Sampling tasks and sampling distributions provide a fertile realm for investigating students' conceptions of variability. A project-designed teaching episode on samples and sampling distributions was team-taught in 6 research classrooms (2 middle school and 4 high school) by the investigators and regular classroom mathematics teachers. Data sources included survey data collected in 6 research classes and 4 comparison classes both before and after the teaching episode, and semistructured task-based interviews conducted with students from the research classes. Student responses and reasoning on sampling tasks led to the development of a conceptual lattice that characterizes types of student reasoning about sampling distributions. The lattice may serve as a useful conceptual tool for researchers and as a potential instructional tool for teachers of statistics. Results suggest that teachers need to focus explicitly on multiple aspects of distributions, especially variability, to enhance students' reasoning about sampling distributions.


1835 letter of Col. Nicholas Copeland to his son-in-law Martin Bridgman of Arkansas, enticing him to move to Texas. The letter discusses the price of land and cattle, as well as the profitability of crops such as cotton and corn. Copeland adds a note for Harry Currin, a free African-American, stating that Texas is a safe place to settle. His land grant (settlement & fortification) described in the letter was 25 miles west of the Trinity River just before crossing the Navasota River. This letter was written at Robbins' Ferry on the Old San Antonio Road at the crossing of the Trinity River (letters went east from there to be carried & put in the US mail system).


Successful hepatitis C treatment results in sustained virologic response (SVR), which is tantamount to virologic cure and, as such, is expected to benefit nearly all chronically infected persons. When the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first interferon-sparing treatment for HCV infection, many patients who had previously been "warehoused" sought treatment. The infrastructure (ie, experienced practitioners, budgeted healthcare dollars, etc) did not yet exist to treat all patients immediately. Thus, the panel offered guidance for prioritizing treatment first for those with the greatest need.


The blood libel that we provide for you will be ultimate to give preference. This reading book is your chosen book to accompany you when in your free time, in your lonely. This kind of book can help you to heal the lonely and get or add the inspirations to be more inoperative. Yeah, book as the widow of the world can be very inspiring manners. As here, this book is also created by an inspiring author that can make influences of you to do more.


Note: SSRN is experimenting with enabling the distribution of different types of files: slides, spreadsheets, video, etc. We are interested in our users desires to distribute files that go beyond word processing text files. You can communicate with Michael Jensen on these issues via his email address below. SSRN invites you to submit your own presentation slides. We present a positive model of integrity that, as we distinguish and define integrity, provides powerful access to increased performance for individuals, groups, organizations, and societies. Our model reveals the causal link between integrity and increased performance, quality of life, and value-creation for all entities, and provides access to that causal link. Integrity is thus a factor of production as important as knowledge and technology, yet its major role in productivity and performance has been largely hidden or unnoticed, or even ignored by economists and others. The philosophical discourse, and common usage as reflected in dictionary definitions, leave an overlap and confusion among the four phenomena of integrity, morality, ethics, and legality. This overlap and confusion confound the four phenomena so that the efficacy and potential power of each is seriously diminished. In this new model, we distinguish all four phenomena - integrity, morality, ethics, and legality - as existing within two separate realms. Integrity exists in a positive realm devoid of normative content. Integrity is thus not about good or bad, or right or wrong, or what should or should not be. Morality, ethics and legality exist in a normative realm of virtues (that is, they are about good and bad, right and wrong, or what should or should not be). Furthermore, within their respective realms, each of the four phenomena is distinguished as belonging to a distinct and separate domain, and the definition of each as a term is made clear, unambiguous, and non-overlapping. We distinguish the domain of integrity as the objective state or condition of an object, system, person, group, or organizational entity, and, consistent with the first two of the three definitions in Webster's dictionary, define integrity as a state or condition of being whole, complete, unbroken, unimpaired, sound, perfect condition. We assert that integrity (the condition of being whole and complete) is a necessary condition for workability, and that the resultant level of workability determines the available opportunity for performance. Hence, the way we treat integrity in our model provides an unambiguous and actionable access to the opportunity for superior performance, no matter how one defines performance. For an individual we distinguish integrity as a matter of that person's word being whole and complete. For a group or organizational entity we define integrity as that group' or organization's word being whole and complete. A group's or organization's word consists of what is said between the people in that group or organization, and what is said by or on behalf of the group or organization. In that context, we define integrity for an individual, group, or organization as: honoring one's word. Oversimplifying somewhat, "honoring your word", as we define it, means you either keep your word, or as soon as you know that you will not, you say that you will not be keeping your word to those who were counting on your word and clean up any mess you caused by not keeping your word. By "keeping your word" we mean doing what you said you would do and by the time you said you would do it. Honoring your word is also the route to creating whole and complete social and working relationships. In addition, it provides an actionable pathway to earning the trust of others. We demonstrate that the application of cost-benefit analysis to honoring your word guarantees that you will be untrustworthy. And that, with one exception, you will not be a person of integrity, thereby reducing both the workability of your life and your opportunity for performance. The one exception to this form of being out of integrity is, if when giving your word you have announced that you will apply cost-benefit analysis to honoring your word. In this case you have maintained your integrity, but you have also announced that you are an unmitigated opportunist. The virtually automatic application of cost-benefit analysis to one's integrity (an inherent tendency in most of us) lies at the heart of much out-of-integrity and untrustworthy behavior in modern life. Regarding the relationship between integrity, and the three virtue phenomena of morality, ethics and legality, this new model: 1) encompasses all four terms in one consistent theory, 2) makes clear and unambiguous the "moral compasses" potentially available in each of the three virtue phenomena, and 3) by revealing the relationship between honoring the standards of the three virtue phenomena and performance (including being complete as a person and the quality of life), raises the likelihood that the now clear moral compasses can actually shape human behavior. This all falls out primarily from the unique treatment of integrity in our model as a purely positive phenomenon, independent of normative value judgments. In summary, we show that defining integrity as honoring one's word (as we have defined "honoring one's word"): 1) provides an unambiguous and actionable access to the opportunity for superior performance and competitive advantage at both the individual and organizational level, and 2) empowers the three virtue phenomena of morality, ethics and legality. PDF file of Keynote slides for seminars at the Gruter Institute Conference on Values, Harvard Business School, June 2006; Simon School of Business, U. of Rochester; Fisher College of Business, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, Sept. 2006, Nottingham College of Business, Nottingham, UK, ESADE Business School, Barcelona, Spain; HEC, Paris, France, Nov. 2006, Yale Symposium on Corporate Governance, Inaugural Lecture, (Yale Law School and Yale School of Organization and Management), New Haven, CT, January 2007, Gruter Institute Squaw Valley Conference: Law, Brain and Behavior, May 2007, Harvard Business School Negotiations Organizations and Markets Seminar, Sept. 2007; Yale School of Management, Sept. 2007: MIT Sloan School of Management Leadership Center, Cambridge, MA, Oct. 2007; Harvard Law School Law, Economics and Organizations Research Seminar, Cambridge, MA, Oct. 2007; USC Marshall School of Business, Finance and Economics Dept. Distinguished Speaker Series, Nov. 2007; LeBow College Corporate Governance Conference, Philadelphia, PA, April 2008; Special Seminar Series, Business Department, Juan Carlos III University, Madrid, Spain, April, 2008; Herbert Simon Lecture, Rajk Laszlo College, Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest, Hungary, April 21, 2008; Exeter at Said Business School, Oxford, UK, April 24, 2008; U. of Rochester Simon School of Business Alumni Seminar, NYC, May 5, 2008; DePaul U. Kellstdat School of Business, Chicago, IL, May 8, 2008; 1st IESE Conference on Humanizing the Firm and the Management Profession, IESE Business School, Barcelona, Spain, July 2, 2008 Stern Stewart International Finance Summit, Cape Town, South Africa, July 31, 2008; Concordia University John Molson School of Business, Montreal, Quebec, CA Sept. 16, 2008; Institute of Corporate Directors Conference on Governance and Financial Markets in North America, Montreal, Quebec, CA, Sept. 19, 2008; Duisenberg School of Finance, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Oct. 14, 2008; Paduano Faculty Research Symposium in Business Ethics, Stern School of Business, New York, Oct. 23, 2008; Olin School of Business Faculty Forum Sponsored by the Center for Research in Economics and Strategy and the Center for the Study of Ethics and Human Values, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, Nov. 6, 2008; Fisher School of Business, Ohio State U., Columbus, OH, Nov. 7, 2008; United States Air Force Academy, Platinum Series, Colorado Springs, CO, Jan. 21, 2009; Texas AM Social Innovation Research Seminar Series, INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France, March 16, 2009; Distinguished Scholar/Teacher Lecture Series, McCombs School of Business, U. of Texas, Austin, Texas, Nov. 12, 2009; Hankamer School of Business, Baylor University, Waco, TX, Nov. 13, 2009.


