Abstract. The CALIOP lidar, carried on the CALIPSO satellite, has been acquiring global atmospheric profiles since June 2006. This dataset now offers the opportunity to characterize the global 3-D distribution of aerosol as well as seasonal and interannual variations, and confront aerosol models with observations in a way that has not been possible before. With that goal in mind, a monthly global gridded dataset of daytime and nighttime aerosol extinction profiles has been constructed, available as a Level 3 aerosol product. Averaged aerosol profiles for cloud-free and all-sky conditions are reported separately. This 6-yr dataset characterizes the global 3-dimensional distribution of tropospheric aerosol. Vertical distributions are seen to vary with season, as both source strengths and transport mechanisms vary. In most regions, clear-sky and all-sky mean aerosol profiles are found to be quite similar, implying a lack of correlation between high semi-transparent cloud and aerosol in the lower troposphere. An initial evaluation of the accuracy of the aerosol extinction profiles is presented. Detection limitations and the representivity of aerosol profiles in the upper troposphere are of particular concern. While results are preliminary, we present evidence that the monthly-mean CALIOP aerosol profiles provide quantitative characterization of elevated aerosol layers in major transport pathways. Aerosol extinction in the free troposphere in clean conditions, where the true aerosol extinction is typically 0.001 km−1 or less, is generally underestimated, however. The work described here forms an initial global 3-D aerosol climatology which we plan to extend and improve over time.


In this paper, we describe the JAM system, a distributed, scalable and portable agent-based data mining system that employs a general approach to scaling data mining applications that we call meta-learning. JAM provides a set of learning programs, implemented either as JAVA applets or applications, that compute models over data stored locally at a site. JAM also provides a set of meta-learning agents for combining multiple models that were learned (perhaps) at different sites. It employs a special distribution mechanism which allows the migration of the derived models or classifier agents to other remote sites. We describe the overall architecture of the JAM system and the specific implementation currently under development at Columbia University. One of JAM's target applications is fraud and intrusion detection in financial information systems. A brief description of this learning task and JAM's applicability are also described. Interested users may download JAM from http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~sal/JAM/PROJECT.


The weight information of an FPSO (floating production, storage, and offloading) plant is one of the important data needed to estimate the amount of production material (e.g., plates) needed and to determine the suitable production method for its construction. In addition, the weight information is a key factor that affects the building cost and the production period of the FPSO plant. Although the importance of the weight has long been recognised, the weight, especially of the topside, has been roughly estimated using the existing similar data as well as the designer's experience. To improve this task, a weight estimation model for FPSO plant topsides was developed in this study using the improved genetic programming (GP) method. For this reason, various past records on the estimation of the weight of the FPSO plant were collected through a literature survey, and then the weight estimation model using GP was established by fixing the independent variables based on these data. In addition, correlation analysis was performed to make up for the weak points of genetic programing, which is apt for inducing overfitting when the number of data is relatively smaller than that of the independent variables. That is, by reducing the number of variables through the analysis of the correlation between the independent variables, an increase in the number of weight data can be expected. Finally, to evaluate the applicability of the suggested model, it was applied to an example of the weight estimation of the FPSO plant topside. Compared with the results of the multiple nonlinear regression analysis that was conducted in the previous study, the results showed that the suggested model can be applied to the weight estimation process of the FPSO plant at the early design stage.


Performance problems are rarely "problems" per se. They are more often "crises" during which youre pressured for results by a manager standing outside your cubicle while your phone rings with queries from the help desk. You wont have the time for a leisurely perusal of the manuals, nor to lean back and read a book on theory. What you need in that situation is a book of solutions, and solutions are precisely what Oracle Database 11g Performance Tuning Recipes delivers. Oracle Database 11g Performance Tuning Recipes is a ready reference for database administrators in need of immediate help with performance issues relating to Oracle Database. The book takes an example-based approach, whereineach chapter covers a specific problem domain. Within each chapter are "recipes," showing by example how to perform common tasks in that chapters domain. Solutions in the recipes are backed by clear explanations of background and theory from the author team. Whatever the task, if its performance-related, youll probably find a recipe and a solution in this book. Provides proven solutions to real-life Oracle performance problems Offers relevant background and theory to support each solution Written by a team of experienced database administrators successful in their careers What youll learn Optimize the use of memory and storage Monitor performance and troubleshoot problems Identify and improve poorly-performing SQL statements Adjust the most important optimizer parameters to your advantage Create indexes that get used and make a positive impact upon performance Automate and stabilize using key features such as SQL Tuning Advisor and SQL Plan Baselines Who this book is for Oracle Database 11g Performance Tuning Recipes is aimed squarely at Oracle Database administrators. The book especially appeals to those administrators desiring to have at their side a ready-to-go set of solutions to common database performance problems.


Papers pp 13, 16, 20, 23

In 1992, the BMJ published a now famous paper showing a strong negative correlation between income inequality and life expectancy. Among nine Western industrialised countries those which had less income inequality seemed to have higher life expectancy.1 A few years later this was replicated in analyses looking at income inequality and mortality in states within the United States—analyses which seemed more secure because of having more and better quality data. 2 3 These findings, which suggested that income inequality is bad for the health of the whole population and not only for those with the lowest incomes, were seen to have important implications. Reducing the inequality would be in everyone's interest, including those with higher incomes.

A novel area of research was born, adding new perspectives to conventional studies of health inequalities. These had tended to focus on relations between socioeconomic factors and health of the individual, while the findings on income inequality suggested that contextual effects of inequality might be just as important. Considerable dissent, however, emerged on the explanation of these effects. Some favoured softer psychosocial pathways (for example through feelings of relative deprivation, or disruption of social cohesion) while others favoured harder material pathways (for example through underinvestment in public resources).4–6 Support was found for some of these mechanisms, which are also important in their own right, and the debate on income inequality versus mortality acted as a strong stimulus for further work on factors such as social cohesion and social capital.7 Although most of …


With the welcome appearance of this book, closely following upon Jasper Griffin's edition of Iliad 9 in 1995, students must now make a difficult choice between two thoroughly reliable editions of Book 9. W. gives us also Book 8, which is not perhaps the most obvious introduction to Homer for beginners, but it does provide an interesting contrast with 9, and the commentary on 9 does not require the reader to have already worked through 8. The Introduction gives a competent account of the background and composition of the Iliad, and of the nature of oral poetry with its formulas and typical scenes. But nothing is said about the relationship of the poem to the Odyssey, and a beginner who reads (p. 5) that the text of the Iliad is basically the record of a performance of the poem may well wonder at the length of that performance. Helpful sections are devoted to the structure of the two books and to their position within the poem as a whole, and particular attention is paid to the problem of repetitions and inconsistencies in the narrative. On all of these, and most notably on the puzzling duals in 9, W. takes a sensible line: the text as we have it reflects 'different stages in Homer's own process of composition' (p. 24). The section on basic Homeric grammar will be invaluable for beginners but no attempt is made to explain why Homer has at his disposal so many different forms, or why Homeric Greek is different from Attic. A section on scansion completes the Introduction. W. provides no apparatus criticus, but the Introduction and Commentary do draw attention to Alexandrian athetesis. Oddly, at 9.19 he prints Aristarchus' υ3⁄4υε, but in the Commentary seems to favour πσ¬ξ. In place of an apparatus the reader will find useful grammatical exegesis (some of it quite elementary: he parses 'ξα! μαβÝξ! ζσŒξαΚ! Ãξυψξ, but strangely not [9.193] υαζÝξ; dual forms are regularly explained). This is linked by cross-references (a few of them inaccurate) to the grammar section of the Introduction. In the Commentary itself W. is thus set free to concentrate on other matters. The system works well on the whole, but it does lead to some repetition, e.g. at 8.335, where we are told on both pp. 86 and 197 that 'the Olumpian' is Zeus. W. has succeeded on the whole in producing a translation that is both readable and accurate. If anything, he veers towards the latter, and is none the worse for that. But the reader may wonder why the frequently repeated νÕροξ 2ηαττ0νεξοι (e.g. 9.694, 711) means now 'stunned by his words', and now 'admiring the speech', or why the same word δα1⁄4ζσψξ can mean both 'warlike' (8.152) and 'wise' (9.651). W. gives no indication that not all agree that ημαφλèπιΚ means 'grey-eyed' (8.30), and he has not made up his mind as to whether Achilles lives in a tent or a hut. ̄πποδ0νοιο is omitted from the translation at 8.194, and âλει0ψξ (on which he rightly comments) at 197. The Commentary presents in a succinct form a great deal of accurate information about customs, narrative techniques, typical scenes, similes, etc., and it is particularly good on characterization and style. But I do not understand how W. feels able to read so much into patterns of dactyls and spondees or of caesuras. One might have welcomed more on the relationship between Zeus and Fate (8.73–4 and 473–7). Instead of repeating on p. 239 from 154 the information that ZεËΚ λαυαγρ3⁄4ξιοΚ is Hades, he might have tried to explain the significance of this title. Misprints and wrong references are mostly trivial. However, (p. 40) VIII 244–5 should be IX 244–5, (p. 72) Nestor's shield has become a spear, (p. 86) the dative plural of ποÊΚ is not ποÕτι, (p. 136) δε¬δινεξ is not second person, (pp. 171 and 245) Phoinix has turned into Patroklos, and (p. 234) II 405 should be II 505.


