U.S. society frequently turns to property law to mediate the various social and ecological dynamics of complex and evolving environments like coastal areas, which are places of transition subject to both natural and human changes. Furthermore, U.S. society frequently turns to constitutional takings doctrines to mediate the dynamics of property law. However, property law and takings cases can be maladaptive to the evolutionary dynamics of coastal lands when they fail to contemplate the ecological and social conditions and dynamics of the objects of property rights and takings claims. In particular, legal abstractions, such as the metaphor of property as a "bundle of rights," disconnect property and takings law from its context and real-world functions. An example of three maladaptive responses to coastal land management can be found in the three opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court in Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection. In the case, all eight participating Justices agreed that the Florida Supreme Court's validation of the State of Florida's establishment of a boundary-fixing "erosion control line" was not a radical departure from Florida precedent on coastal land ownership rights. However, the Court split 4-4 over whether the Takings Clause of the U.S. Constitution creates a potential claim of a "judicial taking," producing three different opinions about judicial takings and the relationships of federal courts to state judicial changes in property law. In each of the three opinions in Stop the Beach Renourishment, the Justices have built "legal castles in the sand": artificial constructs that will not stand up to the inevitability of change. Each opinion is poorly suited for mediating property issues in coastal lands because it is built on a legal-centric abstraction mismatched to the complex realities of coastal land use. This article argues that courts should shape property doctrines and decide takings cases with regard for the concrete context in which those doctrines and cases arise, particularly ecological and socio-cultural dynamics. A strong theory of judicial takings, just like many sweeping and aggressive protections of private property autonomy and power, is likely to over-protect private property. However, a weak theory of judicial takings, just like many sweeping and aggressive protections of government or public authority and power, is likely to under-protect private property. In both cases, serious harms to both ecological health and integrity and socio-cultural health and integrity are likely, even if the specific harms vary. The issue is not resistance to change versus unconstrained and rapid change. Instead, the issue is about identifying and facilitating change that is right for and adaptive to the particular evolving context in which the tensions over property interests, land uses, and legal institutions arise. In particular, the object-regarding and context-considering concept of property as a "web of interests" is likely to be more adaptive to change within complex and interconnected ecological and social systems, particularly in sensitive environments like coastal lands, than property concepts that rely on legal-centric abstractions.


The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of single-gender instruction
on academic achievement in reading and math for middle grade students. The study used
a representative sample of 8 public middle schools in the United States from diverse
geographic, economic and racial backgrounds. Quantitative measures included scores
from state standardized tests. Scores measured changes before and after single-gender
implementation designs at each school. Qualitative interview data identified additional
effects of single-gender instruction. Analysis of the research literature and the data from
this study revealed that single-sex instruction does not negatively impact academic
achievement.


This is the second of two Articles on the expressive aspects of corporate criminal liability. The first Article argued that to justify imposing criminal liability on corporations we must refer to the expressive function of criminal liability. This Article considers the expressive function of actual corporate prosecutions and identifies aspects of corporate prosecutions that generate expressive costs rather than benefits. These are the expressive failures of corporate prosecutions. This Article identifies a number of these failures and introduces a model of perceived legitimacy and the expressive function of punishment that explains how expressive failures harm the legal system. Mere respondeat superior liability — holding corporations criminally liable where there is no basis to condemn the corporation qua corporation — is the most significant expressive failure. It is also the easiest to fix: Allow corporations a good-faith defense against criminal liability. Good faith defenses have been proposed before, but this is the first proposal based on the expressive impact of the defense. A good faith defense will limit the application of corporate criminal liability to those instances where there is a basis to condemn the corporation as a whole, thus realigning the expression inherent in criminal punishment with commonly held views about blaming corporations.


Contract has been conceptualized as a species of promise. Treating contractual promise as a kind of promise highlights certain important aspects of contracting, but it also obscures essential differences between legally binding and everyday, or what I will call "private," promises. The moral character of a private promise depends on the fact that it is not only freely made but also freely kept. Most contractual promises are not intended to have and (by definition) do not have this voluntary character. A promisor essentially opts out of the private practice of promising when she assigns to a third party the authority to coerce performance of her promise.In making a private promise, a promisor creates a sufficient reason to perform the content of her promise: the very fact of her promise. To the extent she creates a second sufficient reason - liability in the case of breach - the first reason does no work, or, there is no way for the independent sufficiency of the first reason to manifest itself objectively. Similarly, in being made a private promise, a promisee is given ground for belief that the promisor will perform: again, the fact of promise. To the extent the promisee is independently assured of performance, she cannot objectively rely on the fact of promise alone. The act of contracting removes one from the moral world of private promise.Some contractual promises co-exist with private promises of the same content. But their co-existence is uneasy, because invoking the specter of the law undermines the commitment contained in a promise from the perspective of both promisor and promisee. The content of that commitment is possible only within a close personal relationship. It entails a combining of interests that were previously separately held by promisor and promisee. In a private promise, the promisor undertakes to give the promisee's relevant interests weight equal to or greater than her own. The specter of legal liability creates a reason for performance stemming from the separateness rather than the unity of interests between promisor and promisee. A sincere intent on the part of the promisor to perform for reasons unrelated to legal obligation does not dissipate this tension any more than a sincere intent on the part of the more powerful party in a dispute to resolve that dispute fairly would render her unilateral decision just.Once we have disentangled private and legal promise, we can begin to adjust the boundaries and defaults of contract law accordingly. Because private promises are private, contract law should make it relatively costly for parties to bring the law to bear on such commitments; indeed, it already does. When public policy dictates affording a legal remedy for the breach of private promise, we can mitigate the conflict between private and legal promise by minimizing their overlap. This can be (and, in part, already is) done by limiting the remedies for breach to ones which the private promise did not contemplate. In fact, the remedy should deviate from both the obligations imposed by private promissory norms and the remedy usually awarded in commercial cases. In the context of personal relationships, reliance damages should be the preferred remedy. Reliance damages redress the injury inflicted by breach of the promise, in which the state may have a legitimate interest, but do not have the effect of either coercing performance or rendering the promisee indifferent to performance.In other contexts, the distinction between private and legal promise calls for an expansion of the domain of contract. For example, promises made in the context of radical inequality in power, as in most employment circumstances, are often located outside the law. A promisor with vastly superior bargaining power need not promise in the contractual form in order to induce the desired conduct by the promisee; the promisor has no incentive to submit the unequal relationship to legal authority. Downward promises between hierarchically situated persons are not easily enforced by the state. Thus, performance of those promises usually remains at the discretion of the promisor. Such promises are false private promises. To the extent we see the depersonalization of the employment relationship as an important achievement of the liberal market economy, this account clarifies one task of contract law: the displacement of private promise in the realm of employment. Just as parties should have to go out of their way to make a private promise legally binding, legal defaults should make it relatively onerous for employers to avoid legal consequence when they make promises to their employees.


This note describes a method for approximate inference in infinite models that uses deterministic Expectation Propagation instead of Monte Carlo. For infinite Gaussian mixtures, the algorithm provides cluster parameter estimates, cluster memberships, and model evidence. Model parameters, such as the expected size of the mixture, can be efficiently tuned via EM with EP as the E-step. The same approach can apply other infinite models such as infinite HMMs.


This study reports the modeling of three categories of ineffective vegetable parenting practices (IVPP) separately (responsive, structure, and control vegetable parenting practices). An internet survey was employed for a cross sectional assessment of parenting practices and cognitive-emotional variables. Parents (n=307) of preschool children (3-5 years old) were recruited through announcements and postings. Models were analyzed with block regression and backward deletion procedures using a composite IVPP scale as the dependent variable. The independent variables included validated scales from a Model of Goal Directed Vegetable Parenting Practices (MGDVPP), including: intention, habit, perceived barriers, desire, competence, autonomy, relatedness, attitudes, norms, perceived behavioral control, and anticipated emotions. The available scales accounted for 26.5%, 16.7% and 44.6% of the variance in the IVPP responsive, structure and control subscales, respectively. Different sets of diverse variables predicted the three IVPP constructs. Intentions, Habits and Perceived Behavioral Control were strong predictors for each of the IVPP constructs, but the subscales were specific to each IVPP construct. Parent emotional responses, an infrequently investigated variable, was an important predictor of ineffective responsive vegetable parenting practices and ineffective structure vegetable parenting practices, but not ineffective control vegetable parenting practices. An Attitude subscale and a Norms subscale predicted ineffective responsive vegetable parenting practices alone. This was the first report of psychometrically tested scales to predict use of IVPP subscales. Further research is needed to verify these findings in larger longitudinal cohorts. Interventions to increase child vegetable intake may have to reduce IVPP.


Industry observes have proposed increasing the role of subordinated debt in bank capital requirements as a means to increase market discipline. A recent Federal Reserve System Task Force evaluated the characteristics of such proposals. Here, the authors take the next step and offer a specific sub-debt proposal. They describe how it would operate and what changes it would require in the regulatory framework.