In the past decade, the existence of shaken baby syndrome (SBS) has been called into serious question by biomechanical studies, the medical and legal literature, and the media. As a result of these questions, SBS has been renamed abusive head trauma (AHT). This is, however, primarily a terminological shift: like SBS, AHT refers to the two-part hypothesis that one can reliably diagnose shaking or abuse from three internal findings (subdural hemorrhage, retinal hemorrhage and encephalopathy) and that one can identify the perpetrator based on the onset of symptoms. Over the past decade, we have learned that this hypothesis fits poorly with the anatomy and physiology of the infant brain, that there are many natural and accidental causes for these findings, and that the onset of symptoms does not reliably indicate timing. In the last issue of this journal, Dr. Sandeep Narang marshaled the arguments and evidence that he believes support the diagnostic specificity of the medical signs that are used to diagnose SBS/AHT. Dr. Narang does not dispute the alternative diagnoses but nonetheless argues that, in the absence of a proven alternative, the SBS/AHT hypothesis is sufficiently reliable to support criminal convictions. The cited studies do not, however, support this position since they assume the validity of the hypothesis without examining it and classify cases accordingly, often without considering alternative diagnoses. To address this problem, Dr. Narang argues that, in diagnosing SBS/AHT, we should rely on the judgment of child abuse pediatricians and other clinicians who endorse the hypothesis. Reliance on groups that endorse a particular hypothesis is, however, antithetical to evidence-based medicine and Daubert, which require an objective assessment of the scientific evidence. In the past decades, thousands of parents and caretakers have been accused "and many convicted" of abusing children based on a hypothesis that is not scientifically supported. While we must do everything in our power to protect children, we must refrain from invoking abuse as a default diagnosis for medical findings that are complex, poorly understood and have a wide range of causes, some doubtlessly yet unknown. To this end, we are calling for collaboration between the medical and legal communities for the sole purpose of "getting it right."


The reputation of the financial industry could hardly be worse than it is today in the painful aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. New York Times best-selling economist Robert Shiller is no apologist for the sins of finance--he is probably the only person to have predicted both the stock market bubble of 2000 and the real estate bubble that led up to the subprime mortgage meltdown. But in this important and timely book, Shiller argues that, rather than condemning finance, we need to reclaim it for the common good. He makes a powerful case for recognizing that finance, far from being a parasite on society, is one of the most powerful tools we have for solving our common problems and increasing the general well-being. We need more financial innovation--not less--and finance should play a larger role in helping society achieve its goals.

 Challenging the public and its leaders to rethink finance and its role in society, Shiller argues that finance should be defined not merely as the manipulation of money or the management of risk but as the stewardship of society's assets. He explains how people in financial careers--from CEO, investment manager, and banker to insurer, lawyer, and regulator--can and do manage, protect, and increase these assets. He describes how finance has historically contributed to the good of society through inventions such as insurance, mortgages, savings accounts, and pensions, and argues that we need to envision new ways to rechannel financial creativity to benefit society as a whole.

 Ultimately, Shiller shows how society can once again harness the power of finance for the greater good.


Objective: Based on the largest series reported of giant intra- and extracranial calvarial meningiomas (GIECM) the purpose of the present study was to characterize the treatment and outcome data associated with patients operated on GIECM and to describe our experience in the management of this rare and therapeutically demanding tumour entity.

Methods: The data of 12 patients (7/12 males, 5/12 females) with surgically treated GIECM at the University Hospitals Aachen and Bern between 1994 and 2011 were retrospectively analyzed. The mean patient age was 58 years (range, 22 to 78 years). Symptom distribution included extracranial swelling (12/12), seizures (5/12), headache (4/12), gait disturbance (3/12), dizziness (2/12), and impaired vision (1/12). GIECM were located frontal (6/12), temporal (3/12), parietal, fronto-parietal, and parieto-occipital (1/12 each). Microsurgical resection with acrylic-augmented cranioplasty was performed in all patients and 11/12 patients received dural repair with synthetic (7/11) or autologous (4/11) patch grafts. Surgical excision in two stages with primary removal of the extracranial meningioma component was undertaken in 2/12 patients, whereas preoperative embolization and postoperative radiotherapy were applied in 1/12 patient each.

Results: In contrast to intradural meningiomas GIECM mainly affect male patients at a comparatively younger age. GIECM could be completely (9/12) or subtotally (3/12) resected. Surgical-associated complications included minor CSF leak (6/12), wound healing disturbance (3/12), venous engorgement, and haemorrhage (2/12 each), requiring reoperation in 3/12 cases. Histopathological examination revealed meningothelial (6/12), atypical (4/12), and transitional (1/12) GIECM. 10/12 patients exhibited excellent postoperative clinical outcome, 1/12 patient each deteriorated or died of pulmonary embolism.

Conclusions: The operative management of GIECM is challenging, carries a substantial risk, and demands special strategies because of the large tumour size, anatomical involvement of scalp, calvaria, meninges, brain or vascular structures, and more frequent atypical histology. Although microsurgical resection with cranioplasty and mostly dural grafting usually results in a good clinical outcome, the potential complication rate is markedly higher when compared to smaller meningiomas without extracranial component. Preoperative embolization and staging of surgical resection are possible additional therapeutic options.


Prostate cancer preferentially metastasizes to the skeleton and abundant evidence exists that osteoblasts specifically support the metastatic process, including cancer stem cell niche formation. At early stages of bone metastasis, crosstalk of prostate cancer cells and osteoblasts through soluble molecules results in a decrease of cancer cell proliferation, accompanied by altered adhesive properties and increased expression of bone-specific genes, or osteomimicry. Osteoblasts synthesize a plethora of biologically active factors, which comprise the unique bone microenvironment. By means of quantitative real-time RT-PCR it was determined that exposure to the osteoblast secretome induced gene expression changes in prostate cancer cells, including the upregulation of osteomimetic genes such as BMP2, AP, COL1A1, OPG and RANKL. IL6 and TGFbeta1 signaling pathway components also became upregulated at early time points. Moreover, osteoblast-released IL6 and TGFbeta1 contributed to the upregulation of OPG mRNA in LNCaP. Thus, the earliest response of prostate cancer cells to osteoblast-released factors, which ultimately cause metastatic cells to assume an osteomimetic phenotype, involved activation of paracrine and autocrine IL6 and TGFbeta signaling. On the other hand, a microarray analysis showed that osteoblasts exposed to the secretome of prostate cancer cells exhibited gene expression alterations suggestive of repressed proliferation, decreased matrix synthesis and inhibited immune response, which together indicate enhanced preosteocytic differentiation. TGFbeta signaling, known to inhibit osteoblast maturation, was strongly suppressed, as shown by elevated expression of negative regulators, downregulation of pathway components and of numerous target genes. Transcriptional downregulation of osteoblast inhibitory molecules such as DKK1 and FST also occurred, with concomitant upregulation of the osteoinductive molecules ADM, STC1 and BMP2, and of the transcription factors CBFA1 and HES1, which promote osteoblast differentiation. Finally, the mRNA encoding NPPB, the precursor of a molecule implicated in the inhibition of TGFbetaeffects, in bone formation and in stem cell maintenance, became upregulated after coculture both in osteoblasts and in prostate cancer cells. These results provide an insight into potential mechanisms of dysregulated bone formation in metastatic prostate cancer, as well as mechanisms by which osteoblasts might enhance the invasive, osteomimetic and stem cell-like properties of the tumor cells. In particular, the differential modulation of TGFbetasignaling in prostate cancer cells and osteoblasts appears to merit further research.


Enterprise apps on mobile devices typically need to communicate with other system components by consuming web services. Since most of the current mobile device platforms (such as Android) do not provide built-in features for consuming SOAP services, extensions have to be designed. Additionally in order to accommodate the typical enhanced security requirements of enterprise apps, it is important to be able to deal with SOAP web service security extensions on client side. In this article we show that neither the built-in SOAP capabilities for Android web service clients are sufficient for enterprise apps nor are the necessary security features supported by the platform as is. After discussing different existing extensions making Android devices SOAP capable we explain why none of them is really satisfactory in an enterprise context. Then we present our own solution which accommodates not only SOAP but also the WS-Security features on top of SOAP. Our solution heavily relies on code generation in order to keep the flexibility benefits of SOAP on one hand while still keeping the development effort manageable for software development. Our approach provides a good foundation for the implementation of other SOAP extensions apart from security on the Android platform as well. In addition our solution based on the gSOAP framework may be used for other mobile platforms in a similar manner. c © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of [name organizer].


Java Enterprise Applications (JEAs) are large systems that integrate multiple technologies and programming languages. Transactions in JEAs simplify the development of code that deals with failure recovery and multi-user coordination by guaranteeing atomicity of sets of operations. The heterogeneous nature of JEAs, however, can obfuscate conceptual errors in the application code, and in particular can hide incorrect declarations of transaction scope. In this paper we present a technique to expose and analyze the application transaction scope in JEAs by merging and analyzing information from multiple sources. We also present several novel visualizations that aid in the analysis of transaction scope by highlighting anomalies in the specification of transactions and violations of architectural constraints. We have validated our approach on two versions of a large commercial case study.


This article addresses issues facing Canadian literacy researchers who are working in global contexts and particularly the potential complications that arise when research conducted in developing countries is funded by sources such as international aid institutions, foreign governments, non-governmental organizations, and donor-based organizations. We focus especially on the issue of development of local research capacity and expansion of the knowledge economy. We first create a framework by describing the types of literacy projects funded by alternatives to the standard research grants of government agencies. We next review tensions that can arise between researchers and these types of funding organizations. We then turn to examples of current Canadian literacy research carried out in developing countries that provide guidance in designing, conducting, and publishing locally-empowering and globally-connected research.


