The recent expansion of cross-cultural research in the social sciences has led to increased discourse on methodological issues involved when studying culturally diverse populations. However, discussions have largely overlooked the challenges of construct validity – ensuring instruments are measuring what they are intended to – in diverse cultural contexts, particularly in developmental research. We contend that cross-cultural developmental research poses distinct problems for ensuring high construct validity owing to the nuances of working with children, and that the standard approach of transporting protocols designed and validated in one population to another risks low construct validity. Drawing upon our own and others’ work, we highlight several challenges to construct validity in the field of cross-cultural developmental research, including (1) lack of cultural and contextual knowledge, (2) dissociating developmental and cultural theory and methods, (3) lack of causal frameworks, (4) superficial and short-term partnerships and collaborations, and (5) culturally inappropriate tools and tests. We provide guidelines for addressing these challenges, including (1) using ethnographic and observational approaches, (2) developing evidence-based causal frameworks, (3) conducting community-engaged and collaborative research, and (4) the application of culture-specific refinements and training. We discuss the need to balance methodological consistency with culture-specific refinements to improve construct validity in cross-cultural developmental research.

Detecting gastrointestinal (GI) infection transmission among men who have sex with men (MSM) in England is complicated by a lack of routine sexual behavioural data. We investigated whether gender distributions might generate signals for increased transmission of GI pathogens among MSM. We examined the percentage male of laboratory-confirmed patient-episodes for patients with no known travel history for 10 GI infections of public health interest in England between 2003 and 2013, stratified by age and region. An adult male excess was observed for Shigella spp. (annual maximum 71% male); most pronounced for those aged 25–49 years and living in London, Brighton and Manchester. An adult male excess was observed every year for Entamoeba histolytica (range 59.8–76.1% male), Giardia (53.1–57.6%) and Campylobacter (52.1–53.5%) and for a minority of years for hepatitis A (max. 69.8%) and typhoidal salmonella (max. 65.7%). This approach generated a signal for excess male episodes for six GI pathogens, including a characterised outbreak of Shigella among MSM. Stratified analyses by geography and age group were consistent with MSM transmission for Shigella. Optimisation and routine application of this technique by public health authorities elsewhere might help identify potential GI infection outbreaks due to sexual transmission among MSM, for further investigation.

A low-carbohydrate, high-protein (LCHP) diet is often recommended for the prevention and management of diabetes in cats; however, the effect of macronutrient composition on insulin sensitivity and energetic efficiency for weight gain is not known. The present study compared the effect in adult cats (n 32) of feeding a LCHP (23 and 47 % metabolisable energy (ME)) and a high-carbohydrate, low-protein (HCLP) diet (51 and 21 % ME) on fasting and postprandial glucose and insulin concentrations, and on insulin sensitivity. Tests were done in the 4th week of maintenance feeding and after 8 weeks of ad libitum feeding, when weight gain and energetic efficiency of each diet were also measured. When fed at maintenance energy, the HCLP diet resulted in higher postprandial glucose and insulin concentrations. When fed ad libitum, the LCHP diet resulted in greater weight gain (P < 0·01), and was associated with higher energetic efficiency. Overweight cats eating the LCHP diet had similar postprandial glucose concentrations to lean cats eating the HCLP diet. Insulin sensitivity was not different between the diets when cats were lean or overweight, but glucose effectiveness was higher after weight gain in cats fed the HCLP diet. According to the present results, LCHP diets fed at maintenance requirements might benefit cats with multiple risk factors for developing diabetes. However, ad libitum feeding of LCHP diets is not recommended as they have higher energetic efficiency and result in greater weight gain.

Three-dimensional (3D) battery architectures have emerged as a new direction for powering microelectromechanical systems and other small autonomous devices. Although there are few examples to date of fully functioning 3D batteries, these power sources have the potential to achieve high power density and high energy density in a small footprint. This overview highlights the various architectures proposed for 3D batteries, the advances made in the fabrication of components designed for these devices, and the remaining technical challenges. Efforts directed at establishing design rules for 3D architectures and modeling are providing insight concerning the energy density and current uniformity achievable with these architectures. The significant progress made on the fabrication of electrodes and electrolytes designed for 3D batteries is an indication that a number of these battery architectures will be successfully demonstrated within the next few years.