The definitive source of information on all topics related to investment valuation tools and techniques
Valuation is at the heart of any investment decision, whether that decision is buy, sell or hold. But the pricing of many assets has become a more complex task in modern markets, especially after the recent financial crisis. In order to be successful at this endeavor, you must have a firm understanding of the proper valuation techniques. One valuation book stands out as withstanding the test of time among investors and students of financial markets, Aswath Damodaran'sInvestment Valuation.
Now completely revised and updated to reflect changing market conditions, this third edition comprehensively introduces investment professionals and students to the range of valuation models available and how to chose the right model for any given asset valuation scenario. This edition includes valuation techniques for a whole host of real options, start-up firms, unconventional assets, distressed companies and private equity, and real estate. All examples have been updated and new material has been added.

Fully revised to incorporate valuation lessons learned from the last five years, from the market crisis and emerging markets to new types of equity investments
Includes valuation practices across the life cycle of companies and emphasizes value enhancement measures, such as EVA and CFROI
Contains a new chapter on probabilistic valuation techniques such as decision trees and Monte Carlo Simulation
Author Aswath Damodaran is regarded as one of the best educators and thinkers on the topic of investment valuation

This indispensable guide is a must read for anyone wishing to gain a better understanding of investment valuation and its methods. With it, you can take the insights and advice of a recognized authority on the valuation process and immediately put them to work for you.


European crisis arrived at the crossroad. The preservation of the Eurozone in its current shape and scale implies economic changes which are increasingly resented by nations on the Mediterranean littoral – those most affected by the crisis. Alternative policies of monetary and fiscal expansion threaten the EU members north of Alps by both devastating inflation and, given their demographics, the social justice and wellbeing. However, the restructuring of the Eurozone implies short to medium term undesirable consequences. This paper suggests that the introduction of the parallel currency alongside the Euro in most affected counties may be a solution which preserves the current scope and scale of the Eurozone, mitigates the impact of "southern" adjustment and reduces the Eurozone-wide impact of needed financial restructuring.


Facility location decisions play a critical role in the strategic design of supply chain networks. In this paper, an extensive literature review of facility location models in the context of supply chain management is given. Following a brief review of core models in facility location, we identify basic features that such models must capture to support decision-making involved in strategic supply chain planning. In particular, the integration of location decisions with other decisions relevant to the design of a supply chain network is discussed. Furthermore, aspects related to the structure of the supply chain network, including those specific to reverse logistics, are also addressed. Significant contributions to the current state-of-the-art are surveyed taking into account numerous factors. Supply chain performance measures and optimization techniques are also reviewed. Applications of facility location models to supply chain network design ranging across various industries are discussed. Finally, a list of issues requiring further research are highlighted.


The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) works to improve food security and reduce poverty in developing countries through research for better and more sustainable use of livestock. ILRI is a member of the CGIAR Consortium, a global research partnership of 15 centres working with many partners for a food-secure future. ILRI has two main campuses in East Africa and other hubs in East, West and Southern Africa and South, Southeast and East Asia. ilri.org


From the Publisher:
What do flashlights, the British invasion, black cats, and seesaws have to do with computers? In Code, they show us the ingenious ways we manipulate language and invent new ways to communicate with each other. And through Code, we see how this ingenuity-and our very human compulsion to communicate-have driven the technological innovations of the past two centuries.
Using everyday objects and familiar language systems such as Braille and Morse code, author Charles Petzold provides non-programmers an illuminating narrative for anyone who's ever wondered about the secret inner life of computers and other smart machines.
It's a cleverly illustrated and eminently comprehensible story-and along the way, you'll discover that you've gained a real context for understanding today's world of PCs, digital media, and the Internet. No matter what your level of technical savvy, Code will charm you-and perhaps even awaken the technophile within.


This paper presents a system that allows online building of 3D wireframe models through a combination of user interaction and automated methods from a handheld camera-mouse. Crucially, the model being built is used to concurrently compute camera pose, permitting extendable tracking while enabling the user to edit the model interactively. In contrast to other model building methods that are either off-line and/or automated but computationally intensive, the aim here is to have a system that has low computational requirements and that enables the user to define what is relevant (and what is not) at the time the model is being built. OutlinAR hardware is also developed which simply consists of the combination of a camera with a wide field of view lens and a wheeled computer mouse.


For the logic generations of the 15 nm node and beyond, the printing of pitches at 64nm and below are needed. For EUV lithography to replace ArF-based multi-exposure techniques, it is required to print these patterns in a single exposure process. The k1 factor is roughly 0.6 for 64nm pitch at an NA of 0.25, and k1 ≈ 0.52 for 56nm pitch. These k1 numbers are of the same order at which model based OPC was introduced in KrF and ArF lithography a decade or so earlier. While we have done earlier work that used model-based OPC for the 22nm node test devices using EUV,1 we used a simple threshold model without further resist model calibration. For 64 nm pitch at an NA of 0.25, the OPC becomes more important, and at 56nm pitch it becomes critical. For 15 nm node lithography, we resort to a full resist model calibration using tools that were adapted from conventional optical lithography. We use a straight shrink 22 nm test layout to assess post-OPC printability of a metal layer at pitches at 64 nm and 56 nm, and we use this information to correct test layouts.


Supporters of capping court awards for medical malpractice argue that caps will make health care more affordable. It may not be that simple. First, caps on awards may result in some patients not receiving adequate compensation for injuries they suffer as a result of physician negligence. Second, because caps limit physician liability, they can also mute incentives for physicians to reduce the risk of negligent injuries. Supporters of caps counter that this deterrent function of medical malpractice liability is not working anyway - that awards do not track actual damages, and medical malpractice insurance carriers do not translate the threat of liability into incentives that reward high-quality care or penalize errant physicians. This paper reviews an existing body of work that shows that medical malpractice awards do track actual damages. Furthermore, this paper provides evidence that medical malpractice insurance carriers use various tools to reduce the risk of patient injury, including experience rating of physicians' malpractice premiums. High-risk physicians face higher malpractice insurance premiums than their less-risky peers. In addition, carriers offer other incentives for physicians to reduce the risk of negligent care: they disseminate information to guide risk management efforts, oversee high-risk practitioners, and monitor providers who offer new procedures where experience is not sufficient to assess risk. On rare occasions, carriers will even deny coverage, which cuts the physician off from an affiliation with most hospitals and health maintenance organizations, and precludes practice entirely in some states. If the medical malpractice liability insurance industry does indeed protect consumers, then policies that reduce liability or shield physicians from oversight by carriers may harm consumers. In particular, caps on damages would reduce physicians' and carriers' incentives to keep track of and reduce practice risk. Laws that shield government-employed physicians from malpractice liability eliminate insurance company oversight of physicians working for government agencies. State-run insurance pools that insure risky practitioners at subsidized prices protect substandard physicians from the discipline that medical malpractice insurers otherwise would impose.


In Connick v. Thompson, the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision blocked one of the last remaining paths to prosecutorial accountability for the violation of constitutionally mandated discovery obligations under Brady v. Maryland. The upshot of Connick is that unless non-compliance is frequent and notorious enough to reach the level of custom, prosecutors' offices are insulated from Section 1983 liability - entity as well as individual - for failing to comply with Brady. The immediate effect of Connick is to leave John Thompson without a remedy for spending 18 years in prison, narrowly escaping execution for a crime he didn't commit, while members of the New Orleans Parish District Attorney's office concealed the evidence that would ultimately exculpate him. Dahlia Lithwick called Connick v. Thompson "one of the meanest Supreme Court decisions ever." The opinion is "mean" not only in the sense in which she uses the word - coldhearted and without acknowledgement of the human costs of the wrongoing - but in its grudging interpretation of the constitutional violation at issue, its reductionist notions of what a training regime can accomplish, and its stark indifference to the deterrent, compensatory and declaratory aims of Section 1983. Connick reveals the relentlessly atomistic lens through which a majority of the current Court views governmental obligations - both those of the prosecutor and those of the Court itself. This article will first challenge the central assumption on which Justice Thomas relied in vacating the opinion below: that Thompson's harm can be traced to only a single incident of governmental misconduct by a lone miscreant. It argues that the violation was a group effort, as well as a reflection of a longstanding office culture of disregard for Brady. Second, it will critique the Court's conception of training, arguing that the nature of prosecutorial culture in particular and organizational culture more generally makes training essential. And finally, it will argue that the Court's atomistic vision of Section 1983 and of its own role in remedying constitutional wrongs is at odds with the aims of the statute it sets out to construe.


This bachelor thesis deals with the comparison related to the similarity of recorded WiFi patterns during the tracing of a path through the streets of a large city. Both MAC address only comparison has been investigated as well as the incorporation of RSSI values, whereby the localization accuracy has been evaluated. Methods for the detection of different types and combinations of loops in the path are demonstrated likewise the attempt to estimate the degree of urban development in the environment of the user by assessing the received signal strength and signal-to-noise ratio of GPS satellites and GSM cell towers.
In order to observe a user- proximity to a certain spot on a large public square the absorption of WiFi signals by the human body has been taken into account. Finally, the results of a comparison of the computing performance of a modern smartphone versus the alternative of remote calculation on a server including data transmission via cellular data network are presented.