For Computer Systems, Computer Organization and Architecture courses in CS, EE, and ECE departments. Few students studying computer science or computer engineering will ever have the opportunity to build a computer system. On the other hand, most students will be required to use and program computers on a near daily basis. Computer Systems: A Programmers Perspective introduces the important and enduring concepts that underlie computer systems by showing how these ideas affect the correctness, performance, and utility of application programs. The text's hands-on approach (including a comprehensive set of labs) helps students understand the under-the-hood operation of a modern computer system and prepares them for future courses in systems topics such as compilers, computer architecture, operating systems, and networking.Visit the CSS:AP web page http://csapp.cs.cmu.edu for more information and resources.


Bacillus subtilis is a rod shaped gram-positive bacterium that has been extensively studied for decades. The scientific interest lies, in large part, to its use as a model organism for the study of sporulation, which is a simple form of cell differentiation. It is also a very important organism in industry and everyday life as it is used to produce antibiotics, and other important compounds. B. subtilis is also used as a probiotic and as an additive to organic fertilizers and plant treatments because of its antifungal properties. The regulation of the initiation and continuation of sporulation has been well studied, but the metabolic changes the cell must go through are still in question and the subject of current study. One of the metabolic changes that happens in the cell is the activation of the mmg operon by sE in the mother cell during sporulation. This operon is composed of six genes that encode a putative fatty acid degradation pathway and the methylcitric acid cycle. This cycle takes propionyl-CoA (a fatty acid degradation metabolite) and condenses it with oxaloacetate into 2-methylcitrate, and through the rest of the cycle produces pyruvate and succinate that can enter the citric acid cycle. One gene in the middle of the putative methylcitric acid cycle is mmgE. This gene has not previously been studied. Its sequence, both genetic and proteomic, are a very close match to 2-methylcitrate dehydratases found in other organisms like Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium. The mmgE gene was cloned into an overexpression strain of E. coli and the protein was isolated for study through Ni-NTA chromatography. Through UV/Vis spectrometry, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and mass spectrometry the activity of this enzyme, on 2-methylcitrate, was studied. It was found that this enzyme does perform 2-methylcitrate dehydratase activity.


Industry is aware of the need for Control System (CS) security, but in on-site assessments, Idaho National Laboratory (INL) has observed that security procedures and devices are not consistently and effectively implemented. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), National Cyber Security Division (NCSD), established the Control Systems Security Center (CSSC) at INL to help industry and government improve the security of the CSs used in the nation's critical infrastructures. One of the main CSSC objectives is to identify control system vulnerabilities and develop effective mitigations for them. This paper discusses common problems and vulnerabilities seen in on-site CS assessments and suggests mitigation strategies to provide asset owners with the information they need to better protect their systems from common security flaws.


William Lewis May, otherwise known as Lewis, was born in 1861 in South Australia, the eldest son of William and Mary May (nee Cotton) and together with the rest of his family created a fine orchard and homes in Sandford. He had many interests such as Egyptology, botany and gardening and traced the genealogical history of his own family. However it is for his shell collections that he is best known.For many years he concentrated on the study of shells amassing one of the best collections of English shells outside England and one of the best collections of Australian and Tasmanian shells in the world. He created exquisite drawings of shells which were published to illustrate his book on the subject. He also painted Tasmanian wildflowers and birds and found time to be Clerk of Monthly Meeting for 15 years, was on the Standing Committee of the Society and on the Committee of the Friends' High School.


Abstract. The effects of lightning and other meteorological factors on wildfire activity in the North American boreal forest are statistically analyzed during the fire seasons of 2000–2006 through an integration of the following data sets: the MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) level 2 fire products, the 3-hourly 32-km gridded meteorological data from North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR), and the lightning data collected by the Canadian Lightning Detection Network (CLDN) and the Alaska Lightning Detection Network (ALDN). Positive anomalies of the 500 hPa geopotential height field, convective available potential energy (CAPE), number of cloud-to-ground lightning strikes, and the number of consecutive dry days are found to be statistically important to the seasonal variation of MODIS fire counts in a large portion of Canada and the entirety of Alaska. Analysis of fire occurrence patterns in the eastern and western boreal forest regions shows that dry (in the absence of precipitation) lightning strikes account for only 20% of the total lightning strikes, but are associated with (and likely cause) 40% of the MODIS observed fire counts in these regions. The chance for ignition increases when a threshold of at least 10 dry strikes per NARR grid box and at least 10 consecutive dry days is reached. Due to the orientation of the large-scale pattern, complex differences in fire and lightning occurrence and variability were also found between the eastern and western sub-regions. Locations with a high percentage of dry strikes commonly experience an increased number of fire counts, but the mean number of fire counts per dry strike is more than 50% higher in western boreal forest sub-region, suggesting a geographic and possible topographic influence. While wet lightning events are found to occur with a large range of CAPE values, a high probability for dry lightning occurs only when 500 hPa geopotential heights are above ~5700 m and CAPE values are near the maximum observed level, underscoring the importance of low-level instability to boreal fire weather forecasts.


Judicial interpretations of the Equal Protection Clause have undergone a major transformation over the last fifty years. A Supreme Court once suspicious of the democratic losses of discrete and insular minorities, now closely scrutinizes their democratic victories. A Court once active in structuring the democratic process to be inclusive of racial and other minorities, now views minority representation in the political process as essentially irrelevant. A Court once deferential to exercises of congressional power that enhanced the equal protection rights of minorities, now gives Congress much less leeway.What explains these shifts? An easy explanation is that the Supreme Court has simply become more conservative. But what underlies this conservatism? In this Article, I argue that the Court's own evolving conception of politics underlies the changes in the meaning of equal protection. In the past, the Court saw politics through the lens of pluralist theory, the crucial defect of which was the risk that minorities would be politically marginalized. That understanding has given way to a public choice conception in which the Court presumes these same minorities to be too politically powerful. In essence, one form of judicial distrust of democratic politics has replaced another.I argue that two primary sources produced this renewed distrust: changing conservative views of the position of minorities in politics and a conservative legal movement that rejected pluralism in favor of public choice theory as the most accurate description of the operation of politics. I conclude by identifying important normative questions that this theory raises for constitutional law scholars and by offering a prescription for civil rights advocates seeking to influence judicial interpretations of the Equal Protection Clause.


This paper continues our analysis of the Universons hypothesis and its compatibility with existing knowledge. We analyze massive bosons mass and resonances and find harmonic numbers consistent with existing mass measurements or estimates, including the possible Higgs signal detected at CERN. Using quarks and massive bosons, resonances imply strong symmetry breaking for the first quarks generation and the W boson, but the same numbers possibly relate to a hidden harmony. We find two distinct logics to explain Mikhailov magnetic charge. The first is based on our analysis of charge/energy ratio and inertia, and the second uses particles resonances. The constraints imposed by inertia to the properties of absorption imply that pseudo-quantization of magnetic charges is consistent with Special Relativity if the flux propagates at the speed of light or much faster. In both cases, the consequence is the existence of an aether drift effect when measuring one-way light propagation, in agreement with existing positive confirmations, but no drift is measurable using the classical Michelson-Morley experiment. We discuss the interest the theory and compare briefly with current advanced concepts.


Under the concept of "Industry 4.0", production processes will be pushed to be increasingly interconnected, information based on a real time basis and, necessarily, much more efficient. In this context, capacity optimization goes beyond the traditional aim of capacity maximization, contributing also for organization's profitability and value. Indeed, lean management and continuous improvement approaches suggest capacity optimization instead of maximization. The study of capacity optimization and costing models is an important research topic that deserves contributions from both the practical and theoretical perspectives. This paper presents and discusses a mathematical model for capacity management based on different costing models (ABC and TDABC). A generic model has been developed and it was used to analyze idle capacity and to design strategies towards the maximization of organization's value. The trade-off capacity maximization vs operational efficiency is highlighted and it is shown that capacity optimization might hide operational inefficiency. © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Manufacturing Engineering Society International Conference 2017.


Teachers possess the most important and critical position in the entire education system. Successful and effective teaching learning process depends upon the quality of a teacher. The purpose of this research study was to identify the problems which affect the performance of secondary school teachers. The objectives of the study were: (a) to identify the problems faced by male and female secondary school teachers in District Karak (b) to make workable recommendations to enhance the performance of male and female secondary school teachers. All the male and female secondary school teachers in District Karak, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Pakistan) constituted the population of the study. The study was delimited to only 60 female and 80 male Govt. High Schools. In order to ensure adequate representation of the population, only 120 female and 160 male secondary school teachers were selected as sample randomly. The study was descriptive type and the researchers designed a questionnaire on five likert rating scale for the collection of data. Pilot testing was conducted to remove the misconceptions, ambiguities and weakness of the questions in the questionnaire. After pilot testing the questionnaire was revised and its final version was prepared in the light of suggestions given by the experts. In order to collect data, the researchers personally visited to the respective participants and distributed questionnaires among them and data was collected. Then it was organized, tabulated and analyzed. For the statisitcal analysis of the data, the percentage, means, standard deviations, and differences of means were computed for each male and female SSTs. Significance of difference between the mean opinions of both the male and females SSTs were tested at 0.05 level by applying t-test. After statistical analysis of the data, the researchers arrived at the conclusions that there are various problems which negatively affect the performance of secondary school teachers. These problems are: unattractive pay package; lack of basic facilities; overcrowded classes; misbehaviors of students; financial crises of teachers; overwork load; long distance to school; autocratic environment inside school etc. In the light of the findings and conclusions, it is recommended that teachers should be given attractive salaries and pay scale. Educational facilities should be provided to them. Heads of the institutions should be democratic minded and adopted the principles of equality. KEYWORDS: Identification, problems, secondary school teachers, secondary school level