Who ultimately is L.M. Montgomery, and why was there such an obsession with secrecy, hiding, and encoding in her life and fiction? Delving into the hidden life of Canada's most enigmatic writer, The Intimate Life of L.M. Montgomery answers these questions. The eleven essays illuminate Montgomery's personal writings and photographic self-portraits and probe the ways in which she actively shaped her life as a work of art. This is the first book to investigate Montgomery's personal writings, which filled thousands of pages in journals and a memoir, correspondence, scrapbooks, and photography. Using theories of autobiography and life writing, the essays probe the author's flair for the dramatic and her exuberance in costuming, while also exploring the personal facts behind some of her fiction, including the beloved Anne of Green Gables. Focussing on topics such as sexuality, depression, marriage, aging, illness, and writing, the essays strip away the layers of art and artifice that disguised Montgomery's most intensely guarded secrets, including details of her affair with Herman Leard, her marriage with Ewen Macdonald, and her friendships with Nora Lefurgey and Isabel Anderson. The book also includes rare photographs taken by Montgomery and others, many of which have not previously appeared in print. One of the highlights of The Intimate Life of L.M. Montgomery is the inclusion of a secret diary that Montgomery wrote with Lefurgey in 1903. This hilarious document is a rare find, for Montgomery's teasing banter presents us with a new voice that is distinct from the sombre tone of her journals. Published here for the first time, more than 100 years after its composition, this diary is virtually unknown to readers and scholars and is a welcome addition to the literature on this important figure. This volume fills in many of the blanks surrounding Montgomery's personal life. Engaging and erudite, it is a boon for scholars and Montgomery fans alike.


Two important and timely books provide a portrait of the "boom and bust" cycles that have plagued the Great Plains since European settlement: Tim Egan, The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, and William Ashworth, Ogallala Blue: Water and Life on the High Plains. This paper reviews the two books, situating their stories within the context of American law governing western settlement, agriculture, and soil and water management. In the wake of the Dust Bowl, federal, state, and local laws began to promote more sustainable farming practices to control soil erosion. However, the post-World War II reliance on groundwater pumping to irrigate bigger and better crops in the Great Plains region has begun to unravel some of these conservation gains, and the law has been slow to respond to the environmental and socio-economic problems posed by groundwater overdraft. The latest economic boom - ethanol production - may have dramatic implications for the Great Plains and its human and natural communities. The lessons detailed in these two books indicate that, absent an increased commitment to stewardship and sustainable practices, both at the pump and on the farm, the nation's increased reliance on biofuels, particularly corn-based ethanol, may raise the specter of another "boom and bust" for Great Plains soil and water resources.


Cracking of cylindrical shafts is an important area for research, since the changes observed in their vibration characteristics even during large-sized cracking are much smaller than those observed for rectangular beams; hence early identification of crack existence becomes essential to prevent sudden failures in rotating shafts. In this paper experimental and numerical investigations are carried out to identify the presence of a crack in a cylindrical overhanging shaft with a propeller at the free end. In the experimental study, cracks of different depths are located at the (un-cracked) maximum bending moment position. Shaft response parameters for lateral (using an accelerometer) and torsional vibrations (using shear strain gages fixed at three different locations) are obtained using the modal analysis software, LMS Test LabTM. The experimental results are used to validate the numerical results obtained using the three-dimensional isoperimetric elements available in the ANSYS FEM program; the open crack is embedded in the shaft and the mesh generation is suitably modified to incorporate the stress intensity effects present at the crack tip. The results indicate that the use of the rate of change of frequencies, modal amplitudes (of displacements, velocities and accelerations) as a function of crack depth ratio will indicate the presence of crack in the shaft from a crack depth ratio of 0.2. Also the use of the rate of change of torsional frequency will indicate the presence of a crack in the shaft from the initiation of the crack. The approach indicated in this paper will provide a sound and robust procedure for a first level of damage assessment by using vibration techniques.


Vehicles refueling station workers are a class of labors prone to long term petroleum product toxicity due to their routine work at vehicles refueling stations. Health problems posed by the pollutants at the work environment of an individual are closely linked to the nature and level of exposure to these hazardous chemicals. The adverse effect of the toxicants in such environment is a common phenomenon in all the developing countries. The awareness about this problem is lacking in Pakistan, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In present study, blood biochemical parameters like calcium, cholesterol, glucose, magnesium, potassium, phosphorus and triglyceride levels were determined among workers and control individuals. The results of the workers showed an increase in glucose, cholesterol and phosphorus level; while significant decrease was observed in calcium and potassium level as compared to the control group of individuals. While the level of magnesium and triglyceride level was same in both groups. In comparative picture, the blood biochemical parameters were normal in control as that of workers. Further study may be conducted to investigate the effect of such environment on other blood parameters and large size population may be included in the study.


This paper looks at the intersection of three strands of legal scholarship. Legal realism and legal pluralism can each trace their origins back to the early years of the last century. After a comparative decline of interest, they are now back in fashion, with energetic debate raging over their implications for legal scholarship. Alongside this revival, a challenger has emerged. Inspired by the work of Ronald Dworkin, a number of scholars have argued for an understanding of law that, initially at least, appears to place both realism and pluralism beyond the reach of legal theory. This paper seeks to defend both realism and pluralism against this challenge. It contends, first, that the complementary analytical attractions of realism and pluralism provide reasons why the Dworkinian approach to law ought not to be embraced. Secondly, even if we were to adopt the Dworkinian account of law, this would still leave the core insights of realism and pluralism untouched: even a Dworkinian must accept the need for a complementary 'sociological' concept of law to supplement her 'doctrinal' account of law. Finally, under certain conditions even a Dworkinian account of law leaves space for legal pluralism, though not for legal realism. Perhaps Dworkinians can be pluralists, too.


This monthly feature will help readers keep current on new drugs, indications, dosage forms, and safety-related changes in labeling or use. Efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy of the information; however, if there are any questions, let us know at firstname.lastname@example.com.


In the hundred years before the United States Supreme Court declared miscegenation statutes unconstitutional in Loving v. Virginia, state courts decided thirteen recorded race-based annulment cases. This article presents a unified analysis of all race based annulment cases for the first time. Simultaneously public and private affairs, these dramas impacted far more than the individual couples or courtrooms, sending out shockwaves that reverberated beyond their points of origin. The results of the cases are startling and contrary to previous work on the subject. Using this unique set of cases, this article argues that while declaring these women white appears like a deviation from white supremacy, the courts' decisions were used to preserve white racial dominance. Through the annulment case decisions, the court stepped in to protect women with a taint of blackness, declaring them pure and worthy of the mantle of whiteness. By legally erasing the women's potential racial taint, the court seemingly chooses to protect obedient women against their husbands, affirming marriage and domesticity over racial prejudices. In contrast, the court acted to protect the ideology of whiteness. To preserve notions of white womanhood, this status had to be defended, even as it violated standards of racial purity.


This paper addresses education, particularly professional, scientific and technological education, in the context of local development, from the prism of productive local arrangements – PLAS. It highlights the effect of globalization on society´s transformations, the restructuring of the sectorial, institutional and organizational dynamics related to educational aspects, the territorial features of the said arrangements, and the actors that are part of them.  We understand that this is a priority in the social construction and an incentive to the scientific education professional development, with regard to the ethical-political nature of individuals.   We point out the need to foster interaction amongst educational institutions in order to   mobilize territorial resources, aiming at local development. We conclude with a few pertinent discussions about the value of education, both in its integral feature and in its adherence to parallel harmonies.


This paper and its companion, The Lessons of Stateless Income, together comprehensively analyze the tax consequences and policy implications of the phenomenon of "stateless income." Stateless income comprises income derived for tax purposes by a multinational group from business activities in a country other than the domicile of the group's ultimate parent company, but which is subject to tax only in a jurisdiction that is not the location of the customers or the factors of production through which the income was derived, and is not the domicile of the group's parent company. Google Inc.'s "Double Irish Dutch Sandwich" structure is one example of stateless income tax planning in operation.This paper focuses on the consequences to current tax policies of stateless income tax planning. The companion paper extends the analysis along two margins, by considering the implications of stateless income tax planning for the reliability of standard efficiency benchmarks relating to foreign direct investment, and by considering in detail the phenomenon's implications for the design of future U.S. tax policy in this area, whether couched as the adoption of a territorial tax regime or a genuine worldwide tax consolidation system.This paper first demonstrates that the current U.S. tax rules governing income from foreign direct investments often are misapprehended: in practice the U.S. tax rules do not operate as a "worldwide" system of taxation, but rather as an ersatz variant on territorial systems, with hidden benefits and costs when compared to standard territorial regimes. This claim holds whether one analyzes these rules as a cash tax matter, or through the lens of financial accounting standards. This paper rejects as inconsistent with the data any suggestion that current law disadvantages U.S. multinational firms in respect of the effective foreign tax rates they suffer, when compared with their territorial-based competitors.This paper's fundamental thesis is that the pervasive presence of stateless income tax planning changes everything. Stateless income privileges multinational firms over domestic ones by offering the former the prospect of capturing "tax rents" — low-risk inframarginal returns derived by moving income from high-tax foreign countries to low-tax ones. Other important implications of stateless income include the dissolution of any coherence to the concept of geographic source, the systematic bias towards offshore rather than domestic investment, the more surprising bias in favor of investment in high-tax foreign countries to provide the raw feedstock for the generation of low-tax foreign income in other countries, the erosion of the U.S. domestic tax base through debt-financed tax arbitrage, many instances of deadweight loss, and — essentially uniquely to the United States — the exacerbation of the lock-out phenomenon, under which the price that U.S. firms pay to enjoy the benefits of dramatically low foreign tax rates is the accumulation of extraordinary amounts of earnings (about $1.4 trillion, by the most recent estimates) and cash outside the United States.Stateless income tax planning as applied in practice to current U.S. law's ersatz territorial tax system means that the lock-out effect now operates in fact as a kind of lock-in effect: firms retain more overseas earnings than they profitably can redeploy, to the great frustration of their shareholders, who would prefer that the cash be distributed to them. This tension between shareholders and management likely lies at the heart of current demands by U.S.-based multinational firms that the United States adopt a territorial tax system. The firms themselves are not greatly disadvantaged by the current U.S. tax system, but shareholders are. The ultimate reward of successful stateless income tax planning from this perspective should be massive stock repurchases, but instead shareholders are tantalized by glimpses of enormous cash hoards just out of their reach.