The optimal inflation tax is computed in monetary models where money is costly to supply. The models are simple general equilibrium models with money in the utility function or a transactions technology. The inflation tax is a means of raising taxes to finance exogenous government expenditures. The alternative means of revenue are also distortionary. The main point of this article is to show that the robustness of the optimality of the Friedman rule, of a zero nominal interest rate, resides in the assumption that money is produced at zero cost.


Voids in composite materials can lead to degraded structural performance. The following is a study of voids or bubbles in uncured viscous polymer resin during composites processing. The goal is to determine if voids can successfully migrate towards vacuum pathways, coalesce with the pathways, and escape. Inherent to the coalescence process is the drainage and rupture of the resin thin film formed between voids and the resin free surface. COMSOL Multiphysics 4.2 + Microfluidics module is employed for modeling. The model consists of a single spherical void in a cylindrical axisymmetric two-phase domain of resin and air. Results suggest that resin thin film drainage can be successfully modeled as an exponential decay consistent with experimental results. Thin film rupture modeling is limited due to mesh dependency issues. Also, void dynamics is strongly dependent on void body force and surface tension effects as characterized by the Bond number (Bo).


In several dozen journal reviews and in many other comments we have received—from, for example, four Nobel laureates, the statistician Dennis Lindley (2012), the statistician Arnold Zellner (2004), the mathematician Olle HA¤ggstrA¶m (2010), the sociologist Steve Fuller (2008), and the historian Theodore Porter (2008)—no one has ever tried to defend null hypothesis significance testing and its numerous errors. Recent articles by Thomas Mayer (2012, 2013), commenting on our book The Cult of Statistical Significance, are no exception. Of the five major claims we make in our book about the theory and practice of significance testing in economics, Mayer strongly agrees with four. On the fifth claim our disagreement is a matter of degree, not of kind, with no substantive change in results. Overall, Mayer agrees with us and with the new and growing consensus that statistical significance proves essentially nothing and has to change.


I. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises. 2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.


In Interop, technology experts John Palfrey and Urs Gasser explore the immense importance of interoperability--the standardization and integration of technology--and show how this simple principle will hold the key to our success in the coming decades and beyond. The practice of standardization has been facilitating innovation and economic growth for centuries. The standardization of the railroad gauge revolutionized the flow of commodities, the standardization of money revolutionized debt markets and simplified trade, and the standardization of credit networks has allowed for the purchase of goods using money deposited in a bank half a world away. These advancements did not eradicate the different systems they affected; instead, each system has been transformed so that it can interoperate with systems all over the world, while still preserving local diversity. As Palfrey and Gasser show, interoperability is a critical aspect of any successful system--and now it is more important than ever. Today we are confronted with challenges that affect us on a global scale: the financial crisis, the quest for sustainable energy, and the need to reform health care systems and improve global disaster response systems. The successful flow of information across systems is crucial if we are to solve these problems, but we must also learn to manage the vast degree of interconnection inherent in each system involved. Interoperability offers a number of solutions to these global challenges, but Palfrey and Gasser also consider its potential negative effects, especially with respect to privacy, security, and co-dependence of states; indeed, interoperability has already sparked debates about document data formats, digital music, and how to create successful yet safe cloud computing. Interop demonstrates that, in order to get the most out of interoperability while minimizing its risks, we will need to fundamentally revisit our understanding of how it works, and how it can allow for improvements in each of its constituent parts. In Interop, Palfrey and Gasser argue that there needs to be a nuanced, stable theory of interoperability--one that still generates efficiencies, but which also ensures a sustainable mode of interconnection. Pointing the way forward for the new information economy, Interop provides valuable insights into how technological integration and innovation can flourish in the twenty-first century.


Prior studies have examined the impact of extended unemployment insurance (UI) benefits on the rise in the unemployment rate in this recession and early recovery. We use real-time microdata from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Current Population Survey (CPS) to examine whether there has been a reverse effect recently as benefits have been exhausted. We find that if UI benefits had lasted indefinitely, the unemployment rate would have been cumulatively about 0.1 to 0.3 percentage points higher between October 2009 and January 2011, which represents about 10% to 25% of the decline in the actual rate over that period.


Few situations, if any, in our justice system grant one judge authority without review over matters concerning personal liberty. Close inspection of the juvenile justice system reveals, however, that, in reality, the outcomes of nearly all juvenile delinquency cases are determined by one individual alone, sometimes in the absence of counsel, and usually entirely outside of public view. While there is widespread recognition that appellate practice on behalf of juveniles is lacking, there is little quantitative data available to define the scope of the problem. Aside from ensuring accuracy, the lack of appeals hampers the ability of appellate courts to define the contours of criminal law and procedure in its application to juveniles, one of its core appellate functions. The dearth of appellate practice also intersects with the struggles of the juvenile justice system to overcome disparate results for minority children, including confinement. This article provides original empirical data identifying the rate of appeals in fourteen states. The data from the study grounds the discussion about juvenile appeals and informs efforts toward improvements. The article also examines the ways in which this limited appellate practice restricts law development by analyzing appellate case law in juvenile justice over the past ten years. Public recognition of the institutional role of appellate courts has increased, due in part to cases and studies examining post-conviction determinations of actual innocence — including innocent children. Those findings have resonated with the public and raised important policy and structural questions about the justice system. This renewed attention creates an opportunity to improve and highlight the role of the appellate function in the juvenile justice system as well. Appellate courts in the criminal justice system protect against error and define the rights of the accused, increasing accuracy, public accountability, and transparency. The article examines the repercussions in an area of law where the appellate role and transparency to the public is overwhelmingly absent and calls for states to take a more active role in effectively realizing the right to appeal among juveniles.


In overlapping-generations economies with perfect financial markets and lumpsum taxation, restrictions on the government budget deficits do not limit the set of achievable allocations. For economies in which tax instruments are distortionary and limited in number, deficits are irrelevant only in the unrealistic case in which the number of tax instruments is large relative to the number of policy goals. In particular, if the government can use only anonymous consumption taxes, then achieving the prescribed deficits without changing the equilibrium allocation will typically be impossible when the number of consumers exceeds the number of commodities. A similar result holds if consumer credit is (exogenously) restricted. Surprisingly, in this case, distortionary taxes may be more likely than lump-sum taxes to lead to the irrelevance of government deficits. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D51, D91, E32. Keywords: Balanced Budget, Balanced-Budget Amendment, Burden of the Public Debt, Comparative Statics, Consumption Taxes, Credit Restrictions, Distortionary Taxes, Economic Policy, Government Budget Deficit, Maastricht Treaty, Optimal Taxation, Overlapping Generations.


Elevated atmospheric ozone concentrations (70 ppb) reduced the sensitivity of stomatal closure to abscisic acid (ABA) in Leontodon hispidus after at least 24 h exposure (1) when detached leaves were fed ABA, and (2) when intact plants were sprayed or injected with ABA. They also reduced the sensitivity of stomatal closure to soil drying around the roots. Such effects could already be occurring under current northern hemisphere peak ambient ozone concentrations. Leaves detached from plants which had been exposed to elevated ozone concentrations generated higher concentrations of ethylene, although leaf tissue ABA concentrations were unaffected. When intact plants were pretreated with the ethylene receptor binding antagonist 1-methylcyclopropene, the stomatal response to both applied ABA and soil drying was fully restored in the presence of elevated ozone. Implications of ethylene's antagonism of the stomatal response to ABA under oxidative stress are discussed. We suggest that this may be one mechanism whereby elevated ozone induces visible injury in sensitive species. We emphasize that drought linked to climate change and tropospheric ozone pollution, are both escalating problems. Ozone will exacerbate the deleterious effects of drought on the many plant species including valuable crops that respond to this pollutant by emitting more ethylene.


A former Wall Street quant sounds an alarm on the mathematical models that pervade modern life and threaten to rip apart our social fabricWe live in the age of the algorithm. Increasingly, the decisions that affect our liveswhere we go to school, whether we get a car loan, how much we pay for health insuranceare being made not by humans, but by mathematical models. In theory, this should lead to greater fairness: Everyone is judged according to the same rules, and bias is eliminated. But as Cathy ONeil reveals in this urgent and necessary book, the opposite is true. The models being used today are opaque, unregulated, and uncontestable, even when theyre wrong. Most troubling, they reinforce discrimination: If a poor student cant get a loan because a lending model deems him too risky (by virtue of his zip code), hes then cut off from the kind of education that could pull him out of poverty, and a vicious spiral ensues. Models are propping up the lucky and punishing the downtrodden, creating a toxic cocktail for democracy. Welcome to the dark side of Big Data. Tracing the arc of a persons life, ONeil exposes the black box models that shape our future, both as individuals and as a society. These weapons of math destruction score teachers and students, sort rsums, grant (or deny) loans, evaluate workers, target voters, set parole, and monitor our health. ONeil calls on modelers to take more responsibility for their algorithms and on policy makers to regulate their use. But in the end, its up to us to become more savvy about the models that govern our lives. This important book empowers us to ask the tough questions, uncover the truth, and demand change.


System response times influence the satisfaction of users interacting with a system. Research shows that increasing response times lead to increasing dissatisfaction or complete refusal of using the system.