Abstract. We use aircraft observations of carbon monoxide (CO) from the NASA ARCTAS and NOAA ARCPAC campaigns in April 2008 together with multiyear (2003–2008) CO satellite data from the AIRS instrument and a global chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem) to better understand the sources, transport, and interannual variability of pollution in the Arctic in spring. Model simulation of the aircraft data gives best estimates of CO emissions in April 2008 of 26 Tg month−1 for Asian anthropogenic, 9.4 for European anthropogenic, 4.1 for North American anthropogenic, 15 for Russian biomass burning (anomalously large that year), and 23 for Southeast Asian biomass burning. We find that Asian anthropogenic emissions are the dominant source of Arctic CO pollution everywhere except in surface air where European anthropogenic emissions are of similar importance. Russian biomass burning makes little contribution to mean CO (reflecting the long CO lifetime) but makes a large contribution to CO variability in the form of combustion plumes. Analysis of two pollution events sampled by the aircraft demonstrates that AIRS can successfully observe pollution transport to the Arctic in the mid-troposphere. The 2003–2008 record of CO from AIRS shows that interannual variability averaged over the Arctic cap is very small. AIRS CO columns over Alaska are highly correlated with the Ocean Nino Index, suggesting a link between El Nino and Asian pollution transport to the Arctic. AIRS shows lower-than-average CO columns over Alaska during April 2008, despite the Russian fires, due to a weakened Aleutian Low hindering transport from Asia and associated with the moderate 2007–2008 La Nina. This suggests that Asian pollution influence over the Arctic may be particularly large under strong El Nino conditions.


Many of the earliest stem cell studies were conducted on cells isolated from tumors rather than from embryos. Of particular interest was research on embryonic carcinoma cells (EC), a type of stem cell derived from teratocarcinoma. The EC research laid the foundation for the later discovery of and subsequent work on embryonic stem cells (ESC). Both ESC isolated from the mouse (mESC) and then later from humans (hESC) shared not only pluripotency with their EC cousins, but also robust tumorigenicity as each readily form teratoma. Surprisingly, decades after the discovery of mESC, the question of what drives ESC to form tumors remains largely an open one. This gap in the field is particularly serious as stem cell tumorigenicity represents the key obstacle to the safe use of stem cell‐based regenerative medicine therapies. Although some adult stem cell therapies appear to be safe, they have only a very narrow range of uses in human disease. Our understanding of the tumorigenicity of human induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSC), perhaps the most promising modality for future patient‐specific regenerative medicine therapies, is rudimentary. However, IPSC are predicted to possess tumorigenic potential equal to or greater than that of ESC. Here, the links between pluripotency and tumorigenicity are explored. New methods for more accurately testing the tumorigenic potential of IPSC and of other stem cells applicable to regenerative medicine are proposed. Finally, the most promising emerging approaches for overcoming the challenges of stem cell tumorigenicity are highlighted. Stem Cells 2009;27:1050–1056


The German Society of Plastic and Reconconstructive Surgery DGPW takes pride in announcing the launch of our new scientific online journal "GMS Interdisciplinary Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery DGPW" at the beginning of our 50th anniversary. Our main focus has always been the interdisciplinary discussion of plastic and reconstructive aspects of surgery. DGPW today therefore represents 700members from all surgical areas of expertise interested in reconstruction of trauma or tumor related defects, deformities and malfunctions. According to our philosophy the new journal offers a platform for presentation and discussion for a wide range of surgical topics. For our launch articles on urological, gynaecological, bariatric, septic, traumatological and abdomino-surgical topics have been submitted, reviewed and are now available for open access. More papers are being reviewed at the moment and will be avialable soon. I invite and encourage all our readers to submit original and review articles for publication. With my best wishes for 2012 Ralf H. Gahr Editor-in-Chief/General Secretary DGPW


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I study a dynamic game of two-party competition in which party preferences are private information, exhibit serial correlation, and change with higher probability following defeat in elections. Assuming partisans care sufficiently about office, extreme policies are pursued with positive probability by the government when (a) both parties have a reputation for being extreme that exceeds a fixed level, and (b) elections are close in that both parties have similar reputations. Two qualitatively different equilibrium dynamics are possible depending on the speed with which the latent preferences of parties in government shift between moderation and extremism relative to the opposition. One dynamic produces regular government turnover and extreme policies along the path of play, whereas the other involves a strong incumbency advantage and moderate policies.


"Representing the Race" tells the story of an enduring paradox of American race relations, through the prism of a collective biography of African American lawyers who worked in the era of segregation. Practicing the law and seeking justice for diverse clients, they confronted a tension between their racial identity as black men and women and their professional identity as lawyers. Both blacks and whites demanded that these attorneys stand apart from their racial community as members of the legal fraternity. Yet, at the same time, they were expected to be 'authentic' - that is, in sympathy with the black masses. This conundrum, as Kenneth W. Mack shows, continues to reverberate through American politics today. Mack reorients what we thought we knew about famous figures such as Thurgood Marshall, who rose to prominence by convincing local blacks and prominent whites that he was - as nearly as possible - one of them. But he also introduces a little-known cast of characters to the American racial narrative. These include Loren Miller, the biracial Los Angeles lawyer who, after learning in college that he was black, became a Marxist critic of his fellow black attorneys and ultimately a leading civil rights advocate; and Pauli Murray, a black woman who seemed neither black nor white, neither man nor woman, who helped invent sex discrimination as a category of law. The stories of these lawyers pose the unsettling question: what, ultimately, does it mean to 'represent' a minority group in the give-and-take of American law and politics.


Let $G$ denote a directed graph with adjacency matrix $Q$ and in-degree matrix $D$. We consider the Kirchhoff matrix $L=D-Q$, sometimes referred to as the directed Laplacian . A classical result of Kirchhoff asserts that when $G$ is undirected, the multiplicity of the eigenvalue 0 equals the number of connected components of $G$. This fact has a meaningful generalization to directed graphs, as was recently observed by Chebotarev and Agaev in 2005. Since this result has many important applications in the sciences, we offer an independent and self-contained proof of their theorem, showing in this paper that the algebraic and geometric multiplicities of 0 are equal, and that a graph-theoretic property determines the dimension of this eigenspace – namely, the number of reaches of the directed graph. We also extend their results by deriving a natural basis for the corresponding eigenspace. The results are proved in the general context of stochastic matrices, and apply equally well to directed graphs with non-negative edge weights.


We introduce the area of remote physical device fingerprinting, or fingerprinting a physical device, as opposed to an operating system or class of devices, remotely, and without the fingerprinted device's known cooperation. We accomplish this goal by exploiting small, microscopic deviations in device hardware: clock skews. Our techniques do not require any modification to the fingerprinted devices. Our techniques report consistent measurements when the measurer is thousands of miles, multiple hops, and tens of milliseconds away from the fingerprinted device, and when the fingerprinted device is connected to the Internet from different locations and via different access technologies. Further one can apply our passive and semi-passive techniques when the fingerprinted device is behind a NAT or firewall, and also when the device's system time is maintained via NTP or SNTP. One can use our techniques to obtain information about whether two devices an the Internet, possibly shifted in time or IP addresses, are actually the same physical device. Example applications include: computer forensics; tracking, with some probability, a physical device as it connects to the Internet from different public access points; counting the number of devices behind a NAT even when the devices use constant or random IP ID; remotely probing a block of addresses to determine if the addresses correspond to virtual hosts, e.g., as part of a virtual honeynet; and unanonymizing anonymized network traces.


Intense heavy ion beams are an excellent tool to create large volumes of high energy density (HED) matter with very uniform physical conditions. Experimental study of matter under extreme conditions of density, temperature and pressure is of considerable interest to fundamental research in the fields of plasma physics, equation-of-state (EOS) of matter, astrophysics, geophysics and for the Inertial Fusion Energy applications as well as for designing basic nuclear physics experiments. One important problem in high-energy-density matter research is investigation of physical processes that occur during the slowing down of intense beams of energetic heavy ions in matter. High energy density induced by an intense heavy ion beam in an initially solid target leads to the creation of macroscopic volumes of dense, strongly coupled plasmas. Due to the fast hydrodynamic response of the heated target material, the line density of the target decreases and consequently the energy loss of the ion beam penetrating through the target is also reduced. Therefore measuring the energy loss of the ion beam during the interaction would provide important information about the physical processes in HED matter. At the GSI-Darmstadt, intense beams of energetic heavy ions have been used to generate HED states in matter by impact on solid targets. A novel diagnostic technique for the HED matter experiments, where the same intense beam of energetic heavy ions that heats the target material is used to provide information about the physical state of the interior of the target has been proposed. This is accomplished by measuring the energy loss dynamics (ELD) of the beam emerging from the back surface of the target. For this purpose, a new time-resolving energy loss spectrometer based on an original principle has been developed. This spectrometer, called scintillating Bragg-peak spectrometer allows for wide-range precision measurements of heavy-ion beam energy spectra with nanosecond time resolution. For the first time the energy loss dynamics of intense heavy ion beams interacting with dense matter has been observed experimentally. The ELD measurements of intense (108-1010 particles/pulse) focused beams of 238U, 86Kr, 40Ar and 18O ions with 150-350 MeV/nucleon initial energy interacting with rare-gas solid (RGS) targets, such as solid Ne and solid Xe have been carried out. A significant reduction in the ion beam energy loss during the interaction has been recorded which is due to the rapid hydrodynamic response of the ion-beam heated target matter. In order to interpret the experimentally observed physical phenomena, theoretical calculations of the energy loss dynamics have been performed. For these calculations a sophisticated two-dimensional hydrodynamic code BIG-2 has been employed as well as different EOS models for the RGS target materials, namely, the SESAME (Los Alamos, USA) and ChTEOS (Chernogolovka, Russia). A comparison of the simulation results and the measured ELD data has shown that the SESAME EOS tables for RGS materials have a limited accuracy in certain parameter regimes where a correct description of the phase transitions is essential. The simulations performed with the ChTEOS model are in better agreement with the experimental ELD data, in particular for solid Ne targets. We believe that the developed ELD diagnostic technique is an extremely useful tool for HED matter experiments, providing experimental data for verification of hydrodynamic computer codes and underlying theoretical models. The ELD measurements will be employed as a standard diagnostics in future experiments on investigation of the HED matter induced by intense heavy ion beams.


Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth are overrepresented in the homeless youth population in North America. This review brings together the literature on the topic of LGBTQ youth homelessness and provides a comprehensive overview of the unique needs of this population, as well as gaps and barriers to support. The review culminates in recommendations for support services and further research on this topic. This review should be particularly useful for youth shelter and service providers, and policy makers to respond to the needs of this population and to enhance knowledge in this area more broadly.


The uncertainty in age estimation by otolith reading may be at the root of the large variability in red mullet (Mullus barbatus) growth models in the Mediterranean. In the MEDITS survey, red mullet age data are produced following the same sampling protocol and otolith reading methodology. However, ageing is assigned using different interpretation schemes, including variations in theoretical birthdate and number of false rings considered, in addition to differences in the experience level of readers. The present work analysed the influence of these variations and the geographical location of sampling on red mullet ageing using a multivariate approach (principal component analysis). Reader experience was the most important parameter correlated with the variability. The number of rings considered false showed a significant effect on the variability in the first age groups but had less influence on the older ones. The effect of the theoretical birthdate was low in all age groups. Geographical location had a significant influence, with longitude showing greater effects than latitude. In light of these results, workshops, exchanges and the adoption of a common ageing protocol based on age validation studies are considered fundamental tools for improving precision in red mullet ageing.


The Intelligent Design creationist movement seems to capture the interest of those who study
rhetoric as a means to address one principal question: How can an argument so factually
bankrupt as the neo-creationist narrative persuade so many people? This thesis is not an attempt
to offer a comprehensive answer to this query, but instead to explore one of the many rhetorical
devices employed by the Intelligent Design advocates themselves: the appeal to the either-or
fallacy that suggests that all evidence against the position they seek to call into question
(biological evolution) necessarily supports Intelligent Design. Logically, this argument can only
claim cogency if there exist only two argumentative alternatives. As this is not the case (any
number of alternatives besides Darwinian evolution and biblical creationism, or "Intelligent
Design," as it is now known, could be considered), Intelligent Design advocates simply structure
their arguments to represent the idea that it is, in fact, the case; that rather than a range of
possible explanations for the existence and diversity of life, the individual must choose between
the present scientific explanations and the biblical explanation. This misrepresentation is
disingenuous and deceptive, but it is also highly effective. Why? I will argue that the two-party
democratic tradition in which the American citizen is raised trains her to see that: 1) There are
two rather than many sides to a discussion; 2) The two positions are of relatively equal merit;
and 3) Evidence against one position supports the other. The natural extension of this is that
Intelligent Design creationists can win a debate simply by taking advantage of terms that present
their arguments in a more favorable light than that for which there is factual warrant.


Institute of Technology-Atlanta, USA in December, 2005. Dr. Tomar has made 70 technical presentations, edited/contributed to 3 books and journal special issues, written 1 book, 45 peer-reviewed international journal publications, 14 proceeding articles, 1 research patent, 2 invention disclosures, and given numerous invited talks at universities as well as international conferences. He serves on editorial board of three international journals focusing on nanotechnology, has served as a peer reviewer for more than 25 international journal publications as well as organized/co-organized five national and international symposia for societies such as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the Materials Research Society (MRS), and the minerals, metals, and materials society (TMS). He has been awarded the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFoSR)-Young Investigator Award (20091012), ASME Materials Division "Orr" Family award for excellence in failure of materials research (2010), Elsevier-Materials Science and Engineering-C Young Researcher Award for excellence in research at the interface of biology and materials engineering by a researcher under age 35, and TMS Early Career Faculty Fellow Award-Honorable Mention (2010). Funding for his work has come from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy (DoE), ARMY, office of naval research (ONR), and AFoSR. Dr. Tomar is a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), ASME, Society of Engineering Science, and TMS. Besides research Dr. Tomar has been a funding reviewer for two panels at NSF, two panels at DoE, one panel at Swiss National Science Foundation, and one panel at Hong-Kong University of Science and Technology. Dr. Tomar also has been involved in education and its integration with research activities at both grass-root and advanced levels. Dr. Tomar has been an active advocate and participant in establishing a pre-engineering program at West Side High School Gary-IN. He has also been active in integrating diverse groups in technical education both at undergraduate and graduate levels. PRISM Seminar Series – Spring 2011


According to Schon (1987), professional education should be centred on enhancing the practitioner's ability to reflect before taking action. This is important to the designer for two reasons. The first of these concerns real world professional situations, which are rarely clear and lack 'right answers', the successful professional requires the ability to learn by doing in order to handle complex and unpredictable problems with confidence. The second concerns the nature of the designer's relationship with design problems themselves. The designer's exploration of his/her own awareness develops in parallel with problem definition. Dorst and Cross (2001) describe this as a co-evolution of problem and solution and English (2006) argues that we cannot frame the problem without including in that design space the person who designs. Thus the process of engaging with a design problem involves a journey of self-exploration for the designer who needs to be appropriately equipped for unknown terrain. A distance learning Masters programme was validated in 1999, supporting professional designers to develop as reflective practitioners. The course has run successfully for eight years with students based in Brazil, Canada, UK and Ireland, Holland, Greece, Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and China. The author draws on the experience of delivering this programme to describe two approaches that have evolved in parallel to nurture the development of the reflective practitioner. The first of these encourages students to develop an action research process by applying reflective practice models as organising tools and recording templates. The second clarifies direction and focuses action to address fully and precisely the individual student's aims, insights and motivation. Both these approaches encourage a synergy between practice and theory and involve visual modelling and collaborative reflection through communities of practice. The application of these approaches is shown to generate fundamental insights that positively influence the future actions of students in professional practice. The paper concludes that the consciousness of the expert designer is a critical element of design space and summarises how the disciplined process and clear focus of the approaches discussed contribute to the development of personal confidence and awareness. Keywords:
creativity; reflective practice; design process ; design processes


The attitude of religious groups towards the use of capital punishment has ebbed and flowed throughout history. This essay contains an historical review of religious attitudes towards capital punishment and the influence of those attitudes on the state's use of the death penalty.The Christian Church has expressed strong support for capital punishment throughout most of its history, but in recent decades, opposition to the death penalty within the Catholic Church and many Protestant groups has emerged. The same is true with Judaism.Despite this recent abolitionist sentiment from an array of religious institutions, there has been a divergence of opinion between the "pulpit and the pew" as the laity in the United States continues to support the death penalty in large numbers. This divergence is due in part to the declining influence of religious organizations over the social policy choices of their members. Consequently, the fate of the death penalty in the United States will most likely be resolved in the realm of the secular rather than the sacred.


The nineteenth-century countercultures that came to define the bohemian lifestyle spanned both sides of the Atlantic, ranging from Walt Whitman to Josephine Baker, and from Gertrude Stein to Thelonius Monk. Bohemians is the graphic history of this movement and its illustrious figures, recovering the utopian ideas behind millennial communities, and covering the rise of Greenwich Village, the multiracial and radical jazz world, and West Coast and Midwest bohemians, among other scenes. Drawn by an all-star cast of comics artists, including rising figures like Sabrina Jones, Lance Tooks, and Summer McClinton, alongside established artists like Peter Kuper and Spain Rodriguez, Bohemians is a broad and entertaining account of the rebel impulse in American cultural history.


Named one of the ten best books of the year by the Chicago Tribune A Publishers Weekly best book of 2019 | A 2019 NPR Staff Pick A pathbreaking history of the United States' overseas possessions and the true meaning of its empire We are familiar with maps that outline all fifty states. And we are also familiar with the idea that the United States is an "empire," exercising power around the world. But what about the actual territories—the islands, atolls, and archipelagos—this country has governed and inhabited? In How to Hide an Empire, Daniel Immerwahr tells the fascinating story of the United States outside the United States. In crackling, fast-paced prose, he reveals forgotten episodes that cast American history in a new light. We travel to the Guano Islands, where prospectors collected one of the nineteenth century's most valuable commodities, and the Philippines, site of the most destructive event on U.S. soil. In Puerto Rico, Immerwahr shows how U.S. doctors conducted grisly experiments they would never have conducted on the mainland and charts the emergence of independence fighters who would shoot up the U.S. Congress. In the years after World War II, Immerwahr notes, the United States moved away from colonialism. Instead, it put innovations in electronics, transportation, and culture to use, devising a new sort of influence that did not require the control of colonies. Rich with absorbing vignettes, full of surprises, and driven by an original conception of what empire and globalization mean today, How to Hide an Empire is a major and compulsively readable work of history.


