On finite unions and finite products with the D-property

We show that the product of a subparacompact C-scattered space and a Lindelöf D-space is D. In addition, we show that every regular locally D-space which is the union of a finite collection of subparacompact spaces and metacompact spaces has the D-property. Also, we extend this result from the class of locally D-spaces to the wider class of D-scattered spaces. All the results are shown in a direct way.

IPH response to Social Investment Fund Consultation

The Social Investment Fund aims to reduce poverty, unemployment and physical deterioration in areas through area based interventions of significant scale which will be delivered in partnership with communities. The fund will encourage communities, statutory agencies, businesses and departments to work together in a coordinated way, reducing duplication, sharing best practice and enhancing provision for the benefits of those communities most in need. IPH calls for a consideration of health to be included in the Social Investment Fund.  Each of the four objectives of the programme will have the potential to positively impact on health by increasing education attainment and skill levels, tackling deprivation, increasing community support and enhancing the physical regeneration of communities.  IPH also call for greater clarification on the links with other area based partnerships.

IPH response to Department, Trade and Investment (NI) draft strategic energy framework

The draft Framework set out the proposed priorities for Northern Ireland's energy future over the next ten years or so and illustrates the key energy goals in term of competitiveness, security of energy supply, sustainablilty and infrastructure investment. It also proposes new and ambitious renewable electricity and renewable heat targets by 2020, which reflect the need for effected action against climate change and the need to address other policy goals in terms of security and sustainability of supply and costs.

Promoting Women's Health - A Population Investment For Ireland's Future

In line with its statutory brief, the Women's Health Council commissioned research to evaluate progress in achieving the objectives of the Department of Health and Children's 1997 Plan for Women's Health 1997-1999 the Plan) at national and regional level. This was used as the basis of a critique of the effectiveness of the implementation of the Plan to date and the development of proposals for:- building on the achievements to date- ensuring a dynamic role for the structures established as a result of the Plan, especially the regional Womenâ?Ts Health Advisory Committees (WHACs)- securing measurable health gain for women over the next 7-10 years.   Download document here

Paternal investment affects prevalence of malaria.

Both reproduction and parasite defense can be costly, and an animal may face a trade-off between investing in offspring or in parasite defense. In contrast to the findings from nonexperimental studies that the poorly reproducing individuals are often the ones with high parasite loads, this life-history view predicts that individuals with high reproductive investment will show high parasite prevalence. Here we provide an experimental confirmation of a positive association between parental investment levels of male great tits Parus major and the prevalence of Plasmodium spp, a hematozoa causing malaria in various bird species. We manipulated brood size, measured feeding effort of both males and females, and assessed the prevalence of the hemoparasite from blood smears. In enlarged broods the males, but not the females, showed significantly higher rates of food provisioning to the chicks, and the rate of malarial infection was found to be more than double in male, but not female, parents of enlarged broods. The findings show that there may be a trade-off between reproductive effort and parasite defense of the host and also suggest a mechanism for the well documented trade-off between current reproductive effort and parental survival.

Kittiwakes strategically reduce investment in replacement clutches.

Many life-history traits are expressed interactively in life, but to a varying extent on different occasions. Changes in trait expression can be accounted for by differences in the quality of the environment ('environmental constraint' hypothesis) or by strategic adjustments, if the relative contribution of the trait to fitness varies with time ('strategic allocation' hypothesis). In birds, egg production is lower in replacement clutches than in first clutches, but it is unknown whether this reduction results from an environmental constraint (e.g. food being less available at the time when the replacement clutch is produced) or from a strategic allocation of resources between the two breeding attempts. To distinguish between these two hypotheses, we performed an experiment with black-legged kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla). Pairs were either food-supplemented or not before the first clutch was laid onwards and we induced them to produce a replacement clutch by removing eggs once when the first clutch was complete. As predicted by the 'strategic allocation' hypothesis, egg production of food-supplemented and non-food-supplemented birds decreased between first and replacement clutches. This suggests that kittiwakes strategically reduce investment in egg production for their replacement clutches compared to first clutches.

Justifying Institutional Investment in OER Development : OERs as Marketing Vehicle

The higher education sector has become increasingly competitive and prospective students are adopting a consumerist approach to institution and programme choice. In response, higher education marketing has become more complex, market-oriented and business-like. Financial sustainability of open education resource (OER) projects is a widespread concern. This paper explores the extent to which a classical product placement framework can be applied to OERs to justify institutional funding in OER projects as a marketing investment. It is argued that OERs designed on this premise can increase cognitive, affective and conative brand outcomes while providing the traditional educational and societal benefits associated with OERs. A series of propositions are presented that may form the basis of a future research agenda.

