Monocular amblyopia and higher order aberrations

This study compared the corneal and total higher order aberrations between the fellow eyes in monocular amblyopia. Nineteen amblyopic subjects (8 refractive and 11 strabismic) (mean age 30 ± 11 years) were recruited. A range of biometric and optical measurements were collected from the amblyopic and non-amblyopic eye including; axial length, corneal topography and total higher order aberrations. For a sub-group of eleven non-presbyopic subjects (6 refractive and 5 strabismic amblyopes, mean age 29 ± 10 years) total higher order aberrations were also measured during accommodation (2.5 D stimuli). Amblyopic eyes were significantly shorter and more hyperopic compared to non-amblyopic eyes and the interocular difference in axial length correlated with both the magnitude of anisometropia and amblyopia (both p < 0.01). Significant differences in higher order aberrations were observed between fellow eyes, which varied with the type of amblyopia. Refractive amblyopes displayed higher levels of 4th order corneal aberrations C(4, 0)(spherical aberration), C(4, 2)(secondary astigmatism 90°) and C(4, −2)(secondary astigmatism along 45°) in the amblyopic eye compared to the non-amblyopic eye. Strabismic amblyopes exhibited significantly higher levels of C(3, 3)(trefoil) in the amblyopic eye for both corneal and total higher order aberrations. During accommodation, the amblyopic eye displayed a significantly greater lag of accommodation compared to the non-amblyopic eye, while the changes in higher order aberrations were similar in magnitude between fellow eyes. Asymmetric visual experience during development appears to be associated with asymmetries in higher order aberrations, in some cases proportional to the magnitude of anisometropia and dependent upon the amblyogenic factor.

Inhibitors of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 reverse transcriptase target distinct phases of early reverse transcription

Early HIV-1 reverse transcription can be separated into initiation and elongation phases. Here we show, using PCR analysis of negative-strand strong-stop DNA [(−)ssDNA] synthesis in intact virus, that different reverse transcriptase (RT) inhibitors affect distinct phases of early natural endogenous reverse transcription (NERT). The effects of nevirapine on NERT were consistent with a mechanism of action including both specific and nonspecific binding events. The nonspecific component of this inhibition targeted the elongation reaction, whereas the specific effect seemed principally to be directed at very early events (initiation or the initiation-elongation switch). In contrast, foscarnet and the nucleoside analog ddATP inhibited both early and late (−)ssDNA synthesis in a similar manner. We also examined compounds that targeted other viral proteins and found that Ro24-7429 (a Tat antagonist) and rosmarinic acid (an integrase inhibitor) also directly inhibited RT. Our results indicate that NERT can be used to identify and evaluate compounds that directly target the reverse transcription complex.

Stable strong order 1.0 schemes for solving stochastic ordinary differential equations

The Balanced method was introduced as a class of quasi-implicit methods, based upon the Euler-Maruyama scheme, for solving stiff stochastic differential equations. We extend the Balanced method to introduce a class of stable strong order 1. 0 numerical schemes for solving stochastic ordinary differential equations. We derive convergence results for this class of numerical schemes. We illustrate the asymptotic stability of this class of schemes is illustrated and is compared with contemporary schemes of strong order 1. 0. We present some evidence on parametric selection with respect to minimising the error convergence terms. Furthermore we provide a convergence result for general Balanced style schemes of higher orders.

Practice and Procedure: UCPR r 708 - costs order against several defendants and third party

Glenwood Homes Pty Ltd v Everhard [2008] QSC 192 involved the not uncommon situation where one costs order is made against several parties represented by a single firm of solicitors. Dutney J considered the implications when only some of the parties liable for the payment of the costs file a notice of objection to the costs statement served in respect of those costs.

Restoration of native folding of single-stranded DNA sequences through reverse mutations: an indication of a new epigenetic mechanism

We used in vivo (biological), in silico (computational structure prediction), and in vitro (model sequence folding) analyses of single-stranded DNA sequences to show that nucleic acid folding conservation is the selective principle behind a high-frequency single-nucleotide reversion observed in a three-nucleotide mutated motif of the Maize streak virus replication associated protein (Rep) gene. In silico and in vitro studies showed that the three-nucleotide mutation adversely affected Rep nucleic acid folding, and that the single-nucleotide reversion [C(601)A] restored wild-type-like folding. In vivo support came from infecting maize with mutant viruses: those with Rep genes containing nucleotide changes predicted to restore a wild-type-like fold [A(601)/G(601)] preferentially accumulated over those predicted to fold differently [C(601)/T(601)], which frequently reverted to A(601) and displaced the original population. We propose that the selection of native nucleic acid folding is an epigenetic effect, which might have broad implications in the evolution of plants and their viruses.