Vikas Swarup's spectacular debut novel opens in a jail cell in Mumbai, India, where Ram Mohammad Thomas is being held after correctly answering all twelve questions on India's biggest quiz show, "Who Will Win a Billion?" It is hard to believe that a poor orphan who has never read a newspaper or gone to school could win such a contest. But through a series of exhilarating tales Ram explains to his lawyer how episodes in his life gave him the answer to each question. Ram takes us on an amazing review of his own history -- from the day he was found as a baby in the clothes donation box of a Delhi church to his employment by a faded Bollywood star to his adventure with a security-crazed Australian army colonel to his career as an overly creative tour guide at the Taj Mahal. Swarup's "Q & A" is a beguiling blend of high comedy, drama, and romance that reveals how we know what we know -- not just about trivia, but about life itself. Cutting across humanity in all its squalor and glory, Vikas Swarup presents a kaleidoscopic vision of the struggle between good and evil -- and what happens when one boy has no other choice in life but to survive.


Congestion related delays at the U.S./Canadian border crossing between Washington State and British Columbia have underscored the need for some sort of intervention. One obvious congestion mitigation measure is to estimate delay and relay this information to motorists so they may select among alternative, less-congested border crossing sites or delay their trip. This study defines an automated motorist information system that provides border delay estimate to motorists. The report begins by providing a detailed description of the study area, characteristics of international travel, border crossing congestion mitigation alternatives, and a physical assessment of the four border crossings being considered; the two crossings at Blaine, Washington, and the crossings at Lynden, Washington, and Sumas, Washington. On the basis of a study of travel on northbound I-5 at Blaine, and the resultant statistical analysis, a model capable of predicting delay based primarily on queue length was developed. This model can be used as an integral part of a motorist information system that will include: 1) detectors to estimate queue length; 2) software to predict delay using the statistical model; and 3) methods of disseminating delay information to the public, including highway advisory radio (HAR) and variable message signs (VMS). The report concludes by discussing the implementation of this system and estimating costs.


In order for agents to act on behalf of users, they will have to retrieve and integrate vast amounts of textual data on the World Wide Web. However, much of the useful data on the Web is neither grammatical nor formally structured, making querying difficult. Examples of these types of data sources are online classifieds like Craigslist and auction item listings like eBay. We call this unstructured, ungrammatical data "posts." The unstructured nature of posts makes query and integration difficult because the attributes are embedded within the text. Also, these attributes do not conform to standardized values, which prevents queries based on a common attribute value. The schema is unknown and the values may vary dramatically making accurate search difficult. Creating relational data for easy querying requires that we define a schema for the embedded attributes and extract values from the posts while standardizing these values. Traditional information extraction (IE) is inadequate to perform this task because it relies on clues from the data, such as structure or natural language, neither of which are found in posts. Furthermore, traditional information extraction does not incorporate data cleaning, which is necessary to accurately query and integrate the source. The two-step approach described in this paper creates relational data sets from unstructured and ungrammatical text by addressing both issues. To do this, we require a set of known entities called a "reference set." The first step aligns each post to each member of each reference set. This allows our algorithm to define a schema over the post and include standard values for the attributes defined by this schema. The second step performs information extraction for the attributes, including attributes not easily represented by reference sets, such as a price. In this manner we create a relational structure over previously unstructured data, supporting deep and accurate queries over the data as well as standard values for integration. Our experimental results show that our technique matches the posts to the reference set accurately and efficiently and outperforms state-of-the-art extraction systems on the extraction task from posts.


Since its publication twenty five years ago, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men has been recognized as a classic, an indispensable contribution to our understanding of the causes of the American Civil War. A key work in establishing political ideology as a major concern of modern American historians, it remains the only full-scale evaluation of the ideas of the early Republican party. Now with a new introduction, Eric Foner puts his argument into the context of contemporary scholarship, reassessing the concept of free labor in the light of the last tweny-five years of writing on such issues as work, gender, economic change, and political thought. A significant reevaluation of the causes of the Civil War, Foner's study looks beyond the North's opposition to slavery and its emphasis upon preserving the Union to determine the broader grounds of its willingness to undertake a war against the South in 1861. Its search is for those social concepts the North accepted as vital to its way of life, and it finds these most clearly expressed in the ideology of the growing Republican party in the decade before the war's start. By a careful analysis of the attitudes of leading factions in the party's formation (northern Whigs, former Democrats, and political abolitionists) Foner is able to show what each contributed to Republican ideology. He also shows how northern ideas of human rights--in particular a man's right to work where and how he wanted, and to accumulate property in his own name--and the goals of American society were implicit in that ideology. This was the ideology that permeated the North in the period directly before the Civil War, led to the election of Abraham Lincoln, and led, almost immediately, to the Civil War itself. At the heart of the controversy over the extension of slavery, he argues, is the issue of whether the northern or southern form of society would take root in the West, whose development would determine determine the nation's destiny. In his new introductory essay, Foner presents a greatly altered view of the subject. Only entrepreneurs and farmers were actually "free men" in the sense used in the ideology of the period. Actually, by the time the Civil War was initiated, half the workers in the North were wage-earners, not independent workers. And this did not account for women and blacks, who had little freedom in choosing what work they did. He goes onto show that even after the Civil War these guarantees for "free soil, free labor, free men" did not really apply for most Americans, and especially not for blacks.


Most programming languages contain good and bad parts, but JavaScript has more than its share of the bad, having been developed and released in a hurry before it could be refined. This authoritative book scrapes away these bad features to reveal a subset of JavaScript that's more reliable, readable, and maintainable than the language as a whole-a subset you can use to create truly extensible and efficient code. Considered the JavaScript expert by many people in the development community, author Douglas Crockford identifies the abundance of good ideas that make JavaScript an outstanding object-oriented programming language-ideas such as functions, loose typing, dynamic objects, and an expressive object literal notation. Unfortunately, these good ideas are mixed in with bad and downright awful ideas, like a programming model based on global variables. When Java applets failed, JavaScript became the language of the Web by default, making its popularity almost completely independent of its qualities as a pro gramming language. In JavaScript: The Good Parts, Crockford finally digs through the steaming pile of good intentions and blunders to give you a detailed look at all the genuinely elegant parts of JavaScript, including: Syntax Objects Functions Inheritance Arrays Regular expressions Methods Style Beautiful features The real beauty? As you move ahead with the subset of JavaScript that this book presents, you'll also sidestep the need to unlearn all the bad parts. Of course, if you want to find out more about the bad parts and how to use them badly, simply consult any other JavaScript book. With JavaScript: The Good Parts, you'll discover a beautiful, elegant, lightweight and highlyexpressive language that lets you create effective code, whether you're managing object libraries or just trying to get Ajax to run fast. If you develop sites or applications for the Web, this book is an absolute must.


In February 1991, the artist David Wojnarowicz (1954-1992) and the philosopher Sylvere Lotringer met in a borrowed East Village apartment to conduct a long-awaited dialogue on Wojnarowicz's work. Wojnarowicz was then at the peak of his notoriety as the fiercest antagonist of morals crusader Senator Jesse Helms--a notoriety that Wojnarowicz alternately embraced and rejected. Already suffering the last stages of AIDS, David saw his dialogue with Lotringer as a chance to set the record straight on his aspirations, his personal history, and his political views. The two arranged to have this three-hour dialogue video-recorded by a mutual friend, the artist Marion Scemama.Lotringer held on to the tape for a long time. After Wojnarowicz's death the following year, he found the transcript enormously moving, yet somehow incomplete. David was trying, often with heartbreaking eloquence, to define not just his career but its position in time. The subject was huge, and transcended the actual dialogue. Lotringer then spent the next several years gathering additional commentary on Wojnarowicz's life and work from those who knew him best--the friends with whom he collaborated.Lotringer solicited personal testimony from Wojnarowicz's friends and other artists, including Mike Bildo, Steve Brown, Julia Scher, Richard Kern, Carlo McCormick, Ben Neill, Kiki Smith, Nan Goldin, Marguerite van Cook, and others. What emerges from these masterfully-conducted interviews is a surprising insight into something art history knows, but systematically hides: the collaborative nature of the work of any "great artist." All these respondents had, at one time, made performances, movies, sculptures, photographs, and other collaborative works with Wojnarowicz. In this sense, Wojnarowicz appears not only as a great originator, but as a great synthesizer.


This chapter in, Gene-Environment Interactions in Developmental Psychopathology (K. Dodge & M. Rutter, eds. 2011), considers the relevance of GxE to criminal responsibility and sentencing. It begins with a number of preliminary assumptions that will inform the analysis. It then turns to the law's view of the person, including the law's implicit psychology, and the criteria for criminal responsibility. A few false starts or distractions about responsibility are disposed of briefly. With this necessary background in place, the chapter then turns specifically to the relation between GxE and criminal responsibility. It suggests that GxE causes of criminal behavior have no relation to responsibility per se, but they may be relevant to culpability if valid research discloses an association between GxE and a genuine excusing or mitigating condition. The chapter then turns to sentencing and considers whether GxE is relevant to mitigation and aggravation, and proposes that the same considerations governing responsibility ascriptions apply to mitigation and that the prediction of future danger will be the most common application for aggravation. It concludes by considering briefly how knowledge of GxE might otherwise influence criminal justice policy and practice.


