Abstract Present-day international humanitarian law has grown from two main sources: the Law of Geneva, i.e. a body of rules which protect victims of war, and the Law of The Hague, i.e. those provisions which affect the conduct of hostilities. The author examines the different policies which are behind these two branches of international humanitarian law and traces their history up to the 1974-1977 Diplomatic Conference which, by adopting Additional Protocol I, brought about their convergence. While the ICRC undoubtedly gave rise to the Law of Geneva, its contribution to the development and implementation of the Hague Law has been less explicit. The author argues that any involvement in humanitarian law today implies a concern for both domains, which now are inseparable parts of modem international humanitarian law.


In the latter half of the twentieth century, America witnessed the construction of a "wall of separation" between religion and the public square. What had once been commonplace (such as prayer in public schools, and religious symbols on public property) had suddenly become verboten. This phenomenon is well known and has been well studied.Less well known (and less well studied) has been the parallel phenomenon of religion's expulsion from the private square. Employment law, corporate law, and constitutional law have worked to impede the ability of business enterprises to adopt, pursue, and maintain distinctively religious personae. This is undesirable because religious freedom does not truly and fully exist if religion expression and practice is restricted to the private quarters of one's home or temple.Fortunately, a corrective to this situation exists: recognition of the right to free exercise of religion on the part of business corporations. Such a right has been long in the making, and the jurisprudential trajectory of the courts (especially the U.S. Supreme Court), combined with the increased assertion of this right against certain elements of the current regulatory onslaught, suggests that its recognition is imminent.


How do you find your way in an age of information overload? How can you filter streams of complex information to pull out only what you want? Why does it matter how information is structured when Google seems to magically bring up the right answer to your questions? What does it mean to be "findable" in this day and age? This eye-opening new book examines the convergence of information and connectivity. Written by Peter Morville, author of the groundbreaking Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, the book defines our current age as a state of unlimited findability. In other words, anyone can find anything at any time. Complete navigability. Morville discusses the Internet, GIS, and other network technologies that are coming together to make unlimited findability possible. He explores how the melding of these innovations impacts society, since Web access is now a standard requirement for successful people and businesses. But before he does that, Morville looks back at the history of wayfinding and human evolution, suggesting that our fear of being lost has driven us to create maps, charts, and now, the mobile Internet. The book's central thesis is that information literacy, information architecture, and usability are all critical components of this new world order. Hand in hand with that is the contention that only by planning and designing the best possible software, devices, and Internet, will we be able to maintain this connectivity in the future. Morville's book is highlighted with full color illustrations and rich examples that bring his prose to life. Ambient Findability doesn't preach or pretend to know all the answers. Instead, it presents research, stories, and examples in support of its novel ideas. Are we truly at a critical point in our evolution where the quality of our digital networks will dictate how we behave as a species? Is findability indeed the primary key to a successful global marketplace in the 21st century and beyond. Peter Morville takes you on a thought-provoking tour of these memes and more -- ideas that will not only fascinate but will stir your creativity in practical ways that you can apply to your work immediately. "A lively, enjoyable and informative tour of a topic that's only going to become more important." --David Weinberger, Author, Small Pieces Loosely Joined and The Cluetrain Manifesto "I envy the young scholar who finds this inventive book, by whatever strange means are necessary. The future isn't just unwritten--it's unsearched." --Bruce Sterling, Writer, Futurist, and Co-Founder, The Electronic Frontier Foundation "Search engine marketing is the hottest thing in Internet business, and deservedly so. Ambient Findability puts SEM into a broader context and provides deeper insights into human behavior. This book will help you grow your online business in a world where being found is not at all certain." --Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D., Author, Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity "Information that's hard to find will remain information that's hardly found--from one of the fathers of the discipline of information architecture, and one of its most experienced practitioners, come penetrating observations on why findability is elusive and how the act of seeking changes us." --Steve Papa, Founder and Chairman, Endeca "Whether it's a fact or a figure, a person or a place, Peter Morville knows how to make it findable. Morville explores the possibilities of a world where everything can always be found--and the challenges in getting there--in this wide-ranging, thought-provoking book." --Jesse James Garrett, Author, The Elements of User Experience "It is easy to assume that current searching of the World Wide Web is the last word in finding and using information. Peter Morville shows us that search engines are just the beginning. Skillfully weaving together information science research with his own extensive experience, he develops for the reader a feeling for the near future when information is truly findable all around us. There are immense implications, and Morville's lively and humorous writing brings them home." --Marcia J. Bates, Ph.D., University of California Los Angeles "I've always known that Peter Morville was smart. After reading Ambient Findability, I now know he's (as we say in Boston) wicked smart. This is a timely book that will have lasting effects on how we create our future. --Jared Spool, Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering "In Ambient Findability, Peter Morville has put his mind and keyboard on the pulse of the electronic noosphere. With tangible examples and lively writing, he lays out the challenges and wonders of finding our way in cyberspace, and explains the mutually dependent evolution of our changing world and selves. This is a must read for everyone and a practical guide for designers." --Gary Marchionini, Ph.D., University of North Carolina "Find this book! Anyone interested in making information easier to find, or understanding how finding and being found is changing, will find this thoroughly researched, engagingly written, literate, insightful and very, very cool book well worth their time. Myriad examples from rich and varied domains and a valuable idea on nearly every page. Fun to read, too! --Joseph Janes, Ph.D., Founder, Internet Public Library


Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) networks are important components of the smart grid (SG) for their capability of providing better ancillary services and facilitating the adoption of renewable resources. The operation of the V2G networks is based on continuously monitoring the status of individual battery vehicle (BV) as well as a carefully designed incentive scheme to attract sufficient participating BVs. However, the close monitoring tends to raise privacy concerns from the BV owners about identity and location information leakage, which have not been considered in previous works. In this paper, we make the first attempt to identify the privacy-preserving issues and propose a precise reward scheme in V2G networks, both of which are important towards bringing the concept of V2G network into practice. In V2G networks, it is the service providers (individual BVs) who need privacy protection rather than the service consumer (power grid). This unique characteristic renders privacy protection solutions proposed for conventional network systems not directly applicable. To protect privacy of BVs in V2G networks, we present , a secure communication architecture which achieves privacy-preserving for both BVs' monitoring and rewarding processes. Extensive performance analysis shows that only incurs moderate communication and computational overheads.


This paper describes a method for bringing two videos (recorded at different times) into spatiotemporal alignment, then comparing and combining corresponding pixels for applications such as background subtraction, compositing, and increasing dynamic range. We align a pair of videos by searching for frames that best match according to a robust image registration process. This process uses locally weighted regression to interpolate and extrapolate high-likelihood image correspondences, allowing new correspondences to be discovered and refined. Image regions that cannot be matched are detected and ignored, providing robustness to changes in scene content and lighting, which allows a variety of new applications.


This study aims at identifying the accounting systems applied in the agriculture sector in Jordan in order to evaluate and indicate the possibility of applying International Accounting Standard No. 41 (Agriculture) on this sector as well as the extent of the difference between the accounting systems used in the agriculture sector. To achieve this, a questionnaire has been developed to collect the necessary data from the sample of the study. The sample consists of fifty employees working in the financial sector at the agriculture sector. It has been shown from the analysis of the results that there is weakness in the accounting systems applied by the study sample companies. In addition, the study shows that there is a difference between the accounting policies that are used in the agriculture sector and policies and items of the International Accounting Standard No. (41) for agriculture; the accounting systems used are traditional systems as the financial reporting is limited to the income statement and balance sheet, as shown by the similarity between the accounting systems used in the study sample companies. Accordingly, the study recommends that there be a deep need to develop accounting systems applied in the agriculture sector through the creation of an appropriate environment to accept the application of accounting standards and amendments while starting the application gradually which will assure the success of the application process.


The years from the end of World War II to the end of the 1950s were dominated by four powerful changes in American life. The first was the birth of the Cold War, and the great fears that it created. The second was the dramatic growth of affluence, which transformed the lives of many, but not all, Americans. The third was a growing anxiety among many Americans who felt that their lives were too constricted by the staid culture of the era. And the fourth was the emergence of a new subversive culture growing beneath the smooth, stable surface of the decade that would explode in the 1960s.


Conventional wisdom holds that 9/11 sounded the death knell for presidential accountability. In fact, the opposite is true. The novel powers that our post-9/11 commanders in chief assumed-endless detentions, military commissions, state secrets, broad surveillance, and more-are the culmination of a two-century expansion of presidential authority. But these new powers have been met with thousands of barely visible legal and political constraints-enforced by congressional committees, government lawyers, courts, and the media-that have transformed our unprecedentedly powerful presidency into one that is also unprecedentedly accountable. These constraints are the key to understanding why Obama continued the Bush counterterrorism program, and in this light, the events of the last decade should be seen as a victory, not a failure, of American constitutional government. We have actually preserved the framers' original idea of a balanced constitution, despite the vast increase in presidential power made necessary by this age of permanent emergency.