We present an X-ray diffraction study of a semiconductor symmetric tilt grain boundary. The theory of crystal truncation rod scattering is extended to bicrystal interfaces and compared with experimental data measured at the Diamond Light Source.

Culicoides variipennis sonorensis Wirth & Jones and C. nubeculosus (Meigen) were orally infected with African horse sickness virus (AHSV) type 9 and subsequently incubated at 10, 15, 20 and 25°C (R.H. 80%±10%). A time course of infection rates and virus titres was recorded by assaying flies individually or in pools, and survival rates of flies were also estimated. Survival rates at 10, 15 and 20°C were very similar and 80–90% of flies remained alive after 14 days; at 25°C after the same period survival was reduced to 40%. None of the C. nubeculosus became persistently infected with AHSV, but the virus took longer to clear as the incubation temperature dropped. At temperatures of 10, 15, 20 and 25°C virus was undetectable on days 12, 8, 5, and 4 days post infection (dpi), respectively. In C. v. sonorensis both the infection rate and rate of virogenesis were related to temperature. At 25°C a maximum mean titre of 104.3 TCID50/fly was reached by 9 dpi and the infection rate remained between 60 and 80%. At 20°C virogenesis was slower and a maximum mean titre of 104.3 TCID50/fly was reached only after 23 days; the infection rate was also reduced to 50–70%. At 15°C there was an overall decline in virus titre with time, although between 12 and 15 dpi some pools of flies contained 103.0–104.0 TCID50/fly, demonstrating that virogenesis can occur. The infection rate at this temperature decreased dramatically to 0–15% after 9 dpi. At 10°C there was no detectable virogenesis and all pools tested at 13 dpi were negative. The apparent infection rate dropped to 0–5% between 13 and 35 days post infection. However, when surviving flies were then returned to 25 °C for 3 days the infection rate increased to 15.5%. It therefore appears that at low temperatures the virus does not replicate but infectious virus may persist at a level below that detectable by the usual assay systems. The implications of these findings for the epidemiology of AHS are discussed.

We adopted a Galactic model of massive star forming regions (Viti & Williams 1999; Viti et al. 2001) to predict the possible range of chemical abundances of more than 200 species in extragalactic star forming regions. We find that hot core molecules should be detectable in external active galaxies out to high redshift. We present a summary of this study as well as observations of typical tracers of extragalactic hot cores to confirm the modelling work. We detected for the first time the CS(7-6) line in the center of M 82 and we provide the first detection of CS taken in the Antennae (NGC 4038).

Magnetic fields are found everywhere in the cosmic Universe. Theyhave been known to exist on the Earth for centuries. They weredetected in the Sun, measured in situ in the planets, observed instars, galaxies and clusters of galaxies. Magnetic fields areresponsible for many observed effects like radio continuum emission,jets, beamed emission in pulsars, star formation, etc. Possibly thewhole universe is intimately governed by the presence of magneticfields. This review will summarize the observational results anddiscuss the present interpretation for the origin of the magneticfields.

Since its prediction and first detection just over 50 years ago,the 21-cm line of neutral atomic hydrogen has been a key probe of thestructure and dynamics of the Milky Way Galaxy and of the astrophysics ofthe Galactic interstellar medium (ISM). Emission from Galactic atomichydrogen is seen in all directions and the structures revealed reflect theprocesses relevant to the evolution of the Galaxy and phase transitions ofthe ISM. As in other areas of astronomy, our knowledge of the neutral ISMfrom HI studies has progressed in lock step with radio telescope technology.Over the last several years interferometric surveys have providedarcminute-scale HI images that allow the atomic hydrogen component of theISM to be viewed in the context of the other major ISM components and revealdynamic structures in HI related to the interaction of ISM with the stellarcomponent of the Galaxy. The International Galactic Plane Survey, acollaboration to combined interferometric surveys from Canada, the US and Australia, is imaging over 90% of the stellar disk of the Milky Way in HI at arcminute resolution. When it is built in the post 2010 era, the prodigious survey speed and angular resolution of the Square Kilometre Array will affect another seminal advance in Galactic HI studies.


