters have been characterised at 1 Hz using DMA and the master curve obtained after isothermal experiments at different temperatures provided a full picture of the solid-state rheological behaviour throughout a wide frequency range. The activation energies calculated from the shift factors agree with the TSR ones, exhibiting a maximum near the Tg. Above the Tg, the results can be described with the WLF model. In the glassy state, the activation energy decreases with decreasing temperatures being always higher than the prediction of the Adam and Gibbs theory, at least down to temperatures 30,°C below the Tg. This suggests the existence of non-arrested degrees of freedom in the glassy state, being consistent with the existence of a significant degree of cooperativity in the TSR results. Temperature dependence of the apparent activation energy across the glass transition. [source] Review: Recent progress in frontotemporal lobar degenerationNEUROPATHOLOGY & APPLIED NEUROBIOLOGY, Issue 1 2010S. M. Pickering-Brown S. M. Pickering-Brown (2010) Neuropathology and Applied Neurobiology36, 4,16 Recent progress in frontotemporal lobar degeneration Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) is a highly familial condition and is increasingly being recognized as an important form of dementia. The literature published on this disease is often difficult to collate due to the wide range in nomenclature used. Thankfully, consensus recommendations have now been published to address this issue and hopefully the community will adopt these as intended. Much progress has been made in our understanding of the clinical, pathological and genetic understanding of FTLD in recent years. Progranulin and TDP-43 have recently been identified as new important proteins involved in the pathophysiology of FTLD and this latter protein may have potential as a biomarker of this disease. However, much remains before we have a full picture of the genes that cause FTLD and the biological pathways in which they function. The purpose of this review is to summarize the current concepts and recent advances in our knowledge of this disease. [source] Why do women have stress urinary incontinence?,,NEUROUROLOGY AND URODYNAMICS, Issue S1 2010John O.L. DeLancey Abstract This article reviews progress made in understanding the causes of stress urinary incontinence. Over the last century, several hypotheses have been proposed to explain stress urinary incontinence. These theories are based on clinical observations and focus primarily on the causative role of urethral support loss and an open vesical neck. Recently these hypotheses have been tested by comparing measurements of urethral support and function in women with primary stress urinary incontinence to asymptomatic volunteers who were recruited to be similar in age, race, and parity. Maximal urethral closure pressure is the parameter that differs the most between groups being 43% lower in women with stress incontinence than similar asymptomatic women having as effect size of 1.6. Measures of urethral support effect sizes range from 0.5 to 0.6. Because any one objective measure of support may not capture the full picture of urethrovesical mobility, review of blinded ultrasounds of movements during cough were reviewed by an expert panel. The panel was able to identify women with stress incontinence correctly 57% of the time; just 7% above the 50% that would be expected by chance alone, confirming that urethrovesical mobility is not strongly associated with stress incontinence. Although operations that provide differential support to the urethra are effective, urethral support is not the predominant cause of stress incontinence. Improving our understanding of factors affecting urethral closure may lead to novel treatments targeting the urethra and improved understanding of the small but persistent failure rate of current surgery. Neurourol. Urodynam. 29:S13,S17, 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Seeing the full picture?NEW TECHNOLOGY, WORK AND EMPLOYMENT, Issue 1 2010Technologically enabled multi-agency working in health, social care The implementation of local e-government in England touched all public services and affected front-line workers across local authorities and partner agencies. Professional ,cultures' are invoked rhetorically as barriers to the translation of this policy into practice. We propose that the concept of ,street-level bureaucrats' offers a more nuanced and grounded framework to think about local responses to centrally driven change. [source] The effect of drought and heat stress on reproductive processes in cerealsPLANT CELL & ENVIRONMENT, Issue 1 2008BEÁTA BARNABÁS ABSTRACT As the result of intensive research and breeding efforts over the last 20 years, the yield potential and yield quality of cereals have been greatly improved. Nowadays, yield safety has gained more importance because of the forecasted climatic changes. Drought and high temperature are especially considered as key stress factors with high potential impact on crop yield. Yield safety can only be improved if future breeding attempts will be based on the valuable new knowledge acquired on the processes determining plant development and its responses to stress. Plant stress responses are very complex. Interactions between plant structure, function and the environment need to be investigated at various phases of plant development at the organismal, cellular as well as molecular levels in order to obtain a full picture. The results achieved so far in this field indicate that various plant organs, in a definite hierarchy and in interaction with each other, are involved in determining crop yield under stress. Here we attempt to summarize the currently available information on cereal reproduction under drought and heat stress and to give an outlook towards potential strategies to improve yield safety in cereals. [source] Taking Rights less Seriously.RATIO JURIS, Issue 4 2007A Structural Analysis of Judicial Discretion The strengths and weaknesses of both Dworkin and Hart are analysed, and in view of these, it is argued that a full picture of judicial discretion is between the two extremes. Thus, a moderate theory of judicial discretion is maintained which is based on achievements by Robert Alexy (2002b). The article develops a balancing model of discretion and relates it to the theory of legal argumentation. The limits of discretion and the relation between structural (strong) and epistemic (weak) discretion are addressed in detail, both with illustrations from the jurisdiction of the German Federal Constitutional Court. [source] Physiological and modelling approaches to understand water and carbon fluxes during grape berry growth and quality development: a reviewAUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF GRAPE AND WINE RESEARCH, Issue 2010Z.W. DAI Abstract Recent advances in the understanding of the physiology of berry growth and in modelling allow simulation of fruit growth and sugar accumulation from the perspective of water and carbon balance. This review summarises present knowledge on the modelling and molecular physiology of carbon and water fluxes related to grape berry growth and quality. It focuses principally on the effects of environmental factors and cultural practices on fruit quality through their consequences on water and carbon fluxes during fruit growth. Together with ecophysiological and molecular approaches, process-based models show promising ability to aid in integrating physiological results, generating novel hypotheses and consequently providing a full picture of the control of berry growth and quality development. In the future, nitrogen and sulfur fluxes, necessary for the synthesis of secondary metabolites important for quality, should also be integrated. Modelling at the organ level should extend to metabolic content and metabolite fluxes (metabolomic and fluxomic studies). Genotypes naturally or artificially affected on a key gene or function will also be helpful to validate modelling hypotheses. [source] | ||||||||||