RSIS Commentary is a platform to provide timely and, where appropriate, policy-relevant commentary and analysis of topical issues and contemporary developments. The views of the authors are their own and do not represent the official position of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, NTU. These commentaries may be reproduced electronically or in print with prior permission from RSIS and due recognition to the author(s) and RSIS. Please email: email@example.com for feedback to the Editor RSIS Commentaries, Mr Yang Razali Kassim.


Hearing has traditionally been regarded as the second sense -- as somehow less rational and less modern than the first sense, sight. Reason and Resonance explodes this myth by reconstructing the process through which the ear came to play a central role in modern culture and rationality. For the past four hundred years, hearing has been understood as involving the sympathetic resonance between the vibrating air and various parts of the inner ear. But the emergence of resonance as the centerpiece of modern aurality also coincides with the triumph of a new type of epistemology in which the absence of resonance is the very condition of thought. Our mind's relationship to the world is said to rest on distance or, as the very synonym for reason suggests, reflection. Reason and Resonance traces the genealogy of this "intimate animosity" between reason and resonance through a series of interrelated case studies involving a varied cast of otologists, philosophers, physiologists, pamphleteers, and music theorists. Among them are the seventeenth-century architect-zoologist Claude Perrault, who refuted Cartesianism in a book on sound and hearing; the Sturm und Drang poet Wilhelm Heinse and his friend the anatomist Samuel Sommerring, who believed the ventricular fluid to be the interface between the soul and the auditory nerve; the renowned physiologist Johannes Muller, who invented the concept of "sense energies"; and Muller's most important student, Hermann von Helmholtz, author of the magisterial Sensations of Tone. Erlman also discusses key twentieth-century thinkers of aurality, including Ernst Mach; the communications engineer and proponent of the first nonresonant wave theory of hearing, Georg von Bekesy; political activist and philosopher Gunther Anders; and Martin Heidegger.


Description: This study covers the outlook for products and services in Burnaby. Estimates reported are given for the latent demand, or potential industry earnings (P.I.E.), for Burnaby across hundreds of categories (in millions of U.S. dollars) and of the region and of the globe. These comparative benchmarks allow the reader to quickly gauge a Burnaby vis-à-vis the world. Using econometric models which project fundamental economic dynamics, latent demand estimates are created. This report does not discuss the specific players in the market serving the latent demand, nor specific details at the product level. The study also does not consider short-term cyclicalities that might affect realized sales. The study, therefore, is strategic in nature, taking an aggregate and long-run view, irrespective of the players or products involved. This study does not report actual sales data, but give, however, my estimates for the latent demand, or the P.I.E. for a variety of categories. In order to make these estimates, a multi-stage methodology was employed that is often taught in courses on international strategic planning at graduate schools of business. What is Latent Demand and the P.I.E.? The concept of latent demand is rather subtle. The term latent typically refers to something that is dormant, not observable, or not yet realized. Demand is the notion of an economic quantity that a target population or market requires under different assumptions of price, quality, and distribution, among other factors. Latent demand, therefore, is commonly defined by economists as the industry earnings of a market when that market becomes accessible and attractive to serve by competing firms. It is a measure, therefore, of potential industry earnings (P.I.E.) or total revenues (not profit) if a market is served in an efficient manner. It is typically expressed as the total revenues potentially extracted by firms. The " market " is defined at a given level in the value chain. There can be latent demand at the retail level, at the wholesale level, the manufacturing level, and the raw materials level (the P.I.E. of higher levels of the value chain being always smaller than the P.I.E. of levels at lower levels of the same value chain, assuming all levels maintain minimum profitability). The latent demand is not actual or historic sales. Nor is latent demand future sales. In fact, latent demand can be lower either lower or higher than actual sales if a market is inefficient (i.e., not representative …


Most software systems are described in high-level model or programming languages. Their runtime behavior, however, is determined by the compiled code. For uncritical software, it may be sufficient to test the runtime behavior of the code. For safety-critical software, there is an additional aggravating factor resulting from the fact that the code must satisfy the formal specification which reflects the safety policy of the software consumer and that the software producer is obliged to demonstrate that the code is correct with respect to the specification using formal verification techniques. In this scenario, it is of great importance that static analyses and formal methods can be applied on the source code level, because this level is more abstract and better suited for such techniques. However, the results of the analyses and the verification can only be carried over to the machine code level, if we can establish the correctness of the translation. Thus, compilation is a crucial step in the development of software systems and formally verified translation correctness is essential to close the formalization chain from high-level formal methods to the machine-code level. In this thesis, I propose an approach to certifying compilers which achieves the aim of closing the formalization chain from high-level formal methods to the machine-code level by applying techniques from mathematical logic and programming language semantics. I propose an approach called foundational translation validation (FTV) in which the software producer implements an FTV system comprising a compiler and a specification and verification framework (SVF) which is implemented in higher-order logic (HOL). The most important part of the SVF is an explicit translation contract which comprises the formalizations of the source and the target languages of the compiler and the formalization of a binary translation correctness predicate corrTrans(S,T) for source programs S and target programs T. The formalizations of the languages are realized as deep embeddings in HOL. This enables one to declare the whole program in a formalized language as a HOL constant. The predicate formally specifies when T is considered to be a correct translation of S. Its definition is explicitly based on the program semantics definitions provided by the translation contract. Subsequent to the translation, the compiler translates the source and the target programs into their syntactic representations as HOL constants, S and T, and generates a proof of corrTrans(S,T). We call a compiler which follows the FTV approach a proof generating compiler. Our approach borrows the idea of representing programs in correctness proofs as logic constants from the foundational proof-carrying code (FPCC) approach. Novel features that distinquish our approach from further approaches to certifying compilers, such as proof-carrying code (PCC) and translation validation (TV) are the following: Firstly, the presence of an explicit translation contract formalized in HOL: The approaches PCC and TV do not formalize a translation contract explicitly. Instead of this, they incorporate operational semantics and translation correctness criterion in translation validation tools on the programming language level. Secondly, representation of programs in correctness proofs as logic constants: The approaches PCC and the TV translate programs into their representations as semantic abstractions that serve as inputs for translation validation tools. Thirdly, certification of program transformation chains: Unlike the TV approach, which certifies single program transformations, the FTV approach achieves the aim of certifying whole chains of program transformations. This is possible due to the fact that the translation contract provides, for all programming languages involved in the program transformation chain, definitions of program semantics functions which map programs to mathematical objects that are elements of a set with an (at least) partial order "<=". Then, the proof makes use of the fact that the relation "<=" is transitive. In this thesis, the feasibility of the FTV approach is exemplified by the implementation of an FTV system. The system comprises a compiler front-end that certifies its optimization phase and an accompanying SVF that is implemented in the theorem prover Isabelle/HOL. The compiler front-end translates programs in a small C-like programming language, performs three optimizations: constant folding, dead assignment elimination, and loop invariant hoisting, and generates translation certificates in the form of Isabelle/HOL theories. The main focus of the thesis is on the description of the SVF and its translation verification techniques.


Little work has been conducted on the helminth parasites of artiodactylids in the northern and western parts of the Limpopo province, which is considerably drier than the rest of the province. The aim of this study was to determine the kinds and numbers of helminth that occur in different wildlife hosts in the area as well as whether any zoonotic helminths were present. Ten impalas (Aepyceros melampus), eight kudus (Tragelaphus strepsiceros), four blue wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus), two black wildebeest (Connochaetes gnou), three gemsbok (Oryx gazella), one nyala (Tragelaphus angasii), one bushbuck (Tragelaphus scriptus), one waterbuck (Kobus ellipsiprymnus), six warthogs (Phacochoerus aethiopicus) and a single bushpig (Potamochoerus porcus) were sampled from various localities in the semi-arid northern and western areas of the Limpopo province. New host-parasite associations included Trichostrongylus deflexus from blue wildebeest, Agriostomum gorgonis from black wildebeest, Stilesia globipunctata from the waterbuck and Fasciola hepatica in a kudu. The mean helminth burden, including extra-gastrointestinal helminths, was 592 in impalas, 407 in kudus and blue wildebeest, 588 in black wildebeest, 184 in gemsbok, and 2150 in the waterbuck. Excluding Probstmayria vivipara, the mean helminth burden in warthogs was 2228 and the total nematode burden in the bushpig was 80. The total burdens and species richness of the helminths in this study were consistently low when compared with similar studies on the same species in areas with higher rainfall. This has practical implications when animals are translocated to areas with higher rainfall and higher prevalence of helminths.