System analyses show that enforcing access control requirements significantly influence the system's performance experienced by end users. With increasing regulatory demands such as Basel II, Sarbanes Oxley, or data protection laws, modern complex and multi-layered enterprise systems require fine-grained and context sensitive enforcement of access control policies. Consequently, an efficient policy evaluation is getting more and more important to ensure a satisfactory system performance for interactive tasks.

Research in the area of performance optimizations of access control evaluations is well known, comprising replication of respective system components, structural optimizations of the security policy, as well as different caching strategies. All these approaches have in common that the presented optimization techniques try to optimize access control evaluations independently from the system context.

Modern enterprise systems are inherently based on models for process execution. These models provide a detailed view on the system context and, thus, enable new caching approaches. The dynamic nature of today's process management systems and increasing demand for context sensitive security enforcement, however, challenge caching access control decisions as changing context strongly impacts on the continuous validity of stored access control decisions.

In this thesis, we propose ProActive Caching, a caching strategy specifically tailored to the dynamic properties of business process-driven environments. ProActive Caching aims at providing a significantly low response time for access control decisions, as well as allowing to cache access control decisions which are based on context sensitive security policies.

Moreover, we provide an accompanying caching architecture and a detailed performance analysis of different caching strategies for static and dynamic aspects of access control policies, showing that our strategy significantly improves the performance compared to other approaches for caching access control decisions.


Theodore Roosevelt used the US military to create what he called "civilized societies.†A growing literature focuses on the economic benefits of empires, benefits sometimes referred to as "global public goods†. Some authors, such as Mitchener and Weidenmier (2005) and Ferguson and Schularick (2006), neglect the associated public bads. This paper highlights the potential public bads. We formulate the leading public bads. We explore the public bads in the context explored by Mitchener and Weidenmier, namely, the Roosevelt Corollary and Latin America. Our discussion also moves to the broader plane, suggesting that the Roosevelt Corollary set a precedent for subsequent US military interventions around the world. We use the ratings of political institutions issued by the well-known Polity IV index to further support a skeptical view of imperial public good provision.


"We all have the sense that the American economy-and its government-tilts toward big business, but as Joseph E. Stiglitz explains in his new book, People, Power, and Profits, the situation is dire. A few corporations have come to dominate entire sectors of the economy, contributing to skyrocketing inequality and slow growth. This is how the financial industry has managed to write its own regulations, tech companies have accumulated reams of personal data with little oversight, and our government has negotiated trade deals that fail to represent the best interests of workers. Too many have made their wealth through exploitation of others rather than through wealth creation. If something isn't done, new technologies may make matters worse, increasing inequality and unemployment. Stiglitz identifies the true sources of wealth and of increases in standards of living, based on learning, advances in science and technology, and the rule of law. He shows that the assault on the judiciary, universities, and the media undermines the very institutions that have long been the foundation of America's economic might and its democracy. Helpless though we may feel today, we are far from powerless. In fact, the economic solutions are often quite clear. We need to exploit the benefits of markets while taming their excesses, making sure that markets work for us-the U.S. citizens-and not the other way around. If enough citizens rally behind the agenda for change outlined in this book, it may not be too late to create a progressive capitalism that will recreate a shared prosperity. Stiglitz shows how a middle-class life can once again be attainable by all. An authoritative account of the predictable dangers of free market fundamentalism and the foundations of progressive capitalism, People, Power, and Profits shows us an America in crisis, but also lights a path through this challenging time."


In Hosanna-Tabor, a teacher suing her employer, a church-based school, alleged retaliation for having asserted rights under a discrimination statute. The School raised the "ministerial exception," which prohibits ministers from suing their religious employer. The Court held the exception was constitutionally required. Before giving the facts that convinced it that this teacher was a "minister," the Court had to distinguish the leading case of Employ. Div. v. Smith. Plaintiffs in Smith held jobs as counselors at a drug rehabilitation center. They were fired for illegal drug use (peyote), and later denied unemployment compensation. The Native American Church ingests peyote during a sacrament. Smith held that the Free Exercise Clause was not implicated when Oregon enacted a neutral law of general applicability that happened to have an impact on a religious practice. The Court admitted that the nondiscrimination law in Hosanna-Tabor was a general law of neutral application that happened to have an impact on the School's ability to fire a teacher. It distinguished Smith. There is now a class of cases to which Smith does not apply described as "an internal church decision that affects the faith and mission of the church." The firing of the teacher was "internal," meaning a decision of church governance. The firing of plaintiffs in Smith was "outward," meaning that the state's denial of unemployment did not regulate church governance. Moreover, the ingestion of peyote regulated in Smith was a "physical act," whereas the firing of the teacher regulated by employment law was a "church decision." Obviously a sacrament is an important religious practice, and plaintiffs in Smith suffered a burden on religious conscience. But the point of Hosanna-Tabor was not to relieve burdens on conscience. If it were, then Hosanna-Tabor would have overruled Smith. What was remedied in Hosanna-Tabor was not a burden on conscience but interference with religious groups. The question going forward is what types of suits fall into the Hosanna-Tabor category of church governance? Once it is determined that a suit falls within church governance, there is no judicial balancing because there can be no legally sufficient governmental interest to overcome religious autonomy.


My work arises from the process of extracting content from real events. I
reassemble this content and transform it into the components comprising my installation,
entitled I Can See Your House From Up Here. The subject for my thesis is centered on a
continuing atrocity that occurs beyond my immediate proximity, specifically the
American invasion of Iraq beginning in 1990 during the Persian Gulf War. My
experience of the war is mediated and incomplete; it is constructed from partial narratives
and a distorted picture of ostensibly real events. I am removed from this atrocity as a
result of geographical distance and political circumstance. Using the imagery from
magazines, newspapers, internet search engines, propaganda material, military
documents, surveillance footage, and published satellite imagery of the surface of Iraq, I
attempt to reconstruct yet another incomplete narrative of imagined events in an attempt
to explore social constructs relating to gender militarization. My personal experiences relating to oppressive and uncontrollable events are manifested in the form of an
installation. I Can See Your House From Up Here was composed using a variety of
salvaged materials including paper, wire, and cardboard.


We explore ways of allowing for the offloading of computationally rigorous tasks from devices with slow logical processors onto a network of anonymous peer-processors. Recent advances in secret sharing schemes, decentralized consensus mechanisms, and multiparty computation (MPC) protocols are combined to create a P2P MPC market. Unlike other computational "clouds", ours is able to generically compute any arithmetic circuit, providing a viable platform for processing on the semantic web. Finally, we show that such a system works in a hostile environment, that it scales well, and that it adapts very easily to any future advances in the complexity theoretic cryptography used. Specifically, we show that the feasibility of our system can only improve, and is historically guaranteed to do so.


The ignoring delete lists relaxation is of paramount importance for both satisficing and optimal planning. In earlier work, it was observed that the optimal relaxation heuristic h+ has amazing qualities in many classical planning benchmarks, in particular pertaining to the complete absence of local minima. The proofs of this are hand-made, raising the question whether such proofs can be lead automatically by domain analysis techniques. In contrast to earlier disappointing results - the analysis method has exponential runtime and succeeds only in two extremely simple benchmark domains - we herein answer this question in the afirmative. We establish connections between causal graph structure and h+ topology. This results in low-order polynomial time analysis methods, implemented in a tool we call TorchLight. Of the 12 domains where the absence of local minima has been proved, TorchLight gives strong success guarantees in 8 domains. Empirically, its analysis exhibits strong performance in a further 2 of these domains, plus in 4 more domains where local minima may exist but are rare. In this way, TorchLight can distinguish "easy" domains from "hard" ones. By summarizing structural reasons for analysis failure, TorchLight also provides diagnostic output indicating domain aspects that may cause local minima.


Esophageal carcinoma is the eighth most common cancer, and the sixth most common cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide [1]. Esophageal carcinomas in developing nations account for more than 80% of the total cases and deaths [1]. Esophageal cancer can arise as esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) or esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC), which have distinct etiological and pathological characteristics. ESCC is the most common histological type of esophageal cancer in the Eastern world, and its incidence remains stable [2,3]. In contrast, the epidemiology of esophageal cancer in developed nations has dramatically changed over the past 40 years. Forty years ago, ESCC accounted for more than 90% of esophageal cancer cases in the United States. However, adenocarcinoma has now become the leading type of esophageal cancer in the United States, representing 80% of cases [4].


Nobel laureate Richard H. Thaler has spent his career studying the radical notion that the central agents in the economy are humans-predictable, error-prone individuals. Misbehaving is his arresting, frequently hilarious account of the struggle to bring an academic discipline back down to earth-and change the way we think about economics, ourselves, and our world. Traditional economics assumes rational actors. Early in his research, Thaler realized these Spock-like automatons were nothing like real people. Whether buying a clock radio, selling basketball tickets, or applying for a mortgage, we all succumb to biases and make decisions that deviate from the standards of rationality assumed by economists. In other words, we misbehave. More importantly, our misbehavior has serious consequences. Dismissed at first by economists as an amusing sideshow, the study of human miscalculations and their effects on markets now drives efforts to make better decisions in our lives, our businesses, and our governments. Coupling recent discoveries in human psychology with a practical understanding of incentives and market behavior, Thaler enlightens readers about how to make smarter decisions in an increasingly mystifying world. He reveals how behavioral economic analysis opens up new ways to look at everything from household finance to assigning faculty offices in a new building, to TV game shows, the NFL draft, and businesses like Uber. Laced with antic stories of Thaler's spirited battles with the bastions of traditional economic thinking, Misbehaving is a singular look into profound human foibles. When economics meets psychology, the implications for individuals, managers, and policy makers are both profound and entertaining. Shortlisted for the Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award


Three forms of inductive generalization - statistical generalization, variation-based generalization and theory-carried generalization - are insufficient concerning case-to-case generalization, which is a form of analogical generalization. The quality of case-to-case generalization needs to be reinforced by setting up explicit analogical argumentation. To evaluate analogical argumentation six criteria are discussed. Good analogical reasoning is an indispensable support to forms of communicative generalization - receptive and responsive (participative) generalization — as well as exemplary generalization.