In this article, we give an explicit homotopy between the solutions (i.e. stress, strain, displacement) of the quasistatic linear elastic and the quasistatic nonlinear elastoplastic boundary value problems, where we assume a linear kinematic hardening material law. We give error estimates with respect to the homotopy parameter.


TOWARDS RESOLVING THE CHALLENGE OF SEPSIS DIAGNOSTIC. Thomas Herget* and Thomas Joos . *Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany; NMI Natural and Medical Sciences Institute at the University of Tübingen, Reutlingen, Germany Biomarkers have proven to be very useful in clinical conditions such as heart attack, stroke and cancer. There are characteristics linked to sepsis like in blood pressure, body temperature and heart rate. Efforts over the last decade to improve diagnosis for infectious inflammation have been unsuccessful in identifying a single and universal biomarker that provides sufficiently high sensitivity and specificity. In gramnegative septicemia and following major abdominal trauma, the determination of endotoxin continues to be a leading candidate which could become adopted into clinical practice. The importance of endotoxin measurement continues to grow as more clinicians recognize the added value of measuring endotoxin in critically ill patients and with the emergence of major pharmaceutical trials directly targeting endotoxin in the bloodstream. However, hundreds of other candidates potentially serving as biomarker for sepsis have been recently described, e.g. cysteinyl-leukotriene (LTC4) generation, procalcitonin (PCT) and C-reactive protein (CRP). However, none of them fulfils the criteria requested by clinicians, namely being specific and sensitive. The presentation will discuss criteria for a sepsis biomarker, will give an overview of obtaining samples from appropriate cell systems and from patients. Furthermore, tools will be described to identify marker candidates on genetic-, proteinand metabolite level. The integration of these data sets covering e.g. signal transduction, protein : protein interaction, gene expression with the help of bioinformatics and systems biology will help to validate such candidates. The final goal is manufacturing a robust diagnostic device for clinical routine work. A solid sepsis diagnostics method will be beneficial for patients, but also for the healthcare systems and will open challenges for the pharmaceutical industry.


The purpose of this thesis is to examine the connection between youth of the 1990s and the music of the Smashing Pumpkins. The introduction is used to provide the reader with pertinent background information on youth, the 1990s, alternative music, and the Smashing Pumpkins. Following that, Chapters 1 and 2 feature analyses of two songs by the Smashing Pumpkins, "Here Is No Why" and "Tales of a Scorched Earth." The analyses of both songs focus on text enhancement and musical contrasts in each song. At the end of Chapter 2, the qualities of each song are compared. Chapter 3 examines two styles of music that were influential on the band, progressive rock and heavy metal, and examines their place in "Here Is Now Why" and "Tales of a Scorched Earth." Chapter 3 also examines how the differences between these two styles are evident in the Smashing Pumpkins' music. Finally, Chapter 4 examines the band's newest recording, Zeitgeist, and assesses its use of the musical aspects evident in "Here Is No Why" and "Tales of a Scorched Earth."


Recent warm, dry summers showed the vulnerability of the European power sector to low water availability and high river temperatures. Climate change is likely to impact electricity supply, in terms of both water availability for hydropower generation and cooling water usage for thermoelectric power production. Here, we show the impacts of climate change and changes in water availability and water temperature on European electricity production and prices. Using simulations of daily river flows and water temperatures under future climate (2031‐2060) in power production models, we show declines in both thermoelectric and hydropower generating potential for most parts of Europe, except for the most northern countries. Based on changes in power production potentials, we assess the cost-optimal use of power plants for each European country by taking electricity import and export constraints into account. Higher wholesale prices are projected on a mean annual basis for most European countries (except for Sweden and Norway), with strongest increases for Slovenia (12‐15%), Bulgaria (21‐23%) and Romania (31‐32% for 2031‐2060), where limitations in water availability mainly affect power plants with low production costs. Considering the long design life of power plant infrastructures, short-term adaptation strategies are highly recommended to prevent undesired distributional and allocative effects.


The Securities and Exchange Commission's ("SEC") conspicuous failures during the financial crisis of 2008 have led many to question the agency's relevance in the modern financial era. Some commentators have called for the creation of new super-agencies to assume a substantial portion of the SEC's duties. Others highlight enforcement failures and question the agency's commitment to its investor protection mission. Despite its recent missteps and persistent calls for regulatory overhaul, the SEC's future seems secure for now as President Obama's reform proposals (the "Obama Plan") as currentlyconceived preserve the agency's independence. Although thus far the Obama Plan protects the SEC's status as an independent agency, several aspects of the plan threaten the agency's long-term prospects. The proposal to expand the executive branch's role in oversight over financial institutions may represent the beginning of an incremental encroachment on SEC authority. Similarly, the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency could absorb a portion of the SEC's traditional investor protection role. In the end, the SEC's survival depends on whether its leadership takes effective action to restore its credibility and regain the public trust in the years to come.


Many recent studies on environmental governance focus on either the micro-level (the local and the individual) or the macro-level (the global) while neglecting governance at the nation-state level. State environmental governance is often perceived as inadequate, insufficient, or constrained by considerations of economic growth. And yet the impact of state environmental governance dwarfs that of the market or international organizations. This book of comparative studies documents the continuing relevance of the state in environmental politics and policy. The book also demonstrates the analytical power of the comparative approach to the study of environmental politics and policy, offering cross-national comparisons of environmental governance in both developed and developing countries. Some chapters are based on qualitative studies from a small number of countries; others offer statistical analyses of quantitative data from many more countries over a longer time period. Topics discussed include alternative approaches to estimating comparative environmental performance; citizens' shifting perceptions of their environmental responsibilities; U.S. and German wind policies; fisheries management in several African countries; and forestry conservation in Bolivia, Guatemala, and Peru. The studies illuminate such key issues as the effect of different political systems on the evolution of environmental policy regimes; why some countries seem to perform better than others in environmental matters; and the sociopolitical context of resource management.


This article is the introduction to a law review symposium on unconscious racism and social science and statistical evidence of bias as bases for race discrimination claims, focusing concretely on discrimination in employment and housing. The article starts with an example of unconscious racism in the bail-setting court in Philadelphia. Two drunk-driving cases about a week apart were identical in all respects except the races of the defendants, but the judge, who was not an overt or self-perceived racist, showed empathy to the white drunk driver while his reaction to the black one was dominated by fear. Unconscious racism specifically, and the biases and motivations of alleged discriminators in general, were not of much interest in civil rights law or litigation until the Supreme Court began, in the mid-1970s, to require specific proof of purposeful discrimination to make out a constitutional violation (less-demanding proof is required for certain statutory violations). The article presents a historical perspective on the development of perceptions of racial wrongdoing in law and in society generally, starting with the relatively recently accepted understanding that racism is wrong. About 50 or 60 year ago, racism on the part of government, private institutions and individuals became socially, morally and culturally wrong. Before that, racism in words and deeds was acceptable and not unusual, if not something like the norm. However, deep-seated notions about race from slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation were still very much alive and persist today – notions of inferiority and superiority and racially attributed, stereotyped characteristics, like intelligence, perseverance, morality, tendencies to violence and sexual promiscuity. But in the legal realm and in society generally, we wound up focusing our attention almost exclusively on overt, explicit and formal inequality. Once they were banished, we declared a pre-mature victory in the struggle for racial equality. Explicitly racist and overtly segregationist measures were banned, and racial epithets became taboo. But we left in place the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow and segregation, and the remaining racism – the deep-seated, unconscious parts that do not just go away because a court declares explicit racism wrong. Progress was hindered further by a multi-faceted retrenchment by the courts. The adoption of the purposeful discrimination rule in the mid-1970s, which requires specific proof of a racial purpose or motive to establish a discrimination case, made it near impossible for minorities to win. The Supreme Court embraced a formal insensitivity to minority claims, even in circumstances that resemble the worst forms of the discrimination, segregation and disenfranchisement of African Americans that characterized the pre-civil rights past. Then a hypersensitive version of the purposeful discrimination rule was applied to invalidate good-faith affirmative and remedial action, by taking any consideration of race – even if done in good faith to open opportunities and eliminate discrimination – as sufficient proof of purposeful discrimination. Alongside and not unrelated to these legal developments, non-explicit forms of discrimination against African Americans and other minorities grew in number and significance, and became more easily non-explicit. The use of social science and statistics to prove unconscious racism presents a possibility of dealing with at least some of these problems in the current context.


As a young boy, Charles Darwin hated school and was often scolded forconducting "useless" experiments. Yet his passion for the natural world was so strong that he suffered through terrible seasickness during his five-year voyage aboard The Beagle. Darwin collected new creatures from the coasts of Africa, South America, and the Galapagos Islands, and expanded his groundbreaking ideas that would change people's understanding of the natural world. About 100 illustrations and a clear, exciting text will make Darwin and his theory of evolution an exciting discovery for every young reader.