How do designers get ideas? Many spend their time searching for clever combinations of forms, fonts, and colors inside thedesign annuals and monographs of other designers' work. For those looking to challenge the cut-and-paste mentality thereare few resources that are both informative and inspirational. In Graphic Design: The New Basics, Ellen Lupton, best-selling author of such books as Thinking with Type and Design It Yourself, and design educator Jennifer Cole Phillips refocus design instruction on the study of the fundamentals of form in a critical, rigorous way informed by contemporary media, theory, and software systems. Through visual demonstrations and concise commentary, The New Basics shows students and professionals how to build interest and complexity around simple relationships between formal elements of two-dimensional design such as point, line, plane, scale, hierarchy, layers, and transparency. The New Basics explains the key concepts of visual language that inform any work of designfrom a logo or letterhead to a complex web site. It takes a fresh approach to design instruction by emphasizing visually intensive, form-based thinking in a manner that is in tune with the latest developments in contemporary media, theory, art, and technology. Colorful, compact, and clearly written, The New Basics is the new indispensable resource for anyone seeking a smart, inspiring introduction to graphic design and destined to become the standard reference work in design education.


In this thesis we study coding strategies for single-user block-fading channels. The block-fading channel is a simplified model of slowly varying wireless communication channels with stringent delay constraints. This model is particularly important in practical applications where communication spans a finite number of degrees of freedom of the channel. The number of such degrees of freedom is usually referred to as diversity. From an engineering perspective, the ultimate goal is to design transmission strategies that efficiently exploit the available degrees of freedom in order to communicate more reliably. Slow time-frequency hopping, typical of GSM or EDGE systems, and multi-carrier modulation employing orthogonal division multiplexing (OFDM), are practical examples of such communication systems. As opposed to standard communication channels, the block-fading channel has zero capacity in the strict Shannon sense, since there is an irreducible probability that the transmitted data rate is not supported by the channel, namely the information outage probability. Therefore, for large block length, the probability of error, i.e., the probability that the transmitted information is decoded in error at the receiver, will be at least as large as the outage probability. In the case of both transmitter and receiver having one single antenna to communicate, we examine the theoretical limits of such block-fading channels. By studying the asymptotic behavior of the outage probability, we show that the performance of practical coding schemes, constructed over discrete signal constellations, is determined by a fundamental bound on the achievable diversity. This gives rise to the optimal rate-diversity trade-off. This optimal trade-off induces the concept of signal constellation expansion, since, in order to achieve better performance it may be advantageous to transmit with large signal sets. We introduce a new family of concatenated codes that approach the aforementioned limits for arbitrary signal constellations with constant decoding complexity per information bit using message passing iterative decoding algorithms. We analyze the ensemble performance under optimal maximum-likelihood decoding and we show that iterative message passing decoding performs very close to the optimal decoder, differently from non-faded AWGN and fully-interleaved fading channels. We show that the proposed codes perform close to the the outage probability of the channel for any block length, while standard trellis-based codes specifically designed for the block-fading channel exhibit significant degradation as the block length gets large. Moreover, we show that the proposed coding structure significantly outperforms conventional parallel or serial concatenated codes. We also study coding strategies in multiple-antenna block-fading channels. For such multiple-antenna channels, constructing efficient coding schemes that achieve full diversity based traditional code design criteria is difficult and usually leads to complex decoding algorithms. We propose simpler designs based on pragmatic constructions that lead to low-complexity iterative message passing decoders. We focus on the impact of signal constellation expansion on the achievable diversity. In particular, we study two different approaches of achieving. full diversity by appropriately expanding the signal constellation. We consider classical complex-plane Ungerbock's style expansion and multidimensional lattice-like expansion. By means of several message passing decoders, we compare both approaches and we show that, in general, multidimensional expansion is always advantageous due to its higher design flexibility. We report extensive performance evaluation and comparison of the proposed coding schemes with classical schemes, namely Alamouti and V-BLAST, for the relevant case of an OFDM multiple-antenna channel arising in next generation wireless local-area network standards.


Much of federal government policy-making and -implementing is economic in matter and repercussion. But most policy decisions are made ultimately by non-economists. There are many economists in government, some of them seasoned government careerists and some on leave from universities. But what is their actual role? What do economists in seemingly significant positions in government do and how do they do it? Under what circumstances and subject to what constraints do they work? How useful is the economist's training? How sophisticated, how formal, is the analysis upon which they frame their thinking on the issues they deal with? How great is their impact in policy determination? How might the role of economists be better performed? This survey and evaluation is based on candid interviews, from 1972 to 1976, of some sixty well-placed economists who were, or had been, in government. If there is a moral to the story, it may be that the policy process is and inevitably will be far coarser and more compromised in its adherence to sound elemental economics than innocent souls would ever imagine.


Runoff simulation is a vital issue in water resource planning and management. Various models with different levels of accuracy and precision are developed for this purpose considering various prediction time scales. In this paper, two models of IHACRES (Identification of unit Hydrographs And Component flows from Rainfall, Evaporation and Streamflow data) and ANN (Artificial Neural Network) models are developed and compared for long term runoff simulation in the south eastern part of Iran. These models have been utilized to simulate5-month runoff in the wet period of December-April. In IHACRES application, first the rainfall is predicted using climatic signals and then transformed to runoff. For this purpose, the daily precipitation is downscaled by two models of SDSM (Statistical Downscaling Model) and LARS-WG (Long Ashton Research Station-Weather Generator). The best results of these models are selected as IHACRES model input for simulating of runoff. In application of the ANN model, effective large scale signals of SLP(Sea Level Pressure), SST(Sea Surface Temperature), DSLP and runoff are considered as model inputs for the study region. The performances of the considered models in real time planning of water resources is evaluated by comparing simulated runoff with observed data and through SWSI(Surface Water Scarcity Index) drought index calculation. According to the results, the IHACRES model outperformed ANN in simulating runoff in the study area, and its results are more likely to be comparable with the observed values and therefore, could be employed with more certainty.


British colonial rule has often been praised for its comparatively benign features, such as its support for local educational development. This paper studies the origins of formal education in sub-Saharan Africa arguing that the beneficial effects of British educational policy should not be overstated. British African colonies showed significantly higher school enrolment rates in the late colonial era, but these were not the result of impressive investment efforts. Missionary schools provided the bulk of education to native Africans at extremely low costs. We show that local African conditions affecting the African reception of missionary education explain much more of the variation in colonial educational outcomes than metropolitan identity.


As elegant as his bestselling How to Know God and as practical as his phenomenal The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, this groundbreaking new book from Deepak Chopra contains a dramatic premise: Not only are everyday coincidences meaningful, they actually provide us with glimpses of the field of infinite possibilities that lies at the heart of all things. By gaining access to this wellspring of creation, we can literally rewrite our destinies in any way we wish. From this realm of pure potential we are connected to everything that exists and everything that is yet to come. "Coincidences" can then be recognized as containing precious clues about particular facets of our lives that require our attention. As you become more aware of coincidences and their meanings, you begin to connect more and more with the underlying field of infinite possibilities. This is when the magic begins. This is when you achieve the spontaneous fulfillment of desire. At a time when world events may leave us feeling especially insignificant and vulnerable, Deepak Chopra restores our awareness of the awesome powers within us. And through specific principles and exercises he provides the tools with which to create the magnificent, miraculous life that is our birthright. From the Hardcover edition.


Abstract The paper focuses on the main features of corporate volunteering in companies from the Sverdlovsk region (Russian Federation), with a population surpassing 4.5 million inhabitants. Corporate volunteering is analyzed in the context of the trend characteristic for the post-Soviet space. The article systematizes approaches to the definition and study of this phenomenon, implemented by researchers from different countries. The main goal of the article is to identify the specific features of corporate volunteering in a large Russian region, considered typical for industrial territories in post-Soviet areas, seen through the social value that local communities attribute to corporate volunteering. The paper is based on the results of a public opinion poll and structured interviews, carried out in the Sverdlovsk region, where there is a concentration of enterprises of "hard" industries. The responses obtained in the poll were further subjected to analysis using statistical methods. The data are supplemented with information collected through the qualitative interviews. Interviewed experts are the top managers of enterprises and the deputy directors for HR, GR, or social issues. The study shows that in Russian industrial cities, where large enterprises are the main employers for most residents, many questions on the implementation of social policy fall under the responsibility of these enterprises, and not of the local government. Researchers argue that corporate volunteering is not widespread in the large Russian regions. It most often develops within the framework of event planning and environmental projects, managed by enterprises in cooperation with social and cultural institutions of local communities and not with the non-profit sector. The traditions of the organization of mass social work formed during the socialist period are still deeply rooted in enterprises, and managers rarely identify volunteering as a new managerial tool, thus being untangled from the global trend of promoting corporate volunteerism as a means of building corporate culture.


