Venues on the verges: London's theater government between 1594 and 1614

In 1594, major decisions were made by the governors of London and the country about plays and playing. We need to learn what lay behind these events, such as what led James Burbage to build his Blackfriars theater in 1596. That initial fiasco might tell us much about what lay behind Shakespeare’s decision to join the new Chamberlain’s Men in 1594 and his subsequent commitment to them as a full-time playwright. When the Globe burned down in 1613, a majority of the shareholders decided to rebuild it at great cost, but Shakespeare withdrew. The rebuilding was old-fashioned thinking, reverting to the company’s desire, asserted in 1594, to play indoors in winter, which helps to clarify their decisions and Shakespeare’s own—to write plays rather than more long poems. The few surviving papers of the Privy Council and the London mayoralty from the time suggest that one of the two new companies of 1594 preferred to play indoors during the winter instead of at their allocated open playhouses in the suburbs. They tried to renew this traditional practice, first in 1594 and again in 1596 when James Burbage built the indoor Blackfriars playhouse for them. The renewal of the Globe in 1614 was part of the same thinking, although Shakespeare evidently opted out of the decision.

Boundary integral equations on unbounded rough surfaces: Fredholmness and the finite section method

We consider a class of boundary integral equations that arise in the study of strongly elliptic BVPs in unbounded domains of the form $D = \{(x, z)\in \mathbb{R}^{n+1} : x\in \mathbb{R}^n, z > f(x)\}$ where $f : \mathbb{R}^n \to\mathbb{R}$ is a sufficiently smooth bounded and continuous function. A number of specific problems of this type, for example acoustic scattering problems, problems involving elastic waves, and problems in potential theory, have been reformulated as second kind integral equations $u+Ku = v$ in the space $BC$ of bounded, continuous functions. Having recourse to the so-called limit operator method, we address two questions for the operator $A = I + K$ under consideration, with an emphasis on the function space setting $BC$. Firstly, under which conditions is $A$ a Fredholm operator, and, secondly, when is the finite section method applicable to $A$?

The ethical challenges of ubiquitous healthcare

Ubiquitous healthcare is an emerging area of technology that uses a large number of environmental and patient sensors and actuators to monitor and improve patients’ physical and mental condition. Tiny sensors gather data on almost any physiological characteristic that can be used to diagnose health problems. This technology faces some challenging ethical questions, ranging from the small-scale individual issues of trust and efficacy to the societal issues of health and longevity gaps related to economic status. It presents particular problems in combining developing computer/information/media ethics with established medical ethics. This article describes a practice-based ethics approach, considering in particular the areas of privacy, agency, equity and liability. It raises questions that ubiquitous healthcare will force practitioners to face as they develop ubiquitous healthcare systems. Medicine is a controlled profession whose practise is commonly restricted by government-appointed authorities, whereas computer software and hardware development is notoriously lacking in such regimes.

A genetic linkage map of an apple rootstock progeny anchored to the Malus genome sequence

An apple rootstock progeny raised from the cross between the very dwarfing ‘M.27’ and the more vigorous ‘M.116’ (‘M.M.106’ × ‘M.27’) was used for the construction of a linkage map comprising a total of 324 loci: 252 previously mapped SSRs, 71 newly characterised or previously unmapped SSR loci (including 36 amplified by 33 out of the 35 novel markers reported here), and the self-incompatibility locus. The map spanned the 17 linkage groups (LG) expected for apple covering a genetic distance of 1,229.5 cM, an estimated 91% of the Malus genome. Linkage groups were well populated and, although marker density ranged from 2.3 to 6.2 cM/SSR, just 15 gaps of more than 15 cM were observed. Moreover, only 17.5% of markers displayed segregation distortion and, unsurprisingly in a semi-compatible backcross, distortion was particularly pronounced surrounding the self-incompatibility locus (S) at the bottom of LG17. DNA sequences of 273 SSR markers and the S locus, representing a total of 314 loci in this investigation, were used to anchor to the ‘Golden Delicious’ genome sequence. More than 260 of these loci were located on the expected pseudo-chromosome on the ‘Golden Delicious’ genome or on its homeologous pseudo-chromosome. In total, 282.4 Mbp of sequence from 142 genome sequence scaffolds of the Malus genome were anchored to the ‘M.27’ × ‘M.116’ map, providing an interface between the marker data and the underlying genome sequence. This will be exploited for the identification of genes responsible for traits of agronomic importance such as dwarfing and water use efficiency.

Emerging social norms in the UK and Japan on privacy and revelation in SNS

Semi-structured interviews with university students in the UK and Japan, undertaken in 2009 and 2010, are analysed with respect to the revealed attitudes to privacy, self-revelation and revelation by/of others on SNS.

Hankel and Toeplitz transforms on H 1: continuity, compactness and Fredholm properties

We revisit the boundedness of Hankel and Toeplitz operators acting on the Hardy space H 1 and give a new proof of the old result stating that the Hankel operator H a is bounded if and only if a has bounded logarithmic mean oscillation. We also establish a sufficient and necessary condition for H a to be compact on H 1. The Fredholm properties of Toeplitz operators on H 1 are studied for symbols in a Banach algebra similar to C + H ∞ under mild additional conditions caused by the differences in the boundedness of Toeplitz operators acting on H 1 and H 2.

