Behavioral and Physiological Responses to Light by the Sea Anemone Anthopleura elegantissima as Related to its Algal Endosymbionts

The endosymbiosis of algae with invertebrates may be viewed with at least two major orientations. On the one hand, one may focus on the plant and animal as essentially separate organisms living together, as the word symbiosis states. The products which are exchanged between the plant and animal and the effects of the association on either partner are then of particular interest. On the other hand, one may consider the partnership as an entity, and attempt to investigate the physiology, behavior, etc. of the symbiotic association, observing what differences may appear between the "plant-animal" and analogous non-symbiotic organisms. It is the second approach which I have tried to take in this thesis. I have concentrated on some effects of light on symbiotic and aposymbiotic sea anemones of the species Anthopleura elegantissima, particularly with respect to pigmentation and several types of behavior.

The stochastic exit problem for dynamical systems

The problem of "exit against a flow" for dynamical systems subject to small Gaussian white noise excitation is studied. Here the word "flow" refers to the behavior in phase space of the unperturbed system's state variables. "Exit against a flow" occurs if a perturbation causes the phase point to leave a phase space region within which it would normally be confined. In particular, there are two components of the problem of exit against a flow:

i) the mean exit time

ii) the phase-space distribution of exit locations.

When the noise perturbing the dynamical systems is small, the solution of each component of the problem of exit against a flow is, in general, the solution of a singularly perturbed, degenerate elliptic-parabolic boundary value problem.

Singular perturbation techniques are used to express the asymptotic solution in terms of an unknown parameter. The unknown parameter is determined using the solution of the adjoint boundary value problem.

The problem of exit against a flow for several dynamical systems of physical interest is considered, and the mean exit times and distributions of exit positions are calculated. The systems are then simulated numerically, using Monte Carlo techniques, in order to determine the validity of the asymptotic solutions.

Scientific investigations into the eutrophication of the Norfolk Broads

The word ”Broads” is used to describe a series of relatively shallow lakes resulting from the flooding of medieval peat diggings. Broadland is essentially freshwater, but because the rivers have such low gradients the lower reaches are brackish. The influence of tide is particularly apparent on the River Yare; in Norwich 40 km from the sea there is a vertical movement of half a metre at spring tide. This study examines the problems that the broadlands are facing. The problems are basically the progressive loss of aquatic plants, in particular the macro- phytes, animal life, outbreaks of avian botulism, occasional fish kills due to a toxin produced by the blue-green alga Prymesium parvum and the emergence of very heavy algal blooms. The main factor for the deteriation of the Broaslands is the eutrophication resulting from enhanced nutrient inputs, in particular of nitrates and phosphates, from a variety of sources. The most important of these are sewage effluents, agricultural drainage, which includes fertilisers and nutrient rich effluents from piggeries and dairy un

The use of syntax and multiple alternatives in the VODIS voice operated database inquiry system

The paper describes the architecture of VODIS, a voice operated database inquiry system, and presents some experiments which investigate the effects on performance of varying the level of a priori syntactic constraints. The VODIS system includes a novel mechanism for incorporating context-free grammatical constraints directly into the word recognition algorithm. This allows the degree of a priori constraint to be smoothly varied and provides for the controlled generation of multiple alternatives. The results show that when the spoken input deviates from the predefined task grammar, a combination of weak a priori syntax rules in conjunction with full a posteriori parsing on a lattice of alternative word matches provides the most robust recognition performance. © 1991.

Continuous speech recognition for the TIMIT database using neural networks

Four types of neural networks which have previously been established for speech recognition and tested on a small, seven-speaker, 100-sentence database are applied to the TIMIT database. The networks are a recurrent network phoneme recognizer, a modified Kanerva model morph recognizer, a compositional representation phoneme-to-word recognizer, and a modified Kanerva model morph-to-word recognizer. The major result is for the recurrent net, giving a phoneme recognition accuracy of 57% from the si and sx sentences. The Kanerva morph recognizer achieves 66.2% accuracy for a small subset of the sa and sx sentences. The results for the word recognizers are incomplete.