Tonnage (T), Simmonds (S) avocado trees, and TxS crosses were evaluated for differences in chlorophyll content and maximal quantum yield of photosystem II in sun and shade-type leaves. Total chlorophyll content by area (Chl a+bar) ranged from 984 mg m -2 in TxS240 to 4320 mg m -2 in Simmonds. Chlorophyll a/b ratio (Chl a/b) ranged from 9.8 to 5.5 in TxS238 and TxS243, respectively. Tonnage and Simmonds had similar Chl a/b with a wide range in values found among the avocado trees tested. Shade leaves contained more Chl a, Chl b and Chl a+bwt than sun leaves. Differences in Chl a/b were insignificant or greater in shade adapted leaves for all trees except TxS238; this did not follow the expected sun/shade pattern. A low chlorophyll a/b ratio indicates more light harvesting proteins and higher stacking of thylakoids. Chl a+bar indicates Simmonds, Tonnage and to a lesser extent TxS238 had dense packing of chloroplasts in both sun and shade adapted leaves. Shade leaves had more efficient Fv/Fm values than those adapted to sun for all varieties except TxS240. Tonnage had the largest range of total chlorophyll content between shade and sun adapted leaves and likely has the largest genetic variation in its ability to acclimate to changing light intensities. The range in efficiency of photosystem 11 found between the avocado trees tested indicates a potential for improvements through selective breeding. More research is needed to evaluate the entire USDA avocado germplasm collection for traits associated with photosynthetic efficiency and to determine their heritability.


We consider the problem of reinforcement learning in high-dimensional spaces when the number of features is bigger than the number of samples. In particular, we study the least-squares temporal difference (LSTD) learning algorithm when a space of low dimension is generated with a random projection from a high-dimensional space. We provide a thorough theoretical analysis of the LSTD with random projections and derive performance bounds for the resulting algorithm. We also show how the error of LSTD with random projections is propagated through the iterations of a policy iteration algorithm and provide a performance bound for the resulting least-squares policy iteration (LSPI) algorithm.


This article explores important variations in concepts of freedom and resistance for people in the English speaking Caribbean, who for the most part, still live in oppressive economic and social conditions. The article has a threefold purpose: Initially, it highlights the meaning of freedom in terms of the historical context of legally sanctioned enslavement of African people in the Caribbean which existed for several hundred years. Secondly, it identifies freedom in terms of Caribbean authors who deliberately publish in Creole as acts of resistance to empire's dominance. Thirdly, the paper summarizes a few personal experiences of schooling and university teaching in terms of hooks' (1994) concept of education 'as the practice of freedom' and a few classic concepts from Freire (1970, 1982).


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This paper adds a new dimension to the literature that uses individual level data to assess the effects of tax policy on self-employment. Specifically, this study uses repeated cross-section data from the Surveys of Consumer Finances (SCF) against the background of the tax reforms of 1986 and 1993 to gauge the influence of taxes on self-employment. Using the 1986 and 1993 tax rate reforms as natural experiments allows for the identification of the effect of taxes on the choice to become self-employed. The findings of this paper indicate that marginal and average tax rates are negatively related to the propensity to become self-employed. However, these effects are only significant for the 1986 tax reforms and are sensitive to the model specification. Other factors, such as education, industry, wealth, and attitude toward risks, are consistently more important influences on the choice to become self-employed.


2,4‐Dinitroanisole (DNAN) is an emerging insensitive munitions compound that readily undergoes anaerobic nitro‐group reduction to 2‐methoxy‐5‐nitroaniline (MENA) and 2,4‐diaminoanisole (DAAN), followed by formation of unique azo dimers. Currently there is little knowledge on the ecotoxicity of DNAN (bio)transformation products. In the present study, mortality, development, and behavioral effects of DNAN (bio)transformation products were assessed using zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos. The authors tested individual products, MENA and DAAN, as well as dimer and trimer surrogates. As pure compounds, 3‐nitro‐4‐methoxyaniline and 2,2′‐dimethoxy‐4,4′‐azodianiline caused statistically significant effects, with lowest‐observable–adverse effect levels (LOAEL) at 6.4 μM on 1 or 2 developmental endpoints, respectively. The latter had 6 additional statistically significant developmental endpoints with LOAELs of 64 μM. Based on light‐to‐dark swimming behavioral tests, DAAN (640 μM) caused reduction in swimming, suggestive of neurotoxicity. No statistically significant mortality occurred (≤64 μM) for any of the individual compounds. However, metabolite mixtures formed during different stages of MENA (bio)transformation in soil were characterized using high‐resolution mass spectrometry in parallel with zebrafish embryo toxicity assays, which demonstrated statistically significant mortality during the onset of azo‐dimer formation. Overall the results indicate that several DNAN (bio)transformation products cause different types of toxicity to zebrafish embryos. Environ Toxicol Chem 2016;35:2774–2781. © 2016 SETAC


Petascale machines with hundreds of thousands of cores are being built. These machines have varying interconnect topologies and large network diameters. Computation is cheap and communication on the network is becoming the bottleneck for scaling of parallel applications. Network contention, specifically, is becoming an increasingly important factor affecting overall performance. The broad goal of this dissertation is performance optimization of parallel applications through reduction of network contention.
Most parallel applications have a certain communication topology. Mapping of tasks in a parallel application based on their communication graph, to the physical processors on a machine can potentially lead to performance improvements. Mapping of the communication graph for an application on to the interconnect topology of a machine while trying to localize communication is the research problem under consideration.
The farther different messages travel on the network, greater is the chance of resource sharing between messages. This can create contention on the network for networks commonly used today. Evaluative studies in this dissertation show that on IBM Blue Gene and Cray XT machines, message latencies can be severely affected under contention. Realizing this fact, application developers have started paying attention to the mapping of tasks to physical processors to minimize contention. Placement of communicating tasks on nearby physical processors can minimize the distance traveled by messages and reduce the chances of contention.
Performance improvements through topology aware placement for applications such as NAMD and OpenAtom are used to motivate this work. Building on these ideas, the dissertation proposes algorithms and techniques for automatic mapping of parallel applications to relieve the application developers of this burden. The effect of contention on message latencies is studied in depth to guide the design of mapping algorithms. The hop-bytes metric is proposed for the evaluation of mapping algorithms as a better metric than the previously used maximum dilation metric. The main focus of this dissertation is on developing topology aware mapping algorithms for parallel applications with regular and irregular communication patterns. The automatic mapping framework is a suite of such algorithms with capabilities to choose the best mapping for a problem with a given communication graph. The dissertation also briefly discusses completely distributed mapping techniques which will be imperative for machines of the future.


Liu, Alex. Little White Duck: A Childhood in China. Minneapolis: Graphic Universe, 2012. Print.  This graphic memoir is co-written by author/illustrator Andres Vera Martinez and his wife Na Liu.  Martinez, an accomplished and award winning illustrator, accurately captures Na Liu's childhood perspective of China during the 1970's and early 80's. Little White Duck: A Childhood in China is composed of eight insightful short stories of Na Liu and her younger sister Xiao Qin's childhood experiences in Wuhan, China.   The table of contents, glossary, timeline, map, and translations are helpful features that enable readers to gain background knowledge and context while reading. Each story in this memoir provides the reader with an opportunity to explore aspects of China's history and traditions in a subtle yet striking visual format that complements the deeply reflective narrative voice of Na Liu.  Although the stories are not directly connected, they each offer a unique perspective and understanding of Chinese culture and history. What stands out about this graphic novel memoir is more than just memories, but rather the eloquently captured events and stories that have no doubt shaped Na Liu into the person she is today.  For example, when Na Liu went to visit her cousins in the countryside, she discovered that life was different there and times were tough. Although not explicitly stated, but inferred through the illustrations, the reader is left knowing that Na Liu was touched by the kindness and acceptance of her cousins and also recognized the sacrifices that her dad made to provide her with the life she had. Crisp, simple images combined with appropriate amounts of text make this an extremely accessible book for younger audiences.  The wisdom and perspective Da Qin shares acknowledges that her experiences as a child set her life apart from the one her parents and others experienced.  A message that transcends culture and place, and one that is important for children to consider and begin to understand centres around sacrifices that parents make, and that events that shape their lives and their identity. Highly recommended for school libraries as a multitude of connections can be made across the curriculum. It is appropriate for a wide range of grade and reading levels, and it is an excellent addition to enhance culturally responsive collections.  Highly Recommended: 4 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Tamzen Kulyk Tamzen Kulyk is a teacher-librarian at two elementary schools in the Saskatoon Public School Division in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.


Beginning Python: Using Python 2.6 and Python 3.1 introduces this open source, portable, interpreted, object-oriented programming language that combines remarkable power with clear syntax. This book enables you to quickly create robust, reliable, and reusable Python applications by teaching the basics so you can quickly develop Web and scientific applications, incorporate databases, and master systems tasks on various operating systems, including Linux, MAC OS, and Windows. You'll get a comprehensive tutorial that guides you from writing simple, basic Python scripts all the way through complex concepts, and also features a reference of the standard modules with examples illustrating how to implement features in the various modules. Plus, the book covers using Python in specific program development domains, such as XML, databases, scientific applications, network programming, and Web development. Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.