The Atacama Large Millimeter Array, hereafter ALMA, is a large international telescope project which will be built over the next decade in northern Chile on a site at 5 km elevation. The site provides excellent atmospheric transmission in the millimeter and sub-millimeter wavelength ranges. The project consists of sixty-four 12-m antennas which can be placed on 250 different stations. These stations cover baselines up to 14 km. At the shortest planned wavelength, λ = 0.3 mm, and longest baseline, the angular resolution will be 0.005 arcsec. The receivers are superconducting (SIS) mixers, to provide the lowest possible receiver noise contribution. In the basic ALMA project the 4 highest priority receiver bands will be installed first (see Table 2). These will all have SIS mixers for both polarizations, each with a bandwidth of 8 GHz. A unique feature of ALMA is that this instrument will record both interferometric and total power data. Thus the complete flux density will be recovered. In the following, we present the status of the ALMA project as of end 2003 with a few comments about future developments in the project in Section 7.


Only a handful of supernovae can be studied with milliarcsecondresolution using the VLBI technique. However, such rare studieshave permitted in various cases to estimate expansiondecelerations and to obtain information on supernova ejecta andcircumstellar media, as well as on the structure of the emittingregion. We review results on high resolution observations of thenearby radio supernovae: SN 1979C, SN 1986J, SN 1987A, andSN 1993J. For completeness, we also review the results on thesupernova remnants in M 82.


On behalf of ESA and the Planck Scientific Collaboration, we present anoverview of the European Space Agency's Planck mission, itsscientific objectives and the main elements of its technical design.The current programmatic status of Planck within ESA's Scientific Programme,implementation plans, and near-term milestones arealso outlined.

I present an simple, introductory review text, focusing on recent deep field studies using radio telescopes, including high-resolution, wide-field VLBI observations. The nature of the faint radio source population is discussed, taking into account complimentary data and results that are now available via the sub-mm, IR, optical and X-ray wave-bands. New developments regarding the increased sensitivity of VLBI and an expansion in the instruments field-of-view are also presented. VLBI may be an important tool in recognising distant, obscured AGN from the “contaminant” star forming galaxies that now dominate lower-resolution, sub-arcsecond and arcsecond radio observations.

We present some notes concerning recent achievements in observational and theoretical cosmology, especially CMB cosmology. We emphasize that some cosmological processes could be more complicated than the standard cosmological scenario. In this case we need additional parameters for their description. Taking into account these new “missing” parameters we obtain alternative values for the old standard cosmological parameters to provide the best fit to the observational data. As an example we show that the more complicated models of the kinetics of recombination (with a few new “missing” parameters describing the recombination processes at z ≃ 103) provide better agreement between measured and expected characteristics of the CMB anisotropy.


Reference systems and frames are crucial for high precision absolute astrometric work, and their foundations must bewell-defined. The current frame, the International CelestialReference Frame, will be discussed: its history, the use of the groupdelay as the measured quantity, the positional accuracy of 0.3 mas,and possible future improvements. On the other hand, for thedetermination of the motion of celestial objects, accuraciesapproaching 0.01 mas can be obtained by measuring the differentialposition between the target object and nearby stationary sources.This relative astrometric technique uses phase referencing, andthe current techniques and limitations are discussed, usingthe resultsfrom four experiments. Brief comments are included on theinterpretation of the Jupiter gravity deflection experiment ofSeptember 2002.


We review recent examples where the synergy between radio and X-ray observations has led to substantial progress in understanding astronomical systems. The sub-arcsecond imaging capabilities of the Chandra X-ray observatory provides a 100-fold improvement for comparing X-ray and radio structures. We specifically discuss examples which provide insight into the outflow of material and energy from pulsars and supernovae, the centers of clusters of galaxies, and the nuclei of quasars.

HALCA, the first dedicated satellite for space VLBI, was launchedin February 1997, and VSOP observations have been successfullyundertaken at 1.6 and 5 GHz. The near-future VSOP-2 mission isplanned to have frequency bands of 8, 22, and 43 GHz, with dualpolarization, a 1 Gbps downlink bit-rate, and a phase-referencingcapability. The mission proposal was submitted to ISAS/JAXA inSeptember 2003, with the earliest possible launch, if approved, in2012. There must be other missions farther into the future, and mmand sub-mm space VLBI must be realized as the ultimate highresolution imaging instrument over the electro-magnetic spectrum.ALMA and SKA can also play important roles for space VLBI.