Neonatal jaundice and infant safety on aeroplanes provide two lessons on the power of narrative, rather than statistical evidence, in determining practice

I've always been more comfortable with numbers than with narrative, demanding data rather than accepting anecdotes. Recently, however, as a result of research in two unrelated areas—neonatal jaundice and infant safety on aeroplanes—I've been increasingly impressed with the power of stories over statistics. So I've decided to branch out from my usual publication format and tell a few stories of my own.

The jaundice story is one of me trying to treat jaundice in newborns according to the best evidence. Ironically, the more of an expert on the evidence I have become, the more difficulty I have practising according to that evidence. This is because becoming a "jaundice expert" means becoming familiar with rare but tragic stories of children with kernicterus. These stories are so powerful that it is hard to keep them from trumping other evidence in determining practice.

My neonatal jaundice story starts in the early 1980s, when I was a resident in paediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. At that time, we treated babies with phototherapy when they had bilirubin concentrations above 14 mg/dl (239 μmol/l), and did exchange transfusions for concentrations above 20 mg/dl (342 μmol/l). Unfortunately, the early 1980s was not a good time to be transfusing blood in San Francisco. Although we did not know it then, the blood supply was contaminated with HIV. We also did not know that most of these exchange transfusions were unnecessary.

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There's a story behind the "kinder, gentler" treatment thresholds for jaundice in newborns

Credit: JAMES STEVENSON/SPL

In 1983, in an article entitled "Bilirubin 20mg/dL = vigintiphobia," Watchko and Oski questioned the "fear of twenty" that led to exchange transfusions for jaundice in healthy …

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In this paper, we introduce the Penguin Revolution, a social movement of high school students in Chile who are protesting the neo-liberalization of education in their country. This new activism surprised many because of the marked decline in political mobilization witnessed over the past 18 years since the Pinochet dictatorship. Findings from an earlier study of the women's movement in Arica, Chile bear important clues to understanding the re-emergence of social action in the current generation, particularly the role of intergenerational learning (Chovanec, 2006a, 2006b). First, previous generations of women had developed a strong critical social consciousness that did not disappear during the years of retreat from direct political engagement. Second, although social movements may be quiescent, there are mechanisms for quiet continuity that engage all three generations of women in the community. We argue for providing a deliberate political education to the younger generations by drawing on the radical educational potential of parents as organic intellectuals and the historical promise of political parties as political educators.


In the wake of continuing corporate scandals there have been few, if any, CEOs that have stepped forward as models of 'doing things right' - except the former chairman and CEO of Medtronic, Bill George. George has become the unofficial spokesperson for responsible leadership - in business, the media, and academia. In "Authentic Leadership" Bill George makes the case that we do need new leaders, not just new laws, to bring us out of the current corporate crisis. He persuasively demonstrates that authentic leaders of mission-driven companies will create far greater shareholder value than financially oriented companies. During George's twelve-year leadership at Medtronic, the company's market capitalization soared from $1.1 billion to $460 billion, averaging 35 per cent per year.George candidly recounts many of the toughest challenges he encountered - from ethical dilemmas and battles with the FDA to his own development as a leader. He shows how to develop the five essential dimensions of authentic leaders - purpose, values, heart, relationships, and self-discipline. "Authentic Leadership" offers inspiring lessons to all who want to lead with heart and with compassion for those they serve. Bill George helps readers answer vital questions such as: What should I do when my personal values conflict with company business values? How do I make trade-offs between the needs of my customers, my employees, and my company's shareholders? Do I really want to devote my talents to business? "Authentic Leadership" provides a tested guide for character-based leaders and all those who have a stake in the integrity and success of our corporations.


In recent years there have been suggestions that climate change might generate 200 million or more migrants by 2050. In response to these suggestions, and concerns that existing law and policy will be inadequate to deal with the expected displacement, there recently have been several proposals for new legally binding multilateral instruments specifically addressing climate migration. This Article makes three contributions to the nascent literature on the legal and policy responses to migration induced by climate change. First, it identifies the two principal gaps in existing law and policy that underpin to a significant extent the recent proposals for a new binding multilateral instrument, describing these gaps as the "rights" gap and the "funding" gap. Second, this Article analyzes three of the leading proposals for a new binding multilateral instrument. It identifies the ways that these proposals would respond to the rights and funding gaps and emphasizes the proposals' limitations. Third, this Article emphasizes that addressing climate migration ultimately requires increasing the resilience of communities especially vulnerable to climate change. It then identifies ways to mitigate the effects of the rights and funding gaps by reducing existing vulnerabilities to climate change, without a new binding multilateral instrument. While a series of measures relying largely on existing legal and policy tools may seem less satisfying than proposals for a new binding multilateral instrument, these measures are more likely to address the concerns about human vulnerability to climate change that the proposals for new binding multilateral instruments have admirably highlighted.


Free societies employ a variety of institutions — including courts and schools — in which speech is heavily regulated on the basis of its content (and with regard to the cognitive infirmities of listeners) in order to promote other desirable ends, including discovery of the truth. I illustrate this with the case of courts and rules of evidence. Three differences between courts and the polity at large might seem to counsel, of course, against extending that approach more widely. First, the courtroom has an official and somewhat reliable (as well as reviewable) arbiter of the epistemic merits, while the polity may not. Second, no other non-epistemic values of speech are at stake in the courtroom, whereas they are in the polity. Third, the courtroom's jurisdiction is temporally limited in a way the polity's may not be. I argue that only the first of these — the "Problem of the Epistemic Arbiter" as I call it — poses a serious worry about speech regulation outside select institutions like courts. I also argue for viewing "freedom of speech" like "freedom of action": speech, like everything else human beings do, can be for good or ill, benign or harmful, constructive or pernicious, and thus the central question in free speech jurisprudence should really be how to regulate speech effectively — to minimize its very real harms, without undue cost to its positive values — rather than rationalizing (often fancifully) the supposed special value of speech. In particular, I argue against autonomy-based defenses of a robust free speech principle. I conclude that the central issue in free speech jurisprudence is not about speech but about institutional competence; I offer some reasons — from the Marxist "left" and the public choice "right"— for being skeptical that capitalist democracies have the requisite competence; and make some suggestive but inconclusive remarks about how these defects might be remedied.


Spires, Ashley.  Larf .  Toronto:  Kids Can Press, 2012. Print. This book is a twist on the "lonely hearts" theme, with lots of humour.  Larf is a sasquatch who feels "like nobody knows [he] even exist[s].  Author Ashley Spires has given him a lifestyle that somewhat mirrors her own – jogging, gardening, and walking his pet bunny, Eric. Larf is excited to hear that another sasquatch is going to make an appearance in a town nearby, so he decides to go meet him.  When he gets there, he is disappointed to find out that it is a guy in a sasquatch suit who tells him that "Sasquatches aren't real".  But he does meet another sasquatch, who has also been enticed into town by the sasquatch performance, a girl sasquatch named Shurl.  She carries a handbag and wears a pink dress.  And so a friendship begins. This story is of the same genera as E.T ., Shrek and Monsters, Inc. that make scary, imaginary creatures less scary by making them look cuddly or childlike and showing them leading day-to-day lives similar to our own.  Larf is both cuddly, looking a bit like a furry teddy bear and child-like in that his head is large for his body, like a baby's.   Larf does ordinary things.  He eats at a table, rides a bus, does laundry on Wednesday and would like to have a friend to play teeter-totter with him.  It is hard to be afraid of a furry creature who is lonely and wants to have friends. The drawings are all cartoon-like and presented in a variety of attractive ways.  Some fill more than a page while others are overlapped like photographs.  Sometimes there are four small panels on a page, each with its own caption.  There are a few jokes in the book.  For example, we are told  that Larf "is a master of camouflage", but  even small children will see that his beret, scarf and grey pants are not enough to disguise a giant-sized sasquatch. This book is fun to read and would be an excellent for public and school libraries, particularly those in "sasquatch country", where children might have been spooked by scary stories about sasquatches. Highly Recommended:  4 stars out of 4 Reviewer:  Sandy Campbell Sandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines.  Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give.


Today courts regularly resolve disputes by applying tort principles when they should apply the law of contracts. When parties have an opportunity to negotiate the terms of their relationship, the resultant contracts ought to be enforced. Tort law is an acceptable substitute only if parties have no opportunity to bargain. Over the years the boundary between tort and contract has shifted sharply toward tort. For example, physicians serving rural areas are often not allowed to contract with patients for a lower price in return for diminished care. And courts have allowed consumers who buy cars without air bags to recover from manufacturers for injuries that only air bags would have prevented. Sometimes courts even ignore compulsory arbitration provisions that waive the usual judicial procedures for resolving disputes. Even worse, rules have sprung up that prohibit ordinary commercial contracts. A person forbidden to sell certain products--because a government agency has determined they are too dangerous--may also be forbidden to sell his own labor--because the state has determined that the wages he would accept are too low. Contracts once freely negotiated, and subject to private suit in the event of fraud or failure to perform, are increasingly replaced by regulation. Unhappily, once government has advanced a plausible rationale for prohibiting consensual behavior in one area, its tentacles inevitably extend to other areas as well. Today's torts "crisis" does not exist because corporations are oppressing individuals, or because we need federal legislation to replace state tort rules. The crisis exists because our rights have been given increasingly less respect by government. The crisis exists because we have not allowed tort to be tort, and contract to be contract. We need to restore the boundary between contract and tort.