This study provides a framework to explore the potential use and incremental value of small- to large-scale penetration of solar and wind technologies as a physical hedge against the risk and uncertainty of electricity cost on multi-year to multi-decade timescales. Earlier studies characterizing the impacts of adding renewable energy (RE) to portfolios of electricity generators often used a levelized cost of energy or simplified net cash flow approach. In this study, we expand on previous work by demonstrating the use of an 8760 hourly production cost model (PLEXOS) to analyze the incremental impact of solar and wind penetration under a wide range of penetration scenarios for a region in the Western U.S. We do not attempt to 'optimize' the portfolio in any of these cases. Rather we consider different RE penetration scenarios, that might for example result from the implementation of a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to explore the dynamics, risk mitigation characteristics and incremental value that RE might add to the system. We also compare the use of RE to alternative mechanisms, such as the use of financial or physical supply contracts to mitigate risk and uncertainty, including consideration of their effectiveness and availability over a variety of timeframes.


For centuries, juries have been hailed as a model of popular participation in government. Alexis de Tocqueville famously described the American jury as "both the most effective way of establishing the people's rule and the most efficient way of teaching them how to rule." But even as he praised the jury's role as a political institution, de Tocqueville worried that jurors might lack the knowledge needed to perform their judicial function properly. "The jury system," he wrote, "arose in the infancy of society, at a time when only simple questions of fact were submitted to the courts; and it is no easy task to adapt it to the needs of a highly civilized nation, where the relations between men have multiplied exceedingly." Today's society is arguably even more "highly civilized" than that described by de Tocqueville in the 1830s, or at least more complex. It is therefore important to consider whether jurors have the knowledge and cognitive abilities needed to cope with the challenges of modern trials. Much evidence suggests that voters often fail to acquire the knowledge needed to cope with the enormous scope and complexity of modern government. Given the oft-made analogy between jury service and political participation, it is important to consider whether jurors are prone to similar pitfalls. Do they also often make poor decisions out of ignorance or illogical evaluation of evidence? My tentative conclusion is that jurors are likely superior to voters in terms of both acquiring knowledge and utilizing it in a rational way. But ignorance and irrationality do sometimes compromise jury decision-making, especially in complex cases. They are even more likely to bedevil efforts to use jury-like institutions to make broad policy decisions, as opposed to merely decide discrete cases.Part I summarizes the problem of political ignorance in the case of voters and explains some theoretical reasons why we would expect jurors to acquire greater relevant knowledge than voters do, and to use it more wisely. Part II discusses the relevant empirical evidence on jury knowledge and rationality. Much of that evidence shows juries performing fairly well. But it also suggests that ignorance and bias undermine the quality of jury decisions in unusually complex cases, such as ones involving scientific evidence, punitive damages, and complicated jury instructions. Overall, juries perform better than voters in large part because of the ways in which trials differ from elections. Unlike voters, jurors usually cast votes that have a high probability of making a difference, and decide only a narrow specific case rather than a broad set of policy issues. They are also required to listen to extensive evidence from both sides before making a decision. Finally, Part III expresses skepticism about the possibility of using jury-like mechanisms to help decide broad policy questions. Such proposals break down some of the key differences between jury service and voting that make the former function more effectively than the latter.


This volume offers new research in cognitive science by leading scholars, exploring different areas of cognition with an emphasis on language. The contributions -- in such fields as linguistic theory, psycholinguistics, evolution, and consciousness -- reflect the thriving interdisciplinary scholarship in cognitive science today. Ray Jackendoff's pioneering cross-disciplinary work was instrumental in establishing the field, and Structures in the Mind, with contributions from Jackendoff's colleagues and former students, is a testament to his lasting influence. After an introduction that includes short reflections on Jackendoff's work by such scholars as Paul Bloom, Noam Chomsky, Barbara Partee, and Steven Pinker, the book presents chapters on linguistics, which build on Jackendoff's theories of conceptual semantics and parallel architectures; psycholinguistics, reaching from linguistics to psychology and neuroscience; and other topics as varied as the evolution of linguistic and musical abilities, consciousness, music theory, and the grammar of comics -- with this particular chapter taking the form of a comic. The chapters present fresh data, bold claims, and stimulating theoretical discussions, offering a celebration of cognitive science today. ContributorsDaniel Buring, Neil Cohn, Peter W. Culicover, Daniel Dennett, Cecily Jill Duffield, W. Tecumseh Fitch, Lila Gleitman, Jane Grimshaw, Yosef Grodzinsky, Katharina Hartmann, Albert Kim, Max Soowon Kim, Barbara Landau, Fred Lerdahl, Willem J. M. Levelt, Joan Maling, Bhuvana Narasimhan, Urpo Nikanne, Catherine O'Connor, Maria Mercedes Pinango, Daniel Silverman, Henk Verkuyl, Heike Wiese, Eva Wittenberg, Edgar B. Zurif, Joost Zwarts


The housing crisis has left in its wake an ongoing legal crisis. After housing markets began to collapse across the country in 2007, foreclosures and housing-related bankruptcies surged significantly and have barely begun to abate more than six years later. As the legal system has confronted this aftermath, courts have increasingly accepted claims by borrowers that lenders and other entities involved in securitizing mortgages failed to follow requirements related to perfecting and transferring their security interests. These cases – which focus variously on issues such as standing, real party in interest, chains of assignment, the negotiability of mortgage notes, and the like – signal renewed formality in nearly every aspect of the resolution of mortgage distress. This new formalism in the aftermath of the housing crisis represents something of an ironic turn in the jurisprudence. From the earliest history of the mortgage, lenders have had a tendency to invoke the clear, sharp edges of law, while borrowers in distress have often resorted to equity for forbearance. The post-crisis caselaw thus upends the historical valence of lender-side formalism and borrower-side flexibility. Building on this insight, this Article makes a normative and a theoretical claim. Normatively, while scholars have largely embraced the new formalism for the accountability it augurs, this consensus ignores the trend's potential negative consequences. Lenders have greater resources than consumers to manage the technical aspects of mortgage distress litigation over the long run, and focusing on formal requirements may distract from responding to deeper substantive and structural questions that still remain largely unaddressed more than a half decade into the crisis. Equally telling, from a theoretical perspective, the new formalism sheds light on the perennial tension between law's supposed certainty and equity's flexibility. The emerging jurisprudence underscores the contingency of property and thus reinforces – again, ironically – pluralist conceptions of property even in the crucible of hard-edged formalism.


The major challenge for accurate fingerprint-based indoor localization is the design of robust and discriminative wireless signatures. Even though WiFi RSSI signatures are widely available indoors, they vary significantly over time and are susceptible to human presence, multipath, and fading due to the high operating frequency. To overcome these limitations, we propose to use FM broadcast radio signals for robust indoor fingerprinting. Because of the lower frequency, FM signals are less susceptible to human presence, multipath and fading, they exhibit exceptional indoor penetration, and according to our experimental study they vary less over time when compared to WiFi signals. In this work, we demonstrate through a detailed experimental study in 3 different buildings across the US, that FM radio signal RSSI values can be used to achieve room-level indoor localization with similar or better accuracy to the one achieved by WiFi signals. Furthermore, we propose to use additional signal quality indicators at the physical layer (i.e., SNR, multipath etc.) to augment the wireless signature, and show that localization accuracy can be further improved by more than 5%. More importantly, we experimentally demonstrate that the localization errors of FM andWiFi signals are independent. When FM and WiFi signals are combined to generate wireless fingerprints, the localization accuracy increases as much as 83% (when accounting for wireless signal temporal variations) compared to when WiFi RSSI only is used as a signature.


In this article we analyse the Marxist interpretation of F. M. Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. Although Raskolnikov's worldview may share some features with a socialist point of view, the hero of Dostoevsky's first novel of ideas represents a complete ideological antithesis to Socialism. Thanks to a careful analysis of Raskolnikov's utterances and with the help of Merezhkovsky's reading of the novel, we conclude that if there is a Dostoevsky novel which resists a Socialist understanding, then this novel is Crime and Punishment.