"The purpose of this study was to examine the factors that cause women in community college executive leadership positions to detour from their original career plans. It looked at how women leaders in community colleges responded emotionally, cognitively, and behaviorally to interruptions/barriers in their career paths toward community college leadership. Phase I consisted of a series of telephone interviews with a sample of 22 women vice presidents and presidents purposefully selected from across the United States. The purpose of Phase I was to gather information about the women's perceptions of events that caused them to either put their careers on hold or to forego advancement temporarily. Phase II consisted of a survey based on the trends identified from the interviews. Eighty-five women in executive leadership positions at community colleges were asked to select responses that best described their personal experiences with career detours. The purpose of Phase II was to understand the roles that age, support groups, attitude, and personal inner strength played in surviving career detours for these women. A chi-square test was used on responses to pairs of questions to determine if the distribution of these paired responses could be explained by chance alone. To investigate the effect of age and experience on women's perceptions regarding career detours, the response data were analyzed using a series of t-tests on the proportion of "yes" answers. The findings from this research indicate that with the exception of needing an advanced degree to move ahead professionally, women leaders in community colleges faced many of the same career roadblocks and detours encountered by women in the corporate world. What distinguished women in community college leadership was their optimism that they would be successful even though it might take longer to reach their career goals than they originally planned. Their optimism was based on support from family and colleagues, emotional intelligence and endurance, experience and wisdom that come with age, the accepting environment of community colleges, and a resilient inner strength."--Abstract from author supplied metadata.


This methodological article explores the intersection of qualitative fieldwork methods in crisis communication and disaster management. While crisis communication is a popular topic of research in the public relations genre, there is relatively no methodological work to serve as a precedent for a participant-observation study of communication during an unfolding disaster event. Likewise, disaster management literature that is based in qualitative fieldwork methods has not examined the communication practices of a disaster response organization. This article explores the various challenges in conducting fieldwork in real-time disaster communication and describes how the researcher overcame those challenges to conduct a participant-observation study of the American Red Cross' communication efforts during the 2009 Red River Valley floods in Fargo, North Dakota, United States.


While most black carbon (BC)‐containing particles are removed in the lower troposphere in the tropics, some are lofted to higher altitudes via convection where they may be distributed globally throughout the tropical tropopause layer (TTL). Single‐particle measurements of BC aerosol were made from the NASA WB‐57F aircraft during both the dry (February 2006) and wet (August 2007) seasons in Central America. BC mass loadings declined sharply with increasing altitude from the ground to 5 km. In the TTL, they were up to six times higher in the wet relative to the dry season. The variability in BC mass was examined using convective‐influence back trajectories to determine the source regions. The seasonal differences in the vertical profiles are explained by long‐range transport of (1) low‐BC air from the southern hemisphere in the dry season and (2) high‐BC air from biomass‐burning or pollution sources in Africa and Asia advected by the Asian monsoon circulation in the wet season.


This comment is on a paper by Christian Kirchner and Wulf Kaal, which proposes a variety of post-financial crisis regulatory reforms under a common theme of minimizing "regulatory arbitrage." The comment focuses on one of their proposals, hedge fund regulation, and then picks up on the theme of regulatory arbitrage to discuss a broader reform issue regarding financial regulatory architecture. I contend that the move to regulate hedge funds is misguided because hedge funds were not a cause of the recent crisis, nor are they likely to cause a future one. Rather, the regulatory response to hedge funds can best be understood in terms of the historical pattern of hostility to short sellers. I further contend that the post-crisis emphasis on regulatory consolidation and harmonization, which is a common legislative response following a crisis, is as misguided as the regulatory focus on hedge funds. In particular, in a regime of global harmonization, regulatory error can result in heightened systemic risk, as regulatory incentives lead financial institutions worldwide to adopt similar business strategies. When such strategies fail, they do so on a global basis, and can thereby precipitate a global financial crisis. Accordingly, regulatory arbitrage, a byproduct of regulatory diversity, provides a valuable, and little appreciated, hedge against systemic failure.


In contemporary literature on venture capital financial infrastructures are identified as major contributors to a large proportion of today's innovations. Yet quite contradictory the literature on systems of innovation, hardly ever treat venture capitalists as a coherent actor in neither national nor regional innovation systems. In attempt to locate and determine the potentials and importance of the venture capitalists in the innovation system a two-dimensional taxonomy is constructed and used to illuminate their role and position. The taxonomy gains insights through theoretical reasoning and the possible location is exemplified by a case of the Danish venture capital market. It is argued in this article that venture capitalists stand a better chance of realizing their potential when they take and are given direct and formal responsibility in the innovation system. In relation hereto, the authors thus present initiatives to be taken to raise venture capitalists to a more direct and formal role in the context of systems of innovation.


Article history: Received 25 March 2014 Received in revised form 20 April 2014 Accepted 15 May 2014 Available online 5 June 2014


"The purpose of the study was to examine the culture-specific parenting processes in terms of socioeconomic status using Bronfenbrenner's PPCT model. Kohn's theory of parental values and Bernstein's sociolinguistic theory were applied to deepen the understanding of proximal processes in Korean parenting. Ten mothers of young children were selected from middle and working classes in Korea. Questionnaire and videotaped data were collected. For the survey of parental beliefs, data from 63 mothers were used. Filming was conducted for 2 hours in naturally occurring situations. Korean mothers' parental values and verbal disciplinary practices varied as a function of a social class. Middle-class mothers valued talking more and talked more than did working-class mothers. Mothers' preferences for disciplinary domains differed by the social class, supporting Kohn's thesis. Working-class mothers valued strictness in parenting and used stricter language functions than did middle-class mothers, which is consistent with Bernstein's sociolinguistic approach toward parenting."--Abstract from author supplied metadata.


Paternalism has become increasingly popular among policy makers. This Article analyzes whether the government should use psychic taxes as a tool for paternalism. A psychic tax is a government policy that imposes a psychic cost by provoking negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, or shame. This Article focuses specifically on graphic warnings on cigarettes and food. The Food and Drug Administration recently adopted regulations that require graphic warnings on cigarettes, including images of a corpse and of diseased lungs. And policy makers are also considering graphic warnings on food. For example, the government could mandate that food manufacturers place a drawing of an overweight person on unhealthy foods. Proponents of psychic taxes argue that contrary to the rational actor model used in law and economics, people are not perfectly rational and do not always make the best choices for themselves. If failures of rationality cause people to make suboptimal choices, then in theory, the government could use psychic taxes to modify behavior and improve people's lives. Unfortunately, real-world governments are not perfect, so the implementation of psychic taxes presents a number of potentially serious challenges. The government's lack of complete information, the possibility of unintended consequences, and a number of other factors make it inherently difficult to predict whether psychic taxes will in fact prove beneficial. Moreover, in some cases, graphic warnings and other psychic taxes may be deceptive. So acceptance of psychic taxes as a legitimate policy tool may lead us down a slippery slope toward policies that are harmful and even abusive. Finally, since the government is likely to target goods that are consumed disproportionately by the poor, the burden of psychic taxes will fall largely upon low-income families.Because of these concerns, this Article expresses skepticism about the use of psychic taxes. Privately produced products and other nongovernmental solutions will often eliminate the effects of irrationality making psychic taxes unnecessary. Even when that is not the case, psychic taxes create the potential for considerable costs, many of which are difficult to quantify in advance. For this reason, the government should not employ psychic taxes without compelling evidence that the benefits will be substantial. In particular, the lack of strong empirical support for graphic warnings on cigarettes and food raises questions about whether these warnings are worthwhile.


This study examined within-society variability in attitudes and practices in handling authority issues among a sample of 694 adolescents and their parents residing in southern China. Major patterns of parental attitudes towards decision authority, parenting practices, adolescent attitudes towards decision authority, and reasons for adolescent conformity across the seven issues (dating, internet cafe, homework, going out, chores, drugs, and peers) were identified via latent class analysis. Configural frequency analysis suggested that parent and adolescent subgroups represented by compatible patterns tended to go together, and compatible parent-child combinations tended to be associated with less disagreement. In addition, within-society variability was also explored from the perspective of social class variability. Finally, adolescent academic achievement was only predicted by child characteristics, but not parental characteristics, and adolescent social competence was barely predicted by indicators of the attitudes and behaviors displayed in parent-child relationships when handling authority issues. Findings were discussed in reference to within-society variability in cultural beliefs and practices represented in everyday lives.