Roll of the rhythmic component in the proactive control of a human hand

In terms of evolution, the strategy of catching prey would have been an important part of survival in a constantly changing environment. A prediction mechanism would have developed to compensate for any delay in the sensory-motor system. In a previous study, “proactive control” was found, in which the motion of the hands preceded the virtual moving target. These results implied that the positive phase shift of the hand motion represents the proactive nature of the visual-motor control system, which attempts to minimize the brief error in the hand motion when the target changes position unexpectedly. In our study, a visual target moves in circle (13 cm diameter) on a computer screen, and each subject is asked to keep track of the target’s motion by the motion of a cursor. As the frequency of the target increases, a rhythmic component was found in the velocity of the cursor in spite of the fact that the velocity of the target was constant. The generation of a rhythmic component cannot be explained simply as a feedback mechanism for the phase shifts of the target and cursor in a sensory-motor system. Therefore, it implies that the rhythmic component was generated to predict the velocity of the target, which is a feed-forward mechanism in the sensory-motor system. Here, we discuss the generation of the rhythmic component and its roll in the feed-forward mechanism.

Modeling the patrol behavior of the Diacamma's gamergate

The gamergate (generally called the “queen”) of the Diacamma sp. walks around in the nest and comes into contact with the workers. The gamergate informs the workers of its presence by physical contact. This behavior is called a “patrol.” In previous work, it was reported that the gamergate controls its patrolling time depending on the colony size. How does the gamergate know the colony size, and how does it control the patrolling time? In this article, we propose a simple dynamics to explain this behavior. We assume that the gamergate and the workers have internal states which interact by physical contacts. By numerical simulations, we confirm that the patrol time of the proposed model depends on the size of the colony.

Analysis and modeling of ants’ behavior from single to multi-body

In order to shed light on the collective behavior of social insects, we analyzed the behavior of ants from single to multi-body. In an experimental set-up, ants are placed in hemisphere without a nest and food. Trajectory of ants is recorded. From this bottom-up approach, we found that collective behavior of ants as follows: 1. Activity of single ant increases and decreases periodically. 2. Spontaneous meeting process is observed between two ants and meeting spot of two ants is localized in hemisphere. 3. Result on division of labor is obtained between two ants.

Polysialic acid as a drug carrier: evaluation of a new polysialic acid–epirubicin conjugate and its comparison against established drug carriers

This paper explores the potential of polysialic acid (PSA) as a carrier for low molecular weight anticancer drugs. A PSA–epirubicin (Epi) conjugate was synthesized and compared against Epi conjugates containing established carriers, namely: N-(2-hydroxypropyl) methacrylamide (HPMA) copolymers, poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) and polyglutamic acid (PGA). Biological assessments in the breast cancer cell line MCF-7 and in the anthracycline resistant MCF-7/DX showed that the PSA–Epi conjugate had the highest activity (40% and 30% cell death in the two cell lines at 1 mM Epi equiv., respectively). FACS studies confirmed internalization of all conjugates by cholesterol-dependent endocytosis. PSA–Epi showed release of Epi (40% at 5 h) when incubated with lysosome extracts. In vivo evaluation showed that all conjugates had a significantly longer half-life compared to free Epi. This study also allowed an investigation on the effect of the polymeric carrier on the biological activity of a conjugate, with the biodegradability of the carrier emerging as an important feature.

Isolation and characterization of an AINTEGUMENTA-like gene in different coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) varieties from Sri Lanka

Development of an efficient tissue culture protocol in coconut is hampered by numerous technical constraints. Thus a greater understanding of the fundamental aspects of embryogenesis is essential. The role of AINTEGUMENTA-like genes in embryogenesis has been elucidated not only in model plants but also in economically important crops. A coconut gene, CnANT, that encodes two APETALA2 (AP2) domains and a conserved linker region similar to those of the BABY BOOM transcription factor was cloned, characterized, and its tissue specific expression was examined. The full-length cDNA of 1,780 bp contains a 1,425-bp open reading frame that encodes a putative peptide of 474 amino acids. The genomic DNA sequence includes 2,317 bp and consists of nine exons interrupted by eight introns. The exon/intron organization of CnANT is similar to that of homologous genes in other plant species. Analysis of differential tissue expression by real-time polymerase chain reaction indicated that CnANT is expressed more highly in in vitro grown tissues than in other vegetative tissues. Sequence comparison of the genomic sequence of CnANT in different coconut varieties revealed one single nucleotide polymorphism and one indel in the first exon and first intron, respectively, which differentiate the Tall group of trees from Dwarfs. The indel sequence, which can be considered a simple sequence repeats marker, was successfully used to distinguish the Tall and Dwarf groups as well as to develop a marker system, which may be of value in the identification of parental varieties that are used in coconut breeding programs in Sri Lanka.