Engaging in physical activity is a critical part of an individual's life and can be the precursor for well-being and a method of disease avoidance. Yet, many American college students fail to engage in adequate amounts of physical activity during their daily lives. To compound the issue, little has been published regarding physical activity promotion practices on American college campuses. The aims of this dissertation are twofold. The first aim of this dissertation will be to provide a review of literature that will (1) highlight various determinants of physical activity among American college students; (2) provide rationale for promoting physical activity during the college years; (3) present a review of student physical activity promotion programming on American college campuses; (4) summarize the results of the review and provide direction for future research and practice. The second aim of this dissertation will be to describe a qualitative investigation into physical activity promotion practices conducted on UNC system campuses and provide recommendations for future research and practice. "Pub Med," a collection of databases for articles from medical and health-related journals, was used to identify appropriate literature for the first aim of the dissertation. Search terms included: physical activity, promotion, college, college students, campus, intervention, programming, environment, and policy. Studies that included promotion programs for the general public were not included nor were any policies implemented by non-college affiliated organizations. This review of literature uncovered 14 published articles from 1999 to 2008 related to physical activity promotion on American college campuses. Results of the literature review suggest that of the studies attempting to promote physical activity among college students, most target intrapersonal factors and provide little evidence regarding the effects of institutional, community or policy factors on physical activity behaviors of college students. Furthermore, additional research is needed to assess the effects of scientifically established determinants of physical activity on college student behaviors. Finally, results of this review underscore the need for continued research that will provide a comprehensive understanding of how physical activity promotion on a college campus is currently accomplished. To accomplish the second aim of this dissertation, participants were recruited from North Carolina's multi-campus university system. Nonprobabilistic purposive sampling followed by snowball sampling was conducted to identify a total of 22 semi-structured interview participants across 15 state universities located in North Carolina. Interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed verbatim into a word document and subsequently uploaded into NVivo 8 qualitative software for analyses. The qualitative investigation into student physical activity promotion on University of North Carolina multi-campus system campuses lead to the uncovering of several key findings. First, participant responses suggest that there is currently an unspecified definition of physical activity promotion. Second, it was uncovered that most efforts to promote physical activity to students do not target scientifically established determinants of physical activity outside of intrapersonal level determinants. In addition, descriptions of current physical activity promotion practices provided by participants made evident the limited use of a social ecological approach to promote physical activity among college students. Ultimately, these findings lead to the development of several recommendations for both research and practice including the establishment of a standard definition of physical activity promotion for university practitioners as well as continued research regarding the effects of targeting social ecological factors on physical activity behaviors of students.


This study offers a historical review of the monetary policy reform of October 6, 1979, and discusses the influences behind it and its significance. We lay out the record from the start of 1979 through the spring of 1980, relying almost exclusively upon contemporaneous sources, including the recently released transcripts of Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meetings during 1979. We then present and discuss in detail the reasons for the FOMC's adoption of the reform and the communications challenge presented to the Committee during this period. Further, we examine whether the essential characteristics of the reform were consistent with monetarism, new, neo, or old-fashioned Keynesianism, nominal income targeting, and inflation targeting. The record suggests that the reform was adopted when the FOMC became convinced that its earlier gradualist strategy using finely tuned interest rate moves had proved inadequate for fighting inflation and reversing inflation expectations. The new plan had to break dramatically with established practice, allow for the possibility of substantial increases in short-term interest rates, yet be politically acceptable, and convince financial markets participants that it would be effective. The new operating procedures were also adopted for the pragmatic reason that they would likely succeed.


The thermohaline circulation in the Argentine Basin today is characterized by the interaction of northward flowing Antarctic water masses (Antarctic Intermediate Water, AAIW; Circumpolar Deep Water, CDW; Antarctic Bottom Water, AABW) and southward flowing North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW). The transfer of heat and energy via both AABW and NADW constitutes an important component in maintaining the global conveyor belt. We aim at a better understanding of both paths and intensity of this current system in the past by investigating an extensive (> 11000 km) set of high quality seismic reflection profiles from the Argentine continental margin. The profiles show a significant contourite system containing both erosive and depositional features that formed through the evolution of water masses and their modifications (path, physical and chemical properties) due to plate tectonic events such as the opening of the Drake passage or the extensive emplacement of volcanic flows at the Rio Grande Rise. Overall the depositional features indicate that along slope (contour current) transport dominates over downslope (turbiditic) processes at the southern Argentine margin south of 45o S. Further to the North downslope transport was more extensive as indicated by the presence of submarine canyons crossing the slope down to a depth of ~3500 m. Here we present preliminary results from the southern part of the continental margin (42o-50o S) where we focus on a set of ~50 km wide terraces on the slope and rise separated by contouritic channels. The terraces developed over time in alternating constructional (depositional) and erosive phases. An initial age frame was developed by mapping regional reflectors and seismic units known from previous studies.The sedimentary layer between regional reflectors AR 4 and AR 5 spanning roughly the time interval from the Eocene/Oligocene boundary to the early middle Miocene is thin (0.1 0.4 s TWT) below the Valentine Feilberg Terrace but thickens towards the East forming the giant buried drift and also towards the West building a unit of plastered drifts below the Piedra Buena Terrace. Here the maximum thickness of this unit is ~1.4 s (TWT). On the other hand the sediments of late Miocene to recent age are very thin or completely eroded over the Piedra Buena terrace but form drifts at the Valentin Feilberg terrace that can be further divided into subunits whose reflections have stratified facies with good lateral continuity. Mounded drift structures on the western and eastern edges of the terrace are bounding an onlap fill structure possibly associated with bottom currents of reduced activity. With an assumed age of ~15 Ma for reflector AR5 the average sedimentation rate since the middle Miocene is estimated to be > 10 cm/ka and thus would make a drillsite on the terrace suitable for high resolution paleoclimate studies.


Over the years, the South African retirement fund industry has experienced major regulatory changes. These changes were aimed at imposing a higher standard of governance on the boards of trustees governing various pension funds. As such, there has been a debate within the retirement fund industry as to whom the board, as the governing and managing body of the retirement fund, is accountable. South African courts and tribunals adjudicating pension fund related disputes and the retirement industry at large seem to share the view that the board of trustees is accountable to both the fund and its members. In that the board of trustees owes fiduciary duties to both the fund and its members, meaning that the board is required to act in the best interest of the fund and its members. However, in this paper I demonstrate that the boards of trustees of South African Pension Funds are accountable to and owe fiduciary duties only to the fund they serve and not members of those funds. Furthermore, I submit that at the very best the board owes a duty of good faith towards the members of the fund. In order to substantiate my submissions, I distinguish the legal position relating to trust law from the law relating to retirement funds in South Africa.


In this study, optimization was performed to improve the conventional liquefaction process of offshore plants, such as a LNG-FPSO(Liquefied Natural Gas-Floating, Production, Storage, and Offloading unit) by maximizing the energy efficiency of the process. The major equipments of the liquefaction process are compressors, expanders, and heat exchangers. These are connected by stream which has some thermodynamic properties, such as the temperature, pressure, enthalpy or specific volume, and entropy. For this, a process design problem for the liquefaction process of offshore plants was mathematically formulated as an optimization problem. The minimization of the total energy requirement of the liquefaction process was used as an objective function. Governing equations and other equations derived from thermodynamic laws acted as constraints. To solve this problem, the sequential quadratic programming(SQP) method was used. To evaluate the proposed method in this study, it was applied to the natural gas liquefaction process of the LNG-FPSO. The result showed that the proposed method could present the improved liquefaction process minimizing the total energy requirement as compared to conventional process.


Investment protection treaties generally provide for the obligation to treat investments fairly and equitably, even if the wording of the rule and its relationship with the customary international standard may differ. The open-textured nature of the rule, the ambiguous relationship between the vague treaty and equally vague customary rules, and States' interpretations of the content and relationship of both rules (not to mention the frequency of successful invocation by investors) make this issue one of the most controversial aspect of investment protection law. This monograph engages in a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between the international minimum standard and fair and equitable treatment. It provides an original argument about the historical development of the international standard, a normative rationale for reading it into the treaty rules of fair and equitable treatment, and a coherent methodology for establishing the content of this standard. The first part of this book untangles the history of both the international minimum standard and fair and equitable treatment. The second part addresses the normative framework within which the contemporary debate takes place. After an exhaustive review of all relevant sources, it is argued that the most persuasive reading of fair and equitable treatment is that it always makes a reference to customary law. The third part of the book builds on the historical analysis and the normative framework, explaining the content of the contemporary standard by careful comparative human rights analysis.


By many objective measures the lives of women in the United States have improved over the past 35 years, yet we show that measures of subjective well-being indicate that women's happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men. The paradox of women's declining relative well-being is found across various datasets, measures of subjective wellbeing, and is pervasive across demographic groups and industrialized countries. Relative declines in female happiness have eroded a gender gap in happiness in which women in the 1970s typically reported higher subjective well-being than did men. These declines have continued and a new gender gap is emerging − one with higher subjective well-being for men.


Global change is posing a major challenge to existing forms of natural resource use, socio-economic development and institutional regulation. Although trends such as climate change, socio-economic transformation and institutional change are global in their scope, they have very specific regional outcomes. Regionally distinct coping strategies are required which take into account both the diversity of regional impacts of global change and the local contexts of appropriate responses. This paper explores the impacts of global change on the management of water infrastructure systems in the Berlin-Brandenburg region in terms of three concurrent and overlapping challenges: climate change, socio-economic change and institutional change. It subsequently examines how regional actors in the water sector are addressing these three dimensions of global change.


In Dec. 2008/Jan. 2009 I conducted a web-based survey of economists in my native country of the Czech Republic, and received 182 responses (a response rate of over 25 percent). The survey included 21 policy questions, each anchored in the status quo and soliciting judgment on whether policy should be liberalized, kept the same, or made more restrictive. Of the 21 issues, on 13 the average judgment leans toward liberalization (often dramatically so), on 3 is very close to the status quo, and on 5 leans toward greater restriction (never dramatically so). I create a liberalization score for each respondent and find that a majority lean toward liberalization. Comparing Czech economists to American economists, we notice some interesting differences. The paper provides links to the survey instrument (in Czech and in English) and the data.