Chinese fashion designers in Shanghai : identifying a fresh perspective about their role in the world order of fashion

Shanghai possesses an apt legacy, once referred to as “Paris of the East”. Municipal aspirations for Shanghai to assume a position among the great fashion cities of the world have been integrated in the recent re-shaping of this modern city into a role model for Chinese creative enterprise yet China is still known primarily as centre of clothing production. Increasingly however, “Made in China” is being replaced by “Created in China” drawing attention to two distinct consumer markets for Chinese designers. Fashion designers who have entered the global fashion system for education or by showing their collections have generally adopted a design aesthetic that aligns with Western markets, allowing little competitive advantage. In contrast, Chinese designers who rest their attention on the domestic Chinese market find a disparate, highly competitive marketplace. The pillars of authenticity that for foreign fashion brands extend far into their cultural and creative histories, often for many decades in the case of Louis Vuitton, Hermes and Christian Dior do not yet exist in China in this era of rapid globalisation. Here, the cultural bedrock allows these same pillars to extend only thirty years or so into the past reaching the moments when Deng Xiaoping granted China’s creative entrepreneurs passage. To this end, interviews with fashion designers in Shanghai have been undertaken during the last twelve months for a PhD dissertation. Production of culture theory has been used to identify working methods, practices of production and the social and cultural milieu necessary for designers to achieve viability. Preliminary findings indicate that some fashion designers have adopted an as-yet unexplored strategy of business and brand development with a distinct Chinese aesthetic at its core, in contrast to the clichéd cultural iconography often viewed by Western viewers as representative of Chinese creativity.

Empirical analysis of the effect of dimension reduction and word order on semantic vectors

The aim of this paper is to provide a comparison of various algorithms and parameters to build reduced semantic spaces. The effect of dimension reduction, the stability of the representation and the effect of word order are examined in the context of the five algorithms bearing on semantic vectors: Random projection (RP), singular value decom- position (SVD), non-negative matrix factorization (NMF), permutations and holographic reduced representations (HRR). The quality of semantic representation was tested by means of synonym finding task using the TOEFL test on the TASA corpus. Dimension reduction was found to improve the quality of semantic representation but it is hard to find the optimal parameter settings. Even though dimension reduction by RP was found to be more generally applicable than SVD, the semantic vectors produced by RP are somewhat unstable. The effect of encoding word order into the semantic vector representation via HRR did not lead to any increase in scores over vectors constructed from word co-occurrence in context information. In this regard, very small context windows resulted in better semantic vectors for the TOEFL test.

Curriculum design and higher order skills : challenging assumptions

This paper is based on an Australian Learning & Teaching Council (ALTC) funded evaluation in 13 universities across Australia and New Zealand of the use of Engineers Without Borders (EWB) projects in first-year engineering courses. All of the partner institutions have implemented this innovation differently and comparison of these implementations affords us the opportunity to assemble "a body of carefully gathered data that provides evidence of which approaches work for which students in which learning environments". This study used a mixed-methods data collection approach and a realist analysis. Data was collected by program logic analysis with course co-ordinators, observation of classes, focus groups with students, exit survey of students and interviews with staff as well as scrutiny of relevant course and curriculum documents. Course designers and co-ordinators gave us a range of reasons for using the projects, most of which alluded to their presumed capacity to deliver experience in and learning of higher order thinking skills in areas such as sustainability, ethics, teamwork and communication. For some students, however, the nature of the projects decreased their interest in issues such as ethical development, sustainability and how to work in teams. We also found that the projects provoked different responses from students depending on the nature of the courses in which they were embedded (general introduction, design, communication, or problem-solving courses) and their mode of delivery (lecture, workshop or online).

High strong order explicit Runge-Kutta methods for stochastic ordinary differential equations

The pioneering work of Runge and Kutta a hundred years ago has ultimately led to suites of sophisticated numerical methods suitable for solving complex systems of deterministic ordinary differential equations. However, in many modelling situations, the appropriate representation is a stochastic differential equation and here numerical methods are much less sophisticated. In this paper a very general class of stochastic Runge-Kutta methods is presented and much more efficient classes of explicit methods than previous extant methods are constructed. In particular, a method of strong order 2 with a deterministic component based on the classical Runge-Kutta method is constructed and some numerical results are presented to demonstrate the efficacy of this approach.