Financial ratio analysis is a vital one since the profitability of an enterprise is directly affected by such decision. The successful selection and use of appropriate financial ratio is one of the key elements of the firm's financial strategy. Hence, proper care and attention need to be given while such decision is taken. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the financial ratio analysis and profitability of the Nigerian Pharmaceutical industry over the past eleven (11) years period from 2001 – 2011. These financial ratio analyse have immense potentials to help organizations in improving their revenue generation ability as well as minimization of costs. The researcher used five (5) variables for the analyses such as: Inventory turnover ratio (ITR); Debtors' turnover ratio (DTR); Creditors' velocity (CRSV); Total assets turnover ratio (TATR) and Gross profit margin (GPM). Profitability as a dependent variable is represented by Gross profit margin (GPM) while financial ratio analysis stands as ITR, DTR, CRSV and TATR for independent variables. Secondary data were obtained from the financial statements (Balance sheet and Profit and Loss account) of the selected quoted pharmaceutical companies' financial statement. The data have been analyzed using descriptive research method and multiple regressions to find out the relationship between the variables. The results of the analysis showed that there is a negative relationship between all independent variables with profitability in the Nigerian pharmaceutical industry. It also revealed that debtors' turnover ratio, creditors' velocity and total assets turnover ratio have no significant relationship on the profitability of the company while only inventory turnover ratio shows a significant relationship with profitability. The results further suggested that only 17.8% of the independent variables are determinant factors of profitability in the enterprises sampled while 82.2% of the major factors are determine from other factors outside the independent variables. Based on the above premises, the researcher recommended that the inventories of the company should be checked and monitored more frequently by management to prevent out of stock syndrome or over stocking of their products. It is also recommended that creditors' velocity should be at a point where the creditors and purchases are equal in order to take the advantage of credit facility and any discount associated with prompt payment for goods to increase the profitability of the company. The management should utilize its assets efficient in generating more income for the company.


Despite the recent remarkable growth of air freight shipments, much of the existing literature on the geography of air transportation has paid more attention to passenger travel than freight shipments. The purpose of this dissertation is to elevate our understanding of spatial hierarchies and nodal connectivity by determining which specific variables most influence and shape the geographic distribution of air freight by metropolitan area using stepwise regression analysis. The empirical results suggested a regression model of five independent variables is the most simple, effective, and parsimonious solution; 71.1% of the variation in the dependent variable was explained by the independent variables. The traffic shadow effect was the most important predictor in predicting the natural log of air freight, where small metropolitan areas within the traffic shadow of larger metropolitan areas tended to generate lower levels of freight. The model also suggested that other key predictors included per capita personal income, the transportation-shipping-logistics employment market share, the number of medical diagnostic establishments, and average high technology wages. Thus, metropolitan markets with more affluent people, diverse and efficient ground support systems, freight forwarders and other transportation services, an intense agglomeration of hospitals and medical universities, a highly skilled hi-tech workforce engaged in providing computer systems design and manufacturing generate high volumes of air freight.


Written by John Ferling, one of America's leading historians of the Revolutionary era, The First of Men offers an illuminating portrait of George Washington's life, with emphasis on his military and political career. Here is a riveting account that captures Washington in all his complexity, recounting not only Washington's familiar sterling qualities-courage, industry, ability to make difficult decisions, ceaseless striving for self-improvement, love of his family and loyalty to friends-but also his less well known character flaws. Indeed, as Ferling shows, Washington had to overcome many negative traits as he matured into a leader. The young Washington was accused of ingratitude and certain of his letters from this period read as if they were written by "a pompous martinet and a whining, petulant brat." As commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, he lost his temper more than once and indulged flatterers. Aaron Burr found him "a boring, colorless person." As president, he often believed the worst about individual officials. Ferling concludes that Washington's personality and temperament were those of "a self-centered and self-absorbed man, one who since youth had exhibited a fragile self-esteem." And yet he managed to realize virtually every grand design he ever conceived. Ferling's Washington is driven, fired by ambition, envy, and dreams of fame and fortune. Yet his leadership and character galvanized the American Revolution-probably no one else could have kept the war going until the master stroke at Yorktown-and helped the fledgling nation take, and survive, its first unsteady steps. This superb paperback makes available once again an unflinchingly honest and compelling biography of the father of our country.


Lean Development and Agile Methods for Large-Scale Products: Key Thinking and Organizational Tools for Sustainable Competitive Success Increasingly, large product-development organizations are turning to lean thinking, agile principles and practices, and large-scale Scrum to sustainably and quickly deliver value and innovation. However, many groups have floundered in their practice-oriented adoptions. Why? Because without a deeper understanding of the thinking tools and profound organizational redesign needed, it is as though casting seeds on to an infertile field. Now, drawing on their long experience leading and guiding large-scale lean and agile adoptions for large, multisite, and offshore product development, and drawing on the best research for great team-based agile organizations, internationally recognized consultant and best-selling author Craig Larman and former leader of the agile transformation at Nokia Networks Bas Vodde share the key thinking and organizational tools needed to plant the seeds of product development success in a fertile lean and agile enterprise. Coverage includes Lean thinking and development combined with agile practices and methods Systems thinking Queuing theory and large-scale development processes Moving from single-function and component teams to stable cross-functional cross-component Scrum feature teams with end-to-end responsibility for features Organizational redesign to a lean and agile enterprise that delivers value fast Large-scale Scrum for multi-hundred-person product groups In a competitive environment that demands ever-faster cycle times and greater innovation, applied lean thinking and agile principles are becoming an urgent priority. Scaling Lean & Agile Development will help leaders create the foundation for their lean enterpriseand deliver on the significant benefits of agility. In addition to the foundation tools in this text, see the companion book Practices for Scaling Lean & Agile Development: Large, Multisite, and Offshore Product Development with Large-Scale Scrum for complementary action tools.


In Haupt t/a Softcopy v Brewers Marketing Intelligence (Pty) Ltd 2006 4 SA 458 (SCA) Haupt sought to enforce a copyright claim in the Data Explorer computer programme against Brewers Marketing Intelligence (Pty) Ltd. His claim was dismissed in the High Court and he appealed to the Supreme Court of Appeal. The Court held that copyright in the Data Explorer programme vested in Haupt. Haupt acquired copyright in the Data Explorer programme regardless of the fact that the programme was as a result of an unauthorised adaptation of the Project AMPS programme which belonged to Brewers Marketing Intelligence (Pty) Ltd. This case note inter alia analyses the possibility of an author being sued for infringement even though he has acquired copyright in a work that he created by making unauthorised adaptations to another's copyright material. Furthermore, it examines whether or not the law adequately protects copyright owners in situations where infringement takes the form of unauthorised adaptations of computer programmes. It is argued that the protection afforded by the Copyright Act 98 of 1978 (Copyright Act) in terms of section 27(1) to copyright owners of computer programmes is narrowly defined. It excludes from its ambit of criminal liability the act of making unauthorised adaptation of computer programmes. The issue that is considered is therefore whether or not the unauthorised adaptation of computer programmes should attract a criminal sanction. In addressing this issue and with the aim of making recommendations, the legal position in the United Kingdom (UK) is analysed. From the analysis it is recommended that the Copyright Act be amended by the insertion of a new section, section 27(1)(A), which will make the act of making an unauthorised adaptation of a computer programme an offence. This recommended section will close the gap that currently exists in our law with regard to unauthorised adaptations of computer programmes. KEYWORDS: Copyright; Copyright Act; copyright infringement; computer programmes; unauthorised adaptation


When the concept of security sector reform (SSR) was introduced some 10 years ago, it aimed to offer an innovative approach to the reform of security governance. Within the SSR paradigm, such reform was seen as an essential precondition of sustainable development and was envisaged as encompassing the entire spectrum of security institutions, including the military, police, intelligence services and the penal system. Besides this holistic approach and the link with development, the novelty of the concept resided in the emphasis on local ownership of the reform process; on principles of legality, accountability, and transparency ; and on its embrace of a wide understanding of security, encompassing territorial integrity, state security, and individual security. A review of SSR projects in Africa with significant input from external donors reveals considerable variations of approach, while a comparative analysis of SSR in Sierra Leone and Liberia contrasts the differing application of core principles of SSR in these two cases. The paper concludes that there is no consistent approach to SSR, and that in practice, the concept fails to live up to its innovative potential. For this potential to become reality, the SSR dialogue needs to take voices and experiences from the global South into account, rather than merely reflect a donor perspective.