Abstract The most important economic measures are monetary. They have many different names, are derived in different theories and employ different formulas; yet, they all attempt to do the same thing: to separate a change in nominal value into a 'real part' due to the changes in quantities and an inflation due to the changes in prices. Examples are: real national product and its components, the GNP deflator, the CPI, various measures related to consumer surplus, as well as the large number of formulas for price and quantity indexes that have been proposed. The theories that have been developed to derive these measures are largely unsatisfactory. The axiomatic theory of indexes does not make clear which economic problem a particular formula can be used to solve. The economic theories are for the most part based on unrealistic assumptions. For example, the theory of the CPI is usually developed for a single consumer with homothetic preferences and then applied to a large aggregate of diverse consumers with non-homothetic preferences. In this paper I review both the general literature and my own past contributions in order to identify theories of measurement that are based on plausible economic assumptions. It turns out that all such theories lead to the Törnqvist price or quantity indexes. The paper also covers several related topics, particularly the presently unsatisfactory determination of the components of real GDP. I also propose a novel set of integrated accounts to measure changes in relative prices as well as the sectoral sources of inflation.


It is well established that preventive care reduces the prevalence of disease and helps people live longer, healthier lives. Analysis of the cost-effectiveness of preventive care can guide policy-makers to allocate scarce resources. This synthesis reviews the evidence on the cost-effectiveness of clinical preventive care. Key findings include: although many preventive services are a good value (defined as costing less than $50,000 to $100,000 per Quality Adjusted Life Year), only a few, such as childhood immunizations and counseling adults on the use of low-dose aspirin are widely regarded as cost-saving. Costs to reduce risk factors, screening costs, and the cost of treatment when disease is found can offset any savings from preventive care. Prevention can reduce the incidence of disease, but savings may be partially offset by health care costs associated with increased longevity. Whether these additional competing risk costs outweigh the savings from avoiding the targeted disease depends on how healthy people are during the added life years. Given that so few preventive services save money and that these services are already in wide use, it is unlikely that prevention can reduce health care spending. The authors question whether the emphasis on savings is appropriate and suggest it is better to focus on high value preventive care, taking into account increased longevity and quality of life.


Measurements of ZZ production in the l+l-l′+l′- channel in proton–proton collisions at 13 TeV center-of-mass energy at the Large Hadron Collider are presented. The data correspond to 36.1  fb-1 of collisions collected by the ATLAS experiment in 2015 and 2016. Here l and l′ stand for electrons or muons. Integrated and differential ZZ→l+l-l′+l′- cross sections with Z→l+l- candidate masses in the range of 66 GeV to 116 GeV are measured in a fiducial phase space corresponding to the detector acceptance and corrected for detector effects. The differential cross sections are presented in bins of twenty observables, including several that describe the jet activity. The integrated cross section is also extrapolated to a total phase space and to all standard model decays of Z bosons with mass between 66 GeV and 116 GeV, resulting in a value of 17.3±0.9[±0.6(stat)±0.5(syst)±0.6(lumi)]  pb. The measurements are found to be in good agreement with the standard model. A search for neutral triple gauge couplings is performed using the transverse momentum distribution of the leading Z boson candidate. No evidence for such couplings is found and exclusion limits are set on their parameters.


Modern digital imaging technologies, such as digital microscopy or micro-computed tomography, deliver such large amounts of 2D and 3D-image data that manual processing becomes infeasible. This leads to a need for robust, flexible and automatic image analysis tools in areas such as histology or materials science, where microstructures are being investigated (e.g. cells, fiber systems). General-purpose image processing methods can be used to analyze such microstructures. These methods usually rely on segmentation, i.e., a separation of areas of interest in digital images. As image segmentation algorithms rarely adapt well to changes in the imaging system or to different analysis problems, there is a demand for solutions that can easily be modified to analyze different microstructures, and that are more accurate than existing ones. To address these challenges, this thesis contributes a novel statistical model for objects in images and novel algorithms for the image-based analysis of microstructures. The first contribution is a novel statistical model for the locations of objects (e.g. tumor cells) in images. This model is fully trainable and can therefore be easily adapted to many different image analysis tasks, which is demonstrated by examples from histology and materials science. Using algorithms for fitting this statistical model to images results in a method for locating multiple objects in images that is more accurate and more robust to noise and background clutter than standard methods. On simulated data at high noise levels (peak signal-to-noise ratio below 10 dB), this method achieves detection rates up to 10% above those of a watershed-based alternative algorithm. While objects like tumor cells can be described well by their coordinates in the plane, the analysis of fiber systems in composite materials, for instance, requires a fully three dimensional treatment. Therefore, the second contribution of this thesis is a novel algorithm to determine the local fiber orientation in micro-tomographic reconstructions of fiber-reinforced polymers and other fibrous materials. Using simulated data, it will be demonstrated that the local orientations obtained from this novel method are more robust to noise and fiber overlap than those computed using an established alternative gradient-based algorithm, both in 2D and 3D. The property of robustness to noise of the proposed algorithm can be explained by the fact that a low-pass filter is used to detect local orientations. But even in the absence of noise, depending on fiber curvature and density, the average local 3D-orientation estimate can be about 9° more accurate compared to that alternative gradient-based method. Implementations of that novel orientation estimation method require repeated image filtering using anisotropic Gaussian convolution filters. These filter operations, which other authors have used for adaptive image smoothing, are computationally expensive when using standard implementations. Therefore, the third contribution of this thesis is a novel optimal non-orthogonal separation of the anisotropic Gaussian convolution kernel. This result generalizes a previous one reported elsewhere, and allows for efficient implementations of the corresponding convolution operation in any dimension. In 2D and 3D, these implementations achieve an average performance gain by factors of 3.8 and 3.5, respectively, compared to a fast Fourier transform-based implementation. The contributions made by this thesis represent improvements over state-of-the-art methods, especially in the 2D-analysis of cells in histological resections, and in the 2D and 3D-analysis of fibrous materials.


This is an uncopyedited electronic version of an article accepted for publication in Diabetes Care. The American Diabetes Association, publisher of Diabetes Care, is not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of the manuscript or any version derived from it by third parties. The definitive publisherauthenticated version will be available in a future issue of Diabetes Care in print and online at http://care.diabetesjournals.org. Diabetes Care Publish Ahead of Print, published online March 18, 2010


Generative semantics is (or perhaps was) a research program within linguistics, initiated by the work of George Lakoff, John R. Ross, Paul Postal and later McCawley. The approach developed out of transformational generative grammar in the mid 1960s, but stood largely in opposition to work by Noam Chomsky and his students. The nature and genesis of the program are a matter of some controversy and have been extensively debated. Generative semanticists took Chomsky's concept of deep structure and ran with it, assuming (contrary to later work by Chomsky and Ray Jackendoff) that deep structures were the sole input to semantic interpretation. This assumption, combined with a tendency to consider a wider rang of empirical evidence than Chomskyan linguists, lead generative semanticists to develop considerably more abstract and complex theories of deep structure than those advocated by Chomsky and his students. Throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, there were heated debates between generative semanticists and more orthodox Chomskyans. The generative semanticists lost the debate, in so far as their research program ground to a halt by the 1980s. However, this was in part because the interests of key generative semanticists such as George Lakoff had gradually shifted away from the narrow study of syntax and semantics. A number of ideas from later work in generative semantics have been incorporated into cognitive linguistics (and indeed into main stream Chomskyan linguistics, often without citation).


When it comes to creating dynamic web sites, the open source PHP language is red-hot property: used on more than 20 million web sites today, PHP is now more popular than Microsoft's ASP.NET technology. With our Cookbook's unique format, you can learn how to build dynamic web applications that work on any web browser. This revised new edition makes it easy to find specific solutions for programming challenges.PHP Cookbook has a wealth of solutions for problems that you'll face regularly. With topics that range from beginner questions to advanced web programming techniques, this guide contains practical examples -- or "recipes" -- for anyone who uses this scripting language to generate dynamic web content. Updated for PHP 5, this book provides solutions that explain how to use the new language features in detail, including the vastly improved object-oriented capabilities and the new PDO data access extension. New sections on classes and objects are included, along with new material on processing XML, building web services with PHP, and working with SOAP/REST architectures. With each recipe, the authors include a discussion that explains the logic and concepts underlying the solution.


Praise for Noise Reduction Techniques IN electronic systems "Henry Ott has literally 'written the book' on the subject of EMC. . . . He not only knows the subject, but has the rare ability to communicate that knowledge to others." EE Times Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineering is a completely revised, expanded, and updated version of Henry Ott's popular book Noise Reduction Techniques in Electronic Systems. It reflects the most recent developments in the field of electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) and noise reductionand their practical applications to the design of analog and digital circuits in computer, home entertainment, medical, telecom, industrial process control, and automotive equipment, as well as military and aerospace systems. While maintaining and updating the core informationsuch as cabling, grounding, filtering, shielding, digital circuit grounding and layout, and ESDthat made the previous book such a wide success, this new book includes additional coverage of: Equipment/systems grounding Switching power supplies and variable-speed motor drives Digital circuit power distribution and decoupling PCB layout and stack-up Mixed-signal PCB layout RF and transient immunity Power line disturbances Precompliance EMC measurements New appendices on dipole antennae, the theory of partial inductance, and the ten most common EMC problems The concepts presented are applicable to analog and digital circuits operating from below audio frequencies to those in the GHz range. Throughout the book, an emphasis is placed on cost-effective EMC designs, with the amount and complexity of mathematics kept to the strictest minimum. Complemented with over 250 problems with answers, Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineering equips readers with the knowledge needed to design electronic equipment that is compatible with the electromagnetic environment and compliant with national and international EMC regulations. It is an essential resource for practicing engineers who face EMC and regulatory compliance issues and an ideal textbook for EE courses at the advanced undergraduate and graduate levels.