Order conditions of stochastic Runge-Kutta methods by B-series

In this paper, general order conditions and a global convergence proof are given for stochastic Runge Kutta methods applied to stochastic ordinary differential equations ( SODEs) of Stratonovich type. This work generalizes the ideas of B-series as applied to deterministic ordinary differential equations (ODEs) to the stochastic case and allows a completely general formalism for constructing high order stochastic methods, either explicit or implicit. Some numerical results will be given to illustrate this theory.

High strong order methods for non-commutative stochastic ordinary differential equation systems and the Magnus formula

In recent years considerable attention has been paid to the numerical solution of stochastic ordinary differential equations (SODEs), as SODEs are often more appropriate than their deterministic counterparts in many modelling situations. However, unlike the deterministic case numerical methods for SODEs are considerably less sophisticated due to the difficulty in representing the (possibly large number of) random variable approximations to the stochastic integrals. Although Burrage and Burrage [High strong order explicit Runge-Kutta methods for stochastic ordinary differential equations, Applied Numerical Mathematics 22 (1996) 81-101] were able to construct strong local order 1.5 stochastic Runge-Kutta methods for certain cases, it is known that all extant stochastic Runge-Kutta methods suffer an order reduction down to strong order 0.5 if there is non-commutativity between the functions associated with the multiple Wiener processes. This order reduction down to that of the Euler-Maruyama method imposes severe difficulties in obtaining meaningful solutions in a reasonable time frame and this paper attempts to circumvent these difficulties by some new techniques. An additional difficulty in solving SODEs arises even in the Linear case since it is not possible to write the solution analytically in terms of matrix exponentials unless there is a commutativity property between the functions associated with the multiple Wiener processes. Thus in this present paper first the work of Magnus [On the exponential solution of differential equations for a linear operator, Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics 7 (1954) 649-673] (applied to deterministic non-commutative Linear problems) will be applied to non-commutative linear SODEs and methods of strong order 1.5 for arbitrary, linear, non-commutative SODE systems will be constructed - hence giving an accurate approximation to the general linear problem. Secondly, for general nonlinear non-commutative systems with an arbitrary number (d) of Wiener processes it is shown that strong local order I Runge-Kutta methods with d + 1 stages can be constructed by evaluated a set of Lie brackets as well as the standard function evaluations. A method is then constructed which can be efficiently implemented in a parallel environment for this arbitrary number of Wiener processes. Finally some numerical results are presented which illustrate the efficacy of these approaches. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

General order conditions for stochastic Runge-Kutta methods for both commuting and non-commuting stochastic ordinary differential equation systems

In many modeling situations in which parameter values can only be estimated or are subject to noise, the appropriate mathematical representation is a stochastic ordinary differential equation (SODE). However, unlike the deterministic case in which there are suites of sophisticated numerical methods, numerical methods for SODEs are much less sophisticated. Until a recent paper by K. Burrage and P.M. Burrage (1996), the highest strong order of a stochastic Runge-Kutta method was one. But K. Burrage and P.M. Burrage (1996) showed that by including additional random variable terms representing approximations to the higher order Stratonovich (or Ito) integrals, higher order methods could be constructed. However, this analysis applied only to the one Wiener process case. In this paper, it will be shown that in the multiple Wiener process case all known stochastic Runge-Kutta methods can suffer a severe order reduction if there is non-commutativity between the functions associated with the Wiener processes. Importantly, however, it is also suggested how this order can be repaired if certain commutator operators are included in the Runge-Kutta formulation. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. and IMACS. All rights reserved.

A bound on the maximum strong order of stochastic Runge-Kutta methods for stochastic ordinary differential equations

In Burrage and Burrage [1] it was shown that by introducing a very general formulation for stochastic Runge-Kutta methods, the previous strong order barrier of order one could be broken without having to use higher derivative terms. In particular, methods of strong order 1.5 were developed in which a Stratonovich integral of order one and one of order two were present in the formulation. In this present paper, general order results are proven about the maximum attainable strong order of these stochastic Runge-Kutta methods (SRKs) in terms of the order of the Stratonovich integrals appearing in the Runge-Kutta formulation. In particular, it will be shown that if an s-stage SRK contains Stratonovich integrals up to order p then the strong order of the SRK cannot exceed min{(p + 1)/2, (s - 1)/2), p greater than or equal to 2, s greater than or equal to 3 or 1 if p = 1.