Word boundary modelling and full covariance gaussians for Arabic Speech-to-Text systems

This paper describes recent improvements to the Cambridge Arabic Large Vocabulary Continuous Speech Recognition (LVCSR) Speech-to-Text (STT) system. It is shown that wordboundary context markers provide a powerful method to enhance graphemic systems by implicit phonetic information, improving the modelling capability of graphemic systems. In addition, a robust technique for full covariance Gaussian modelling in the Minimum Phone Error (MPE) training framework is introduced. This reduces the full covariance training to a diagonal covariance training problem, thereby solving related robustness problems. The full system results show that the combined use of these and other techniques within a multi-branch combination framework reduces the Word Error Rate (WER) of the complete system by up to 5.9% relative. Copyright © 2011 ISCA.

Using sub-word-level information for confidence estimation with conditional random field models

The task of word-level confidence estimation (CE) for automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems stands to benefit from the combination of suitably defined input features from multiple information sources. However, the information sources of interest may not necessarily operate at the same level of granularity as the underlying ASR system. The research described here builds on previous work on confidence estimation for ASR systems using features extracted from word-level recognition lattices, by incorporating information at the sub-word level. Furthermore, the use of Conditional Random Fields (CRFs) with hidden states is investigated as a technique to combine information for word-level CE. Performance improvements are shown using the sub-word-level information in linear-chain CRFs with appropriately engineered feature functions, as well as when applying the hidden-state CRF model at the word level.

Ubuntu and the Obligation to Obey the Law

Nkiruka, M., Ubuntu and the Obligation to Obey the Law, Cambrian Law Review. Vol. 37. 2006. p. 17 RAE2008

Genteel revolutionaries: the lives of Anna and Thomas Haslam

The lives of Thomas and Anna Haslam were dedicated to the attainment of women's equality. They were feminists before the word was coined. In an era when respectable women were not supposed to know of the existence of prostitutes, Anna became empowered to do the unthinkable, not only to speak in public but to discuss openly matters sexual and to attack the double standard of sexuality which was enshrined in the official treatment of prostitutes. Their life-long commitment to the cause of women's suffrage never faltered, despite the repeated discouragement of the fate of bills defeated in the House of Commons. The Haslams represented an Ireland which did not survive them. While they were dedicated to the union with Westminster, they worked happily with those who applied themselves to its destruction. Although in many ways they exemplified the virtues of their Quaker backgrounds, they did not subscribe to any organised religion. Despite living in straitened circumstances, they were part of an urban intellectual elite and participated in the social and cultural life of Dublin for over fifty years. It is tempting to speculate how the Haslams would have fared in post independence Ireland. Hanna Sheehy Skeffington who had impeccable nationalist credentials, was effectively marginalised. It is likely that they would have protested against discriminatory legislation in their usual law abiding manner but, in a country which quickly developed an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic ethos, would they have had a voice or a constituency? Ironically, Thomas's teaching on chastity would have found favour with the hierarchy; his message was disseminated in a simple and more pious manner in numerous Catholic Truth Society pamphlets. The Protestant minority never sought to subvert the institutions of the state, was careful not to criticise and kept its collective head down. Dáil Éireann was not bombarded with petitions for the restoration of divorce facilities or the unbanning of birth control. Those who sought such amenities obtained them quietly 'in another jurisdiction.' Fifty years were to pass before the condom wielding 'comely maidens' erupted on to the front pages of the Sunday papers. They were, one imagines, the spiritual descendants of the militant rather than the constitutional suffrage movement. "Once and for all we need to commit ourselves to the concept that women's rights are not factional or sectional privileges, bestowed on the few at the whim of the many. They are human rights. In a society in which the rights and potential of women are constrained no man can be truly free." These words spoken by Mary Robinson as President of Ireland are an echo of the principles to which the Haslams dedicated their lives and are, perhaps, a tribute to their efforts.