We are at the cusp of a historic shift in our conceptions of the Fourth Amendment driven by dramatic advances in technologies that continuously track and aggregate information about our daily activities. The Fourth Amendment tipping point was marked this term by United States v. Jones. There, law enforcement officers used a GPS device attached to Jones's car to follow his movements for four weeks. Although Jones was resolved on narrow grounds, five justices signed concurring opinions defending a revolutionary proposition: that citizens have Fourth Amendment interests in substantial quantities of information about their public or shared activities, even if they lack a reasonable expectation of privacy in each of the constitutive particulars. This quantitative approach to the Fourth Amendment has since been the focus of considerable debate. Among the most compelling challenges are identifying its Fourth Amendment pedigree, describing a workable test for deciding how much information is enough to trigger Fourth Amendment interests, and explaining the doctrinal consequences. This Article takes up these challenges.Our analysis and proposal draw upon insights from information privacy law. Although information privacy law and Fourth Amendment jurisprudence share a fundamental interest in protecting privacy interests, these conversations have been treated as theoretically and practically discrete. This Article ends that isolation and the mutual exceptionalism that it implies. As information privacy scholarship suggests, technology can permit government to know us in unprecedented and totalizing ways at great cost to personal development and democratic institutions. We argue that these concerns about panoptic surveillance lie at the heart of the Fourth Amendment as well. We therefore propose a technology-centered approach to measuring and protecting Fourth Amendment interests in quantitative privacy. As opposed to proposals for case-by-case assessments of information "mosaics," which have so far dominated the debate, we argue that government access to technologies capable of facilitating broad programs of continuous and indiscriminate monitoring should be subject to the same Fourth Amendment limitations applied to physical searches.


In the standard approach, particle methods for the Boltzmann equation are obtained using an explicit time discretization of the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation. This kind of discretization leads to a restriction of the discretization parameter as well as on the differential cross section in the case of the general Boltzmann equation. Recently, it was shown, how to construct an implicit particle scheme for the Boltzmann equation with Maxwellian molecules. The present paper combines both approaches using a linear combination of explicit and implicit discretizations. It is shown that the new method leads to a second order particle method, when using an equiweighting of explicit and implicit discretization.


Patterson, James and Tebbetts, Chris. Middle School: Get me out of Here. Illus. Laura Parker. New York: Little, Brown Company, 2012. Print. Middle School: Get me out of Here is an illustrated novel, the second in a series, about Rafe Khatchadorian, a mischievous middle school student.  Rafe has survived the worst year of his life and is now looking forward to seventh grade.  But when Swifty's Diner burns to the ground and his mom is left without work, Rafe and his family are forced to move to the city to live with Grandma Dotty.  Cramped quarters at Grandma's finds Rafe sleeping on a couch in the living room. Could life get any worse?  As Rafe struggles with his newfound situation, he is unexpectedly accepted to attend Cathedral Academy, an art school in the city. Rafe jumps at the chance.  But when his first art critique goes horribly wrong Rafe begins to think that perhaps he is not quite talented enough for the Academy.  Enter Matty the Freak, Rafe's first real live friend.  Matty helps Rafe turn his boring life into inspiration for his artwork. The plan, Operation: Get a Life, to do 195 new things before the spring art show, only 195 days away.  But Rafe just can't seem to stay out of trouble! Will Operation: Get a Life be a bust or will Rafe be able to create a masterpiece and get his life back on track? Authors Patterson and Tebbetts have created a cast of likeable characters that will appeal to the target audience and particularly resonate with male readers.  The first person narrative draws the reader into the story and helps add credence to Rafe's struggles. Along with humorous narrative, zany artwork by Laura Park helps propel the reader through the text. Park's attention to detail is flawless and her sketched illustrations bring the story to life. This book would be a great addition to any middle school library. Recommended: 3 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Kelly Boyd Kelly Boyd is a teacher-librarian and Social Studies teacher at Summerside Intermediate School in Summerside, PEI.  She loves to read and sharing this passion with her students is one of the highlights of her job.  She is excited to make selections and recommend books that will hook reluctant readers and open the world of reading to them.


This paper provides a synthesis of the main issues discussed at a conference (International Conference on Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) entitled : Lessons from Implementation in Developing Countries which took place from 10 to 12 March 2008 in Cape Town, South Africa, at the Cape Town International Convention Centre) which was coordinated to share experiences and lessons learned on the implementation of IWRM in developing countries. This paper discusses six themes that emerged from the conference. These themes provide a perspective on the current status of IWRM and assist in formulating the agenda for further research and implementation approaches based on lessons learned. Firstly, although there is considerable history and international acceptance of IWRM, there is still ongoing debate on how IWRM is defined. However, aside from these debates there is general agreement on the principles underlying IWRM and the potential it holds for managing complex systems that cannot be adequately achieved through the single-sector management approach of the past. To overcome past management paradigms, new capacity building approaches are required. Secondly, implementation of IWRM requires a balance between policy and institutional support and community level projects that have small-scale tangible results for the poor. Thirdly, IWRM involves integration across many spheres, specifically the integration of groundwater management into long-term water resource planning. Fourthly, although there is general endorsement of the importance of public engagement in supporting IWRM approaches, effective public engagement requires considerable strategic planning to ensure that efforts are both applicable and relevant to those involved. Fifthly, the conference highlighted the importance of developing appropriate economic methods and instruments to address the economic trade-offs and decisions that are apparent in water management. Finally, appropriate data, information systems and indicators are required to adequately monitor progress with IWRM implementation.


In an ideal world, juries would always reach the correct result. In theory, we believe that the second best choice is to err on the side of acquitting the guilty rather than convicting the innocent. We say that it is better to acquit ten guilty men than convict one who is innocent. But I'm not sure that we really believe it. Would we really let ten child molesters walk the street to avoid convicting one innocent one? I have my doubts. Although we think the system is tilted to protect defendants, it may not be. Juries may not really believe in the "presumption of innocence." Furthermore the prosecutor usually has far more resources than the defense. Searches have to be reasonable, but at least the government can conduct them. The defense cannot. More generally, the prosecution has a professional police force investigating for it, and greater access to forensic testing. If the prosecutor wishes to frame a suspect (which fortunately is not the norm) it may not be all that difficult. It's hard to know which way juries in fact err more. Some high profile cases (John Hinckley, O.J. Simpson) may be instances in which a guilty man was acquitted. But recent studies have identified a huge number of wrongful convictions. I'm not persuaded that we really are acquitting more guilty people than convicting those who are innocent. There is probably no value in redefining reasonable doubt, but we can examine and try to minimize the causes of wrongful conviction. False identification is one of the largest problems. Of course, we can't disallow eye-witness identification. But we can alter procedures to make them more reliable. One is to show pictures and suspects individually so that the witness will not assume that the array includes the culprit. Another is to have the lineup conducted by someone who doesn't know who the suspect is to avoid intentional or unintentional tipping of the witness. False confessions are another problem. Perhaps the best remedy is to videotape all confessions so that defense counsel and the court (jury?) can see how the confession was obtained, and perhaps defense counsel can expose its probable inaccuracy. Bad forensics can be either intentionally or unintentionally done. In the former case, severe sanctions should be available, and, of course, the conviction so obtained should be set aside. With unintentional botched forensics, defense counsel simply need to be trained to spot the problem and counter the bad forensics with their own better forensics. Perhaps the most pernicious source of false convictions are so-called jailhouse confessions. These occur when an inmate claims to have overheard the defendant describe and confess to the crime. The informant is usually paid in the form of cash, dropped charges, and/or a reduced sentence. Obviously the probability of perjury is extremely high in such a circumstance. I would seriously consider disallowing this type of testimony entirely because of the high likelihood that it is false. Short of that, I'd at least require a cautionary instruction to the jury to be wary of the probability of falsity. I conclude with four suggestions that are predicated on the reality that wrongful convictions happen. (1) There should be innocence commissions set up similar to the British model. (2) Defenses should not be artificially limited. For example, pending the outcome of a U.S. Supreme Court case, a State can (and some do) deny the defendant the opportunity to present evidence that somebody else committed the crime. (3) As long as we know there are mistakes, capital punishment should be abolished (as most of the civilized world has). And (4) parole should not be contingent on a person's admitting his guilt. This presents an untenable dilemma for an innocent person, and may actually cause him to spend more time in prison than a similarly-situated guilty one.


Dialectic of Enlightenment is undoubtedly the most influential publication of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. Written during the Second World War and circulated privately, it appeared in a printed edition in Amsterdam in 1947. "What we had set out to do," the authors write in the Preface, "was nothing less than to explain why humanity, instead of entering a truly human state, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism."Yet the work goes far beyond a mere critique of contemporary events. Historically remote developments, indeed, the birth of Western history and of subjectivity itself out of the struggle against natural forces, as represented in myths, are connected in a wide arch to the most threatening experiences of the present. The book consists in five chapters, at first glance unconnected, together with a number of shorter notes. The various analyses concern such phenomena as the detachment of science from practical life, formalized morality, the manipulative nature of entertainment culture, and a paranoid behavioral structure, expressed in aggressive anti-Semitism, that marks the limits of enlightenment. The authors perceive a common element in these phenomena, the tendency toward self-destruction of the guiding criteria inherent in enlightenment thought from the beginning. Using historical analyses to elucidate the present, they show, against the background of a prehistory of subjectivity, why the National Socialist terror was not an aberration of modern history but was rooted deeply in the fundamental characteristics of Western civilization.Adorno and Horkheimer see the self-destruction of Western reason as grounded in a historical and fateful dialectic between the domination of external nature and society. They trace enlightenment, which split these spheres apart, back to its mythical roots. Enlightenment and myth, therefore, are not irreconcilable opposites, but dialectically mediated qualities of both real and intellectual life. "Myth is already enlightenment, and enlightenment reverts to mythology." This paradox is the fundamental thesis of the book.This new translation, based on the text in the complete edition of the works of Max Horkheimer, contains textual variants, commentary upon them, and an editorial discussion of the position of this work in the development of Critical Theory.