The fairly strict divide in the United States between for-profit and nonprofit forms presents a quandary for many entrepreneurs who want to combine doing good with doing well. On the one hand, for-profits offer great flexibility and access to capital and so attract entrepreneurs who would like to take advantage of the ability of for-profits to scale up rapidly to meet growing demand. At the same time, however, for-profit forms also limit entrepreneurs' ability to engage in philanthropy, due to the fiduciary duties managers owe to the equity holders. On the other hand, nonprofits offer their founders the freedom to prioritize public benefit but limit both their access to capital, in large part due to the bar on equity financing for a nonprofit, and their flexibility in addressing changing societal needs as a result of constraints in the law designed to deter nonprofits from straying into activities unrelated to their narrow primary mission. Hybrids — low-profit limited liability companies, benefit corporations, and other related forms — have been touted as the "both-and" solution to this problem by marrying the capital and innovation that results from the ability to generate a profit for investors with the public benefit goals that characterize most nonprofits.Since the first hybrid enabling law was passed in Vermont in 2008, the number of states offering hybrid forms has grown steadily, as has the number of entrepreneurs choosing statutory hybrids as a middle road between the for-profit and the nonprofit. Plaudits for and criticism of the hybrid form have also proliferated. Proponents have lauded their ability to facilitate socially conscious enterprise. Detractors have questioned the viability of the hybrid form and have suggested that they create more fiduciary conflicts than they resolve. To date, however, there has been no serious scholarly publication addressing the appropriate tax treatment of hybrid entities even though some supporters of hybrids have asserted that these forms deserve beneficial tax treatment. In this Article, we intend to close that gap by thoroughly examining the arguments for tax preference and the likely consequences that would flow from offering such preference.We accept the fact that hybrid forms have gained a firm foothold in the legal landscape and expect that they will increase in prominence and influence. We contend, however, that offering nonprofit-like tax benefits to hybrid entities will likely have a deleterious effect, not only on the charitable sector and the public fisc, but possibly even on hybrids themselves. The Article concludes with some proposals for possible modifications to existing tax laws that would acknowledge hybrids' virtues while not exacerbating their potential weaknesses.


This Article argues that outsiders and insiders tend to perceive allegations of discrimination through fundamentally different psychological frameworks. A workplace may be spatially integrated and yet employees who work side by side may perceive an allegation of discrimination through very different lenses because of their disparate racial and gender identities. Most "implicit bias" legal scholarship has focused on the cognitive processes of "insiders" (whites and men) in assessing and evaluating "outsiders" (people of color and women). This Article opens a new field of legal scholarship and complements the implicit bias literature by drawing on empirical studies to explicate the cognitive processes of outsiders in interpreting potential incidents of discrimination. Studies show that blacks and whites are likely to differ substantially in how they conceive of and define discrimination. While many whites expect evidence of discrimination to be explicit, and assume that people are colorblind when such evidence is lacking, many blacks perceive bias to be prevalent and primarily implicit. Studies have also revealed that men and women differ significantly in assessing incidents of sexual harassment. Differences in perception have profound implications for how our judicial machinery, which consists predominantly of white male judges, resolves antidiscrimination claims. Judges are likely to impose their own contingent conceptions of discrimination, with little or no awareness of the perceptual limitations shaping their judgments. This Article explores reforms in the judicial system and in workplaces that could help sensitize both insiders and outsiders to each other's perspective and break down the rigidity in these clashing mindsets.


This web site is for people studying English as a Second Language (ESL) or English as a Foreign Language (EFL). There are quizzes, word games, word puzzles, proverbs, slang expressions, anagrams, a random-sentence generator and other computer assisted language learning activities. Even though the primary focus is for ESL, native English speakers may also find some interesting things on this site. This site is non-commercial and has no advertising. TESL/TEFL teachers may want to recommend (...)


This course explores the social relevance of neuroscience, considering how emerging areas of brain research at once reflect and reshape social attitudes and agendas. Topics include brain imaging and popular media; neuroscience of empathy, trust, and moral reasoning; new fields of neuroeconomics and neuromarketing; ethical implications of neurotechnologies such as cognitive enhancement pharmaceuticals; neuroscience in the courtroom; and neuroscientific recasting of social problems such as addiction and violence. Guest lectures by neuroscientists, class discussion, and weekly readings in neuroscience, popular media, and science studies.


Some people say sconn, while others say schown. He says bath, while she says bahth. You say potayto. I say potahto And- -wait a second, no one says potahto. No one's ever said potahto. Have they? From reconstructing Shakespeare's accent to the rise and fall of Received Pronunciation, actor Ben Crystal and his linguist father David travel the world in search of the stories of spoken English. Everyone has an accent, though many of us think we don't. We all have our likes and dislikes about the way other people speak, and everyone has something to say about 'correct' pronunciation. But how did all these accents come about, and why do people feel so strongly about them? Are regional accents dying out as English becomes a global language? And most importantly of all: what went wrong in Birmingham? Witty, authoritative and jam-packed full of fascinating facts, You Say Potato is a celebration of the myriad ways in which the English language is spoken - and how our accents, in so many ways, speak louder than words.


BACKGROUND
Antibiotics are still prescribed to most patients attending primary care with acute sore throat, despite evidence that there is modest benefit overall from antibiotics. Targeting antibiotics using either clinical scoring methods or rapid antigen detection tests (RADTs) could help. However, there is debate about which groups of streptococci are important (particularly Lancefield groups C and G), and uncertainty about the variables that most clearly predict the presence of streptococci.

OBJECTIVE
This study aimed to compare clinical scores or RADTs with delayed antibiotic prescribing.

DESIGN
The study comprised a RADT in vitro study; two diagnostic cohorts to develop streptococcal scores (score 1; score 2); and, finally, an open pragmatic randomised controlled trial with nested qualitative and cost-effectiveness studies.

SETTING
The setting was UK primary care general practices.

PARTICIPANTS
Participants were patients aged ≥ 3 years with acute sore throat.

INTERVENTIONS
An internet program randomised patients to targeted antibiotic use according to (1) delayed antibiotics (control group), (2) clinical score or (3) RADT used according to clinical score.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
The main outcome measures were self-reported antibiotic use and symptom duration and severity on seven-point Likert scales (primary outcome: mean sore throat/difficulty swallowing score in the first 2-4 days).

RESULTS
The IMI TestPack Plus Strep A (Inverness Medical, Bedford, UK) was sensitive, specific and easy to use. Lancefield group A/C/G streptococci were found in 40% of cohort 2 and 34% of cohort 1. A five-point score predicting the presence of A/C/G streptococci [FeverPAIN: Fever; Purulence; Attend rapidly (≤ 3 days); severe Inflammation; and No cough or coryza] had moderate predictive value (bootstrapped estimates of area under receiver operating characteristic curve: 0.73 cohort 1, 0.71 cohort 2) and identified a substantial number of participants at low risk of streptococcal infection. In total, 38% of cohort 1 and 36% of cohort 2 scored ≤ 1 for FeverPAIN, associated with streptococcal percentages of 13% and 18%, respectively. In an adaptive trial design, the preliminary score (score 1; n = 1129) was replaced by FeverPAIN (n = 631). For score 1, there were no significant differences between groups. For FeverPAIN, symptom severity was documented in 80% of patients, and was lower in the clinical score group than in the delayed prescribing group (-0.33; 95% confidence interval -0.64 to -0.02; p = 0.039; equivalent to one in three rating sore throat a slight rather than moderately bad problem), and a similar reduction was observed for the RADT group (-0.30; -0.61 to 0.00; p = 0.053). Moderately bad or worse symptoms resolved significantly faster (30%) in the clinical score group (hazard ratio 1.30; 1.03 to 1.63) but not the RADT group (1.11; 0.88 to 1.40). In the delayed group, 75/164 (46%) used antibiotics, and 29% fewer used antibiotics in the clinical score group (risk ratio 0.71; 0.50 to 0.95; p = 0.018) and 27% fewer in the RADT group (0.73; 0.52 to 0.98; p = 0.033). No significant differences in complications or reconsultations were found. The clinical score group dominated both other groups for both the cost/quality-adjusted life-years and cost/change in symptom severity analyses, being both less costly and more effective, and cost-effectiveness acceptability curves indicated the clinical score to be the most likely to be cost-effective from an NHS perspective. Patients were positive about RADTs. Health professionals' concerns about test validity, the time the test took and medicalising self-limiting illness lessened after using the tests. For both RADTs and clinical scores, there were tensions with established clinical experience.

CONCLUSIONS
Targeting antibiotics using a clinical score (FeverPAIN) efficiently improves symptoms and reduces antibiotic use. RADTs used in combination with FeverPAIN provide no clear advantages over FeverPAIN alone, and RADTs are unlikely to be incorporated into practice until health professionals' concerns are met and they have experience of using them. Clinical scores also face barriers related to clinicians' perceptions of their utility in the face of experience. This study has demonstrated the limitation of using one data set to develop a clinical score. FeverPAIN, derived from two data sets, appears to be valid and its use improves outcomes, but diagnostic studies to confirm the validity of FeverPAIN in other data sets and settings are needed. Experienced clinicians need to identify barriers to the use of clinical scoring methods. Implementation studies that address perceived barriers in the use of FeverPAIN are needed.

TRIAL REGISTRATION
Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN32027234.

SOURCE OF FUNDING
This project was funded by the NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme and will be published in full in Health Technology Assessment; Vol. 18, No. 6. See the NIHR Journals Library website for further project information.