Opening Education Beyond the Property Relation: From Commons to Communism

Open Education, and specifically the OER movement, seeks to provide universal access to knowledge, undermining the historical enclosure and the increasing privatisation of the public education system. In this paper we examine this aspiration by submitting the implicit theoretical assumptions of Open Education to the test of critical political economy. We acknowledge the Open Education movement's revolutionary potential but outline the inherent limitations of its current focus on the commons (property relations) rather than the social relations of capitalist production (wage work, the company) and because of this, argue that it will only achieve limited, rather than revolutionary, impact.

War and Natural Resource Exploitation

We build a theoretical framework that allows for endogenous conflict behaviour (i.e., fighting efforts) and for endogenous natural resource exploitation (i.e., speed, ownership, and investments). While depletion is spread in a balanced Hotelling fashion during peace, the presence of conflict creates incentives for rapacious extraction, as this lowers the stakes of future contest. This voracious extraction depresses total oil revenue, especially if world oil demand is relatively elastic and the government's weapon advantage is weak. Some of these political distortions can be overcome by bribing rebels or by government investment in weapons. The shadow of conflict can also make less efficient nationalized oil extraction more attractive than private extraction, as insecure property rights create a holdup problem for the private firm and lead to a lower license fee. Furthermore, the government fights less intensely than the rebels under private exploitation, which leads to more government turnover. Without credible commitment to future fighting efforts, private oil depletion is only lucrative if the government's non-oil office rents are large and weaponry powerful, which guarantees the government a stronger grip on office and makes the holdup problem less severe.

Immunostimulatory property of a synthetic peptide belonging to the soluble ATP diphosphohydro-lase isoform (SmATPDase 2) and immunolocalisation of this protein in the Schistosoma mansoni egg

A peptide (SmB2LJ; r175-194) that belongs to a conserved domain from Schistosoma mansoni SmATPDase 2 and is shared with potato apyrase, as predicted by in silico analysis as antigenic, was synthesised and its immunostimulatory property was analysed. When inoculated in BALB/c mice, this peptide induced high levels of SmB2LJ-specific IgG1 and IgG2a subtypes, as detected by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay. In addition, dot blots were found to be positive for immune sera against potato apyrase and SmB2LJ. These results suggest that the conserved domain r175-194 from the S. mansoni SmATPDase 2 is antigenic. Western blots were performed and the anti-SmB2LJ antibody recognised in adult worm (soluble worm antigen preparation) or soluble egg antigen antigenic preparations two bands of approximately 63 and 55 kDa, molecular masses similar to those predicted for adult worm SmATPDase 2. This finding strongly suggests the expression of this same isoform in S. mansoni eggs. To assess localisation of SmATPDase 2, confocal fluorescence microscopy was performed using cryostat sections of infected mouse liver and polyclonal antiserum against SmB2LJ. Positive reactions were identified on the external surface from the miracidium in von Lichtenberg's envelope and, in the outer side of the egg-shell, showing that this soluble isoform is secreted from the S. mansoni eggs.

Modelling world investment markets using threshold conditional correlation models

In this paper we propose a parsimonious regime-switching approach to model the correlations between assets, the threshold conditional correlation (TCC) model. This method allows the dynamics of the correlations to change from one state (or regime) to another as a function of observable transition variables. Our model is similar in spirit to Silvennoinen and Teräsvirta (2009) and Pelletier (2006) but with the appealing feature that it does not suffer from the course of dimensionality. In particular, estimation of the parameters of the TCC involves a simple grid search procedure. In addition, it is easy to guarantee a positive definite correlation matrix because the TCC estimator is given by the sample correlation matrix, which is positive definite by construction. The methodology is illustrated by evaluating the behaviour of international equities, govenrment bonds and major exchange rates, first separately and then jointly. We also test and allow for different parts in the correlation matrix to be governed by different transition variables. For this, we estimate a multi-threshold TCC specification. Further, we evaluate the economic performance of the TCC model against a constant conditional correlation (CCC) estimator using a Diebold-Mariano type test. We conclude that threshold correlation modelling gives rise to a significant reduction in portfolio´s variance.

Investment, duration, and exit strategies for corporate and independent venture capital-backed start-ups

We propose a model of investment, duration, and exit strategies for start-ups backed by venture capital (VC) funds that accounts for the high level of uncertainty, the asymmetry of information between insiders and outsiders, and the discount rate. Our analysis predicts that start-ups backed by corporate VC funds remain for a longer period of time before exiting and receive larger investment amounts than those financed by independent VC funds. Although a longer duration leads to a higher likelihood of an exit through an acquisition, a larger investment increases the probability of an IPO exit. These predictions find strong empirical support.