The Sumerians, the pragmatic and gifted people who preceded the Semites in the land first known as Sumer and later as Babylonia, created what was probably the first high civilization in the history of man, spanning the fifth to the second millenniums B.C. This book is an unparalleled compendium of what is known about them. Professor Kramer communicates his enthusiasm for his subject as he outlines the history of the Sumerian civilization and describes their cities, religion, literature, education, scientific achievements, social structure, and psychology. Finally, he considers the legacy of Sumer to the ancient and modern world. "There are few scholars in the world qualified to write such a book, and certainly Kramer is one of them. . . . One of the most valuable features of this book is the quantity of texts and fragments which are published for the first time in a form available to the general reader. For the layman the book provides a readable and up-to-date introduction to a most fascinating culture. For the specialist it presents a synthesis with which he may not agree but from which he will nonetheless derive stimulation." "American Journal of Archaeology" "An uncontested authority on the civilization of Sumer, Professor Kramer writes with grace and urbanity." "Library Journal""


Runoff constitutes one of the major water losses from agricultural fields in semi-arid areas. However, by adopting appropriate soil management practices, the runoff can be harnessed for improving crop yields. The main objective of this study was to quantify rainfall-runoff relationships under in-field rainwater harvesting (IRWH) using simulated rainfall, and to compare these results to those obtained with annually tilled conventional tillage (CON) (control). IRWH is a special type of no-till (NT) crop production practice that promotes runoff from a crusted runoff strip into basins where the water infiltrates beyond evaporation but is available for crop use. Runoff was related to time to runoff, total runoff, final runoff rate and runoff coefficient. This experiment demonstrated that by adopting IRWH production technique smallholder farmers could harness an additional 45.54 m3·ha-1 of water compared to the CON system. The extra water harvested could meet about 1% of maize water requirements.


[1] We present the first evaluation of the HNO3 data product (version 2.04.09) from the High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder (HIRDLS) on the Earth Observing System (EOS) Aura satellite. The HIRDLS instrument obtains between 5000 and 7000 HNO3 profiles per day. HIRDLS HNO3 data are generally good over the latitude range of 64°S to 80°N and pressure range 100 to 10 hPa, with some profiles, depending on latitude, having useful information between 100 to 161 hPa. The individual profile "measured" precision is between 10 and 15%, but can be much larger if the HNO3 abundance is low or outside the 100 hPa to 10 hPa range. Global results are compared with the HNO3 observations from version 2.2 of the EOS Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS), and it is found that large-scale features are consistent between the two instruments. HIRDLS HNO3 is biased 0–20% low relative to Aura MLS in the mid-to-high latitudes and biased high in the tropical stratosphere. HIRDLS HNO3 is also compared with Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment Fourier Transform Spectrometer (ACE-FTS). In these mostly high-latitude comparisons the HIRDLS HNO3 data are biased 10–30% low, depending on altitude. Finally, the HIRDLS HNO3 is compared to in situ data taken by the NOAA Chemical Ionization Mass Spectrometer (CIMS) instrument flown during the 2005 NASA Houston Aura Validation Experiment (AVE) and the ability of HIRDLS to measure HNO3 in the UTLS region is examined.


Matsutake is the most valuable mushroom in the world—and a weed that grows in human-disturbed forests across the northern hemisphere. Through its ability to nurture trees, matsutake helps forests to grow in daunting places. It is also an edible delicacy in Japan, where it sometimes commands astronomical prices. In all its contradictions, matsutake offers insights into areas far beyond just mushrooms and addresses a crucial question: what manages to live in the ruins we have made? A tale of diversity within our damaged landscapes, The Mushroom at the End of the World follows one of the strangest commodity chains of our times to explore the unexpected corners of capitalism. Here, we witness the varied and peculiar worlds of matsutake commerce: the worlds of Japanese gourmets, capitalist traders, Hmong jungle fighters, industrial forests, Yi Chinese goat herders, Finnish nature guides, and more. These companions also lead us into fungal ecologies and forest histories to better understand the promise of cohabitation in a time of massive human destruction. By investigating one of the world's most sought-after fungi, The Mushroom at the End of the World presents an original examination into the relation between capitalist destruction and collaborative survival within multispecies landscapes, the prerequisite for continuing life on earth.


White people in North America live in a social environment that protects and insulates them from race-based stress. This insulated environment of racial protection builds white expectations for racial comfort while at the same time lowering the ability to tolerate racial stress, leading to what I refer to as White Fragility. White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium. This paper explicates the dynamics of White Fragility.


In the bestselling tradition of The World Is Flat and The Next 100 Years, THE ACCIDENTAL SUPERPOWER will be a much discussed, contrarian, and eye-opening assessment of American power. Near the end of the Second World War, the United States made a bold strategic gambit that rewired the international system. Empires were abolished and replaced by a global arrangement enforced by the U.S. Navy. With all the world's oceans safe for the first time in history, markets and resources were made available for everyone. Enemies became partners. We think of this system as normal it is not. We live in an artificial world on borrowed time. In THE ACCIDENTAL SUPERPOWER, international strategist Peter Zeihan examines how the hard rules of geography are eroding the American commitment to free trade; how much of the planet is aging into a mass retirement that will enervate markets and capital supplies; and how, against all odds, it is the ever-ravenous American economy that alone among the developed nations is rapidly approaching energy independence. Combined, these factors are doing nothing less than overturning the global system and ushering in a new (dis)order. For most, that is a disaster-in-waiting, but not for the Americans. The shale revolution allows Americans to sidestep an increasingly dangerous energy market. Only the United States boasts a youth population large enough to escape the sucking maw of global aging. Most important, geography will matter more than ever in a de-globalizing world, and America's geography is simply sublime.


In 2010, vast humanitarian crises from Haiti to Pakistan almost overwhelmed the international system's ability to respond. Despite years of reform, UN agencies, donors, and international NGOs (INGOs) struggled to cope. In 2011, Somalia yet again saw a response too little and too late, driven by media attention, not a timely, impartial assessment of human needs. At the same time, humanitarian action is needed now more than ever. The growing number of vulnerable people, the rise in disasters, and the failure to put most fragile states on the path to development, will significantly increase needs. Western-based donors, INGOs and the UN provide only part of the answer. Already, new donors and NGOs from around the world provide a significant share of humanitarian aid. Future humanitarian action will rely on them, and on the governments and civil society of crisis-affected countries even more. The UN and INGOs will be vital, but their contribution will increasingly be measured by how well they complement and support the efforts of others, and encourage every humanitarian actor to uphold humanitarian principles.


We study variations on combinatorial games in which, instead of alternating moves, the players bid with discrete bidding chips for the right to determine who moves next. We consider both symmetric and partisan games, and explore differences between discrete bidding games and Richman games , which allow real-valued bidding. Unlike Richman games, discrete bidding game variations of many familiar games, such as chess, Connect Four, and even Tic-Tac-Toe, are suitable for recreational play. We also present an analysis of Tic-Tac-Toe for both discrete and real-valued bidding.


A review of

Druin, Allison. "What Children Can Teach Us: Developing Digital Libraries for Children with Children." The Library Quarterly 75.1 (January 2005): 20-41.

Objective – Through use of an interdisciplinary research team that included children, the study aimed to demonstrate that including children in the design of a digital library for children would result in some new approaches that would improve the site's usability for the target user group.

Design – Case study.

Setting – The research was conducted at University of Maryland over a four-year period and involved an interdisciplinary research team of adult researchers from information studies, computer science, education, art, and psychology as well as seven children aged 7-11.
Subjects – Seven children participated in the design team over two years; 153 children were observed and interviewed in the design phase; and the resulting new approaches were validated post-launch by analysis of International Children's Digital Library (ICDL) (http://www.icdlbooks.org) users and usage patterns from November 2002-November 2003 (over 90,000 unique users and 19,000 optional questionnaire respondents).