As the world hurtles headlong into the deepest global recession since the Great Depression, the controversial cultural and economic tensions that have always existed around the sensitive topics of immigration and immigration policy are again coming to the surface in the United States. A land of immigrants, religious outcasts, and refugees fleeing wars, poverty, starvation, and oppression abroad, the United States has long been viewed as the most welcoming country in the world. Immigrants always believed that their children would have a chance at a more prosperous life than the one their parents led - the ultimate American Dream. Today the political clouds of nativism are swirling in Washington, DC. President Obama and the US Congress, reacting to the ongoing political backlash against financial institutions, have passed a bill restricting US financial companies from hiring foreign nationals on H-1B visas. These visas are the most common type of employment permits for foreigners and have traditionally been a pathway to full citizenship. Before the ink on the bill had dried, the country's largest financial institution, Bank of America, announced it would rescind job offers from foreign MBA students. The nativist logic is clear: with US unemployment heading towards 10 percent and perhaps beyond, nativists question why US companies hire foreigners to perform jobs that out-of-work Americans could perform. I personally have experienced the building xenophobia. Articles that I have published explaining the economic benefits of open doors immigration policies have created enormous backlash. I have received overtly threatening emails and hundreds of unpleasant messages telling me, in no uncertain terms, that skilled immigrants are no longer welcome here. I have received arguments that are familiar derivations of the nativist logic. Xenophobes claim that immigrants on H-1B visas are paid less than comparable American workers and depress wages. Others argue that immigrants crowd out Americans in similar positions, causing US-born students to lose interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math ("STEM") fields and to stop seeking education and employment in those critical areas. They add that immigrants filing for patents are displacing Americans who might have filed for patents but could not get good science-related jobs. The xenophobic tide could not have come at a more inopportune time. Even before the nativist sentiment emerged, growing numbers of talented immigrants had been abandoning lives in the United States to return to their homelands. They returned due to growing perceptions that brighter economic futures and greater chances for career and professional advancement lay abroad. With America no longer having the huge economic advantage it once had, other factors are coming more into play, such as the inconvenience of current restrictive visa policies and the anxiety associated with living far from friends and family in an unfamiliar culture. The United States is experiencing a brain drain for the first time in its history, yet its leaders do not appear to be aware of this. The ramifications of this brain drain are critical and will be long-lasting......


The entire manuscript is available for download as a single PDF file. Because of the large size of this manuscript, it is also available in three PDF files. In addition, each page is available as a separate, larger, JPG file. If higher-resolution JP2 files are needed (WARNING: files average 15-20MB in size), please contact email@example.com. Fieldwork Team: M. Lamine Diallo (Lecturer of Wolof & Pular Languages) and Ahmed Diallo (Research Assistant). Technical Team: Dr. Vika Zafrin (Digital Scholarship Librarian, BU Libraries), Dr. Fallou Ngom (Director, African Language Program), Dr. Peter Quella (Assistant Director, African Studies Center), and Sarah Davis Westwood (PhD Candidate, Department of History). This collection of Fuuta Jalon Pular Ajami materials is copied as part of the African Studies Center's African Ajami Library. This project is funded by the BU African Studies Center. We thank Prof. Tim Longman, Director of the African Studies Center, and the entire African Studies team for their support. For Inquiries: Please contact Professor Fallou Ngom (firstname.lastname@example.com).


Antenatal steroid treatment decreases morbidity and mortality in premature infants through the maturation of lung tissue, which enables sufficient breathing performance. However, clinical and animal studies have shown that repeated doses of glucocorticoids such as dexamethasone and betamethasone lead to long-term adverse effects on brain development. Therefore, we established a mouse model for antenatal dexamethasone treatment to investigate the effects of dexamethasone on brain vessel differentiation towards the blood-brain barrier (BBB) phenotype, focusing on molecular marker analysis. The major findings were that in total brains on postnatal day (PN) 4 triple antenatal dexamethasone treatment significantly downregulated the tight junction protein claudin-5, the endothelial marker Pecam-1/CD31, the glucocorticoid receptor, the NR1 subunit of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor, and Abc transporters (Abcb1a, Abcg2 Abcc4). Less pronounced effects were found after single antenatal dexamethasone treatment and in PN10 samples. Comparisons of total brain samples with isolated brain endothelial cells together with the stainings for Pecam-1/CD31 and claudin-5 led to the assumption that the morphology of brain vessels is affected by antenatal dexamethasone treatment at PN4. On the mRNA level markers for angiogenesis, the sonic hedgehog and the Wnt pathway were downregulated in PN4 samples, suggesting fundamental changes in brain vascularization and/or differentiation. In conclusion, we provided a first comprehensive molecular basis for the adverse effects of multiple antenatal dexamethasone treatment on brain vessel differentiation.


The Oxford Beginner's Italian Dictionary is an innovative guide to learning Italian. Designed specifically for English-speaking adult learners who are either learning from scratch or refreshing lost language skills, it offers an easy to use dictionary, extra help with vocabulary, and essential information on living and interacting in the Italian-speaking world. The dictionary is exceptionally easy to use, because it moves away from the traditional dictionary layout. All main translations are preceded by an equals sign so that they are instantly identifiable, and all parts of the entry are spelt out in full, avoiding confusing jargon and abbreviations. Grammar and usage notes throughout the text warn of possible translation pitfalls, and thousands of example phrases show how the language is used in context. The 30-page Learning and Lifestyle kit gives key information on both the Italian language, with a list of the words you really need to know, grammar help, and verb tables, and on life in the Italian-speaking world: background information on lifestyle and culture, tips on etiquette and interaction in the language, and a phrasefinder for use when travelling. The Oxford Beginner's Italian Dictionary is your essential companion to learning Italian.


Sustainable development of any type that utilizes water or involves excavations in karst aquifer systems, such as the regional Floridan aquifer system (FAS), requires knowledge of preferential groundwater flow pathways that can extend adverse impacts beyond the development site and alter natural hydroperiods. Such pathways include fractures and other types of karst conduits that are associated with modern and relict sinkholes. Developments, including power plants and mines, that have not accounted for these features have caused induced recharge, altered hydroperiods and saltwater intrusion in the FAS, resulting in destruction of wetlands and adverse impacts to other surface waters, wildlife habitat and threatened and endangered species. This study analyzed indicators of preferential groundwater flow by considering surface expressions of underlying geological conditions (lineaments and modern sinkholes) in the FAS, which coincide with the United States southeastern coastal plain. Lineament mapping by Vernon (1951) and the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT, 1973), incorporating analog mapping techniques and hardcopy prints of satellite imagery, preceded extensive urbanization, groundwater extractions, and mining in the region. All of these alterations limit the ability to identify fractures using lineaments by reducing groundwater discharges and vegetation indicative of those discharges. In this study, established methods for georectification, including control-point identification and spatial matching of scanned maps and remotely sensed images, were applied to these previously mapped lineaments. These results were applied to the environmentally sensitive karst study area of Citrus and Levy Counties, Florida in the southern extent of the FAS. Geospatial analyses of lineament distribution and modern sinkhole locations from the state database showed a dense network of lineaments with associated sinkholes throughout the study area and seven surrounding counties, including the proposed sites for a nuclear power plant and two mines in Levy County. Proposed excavations and water use for construction and operation of the power plant and mines would result in irreversible adverse environmental impacts on extensive depressional wetlands beyond the surface-footprint impact of these developments via these preferential flow pathways that were not evaluated during the review process.


Particulate brown carbon (BrC) in the atmosphere absorbs light at subvisible wavelengths and has poorly constrained but potentially large climate forcing impacts. BrC from biomass burning has virtually unknown lifecycle and atmospheric stability. Here, BrC emitted from intense wildfires was measured in plumes transported over 2 days from two main fires, during the 2013 NASA SEAC4RS mission. Concurrent measurements of organic aerosol (OA) and black carbon (BC) mass concentration, BC coating thickness, absorption Ångström exponent, and OA oxidation state reveal that the initial BrC emitted from the fires was largely unstable. Using back trajectories to estimate the transport time indicates that BrC aerosol light absorption decayed in the plumes with a half‐life of 9 to 15 h, measured over day and night. Although most BrC was lost within a day, possibly through chemical loss and/or evaporation, the remaining persistent fraction likely determines the background BrC levels most relevant for climate forcing.


Well-loved by children and teachers the world over, Kid's Box is bursting with bright ideas to inspire you and your pupils. Perfect for general use, the course also fully covers the syllabus of the Cambridge Young Learners English (YLE) tests, preparing your students better than ever for success at Starters, Movers and Flyers. The new edition offers enhanced digital support including a new Presentation Plus with interactive whiteboard tools, interactive Pupil's and Activity Books, extra teacher's resources and online teacher training. The online platform includes games and extra activities for every unit, and all the students' online work can be tracked and reviewed by the teacher.


The objective of the present article is to give an overview of an application of Fuzzy Logic in Regulation Thermography, a method of medical diagnosis support. An introduction to this method of the complementary medical science based on temperature measurements – so-called thermograms – is provided. The process of modelling the physician's thermogram evaluation rules using the calculus of Fuzzy Logic is explained.