The Cliché as Critique and Complaint

The cliché is a peripheral term in our critical vocabulary. Reviewers, critics, and editors speak of clichés, but dictionaries of critical terms rarely provide entries on the word. This paper asks whether pointing out clichés represents a form of critique or whether it is just quibbling, and how we draw the line between scrutiny and pedantry.

Mathematical notation in formal specification: Too difficult for the masses? [Correspondence]

The phrase “not much mathematics required” can imply a variety of skill levels. When this phrase is applied to computer scientists, software engineers, and clients in the area of formal specification, the word “much” can be widely misinterpreted with disastrous consequences. A small experiment in reading specifications revealed that students already trained in discrete mathematics and the specification notation performed very poorly; much worse than could reasonably be expected if formal methods proponents are to be believed.

Press, politic, and social order in Buenos Aires during the 1850s

The paper examines some reflections and discussions about the role and nature of the press that took place in Buenos Aires during the 1850s, referring to the difficulties involved in congenial freedom and order. This was caused by the fact that the press was considered a pillar of republican and civilized societies, but also an agent capable of corroding the social and political order.

Reconsidering Respect: Its Role in the British Prison Service

This article examines the meaning of respect in the interpersonal relationships within Her Majesty’s Prison Service. It is argued that respect-as-esteem and respect-asconsideration are often confused and unequally emphasised in modern society. This confusion is especially evident within the prison context where, due to the prison service’s ‘decency agenda’, the respectful treatment of inmates has become a topical issue. What does respect mean in prison? Why is it important? How can respectful relationships be established between staff and inmates? This article discusses these questions and proposes that there are different forms of respect possible between people. It is argued that there needs to be a recognition of the nuances of meaning when we use the word respect and that ‘respect-as-consideration’ may be the form of respect most consistently achievable, at the present time, within interpersonal relationships in English and Welsh prisons.

Judicial Rehabilitation and the ‘Clean Bill of Health’ in Criminal Justice.

Drawing on an important survey of European and Australian policies toward ‘judicial rehabilitation,’ this article makes the following arguments. First, the rehabilitation movement should return to the origins of the word ‘rehabilitation’ and focus at least as much on efforts to remove and relieve ex-prisoner stigma as on treatment and reform efforts. There will be no ‘rehabilitation revolution’ without this. Second, these efforts should involve active, not passive redemption. Rehabilitation processes that require almost a decade or more of ‘crime-free’ behaviour before forgiving an individual for his or her crimes are just and fair, but they miss the point of rehabilitation. Policies should encourage, support and facilitate good behaviour and not just reward it in retrospect. Third, rehabilitation should not just be done, but be ‘seen to be done,’ ideally in a ritualised format. This sends an important message to the individual and wider society. Finally, I argue that it may be better to forgive than forget past crimes. That is, rather than burying past crimes as if they never happened, states should instead acknowledge and formally recognise that people can change, that good people can do bad things, and that all individuals should be able to move on from past convictions.

Beyond the Sign. Henri Meschonnic's Poetics of Rhythm and Continuum. Towards an Anthropological Theory of Language

Basing the conception of language on the sign represents also an obstacle to the awareness of certain elements of human life, especially to a full understanding of what language or art do, Henri Meschonnic’s poetics of the continuum and of rhythm criticizes the sign based on Benveniste’s terms of rhythm and discourse, developing an anthropology of language. Rhythm, for Meschonnic, is no formal metrical but a semantic principle, each time unique and unforeseeable. As for Humboldt, his starting point is not the word but the ensemble of speech; language is not ergon but energeia. The poem then is not a literary form but a process of transformation that Meschonnic defines as the invention of a form of life by a form of language and vice versa. Thus a poem is a way of thinking and rhythm is form in movement. The particular subject of art and literature is consequently not the author but a process of subjectivation – this is the contrary of the conception of the sign. By demonstrating the limits of the sign, Meschonnic’s poetics attempts to thematize the intelligibility of presence. Art and literature raise our awareness of this element of human life we cannot grasp conceptually. This poetical thinking is a necessary counterforce against all institutionalization.