Method – The study included seven children in the design team for a digital library of international children's books, which resulted in new approaches to collection development, cataloguing, and the search interface. In the design phase, research methods involving the seven children included brainstorming techniques, "cooperative inquiry", low-tech prototyping; and lab use studies. The team also undertook observation and interviews of 153 children engaged in searching and selecting books from public library catalogues. In validating the new approaches that resulted from the design research, the team employed web log analysis, a voluntary online survey, and working with children in local schools to understand their use of ICDL.
Main results – The inclusion of children's viewpoints in the design stage of the ICDL had an impact in three areas: collection development, metadata, and interface design.
For collection development, the research showed that kids were interested in books about children from other cultures and other times in history; in animals, both real and make-believe; in books that are sensitive to other cultures; and in books that are in good condition. For metadata, the research showed that children do not distinguish 'fiction' and 'non-fiction'; look for 'scary stuff' or 'gross stuff'; are often seeking books that make them feel a certain way; care about the look of book covers and may recall books by jacket colours; and use free vocabulary like 'princesses' and 'jokes'. For interface design, the children's involvement led to more search options (utilizing the new categories of metadata that were created), and customization options such as ability to choose different forms and colour palettes for book readers (e.g. the comic book reader, the spiral book reader).

Web log and survey data, as well as lab tests, showed that the innovations resulting from the children's design input were used. Of the over 90,000 unique users who visited the site in its first year, "genre" and "color" were statistically the fourth and fifth most popular search categories. In lab tests, girls used "color" twice as often as boys, and older boys preferred "genre" while younger children did not pay attention to that category.
Conclusions – A first conclusion is that children's input is vital to creating an online library that meets children's information needs, tendencies and preferences. Also, seven design principles emerged:

1. Children's input is invaluable and they should be involved in the design of their libraries.
2. Digital collections for children should consider works both contemporary and historical, and in different languages and representative of different cultures.
3. A variety of search interfaces are needed and it is particularly important to express categories with visual icons.
4. Additional metadata can be needed to reflect children's views of relevant search criteria.
5. Interfaces should be customizable, such as providing various formats of reader that could themselves be customized in colour.
6. Tools should be suitable for use from the home and for collaborative use, such as use by a parent with a child.
7. Innovation requiring high bandwidth must be balanced with a low bandwidth version to assure broadest possible use.
Lastly, the researchers concluded that more research is merited to assess the broader impact of digital libraries on children as searchers and readers.


Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Gandhi, and the Buddha all had brains built essentially like anyone else's, yet they were able to harness their thoughts and shape their patterns of thinking in ways that changed history. With new breakthroughs in modern neuroscience and the wisdom of thousands of years of contemplative practice, it is possible for us to shape our own thoughts in a similar way for greater happiness, love, compassion, and wisdom. Buddha's Brain joins the forces of modern neuroscience with ancient contemplative teachings to show readers how they can work toward greater emotional well-being, healthier relationships, more effective actions, and deepened religious and spiritual understanding. This book will explain how the core elements of both psychological well-being and religious or spiritual life-virtue, mindfulness, and wisdom-are based in the core functions of the brain: regulating, learning, and valuing. Readers will also learn practical ways to apply this information, as the book offers many exercises they can do to tap the unused potential of the brain and rewire it over time for greater peace and well-being.


The idea of using law to change the built environment in ways that reduce opportunities to commit crimes has a long history. Unfortunately, this idea has received relatively little attention in the legal academy and only limited rigorous empirical scrutiny. In this Article, we review the considerable literature on the relationship between zoning, the built environment, and crime. We then report the results of two empirical studies on these relationships. First, we conducted a study of the effect of zoning on crime using 205 blocks selected in eight different relatively high crime neighborhoods in Los Angeles that have similar demographic character- istics but different forms of zoned land use. We find that mixed commercial- and residential-zoned areas are associated with lower crime than are commercial-only zoned areas. Second, we matched neighborhoods undergoing zoning changes between 2006 and 2010 with neighborhoods that underwent no zoning changes during this period but had similar preexisting crime trajectories between 1994 and 2005. The primary zoning change in these neighborhoods was to convert parcels to residential uses. We find that neighborhoods in which there was a zoning change experienced a significant decline in crime. Our results suggest that mixing residential-only zoning into commercial blocks may be a promising means of reducing crime.


This paper reflects on the experiences of two colleagues who co-taught a larger-than-traditional online graduate class in a Master of Continuing Education program in the fall of 2002. Their goal was to test a number of design and facilitation assumptions that had been successful in smaller online graduate-level classes. They began with a set of agreed-upon design and facilitation principles acquired from several years' experience teaching online graduate classes. Their experiences in the larger online class and their subsequent recommendations are presented here in three phases: pre-course design, mid-course design modifications. and post-course evaluation, with reflections on their original assumptions and design/facilitation strategies. The paper closes with their thoughts on this novel experience of co-teaching a larger online graduate class.


Chronic knee dislocations are fortunately not seen commonly, but when these injuries do present, they are typically a source of severe functional impairment to the patient. Surgical management may harbour further complications due to the extensive soft tissue release that is required, and the fact that significant deformities are corrected acutely. We report on a 32-year-old, HIV-1 infected, female patient 20 months after a dislocation of the left knee. Due to the extent of her flexion contracture, she was unable to walk unaided. A Taylor Spatial Frame was applied across the knee, and gradual reduction of the dislocation, with correction of the knee flexion deformity, was performed over a period of 26 days. The final result produced a stable, ankylosed knee that allowed weight bearing without the need for any walking aids. No complications attributed to the reduction or the fixator was experienced, and no additional surgeries were required. We conclude that gradual reduction of chronic knee dislocations, using the Taylor Spatial Frame, provides a safe and effective method of treating these complex injuries without subjecting patients to extensive surgical soft tissue release procedures.


The article analyses the issue of economic inequality in the transition economies of Central, East and Southeast Europe. It consists of a literature review and a descriptive analysis as well as an econometric modelling exercise. In the first part we point at the fact that the rise in income inequality was triggered by the magnitude of transitional output loss and a reduction of formal employment. Rising wage inequality was at the core of total income dispersion, while government transfers had a redistributional function only in Central and Southeast European countries contrary to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). In the econometric analysis it is found that for instance public utilities infrastructure liberalisation has increased inequality in transition, while price and trade liberalisation has decreased it. A high share of employment in industry and high government expenditures are connected with less inequality.


This article sets forth a theoretical framework that first argues that
 necropolitical power and sovereignty should be understood as existing on a
 spectrum that ultimately produces the phenomenon of surplus
 death – such as pandemic deaths or those disappeared by the state. We
 then expound this framework by juxtaposing the necropolitical negligence of the
 COVID-19 pandemic with the violence of forced disappearances to argue that the
 surplus dead have the unique capacity to create political change and reckonings,
 due to their embodied power and agency. Victims of political killings and
 disappearance may not seem to have much in common with victims of disease, yet
 focusing on the mistreatment of the dead in both instances reveals uncanny
 patterns and similarities. We demonstrate that this overlap, which aligns in key
 ways that are particularly open to use by social actors, provides an entry to
 comprehend the agency of the dead to incite political reckonings with the
 violence of state action and inaction.


We present recent developments of adaptive wavelet solvers for elliptic eigenvalue problems. We describe the underlying abstract iteration scheme of the preconditioned perturbed iteration. We apply the iteration to a simple model problem in order to identify the main ideas which a numerical realization of the abstract scheme is based upon. This indicates how these concepts carry over to wavelet discretizations. Finally we present numerical results for the Poisson eigenvalue problem on an L-shaped domain.


Film theory and aesthetics have been influenced by recent research on perception in cognitive science and neuroscience, as well as in computing and new media technology. We need to approach film with this kind of research in mind and focus on the conscious processing of film, treating it as a kind of immersive perceptual event. My paper is divided in three parts. In the first part, I review the renewed interest in realism in film as expressed through the concept of presence. In the last two sections I focus on two areas in which recent scientific research in the mechanisms of perception can serve to enhance the sense of presence: sensory integration and proprioception. The integration of information coming from different modalities is a fundamental feature of cognition. Research has shown that visual stimulation is enhanced by auditory and olfactory stimulation, as well as by the kinesthetic sensation involved in proprioceiving these stimuli. My aim in this paper is to suggest that the cinema spectator should not be treated as a passive viewer, but as an active and embodied perceiver, called to experience a media event. The dominance of vision should be abandoned in favor of a percept that is multi-sensory. A better understanding of how we perceive of the actual world will enhance our understanding of the perception, creation and appreciation of the filmic world.


WWW.ERS.USDA.GOV/AMBERWAVES M A Y 2 0 0 7 "Green payments," if enacted, would merge farm income support and conservation payments. Achieving both objectives with a single payment, however, assumes that farms targeted for income support also face pressing environmental concerns. If income support and conservation payments would otherwise go to different farms, policymakers will face tradeoffs between the two objectives when designing a green payments program. Of the roughly 40 percent of farms that received some type of government payment in 2004, 17 percent—or about 6 percent of all farms—received both types of payments, partly because less money is spent on conservation. In 2004, income support to farmers was nearly $8 billion, while conservation payments totaled about $2 billion. Conservation funding is rising, however, so the number of farms receiving both types of payments also is likely to rise. Nonetheless, about half of conservation payments made in 2004 went to farmers who also received income support, suggesting that a significant share of additional conservation payments will also flow to producers who do not receive income support. Why is the overlap between income and conservation payments so small? At least part of the answer is that income support and conservation payments are triggered by different actions or conditions and tend to attract different producers. Income support goes mainly to farmers who produce major field crops, including corn, wheat, soybeans, and cotton. Farms receiving commodity payments account for 64 percent of crop production and 45 percent of livestock production. These producers are also likely to be engaged fulltime in farming and have relatively large farms. Since 1986, a large majority of conservation payments have been for land retirement, largely though the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). A majority of CRP payments go to retired and part-time farmers who, on average, receive modest commodity payments. Since 2002, funding for "working land" (which remains in agricultural production) programs, such as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), has increased sharply. While evidence suggests that these payments are more likely to go to full-time farmers with larger farms, 60 percent of EQIP funding is set aside for livestock producers who may or may not also grow crops that qualify for commodity payments. So, the shift in funding to working land programs may or may not increase the overlap between commodity and conservation payments.