Through life-changing stories, respected thinkers and authentic presentations, Keynote promotes a deeper understanding of the world and gives students the courage and means to express themselves in English. Communication, collaboration and creative thinking drive students towards real 21st century outcomes and encourage them to respond to ideas and find their own voice. Both students and teachers will emerge with new confidence, new ideas and a new determination to communicate in this increasingly information-rich world of Global English.


The purpose of this paper is to examine the characteristics of decision making in the entrepreneurial networking practices through different phases of establishing a novel innovation firm characterised with high level of product or service innovativeness and lack of resources. The paper first presents different stages of establishing a firm and its' distinctive characteristic. Then we explain the characteristics of networking in different stages of the establishment of the firm by the means of two analytical models – that of March's "Exchange power model" and Burt's "Structural holes model" in the terms we have called "soft" and "hard" networking. We end with the proposal of sequential use of various networking practices for the purpose of better resource orchestration and leverage of power.


The life of a woman today isn't really all that different from that of Mary and Martha in the New Testament. Like Mary, you long to sit at the Lord's feet...but the daily demands of a busy world just won't leave you alone. Like Martha, you love Jesus and really want to serve him...yet you struggle with weariness, resentment, and feelings of inadequacy. Then comes Jesus, right into the midst of your busy Mary/Martha life---and he extends the same invitation he issued long ago to the two sisters of Bethany. Tenderly he invites you to choose "the better part"---a joyful life of "living-room" intimacy with him that flows naturally into "kitchen service" for him. How can you make that choice? Now updated with a new 12 week companion Bible study, Weaver shows how all of us---Marys and Marthas alike---can draw closer to our Lord, deepening our devotion, strengthening our service, and doing both with less stress and greater joy.


In outstanding films that are sharply focused on unusual women Jane Campion has gained worldwide admiration and respect. This New Zealand director first attracted international attention with her 1989 film Sweetie, an acerbic study of two sisters in a wildly dysfunctional family. She followed this in 1990 with the television miniseries An Angel at My Table, based on the autobiography of New Zealand author Janet Frame. Subsequently released in theatres, the film chronicles the early trials of the young writer. Poor, timid, and physically awkward, Frame was misdiagnosed as schizophrenic and was scheduled for a lobotomy, but her success as a writer enabled her to escape this fate and won her fame and acceptance. In 1993 in yet another story about an extraordinary woman, Campion made the award-winning film The Piano. It starred Holly Hunter as the Victorian mail-order bride who refuses to speak. Arriving in New Zealand with her young daughter, the young Scottish widow confronts isolation in the wilderness and communicates only via her piano until she finds real love in her husband's neighbor, played by Harvey Keitel. Campion next adapted Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady, starring Nicole Kidman as Isabel Archer, a young American heiress seduced by a decadent pair of expatriates living in Italy. In this collection of interviews Campion speaks of these films that have given women a revival as a strong screen presence. Campion tells of her early life in Wellington and of her training as a filmmaker in the 1980s at the Australian School of Film and Television. She speaks of those who have influenced her style and her experiences in making movies. Campion received the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1993 and was the first woman director to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Virginia Wright Wexman, a professor of English and Associate Vice-Chancellor of Academic Affairs at University of Illinois, Chicago, has published Creating the Couple, Roman Polanski, and Letter from an Unknown Woman, as well as articles in Film Quarterly and Cinema Journal.


A unit bar-visibility graph is a graph whose vertices can be represented in the plane by disjoint horizontal unit-length bars such that two vertices are adjacent if and only if there is a unobstructed, non-degenerate, vertical band of visibility between the corresponding bars. We generalize unit bar-visibility graphs to $[1,k]$-bar-visibility graphs by allowing the lengths of the bars to be between $1/k$ and $1$. We completely characterize these graphs for trees. We establish an algorithm with complexity $O(kn)$ to determine whether a tree with $n$ vertices has a $[1,k]$-bar-visibility representation. In the course of developing the algorithm, we study a special case of the knapsack problem: Partitioning a set of positive integers into two sets with sums as equal as possible. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of such a partition.


Education has faced unprecedented disruption during the COVID-19 pandemic; evidence about the subsequent effect on children is of crucial importance. We use data from an oral reading fluency (ORF) assessment—a rapid assessment taking only a few minutes that measures a fundamental reading skill—to examine COVID's effects on children's reading ability during the pandemic in more than 100 U.S. school districts. Effects were pronounced, especially for Grades 2–3, but distinct across spring and fall 2020. While many students were not assessed in spring 2020, those who were seemed to have experienced relatively limited or no growth in ORF relative to gains observed in other years. In fall 2020, a far more representative set of students was observed. For those students, growth was more pronounced and seemed to approach levels observed in previous years. Worryingly, there were also signs of stratification such that students in lower-achieving districts may be falling further behind. However, at the level of individual students, those who were struggling with reading prior to the pandemic were not disproportionately impacted in terms of ORF growth. This data offers an important window onto how a foundational skill is being affected by COVID-19 and this approach can be used in the future to examine how student abilities recover as education enters a post-COVID paradigm.


The advent of complete genetic linkage maps consisting of codominant DNA markers [typically restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs)] has stimulated interest in the systematic genetic dissection of discrete Mendelian factors underlying quantitative traits in experimental organisms. We describe here a set of analytical methods that modify and extend the classical theory for mapping such quantitative trait loci (QTLs). These include: (i) a method of identifying promising crosses for QTL mapping by exploiting a classical formula of SEWALL WRIGHT; (ii) a method (interval mapping) for exploiting the full power of RFLP linkage maps by adapting the approach of LOD score analysis used in human genetics, to obtain accurate estimates of the genetic location and phenotypic effect of QTLs; and (iii) a method (selective genotyping) that allows a substantial reduction in the number of progeny that need to be scored with the DNA markers. In addition to the exposition of the methods, explicit graphs are provided that allow experimental geneticists to estimate, in any particular case, the number of progeny required to map QTLs underlying a quantitative trait.


Photocopy of Elizabeth Simpson Cooper's memoir about her childhood in Virginia and later her time in Kansas after moving westward with her family. In the text of her memoir, she describes her school days in Virginia, church, Cooper family history, "Bleeding Kansas" (the period of conflict over deciding if Kansas would be a free or a slave state), and the Civil War in Kansas as well as her personal encounters with Native Americans in Kansas.


Changes in high latitude surface salinity have a strong effect on the North Atlantic Deep Water Formation (NADWF) which appears to be very important in driving the global thermohaline conveyor belt. Natural variations of sea surface salinity and sea ice have been observed in the North Atlantic, namely the Great Salt Anomaly (GSA) of the late sixties and seventies. When dealing with climate variability one must consider the sensitivity of the climate system to perturbations.In order to include the atmospheric heat transport mechanisms we coupled an atmosphere energy balance model with a 3-D ocean general circulation model which includes a thermodynamic sea ice model. We explore the feedback mechanisms in the ocean-atmosphere-sea ice system affecting the thermohaline circulation (THC) under perturbations in sea surface salinity at high latitudes.


The Web is increasingly becoming a platform for linked data. This means making connections and adding value to data on the Web. As more data becomes openly available and more people are able to use the data, it becomes more powerful. An example is file format registries and the evaluation of format risks. Here the requirement for information is now greater than the effort that any single institution can put into gathering and collating this information. Recognising that more is better, the creators of PRONOM, JHOVE, GDFR and others are joining to lead a new initiative: the Unified Digital Format Registry. Ahead of this effort, a new RDF-based framework for structuring and facilitating file format data from multiple sources, including PRONOM, has demonstrated it is able to produce more links, and thus provide more answers to digital preservation questions - about format risks, applications, viewers and transformations - than the native data alone. This paper will describe this registry, P2, and its services, show how it can be used, and provide examples where it delivers more answers than the contributing resources. The P2 Registry is a reference platform to allow and encourage publication of preservation data, and also an examplar of what can be achieved if more data is published openly online as simple machine-readable documents. This approach calls for the active participation of the digital preservation community to contribute data by simply publishing it openly on the Web as linked data.


The purpose of this study is to examine a high poverty elementary school's improvement model for increasing student reading performance. The model at Martin Elementary School was designed to use interactive balanced literacy, the building of positive relationships, and class size reduction to improve the reading performance of upper elementary students from families living in poverty. The questions that will be answered are: 1. What effect does the incorporation of balance literacy supplemented with other effective teaching strategies have on the reading performance of students who are living in high poverty? The strategies include interactive teaching and the building of positive relationships. 2. How does reduced classroom size affect the incorporation of balanced literacy when it is augmented by interactive strategies and the creation of positive relationships? 3. What effects does the incorporation of balanced literacy involving interactive strategies, the building of positive relationships and class size reduction have on classroom teacher practice? The school where this case study took place was Martin Elementary. It is a high poverty, urban, elementary school located in the Piedmont area of North Carolina. A qualitative approach was used to examine the effects of the improvement model on the reading performance of students of poverty. Data collection for the study took place through one-on-one interviews, focus group discussions, surveys, observations, and North Carolina End-of-Grade reading test proficiency scores. Six upper elementary classroom teachers were interviewed, observed and surveyed and thirteen fifth grade students were organized into a focus group.


