Stability-dependent far-field offshore wind-farm wakes are detected in Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) wind power records from wind farms located in the North Sea. The results are ...used to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the Openwind engineering model, which in turn enables understanding of the wake signal captured by the SCADA data. Two experimental model set-ups are evaluated, the current standard set-up considering a neutral atmosphere and extended for stable conditions, and the other using a new atmospheric stability implementation called the far-wake atmospheric stability model (ASM) previously reported in Energies. The ASM approach enables the identification within wind power records of wakes of length at least 30 km depending on the atmospheric stability. The ASM approach would be useful for assessing which neighboring wind farms are likely to affect the wind turbine power output and to what extent the power output is affected by stability.
Adult neurogenesis supports performance in many hippocampal dependent tasks. Considering the small number of adult-born neurons generated at any given time, it is surprising that this sparse ...population of cells can substantially influence behavior. Recent studies have demonstrated that heightened excitability and plasticity may be critical for the contribution of young adult-born cells for certain tasks. What is not well understood is how these unique biophysical and synaptic properties may translate to networks that support behavioral function. Here we employed a location discrimination task in mice while using optogenetics to transiently silence adult-born neurons at different ages. We discovered that adult-born neurons promote location discrimination during early stages of development but only if they undergo maturation during task acquisition. Silencing of young adult-born neurons also produced changes extending to the contralateral hippocampus, detectable by both electrophysiology and fMRI measurements, suggesting young neurons may modulate location discrimination through influences on bilateral hippocampal networks.
Epigenetic marks affecting the expression of genes are triggered by environmental stimuli, can persist throughout life or across multiple generations and can affect an individuals phenotype. In ...recent years there has been a revival of interest about the possible role of epigenetics in affecting complex or quantitative traits. This growing interest is partly driven by the increasing affordability of ultra-high throughput sequencing methods for studying the epigenome. In this review we focus on some of the possible applications of epigenetic knowledge to the improvement of aquaculture. DNA methylation, in which a methyl group is added to the C5 carbon residue of a cytosine by DNA methyltransferase, has been the most widely studied epigenetic mechanism to date, and methods used to obtain and analyse genome-wide DNA methylation data are outlined. The influence of epigenetic processes on the estimation of breeding values and accuracy of genomic selection for genetic improvement of aquatic species is explored. The possibility of tightly controlling nutritional stimuli found to affect epigenetic processes in order to tailor the development of fish for aquaculture is also discussed. Complex experiments will be required in order to gain a better understanding of the role of epigenetics in affecting quantitative traits in fish.
This article examines a flourishing group of elite litigators, that we call 'Grand Advocates', who practice before the Indian Supreme Court and some of India's High Courts. In a court system marked ...by overwhelmed judges with little assistance, multiplicity and blurriness of precedent, and by the centrality of oral presentation, the skills and reputational capital of these lawyers enables them to play a central, lucrative, and unique role. Indeed, it is often the Grand Advocates, as much as the judges, who lead and propel forward the Indian judicial system.
Activist organizations have attempted to build their media agenda through hoaxes as part of a broader strategy called culture jamming. To test the efficacy of this strategy, we conducted a content ...analysis of 114 newspaper articles about the Bhopal disaster, framed through agenda building theory (Cobb & Elder,
1971
). The articles examined were published two years before and after a hoax perpetrated by the activist group The Yes Men. Six hypotheses and one overarching research question were proposed. Several 2 × 2 chi-square tests were conducted to determine the impact of the hoax on the media agenda by examining differences in frequencies of several categories, including mention of (a) Dow ownership, (b) ongoing health consequences, (c) death toll, and (d) additional legal redress both before and after the hoax. Results indicate that the Bhopal BBC hoax actually decreased the media's use of frames sympathetic to the victims of Bhopal. This surprising discovery suggests that culture jammers should alter their strategies if they hope to alter the media agenda in substantial and long-lasting ways. Several implications for culture-jamming strategies are proposed.
First published in 1992, Nick Robinsons Planting Design Handbook has since become widely used as a definitive text on landscape architecture courses throughout the world. This second edition still ...provides a complete examination of both the principles and the practice of design with plants, for public, institutional and private landscapes, but is fully revised and updated, taking account of developments in professional practice and reflecting a variety of media which are currently used. The layout of the book is clearer and more spacious, with colour illustrations. While retaining the beautiful drawings of Jia-Hua Wu, it includes an international range of new photographs and professional drawings, including examples of CAD and other digital media.
The mitochondrial genome of greenlip abalone, Haliotis laevigata, is reported. MiSeq and HiSeq sequencing of one individual was assembled to yield a single 16,545 bp contig. The sequence shares 92% ...identity to the H. rubra mitochondrial genome (a closely related species that hybridize with H. laevigata in the wild). The sequence will be useful for determining the maternal contribution to hybrid populations, for investigating population structure and stock-enhancement effectiveness.
Videogames matter and they matter for international politics. With popular culture increasingly acknowledged as a valuable site for opening up new ways of interrogating theory, this article argues ...that important insights for the critical understanding of American exceptionalism can be developed through the study of military videogames. At one level, military videogames illustrate a number of prominent themes within American exceptionalism: they offer the perception that a threatening and hostile environment confronts the USA, thus situating America as an innocent victim, justified in using force in response; they allow exploration of the link between American exceptionalism and debates on the competence of political leadership, and they open up space to analyse the temporal dimension of international relations. Yet videogames also help expose the foundations (what Weber terms ‘the myths’) upon which American exceptionalism is based, here shown to be centred on the importance of the military industrial complex as a source of exceptionalism.
This article presents a call for political scientists to look seriously at videogames. Beginning with a demonstration of their growing importance, the article then sets out the existing game-related ...literature which demonstrates their persuasive potential. The importance of games for political studies is illustrated through an in-depth discussion of the link between videogames and the militarisation of politics and society: exploration of the role of the military—entertainment complex, felt in particular through the militarisation of the content of games, suggests that this complex is influencing the militarisation of society. Finally, the article explores some of the ways in which such militarisation is being challenged through the use of games for political activism, centred on protests within game spaces and the development of ‘critical’ games. While the article as a whole concludes that the forces that serve to legitimate the military—entertainment complex are considerably greater than those which challenge it, and that the potential of games for activism is at present relatively limited, this does not mean that they are not worthy of study. Games retain considerable scope for both learning (with games offering vital potential to embed real social critique in players) and as potential sources for political activism, which is only likely to grow in the future.
The article explores the complicity of children’s picturebooks in the construction and critique of world politics. Focusing on The Gruffalo, it argues that this spectacularly successful book: (1) ...stories the international as a pessimistic, anarchical world populated by self-interested, survival-seekers; (2) disrupts this reading and its assumptions through evocation of the social production of threat; and, (3) provides a more fundamental decolonial critique of the international through parochial privileging of its protagonist’s journey through a ‘deep dark wood’. In doing this, we argue, the book vividly demonstrates the world’s susceptibility to multiple incompatible readings, while rendering visible the assumptions, framing, and occlusions of competing understandings of the international. As such, it theorises both world politics and knowledge thereof as contingent and unstable. In making this argument, three contributions are made. First, empirically, we expand research on popular culture and world politics through investigating a surprisingly neglected example of the former. Second, theoretically, we demonstrate the work such texts perform in (re)creating and (de)stabilising (knowledge of) global politics. Third, we offer a composite methodological framework for future research into the context, content, and framing of complex texts like The Gruffalo.
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