In the past, the genetically diabetic-obese diabetes/diabetes (db/db) and obese/obese (ob/ob) mouse strains were used to investigate mechanisms of diabetes-impaired wound healing. Here we determined patterns of skin repair in genetically normal C57Bl/6J mice that were fed using a high fat diet (HFD) to induce a diabetes-obesity syndrome. Wound closure was markedly delayed in HFD-fed mice compared to mice which had received a standard chow diet (CD). Impaired wound tissue of HFD mice showed a marked prolongation of wound inflammation. Expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) was delayed and associated with the disturbed formation of wound margin epithelia and an impaired angiogenesis in the reduced granulation tissue. Normal wound contraction was retarded and disordered. Wound disorders in obese C57Bl/6J mice were paralleled by a prominent degradation of the inhibitor of NFκB (IκB-α) in the absence of an Akt activation. By contrast to impaired wound conditions in ob/ob mice, late wounds of HFD mice did not develop a chronic inflammatory state and were epithelialized after 11 days of repair. Thus, only genetically obese and diabetic ob/ob mice finally developed chronic wounds and therefore represent a better suited experimental model to investigate diabetes-induced wound healing disorders.


Does the Federal Constitution protect a right not to procreate, and what does that mean? Modern reproductive technology has made this question both more salient and more problematic. For example, a number of courts and commentators have assumed the existence of a federal constitutional right not to procreate and relied on it to resolve disputes over stored frozen preembryos that couples have fertilized in the course of in vitro fertilization (IVF). In this Article, I challenge that assumption. I argue that these authorities err by relying on a monolithic conception of the right not to procreate. I instead contend that the right is best conceived as a bundle of rights containing three possible sticks: the right not to be a genetic parent, the right not to be a legal parent, and the right not to be a gestational parent. Using this framework, I show that while the Supreme Court's jurisprudence unquestionably protects a right not to be a gestational parent as a fundamental right, it does not compel recognizing a right not to be a genetic parent, when genetic parenthood is unbundled from the obligations of legal and gestational parenthood. I also examine three other challenges to the Court's and commentators' constitutional claim. First, I suggest that even if there is a fundamental right not to be a genetic parent, infringement thereof might survive constitutional scrutiny under the appropriate standard of review. Second, I argue that there is no state action in preembryo disputes and others like them, such that the Constitution is not implicated at all. And finally, I argue that the asserted constitutional right not to be a genetic parent may be subject to advance waiver, as are many other constitutional rights.


One aspect of the present paper is to draw out the Adam Smith in Friedrich Hayek. I suggest that common economic talk of market communication, market error and correction, and policy error and correction invokes a spectatorial being and appeals to our sympathy with such being. Behind such common economic talk, I suggest, are implicit allegories wherein an allegorical figure runs a system of superior knowledge, communication, and voluntary cooperation. Theoretical discussions of social error invoke the notion of agent error applied to the allegorical being. Similarly, theoretical talk of social correction invokes the notion of agent correction applied to the allegorical being. The allegory behind such talk is vital and necessary because without it the talk of social or market communication, error, and correction cannot be sustained. Unfolding the allegory clarifies the meaning, limitations, and value of such talk. Making what had been implicit explicit helps economists to avoid overstating their generalizations or making those generalizations sound more precise and accurate than they are. Meanwhile, scholars have pointed out that spectating impartially involves something of a paradox – distant-closeness, or cool-warmth. Concurring, I explore the connections between the features of the allegorical being and the doings of the economic agents. I suggest that the cogency of such theorizing depends on such correspondences, and that they are matters of culture, of both the context within which the theorizing is done and of the context theorized about.


In the post-9/11 United States, there has been a great deal of anxiety surrounding Muslims and their assimilability in Liberal democracies. Part of the debate has focused on the identity of Muslim men and women both locally and globally. This Article examines the production of Muslim masculinity as dangerous and violently patriarchal, the co-production of Muslim women as victims of Muslim men and Islam, and the use of law to contain the former while rescuing the latter and to legitimate these actions. Central to the argument are two linkages that follow. First is the linkage between the local production of identity and their global regulation. The production of these identities occur in both the West and the East. Indeed, the attacks of 9/11 brought the reality of radical Islamist violence from the global to the local providing the kernel of reality to the stereotype of the "Muslim" terrorist. However, the article focuses on the export of Western local anxieties and preoccupations about Muslims, which have been fed by both local racism and by the global terror attacks, to the world particularly after 9/11. The result of such export of legal mechanisms that are based on these anxieties is to globalize the local margins exiling certain groups of people to the hinterlands of civilization, sometimes marking them as outlaws. The second linkage that the Article makes is between the production of violent Muslim men who deserve therapeutic violence and Liberal feminist efforts to "save" Muslim women. This second link requires complex rearrangements of identity, decoupling women from community and sometimes family. The claim of the Article is that Liberal feminists who are interested in the liberation of women must first understand the marginalization of Muslims in the West and how it impacts Muslim women and the hierarchies that exist within Liberal orders. Resisting the globalization of the margin allows for truer partnerships with women in the Global South in the struggle for gender justice. In the final section of this Article, I outline the ways in which law works to legitimate the "exceptional" treatment which many Muslims are subjected to in both local and global contexts and how it maintains their otherness.


This article presents an experiment of expertise capitalization in road traffic-accident analysis. We study the integration of models of expertise from different members of an organization into a coherent corporate expertise model. We present our elicitation protocol and the generic models and tools we exploited for knowledge modeling in this context of multiple experts. We compare the knowledge models obtained for seven experts in accidentology and their representation through conceptual graphs. Finally, we discuss the results of our experiment from a knowledge capitalization viewpoint.


Cities experience significant, near random walk productivity shocks, yet population is slow to adjust. In practice local population changes are dominated by variation in net migration, and we argue that understanding gross migration is essential to quantify how net migration may slow population adjustments. Housing is also a natural candidate for slowing population adjustments because it is dicult to move, costly to build quickly, and a large durable stock makes a city attractive to potential migrants. We quantify the influence of migration and housing on urban population dynamics using a dynamic general equilibrium model of cities which incorporates a new theory of gross migration motivated by patterns we uncover in a panel of US cities. After assigning values to the model's parameters with an exactly identified procedure, we demonstrate that its implied dynamic responses to productivity shocks of population, gross migration, employment, wages, home construction and house prices strongly resemble those we estimate with our panel data. The empirically validated model implies that costs of attracting workers to cities drive slow population adjustments. Housing plays a very limited role.


This is the final chapter of an interdisciplinary book about children and disasters published jointly by the Center on Children, Law & Policy of the University of Houston Law Center and the ABA. The preceding chapters focus in detail on emergency preparedness, foster care, psychological impact, oral history, juvenile justice, and education. This chapter, however, is designed to bring historical perspective to bear on the social policy implications of disasters that affect children. It does this by comparing the large-scale evacuation of children from hurricane-afflicted areas to the single largest social experiment in Great Britain during World War II - the official evacuation of between 800,000 and a million children, mostly unaccompanied, from London and other cities of Great Britain in order to transfer them away from aerial bombing of industrial centers. The evacuations occurred in three waves - the first (and largest) occurring before bombing began, between September 1-3, 1939; the second after the beginning of the "blitz" in 1940; and the last when the V-1 and V-2 rockets attacked London and the southeast of England in 1944. The evacuations severely disrupted the educational experiences of children. In addition, since many social services such as meal service or milk or medical programs were provided through the schools, evacuation also reshaped the delivery of those services, first disrupting them, but later in the war prompting massive expansions of services. Moreover, since the evacuated children mostly were unaccompanied by a parent, social scientists, child guidance experts, and psycho-analysts like John Bowlby or Anna Freud were heavily involved in studying the results and even in advising the government about what to do to ameliorate the impact of family separation. The greatest effect of the wartime experiment, however, was on overall social policy. Evacuation of chiefly poor children from the inner cities to the more affluent countryside exposed the persistence of poverty to the nation. Shining a light on the "dark places" in turn helped to inspire the post-war construction of the welfare state, including national health insurance. While the child evacuation may only have hastened developing trends and the parallels between the two countries and times should not be exaggerated, the contrast to the aftermath of the Katrina/Rita disasters cannot be more striking. Unfortunately, the revelations of poverty, poor education, and other social needs of the child and adult evacuees fleeing Katrina and Rita have failed to stimulate public policy debate in the broadest sense.


Ferromagnetism is of increasing importance in the growing field of electromobility and data storage. In stable austenitic steels, the occurrence of ferromagnetism is not expected and would also interfere with many applications. However, ferromagnetism in austenitic stainless steels after low‐temperature nitriding has already been shown in the past. Herein, the presence of ferromagnetism in austenitic steels is discovered after low‐temperature carburization (Kolsterizing), which represents a novel and unique finding. A zone of expanded austenite is established on various austenitic stainless steels by low‐temperature carburization and the respective ferromagnetism is investigated in relation to the alloy composition. The ferromagnetism occurring is determined by means of a commercial magnetoinductive sensor (Feritscope). Ferromagnetic domains are visualized by magnetic force microscopy and a ferrofluid. X‐ray diffraction measurements indicate a clear difference in the lattice expansion of the different alloys. Furthermore, a different appearance of the magnetizable microstructure regions (magnetic domain structure) is detected depending on the grain orientation determined by electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD). Strongly pronounced magnetic domains show no linear lattice defects, whereas in small magnetizable areas linear lattice defects are detected by electron channeling contrast imaging and EBSD.