This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc/3.0), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Korean Journal of Adult Nursing Vol. 32 No. 1, 57-66, February 2020 eISSN 2288-338X https://doi.org/10.7475/kjan.2020.32.1.57


Abstract. The number concentration of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) formed as a result of anthropogenic emissions is a key uncertainty in the study of aerosol indirect forcing and global climate change. Here, we use a global aerosol model that includes an empirical boundary layer nucleation mechanism, the use of primary-emitted sulfate particles to represent sub-grid scale nucleation, as well as binary homogeneous nucleation to explore how nucleation affects the CCN concentration and the first aerosol indirect effect (AIE). The inclusion of the boundary layer nucleation scheme increases the global average CCN concentrations in the boundary layer by 31.4% when no primary-emitted sulfate particles are included and by 5.3% when they are included. Particle formation with the boundary layer nucleation scheme decreases the first indirect forcing over ocean, and increases the first indirect forcing over land when primary sulfate particles are included. This suggests that whether particle formation from aerosol nucleation increases or decreases aerosol indirect effects largely depends on the relative change of primary particles and SO2 emissions from the preindustrial to the present day atmosphere. Including primary-emitted sulfate particle significantly increases both the anthropogenic fraction of CCN concentrations and the first aerosol indirect forcing. The forcing from various treatments of aerosol nucleation ranges from −1.22 to −2.03 w/m2. This large variation shows the importance of better quantifying aerosol nucleation mechanisms for the prediction of CCN concentrations and aerosol indirect effects.


This thesis is a detailed investigation on the suitability of secondary aggregates for use in concrete production. The aggregates under investigation, originated from construction and demolition sites of the Greater London area and were mainly from reinforced concrete structures dating back to the 60's-70's.
The study investigated three sources of recycled concrete aggregate (RCA I, RCA II and RCA III). The first step in the investigation involved the characterisation of the aggregates through an extensive testing regime including physical, mechanical and chemical-mineralogical assessments. Aggregates where then classified based on the requirements of BS 8500 and BSEN 12620 which provide the main guidance for aggregates for concrete. All sources conformed to the relevant standard requirements and RCA I was selected for the next step of this investigation.
Following the establishment of conformity of these aggregates for concrete production a further in depth investigation involved the production of designated concrete mixes conforming to BS 8500 and BSEN 206 using coarse RCA I at various proportions up to 100%, totally replacing coarse natural aggregate. The investigation included assessment of equivalent strength concrete in the fresh (workability, stability, air entrainement etc.) and hardened states (engineering properties and durability performance). Concrete performed satisfactorily in most of its performance aspects.
In order to demonstrate the performance of RCA concrete and compare with conventional concrete containing natural aggregates, a full scale demonstration programme was devised. It involved the construction of industrial pavements in real construction sites, using conventional concrete and concrete containing up to 100% coarse RCA. Site visits and site inspections at 3 and 6 months into service revealed concrete performing satisfactorily regardless of the RCA content. These findings were in line with those of the scientific investigation carried out in the laboratory.


This report focuses on areas with highest potential efficiency gains to increase the value for money from investments in core public goods and services such as extension, irrigation and rural roads. This is a first attempt to carry out such an analysis in Cambodia, and even in the Greater Mekong sub-region. Based on extensive data gathering and surveys, this chapter analyzes the efficiency and effectiveness of agricultural sector expenditures in Cambodia and assesses various options for increasing the impact of government expenditures on agricultural growth. Other challenges include an excessive focus on rehabilitating primary irrigation infrastructure and a neglect of secondary and tertiary systems, a lack of maintenance of irrigation and rural roads, and the slow pace of developing or adopting new technologies to reduce future maintenance costs. There is also a need to better prioritize agricultural and related infrastructure expenditures, both by type and by geographic location, to maximize their impact on growth. The rest of the report is organized as follows. Chapter two presents recent developments in the agriculture sector of Cambodia. Chapter three gives an overview of sectoral expenditure trends over the last decade. The budget process and its relationship to sectoral development strategies is discussed in chapter three. Chapter four discusses the novel contribution of the AgPER in analyzing the efficiency and effectiveness of government spending using benefit-cost analysis to examine select public investments. Chapter five discusses how likely climate change trends may affect future agriculture expenditures and suggests some priority areas for public spending. The conclusion section summarizes the major findings and policy recommendations of the report.


In the United States, the public debate over urban rail projects is complicated by the lack of agreement on goals. Supporters offer a wide variety of justifications to build and expand rail transit. If one focuses on the judgments of economists, the list of justifications shrinks considerably, but we are still left with a bundle of goals. Compared to other justifications, economists appear to be somewhat optimistic about rail transit's impact on local economic development, but less optimistic about rail's ability to achieve environmental improvement and serve the transit-dependent poor. Economists seem quite pessimistic about rail's ability to achieve key transportation goals like reducing congestion. Economists often attribute rail's political success to rent-seeking and romantic political factors. Of those economists who offer a big-picture view, there appears to be wide, though not unanimous, agreement that rail's costs exceed its benefits. And it seems that almost all economists who write about rail agree that various demographic features, such as suburbanization, the declining influence of central business districts, and increasing wealth will make it increasingly difficult to design successful rail systems.


1. Siegel RL, Miller KD, Jemal A. Cancer Statistics, 2017. CA Cancer J Clin. 2017;67(1):7-30. Review/Ot her-Dx N/A To estimate the numbers of new cancer cases and deaths that will occur in the United States in the current year and compile the most recent data on cancer incidence, mortality, and survival. Mortality data were collected by the National Center for Health Statistics. In 2017, 1,688,780 new cancer cases and 600,920 cancer deaths are projected to occur in the United States. For all sites combined, the cancer incidence rate is 20% higher in men than in women, while the cancer death rate is 40% higher. However, sex disparities vary by cancer type. For example, thyroid cancer incidence rates are 3-fold higher in women than in men (21 vs 7 per 100,000 population), despite equivalent death rates (0.5 per 100,000 population), largely reflecting sex differences in the "epidemic of diagnosis." Over the past decade of available data, the overall cancer incidence rate (2004-2013) was stable in women and declined by approximately 2% annually in men, while the cancer death rate (2005-2014) declined by about 1.5% annually in both men and women. From 1991 to 2014, the overall cancer death rate dropped 25%, translating to approximately 2,143,200 fewer cancer deaths than would have been expected if death rates had remained at their peak. Although the cancer death rate was 15% higher in blacks than in whites in 2014, increasing access to care as a result of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act may expedite the narrowing racial gap; from 2010 to 2015, the proportion of blacks who were uninsured halved, from 21% to 11%, as it did for Hispanics (31% to 16%). Gains in coverage for traditionally underserved Americans will facilitate the broader application of existing cancer control knowledge across every segment of the population. 4 ACR Appropriateness Criteria®


This report provides information and analysis for use by Members of Congress as they deliberate on the Japanese response to the Gulf crisis and, perhaps more important, what it may mean for future U.S.-Japanese relations. The first chapter briefly reviews Japanese government actions in response to the crisis, from August 1990 to February 1991. A second section examines in detail the various factors and constraints that affected Japanese policy. The final section offers conclusions and examines implications of the episode for future U.S.-Japanese relations.
Published sources for the report are cited in footnotes.


Derived from the renowned multi-volume International Encyclopaedia of Laws, this monograph on labour law in Spain not only describes and analyses the legal aspects of labour relations, but also examines labour relations practices and developing trends. It provides a survey of the subject that is both usefully brief and sufficiently detailed to answer most questions likely to arise in any pertinent legal setting. Both individual and collective labour relations are covered in ample detail, with attention to such underlying and pervasive factors employment contracts, suspension of the contracts, dismissal laws and covenant of non-competition, as well as international private law. The authors describe all important details of the law governing hours and wages, benefits, intellectual property implications, trade union activity, employers' associations, workers' participation, collective bargaining, industrial disputes, and much more. Building on a clear overview of labour law and labour relations, the book offers practical guidance on which sound preliminary decisions may be based. It will find a ready readership among lawyers representing parties with interests in [Spain, and academics and researchers will appreciate its value in the study of comparative trends in laws affecting labour and labour relations.


Occupation tax receipt given to P. B. Bundick of Matagorda County, Texas for his occupation of Ferryman. Mr. Bundick paid ten dollars for both a state and county tax. The transaction was confirmed by the comptroller of public accounts, whose signature can be seen on the bottom left corner.


Knowing where things are seems effortless. Yet our brains devote tremendous computational power to figuring out the simplest details about spatial relationships. Going to the grocery store or finding our cell phone requires sleuthing and coordination across different sensory and motor domains. "Making Space" traces this mental detective work to explain how the brain creates our sense of location. But it goes further, to make the case that spatial processing permeates all our cognitive abilities, and that the brain s systems for thinking about space may be the systems of thought itself.Our senses measure energy in the form of light, sound, and pressure on the skin, and our brains evaluate these measurements to make inferences about objects and boundaries. Jennifer Groh describes how eyes detect electromagnetic radiation, how the brain can locate sounds by measuring differences of less than one one-thousandth of a second in how long they take to reach each ear, and how the ear s balance organs help us monitor body posture and movement. The brain synthesizes all this neural information so that we can navigate three-dimensional space.But the brain s work doesn t end there. Spatial representations do double duty in aiding memory and reasoning. This is why it is harder to remember how to get somewhere if someone else is driving, and why, if we set out to do something and forget what it was, returning to the place we started can jog our memory. In making space the brain uses powers we did not know we have."