Many microorganisms possess circular molecules of plasmid DNA. Their conformation may vary from more compact to relaxed forms. Structural changes have important consequences for the physiological role of plasmids and will influence plasmid transcription, replication and their susceptibility to environmental stresses. Radiation is a common form of stress and can cause structural damage to DNA such as single (SSB) and double strand breaks (DSB). Recently, it has been indicated that secondary low-energy electrons play an important role in biological damage under vacuum condition. Therefore, our studies focus on irradiating the plasmid pUC19 with low-energy electrons for the first time under physiological conditions.


Summary We present the case of a patient with metastatic parathyroid carcinoma whose hypercalcaemia was medically managed through two pregnancies. The diagnosis was made when the patient presented with chronic knee pain and radiological findings consistent with a brown tumour, at the age of 30. Her corrected calcium and parathyroid hormone (PTH) levels were significantly elevated. Following localisation studies, a right parathyroidectomy was performed with histology revealing parathyroid carcinoma, adherent to thyroid tissue. Aged 33, following biochemical recurrence of disease, the patient underwent a second operation. A subsequent CT and FDG–PET revealed bibasal pulmonary metastases. Aged 35, the patient was referred to our unit for treatment of persistent hypercalcaemia. The focus of treatment at this time was debulking metastatic disease using radiofrequency ablation. Despite advice to the contrary, the patient conceived twice while taking cinacalcet. Even though there are limited available data regarding the use of cinacalcet in pregnancy, both pregnancies continued to term with the delivery of healthy infants, using intensive medical management for persistent hypercalcaemia. Learning points Parathyroid carcinoma is a rare cause of primary hyperparathyroidism. Hypercalcaemia during pregnancy can result in significant complications for both the mother and the foetus. The use of high-dose cinacalcet in pregnancy has been shown, in this case, to aid in the management of resistant hypercalcaemia without teratogenicity.


Welcome to the fifteenth edition of Predictions for the Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) sectors. The last 15 years have been a golden era for innovation: multiple TMT products and services that we now take for granted were niche or non-existent back then. In 2002, homes typically had dial-up Internet access, boxy television sets, wired speakers, standalone digital cameras, shopping catalogues and fixed line telephones. Photos were stored in albums and shelves bulged with CDs and DVDs; LPs had been banished to the attic or sold off. 'Candy bar' shaped mobile phones had monochrome screens and were predominantly used to make calls and exchange text messages. Instant messaging, e-mail, e-commerce, maps, search engines, photos, videos and other online services that are now routinely accessed via smartphones were predominantly PC-based at the start of 2002. 3G networks had only just launched commercially, offering speeds of a few hundred kilobits per second. As most homes still had dial-up Internet, it was faster for most people to visit a video rental store, return home, watch the film, and then return it rather than to wait for a file to download. Over the last 15 years, connectivity has become steadily faster, enabling many new categories of service to become mainstream, including a number of current staple applications: search engines, social networks, video-on-demand, e- and m-commerce, app stores and online video games. These new services have driven the growing appeal of digital devices; smartphones and tablets being the two standout devices to have emerged over the period. These new device types have tended to complement rather than usurp existing products. While the past 15 years has witnessed startling change, it has also seen remarkable continuity. Broadcast television, radio, cinema, live entertainment, printed books and in-person meetings remain popular despite multiple digitally-enabled alternatives. 2016 promises to be yet another exciting year for the TMT sector. In this year's edition we look at a fascinating array of trends, each developing at its own momentum. We look forward to the progress of cognitive technologies in enterprise software, to new approaches in accelerating mobile commerce check-out, and to the progression of graphene. We highlight the continuing strength of demand for the PC – especially among millennials. We welcome the commercial launch of virtual reality, and note the continued growth of both premium sports (with a focus on football in Europe), as well as the emerging eSports sector. We expect mobile should become the biggest games platform in 2016, overtaking console and PC. We observe that the key traditional media of television and cinema should continue to hold their own, even if not growing. We explore the current and near-term impact of ad-blockers on mobile advertising revenues. We discuss key drivers of bandwidth demand including the emergence of Gigabit to the home, trends in photo sharing and a continued rise in data exclusive communicators, as well as the potential impact of the take-up of network-managed voice over data services.


We consider the continual count tracking problem in a distributed environment where the input is an aggregate stream that originates from k distinct sites and the updates are allowed to be non-monotonic, i.e. both increments and decrements are allowed. The goal is to continually track the count within a prescribed relative accuracy ε at the lowest possible communication cost. Specifically, we consider an adversarial setting where the input values are selected and assigned to sites by an adversary but the order is according to a random permutation or is a random i.i.d process. The input stream of values is allowed to be non-monotonic with an unknown drift -1≤μ=1 where the case μ = 1 corresponds to the special case of a monotonic stream of only non-negative updates. We show that a randomized algorithm guarantees to track the count accurately with high probability and has the expected communication cost Õ(min√k/(|#956;|ε), √k n/ε, n}), for an input stream of length n, and establish matching lower bounds. This improves upon previously best known algorithm whose expected communication cost is Θ(min√k/ε,n]) that applies only to an important but more restrictive class of monotonic input streams, and our results are substantially more positive than the communication complexity of Ω(n) under fully adversarial input. We also show how our framework can also accommodate other types of random input streams, including fractional Brownian motion that has been widely used to model temporal long-range dependencies observed in many natural phenomena. Last but not least, we show how our non-monotonic counter can be applied to track the second frequency moment and to a Bayesian linear regression problem.


This paper examines the impact of trade unions in the US and the UK and elsewhere. In both the US and the UK, despite declining membership numbers, unions are able to raise wages substantially over the equivalent non-union wage. Unions in other countries, such as Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Cyprus, Denmark, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal and Spain, are also able to raise wages by significant amounts. In countries where union wage settlements frequently spill over into the non-union sector (e.g. France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden) there is no significant union wage differential. The estimates from the seventeen countries we examined averages out at 12 per cent. Time series evidence from both the US and the UK suggests three interesting findings. First, the union differential in the US is higher on average than that found in the UK (18 per cent compared with 10 per cent). Second, the union wage premium in both countries was untrended in the years up to the mid-1990s. Third, in both countries the wage premium has fallen in the boom years since 1994/95. It is too early to tell whether the onset of a downturn in 2002 will cause the differential to rise again or whether there is a trend change in the impact of unions. It is our view that most likely what has happened is that the tightening of the labor market has resulted in a temporary decline in the size of the union wage premium. Time will tell whether the current loosening of the labor market, that is occurring in both countries, will return the union wage premium to its long run values of 10 per cent in the case of the UK and 18 per cent in the case of the US. On the basis of past experience it seems likely that they will.


Argo by Antonio Mendez and Matt Baglio - the declassified CIA story behind the Oscar-winning film. It is the winner of 'best picture' at the academy awards, The Baftas and The Golden Globes Tehran, November 1979. Militant students stormed the American embassy and held sixty Americans captive for a gruelling 444 days. But until now the CIA has never revealed the twist to the Iran Hostage Crisis: six Americans escaped. The escape plot was run by Antonio Mendez, head of the CIA's extraction team and a master of disguise. Mendez came up with an idea so daring and potentially foolish that it seemed destined for Hollywood ...and indeed it was. He invented a fake sci-fi film called 'Argo' (from the actual name of the CIA mission, a reference to Jason and the Argonauts). After announcing the production to the movie industry, Mendez put together a team of real 1970s Hollywood actors, directors and producers - along with covert CIA officers. They would travel to revolutionary Iran under a foreign film visa, and while 'scouting locations' throughout the country they would track down the six Americans who were hiding out. After giving them false identities as part of the film crew, they would spirit them back across the border. One part 'Ocean's 11' and another part 'Black Hawk Down', Mendez's mind-bogglingly complicated and risky gamble paid off: each escapee was extracted without a shot being fired. Mendez is considered one of the greatest officers in CIA history. The story of this, his greatest mission, has never been told. Now an acclaimed film directed by and starring Ben Affleck, with Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin and John Goodman' Antonio Mendez was cited by Richard Clarke as one of the top two or three CIA agents in history. His He received the Intelligence Star for his rescue of six Americans from revolutionary Iran, and has received the CIA's Intelligence Medal of Merit and the Trailblazer Medallion. He continues to consult for the CIA. He and his wife, also a famed agent, were technical consultants on the television series 'The Agency' and founding board members of the International Spy Museum in Washington. Matt Baglio is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist. His writing appears regularly in the Daily Mail and the Associated Press.