The establishment of Spartina in the Tamar Estuary, Tasmania

Spartina anglica was introduced into the Tamar Estuary, Tasmania, in 1947. Initially spread was slow but subsequently rapid. It is capable of colonizing all rock types and sediments available in the estuary but fine sediments provide the most and basalt the least suitable substrate. It colonises all available slopes (10 degrees -28 degrees). As a result of the introduction, mud banks become stabilized and the navigable channel thereby safeguarded. The spread of Spartina has, however, adversely affected some beaches and private jetties

Picosecond time-resolved resonance Raman observation of the iso-CH2Cl-I and iso-CH2I-Cl photoproducts from the "photoisomerization" reactions of CH 2ICl in the solution phase

A preliminary pecosecond Stokes time-resolved resonance Raman investigation was made of the initial formation and subsequent decay of the photoproduct produced following 267 nm excitaiton of CH 2ClI in acetonitrile solution. A coparision was made between density-functional theroy computations for portable photoproduct species and the results from a femtosecond transient absorption study to Raman spectra. This comparision indicated that the iso-CH 2ClI was aminly produced and associated with the 460 nm transient absorption band.published_or_final_versio

Limiting distributions for explosive PAR(1) time series with strongly mixing innovation

This work deals with the limiting distribution of the least squares estimators of the coefficients a r of an explosive periodic autoregressive of order 1 (PAR(1)) time series X r = a r X r--1 +u r when the innovation {u k } is strongly mixing. More precisely {a r } is a periodic sequence of real numbers with period P \textgreater{} 0 and such that P r=1 |a r | \textgreater{} 1. The time series {u r } is periodically distributed with the same period P and satisfies the strong mixing property, so the random variables u r can be correlated

Engaging with assessment: increasing student engagement through continuous assessment

Student engagement is intrinsically linked to two important metrics in learning: student satisfaction and the quality of the student experience. One of the ways that engagement can be influenced is through careful curriculum design. Using the knowledge that many students are ‘assessment-driven’ a low stakes continuous weekly summative e-assessment was introduced to a module. The impact this had on student engagement was measured by studying student activity within the module virtual learning environment (VLE). It was found that introduction of the e-assessments led to a significant increase in VLE activity compared to the VLE activity in that module the previous year, and also compared to the VLE activity of two other modules studied by the same student cohort. As many institutions move towards greater blended or online deliveries it will become more important to ensure that VLEs encourage high levels of student engagement in order to maintain or enhance the student experience. Keywords : continuous assessment, learning analytics, student engagement, virtual learning environment

Evidence for the role of EPHX2 gene variants in anorexia nervosa.

Anorexia nervosa (AN) and related eating disorders are complex, multifactorial neuropsychiatric conditions with likely rare and common genetic and environmental determinants. To identify genetic variants associated with AN, we pursued a series of sequencing and genotyping studies focusing on the coding regions and upstream sequence of 152 candidate genes in a total of 1205 AN cases and 1948 controls. We identified individual variant associations in the Estrogen Receptor-ß (ESR2) gene, as well as a set of rare and common variants in the Epoxide Hydrolase 2 (EPHX2) gene, in an initial sequencing study of 261 early-onset severe AN cases and 73 controls (P=0.0004). The association of EPHX2 variants was further delineated in: (1) a pooling-based replication study involving an additional 500 AN patients and 500 controls (replication set P=0.00000016); (2) single-locus studies in a cohort of 386 previously genotyped broadly defined AN cases and 295 female population controls from the Bogalusa Heart Study (BHS) and a cohort of 58 individuals with self-reported eating disturbances and 851 controls (combined smallest single locus P<0.01). As EPHX2 is known to influence cholesterol metabolism, and AN is often associated with elevated cholesterol levels, we also investigated the association of EPHX2 variants and longitudinal body mass index (BMI) and cholesterol in BHS female and male subjects (N=229) and found evidence for a modifying effect of a subset of variants on the relationship between cholesterol and BMI (P<0.01). These findings suggest a novel association of gene variants within EPHX2 to susceptibility to AN and provide a foundation for future study of this important yet poorly understood condition

The Effectiveness of Alcohol Screening and Brief Intervention in Emergency Departments: A Multicentre Pragmatic Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial

BACKGROUND: Alcohol misuse is common in people attending emergency departments (EDs) and there is some evidence of efficacy of alcohol screening and brief interventions (SBI). This study investigated the effectiveness of SBI approaches of different intensities delivered by ED staff in nine typical EDs in England: the SIPS ED trial. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Pragmatic multicentre cluster randomized controlled trial of SBI for hazardous and harmful drinkers presenting to ED. Nine EDs were randomized to three conditions: a patient information leaflet (PIL), 5 minutes of brief advice (BA), and referral to an alcohol health worker who provided 20 minutes of brief lifestyle counseling (BLC). The primary outcome measure was the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) status at 6 months. Of 5899 patients aged 18 or more presenting to EDs, 3737 (63·3%) were eligible to participate and 1497 (40·1%) screened positive for hazardous or harmful drinking, of whom 1204 (80·4%) gave consent to participate in the trial. Follow up rates were 72% (n?=?863) at six, and 67% (n?=?810) at 12 months. There was no evidence of any differences between intervention conditions for AUDIT status or any other outcome measures at months 6 or 12 in an intention to treat analysis. At month 6, compared to the PIL group, the odds ratio of being AUDIT negative for brief advice was 1·103 (95% CI 0·328 to 3·715). The odds ratio comparing BLC to PIL was 1·247 (95% CI 0·315 to 4·939). A per protocol analysis confirmed these findings. CONCLUSIONS: SBI is difficult to implement in typical EDs. The results do not support widespread implementation of alcohol SBI in ED beyond screening followed by simple clinical feedback and alcohol information, which is likely to be easier and less expensive to implement than more complex interventions

Centrifuge model testing for pile foundation reuse

With continuous development in the urban environment the ground is becoming more and more congested with redundant foundations. The underground development of services and infrastructure already restricts the location of new building foundations and the redundant foundations only add to this problem. This paper describes how existing single pile foundations in overconsolidated clay are likely to behave when their loading conditions are changed by un-loading caused by demolition and subsequent re-loading from a new development. The influence of any new foundations on the existing foundations is also described. Experimental data were obtained from a series of centrifuge model tests undertaken at 60g in which a number of different geometries of novel pile groups were modelled. Model tests included comparison of the behaviour of bored piles when supplemented with mini-pile groups

Automata for true concurrency properties

We present an automata-theoretic framework for the model checking of true concurrency properties. These are specified in a fixpoint logic, corresponding to history-preserving bisimilarity, capable of describing events in computations and their dependencies. The models of the logic are event structures or any formalism which can be given a causal semantics, like Petri nets. Given a formula and an event structure satisfying suitable regularity conditions we show how to construct a parity tree automaton whose language is non-empty if and only if the event structure satisfies the formula. The automaton, due to the nature of event structure models, is usually infinite. We discuss how it can be quotiented to an equivalent finite automaton, where emptiness can be checked effectively. In order to show the applicability of the approach, we discuss how it instantiates to finite safe Petri nets. As a proof of concept we provide a model checking tool implementing the technique