This course explores rights and responsibilities associated with being an active citizen in a democratic society. Students will explore issues of civic importance such as healthy schools, community planning, environmental responsibility, and the influence of social media, while developing their understanding of the role of civic engagement and of political processes in the local, national, and/or global community. Students will apply the concepts of political thinking and the political inquiry process to investigate, and express informed opinions about, a range of political issues and developments that are both of significance in today's world and of personal interest to them.


For the first 150 years of our constitutional history, a valid grand jury indictment was deemed to be a mandatory prerequisite to a federal court's exercise of criminal subject matter jurisdiction. Under that view of the Grand Jury Clause, a defendant in a federal felony case could neither waive nor forfeit the right to grand jury indictment. A critical examination of the historical evidence reveals that the legal realist criminal procedure reform project of the early twentieth century advanced a pragmatic critique of the usefulness of the grand jury that culminated in a provision of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure allowing for waiver of grand jury indictment for the purpose of facilitating a pre-indictment guilty plea, a procedural efficiency mechanism still used with regularity in federal courts today. The reformers were able to secure the waiver provision - despite serious constitutional concerns - by shaping a pro-efficiency modern understanding of the grand jury that obscured - but did not disprove - the grand jury's jurisdictional significance. This Article argues that the reformers prompted the subversion of the mandate of the Grand Jury Clause, and burdened our legal consciousness with a diminished respect for the grand jury that affects our understanding of the grand jury's place in the constitutional structure to this day. This Article recovers the "jurisdictional heritage" of the grand jury and criticizes the modern understanding for its unjustified dismissal of the grand jury's jurisdictional significance. The Article places blame for the continued confusion in the federal courts regarding the relationship of grand jury and jurisdiction squarely on the weak historical and logical underpinnings of the modern understanding. The Article also contextualizes the grand jury's jurisdictional heritage within the broader contemporary discussion of "pro-defendant" formalist or originalist approaches to defining criminal procedural rights recently applied by the Supreme Court. Finally, the Article argues that the failure to account properly for the jurisdictional heritage of the grand jury frustrates the grand jury's fulfillment of its role in the constitutional design.


The period between the Civil War and the New Deal was particularly rich and formative for political development. Beyond the sweeping changes and national reforms for which the era is known, Statebuilding from the Margins examines often-overlooked cases of political engagement that expanded the capacities and agendas of the developing American state. With particular attention to gendered, classed, and racialized dimensions of civic action, the chapters explore points in history where the boundaries between public and private spheres shifted, including the legal formulation of black citizenship and monogamy in the postbellum years; the racial politics of Georgia's adoption of prohibition; the rise of public waste management; the incorporation of domestic animal and wildlife management into the welfare state; the creation of public juvenile courts; and the involvement of women's groups in the creation of U.S. housing policy. In many of these cases, private citizens or organizations initiated political action by framing their concerns as problems in which the state should take direct interest to benefit and improve society. Statebuilding from the Margins depicts a republic in progress, accruing policy agendas and the institutional ability to carry them out in a nonlinear fashion, often prompted and powered by the creative techniques of policy entrepreneurs and organizations that worked alongside and outside formal boundaries to get results. These Progressive Era initiatives established models for the way states could create, intervene in, and regulate new policy areas-innovations that remain relevant for growth and change in contemporary American governance. Contributors: James Greer, Carol Nackenoff, Julie Novkov, Susan Pearson, Kimberly Smith, Marek D. Steedman, Patricia Strach, Kathleen Sullivan, Ann-Marie Szymanski.


During the process of developing and maintaining a complex software system, developers pose detailed questions about the runtime behavior of the system. Source code views offer strictly limited insights, so developers often turn to tools like debuggers to inspect and interact with the running system. Unfortunately, traditional debuggers focus on the runtime stack as the key abstraction to support debugging operations, though the questions developers pose often have more to do with objects and their interactions. We propose object-centric debugging as an alternative approach to interacting with a running software system. We show how, by focusing on objects as the key abstraction, natural debugging operations can be defined to answer developer questions related to runtime behavior. We present a running prototype of an object-centric debugger, and demonstrate, with the help of a series of examples, how object-centric debugging offers more effective support for many typical developer tasks than a traditional stack-oriented debugger.


The question of legal education is recognised as important along various dimensions and thus has been in the focus of attention of numerous distinguished legal scholars and practitioners all over the world. The problem of legal education includes not just methodological issues, but also the issues that are par excellence philosophical in nature. Legal education has a specificity that arises from the nature of law and its complexity, and is related to the personal dimension of this education. The process of education should be organised in such a way that students should be in contact with members of the legal community whose authority, moral and subject matter-related attributes play a vital, formative role in legal education. The author tries to confront the didactics-related reality with ideals and postulates present within this field. Yet, it is revealed that such a reality is hidden below a "thick layer" of myths, which have grown around legal education. These myths blur the real picture of lawyers' education, creating a kind of legal education mythology. Two types of systemic legal myths are indicated. The first one is built on the paradigm of university legal education. The other type is based on the paradigm of university studies.


Although various pieces of indirect evidence about the nature of dark matter have been collected, its direct detection has eluded experimental searches despite extensive effort. If the mass of dark matter is below 1 MeV, it is essentially imperceptible to conventional detection methods because negligible energy is transferred to nuclei during collisions. Here I propose directly detecting dark matter through the quantum decoherence it causes rather than its classical effects such as recoil or ionization. I show that quantum spatial superpositions are sensitive to low-mass dark matter that is inaccessible to classical techniques. This provides new independent motivation for matter interferometry with large masses, especially on spaceborne platforms. The apparent dark matter wind we experience as the Sun travels through the Milky Way ensures interferometers and related devices are directional detectors, and so are able to provide unmistakable evidence that decoherence has galactic origins.


From Guy Kawasaki, the bestselling author of The Art of the Start and Enchantment, The Art of Social Media is a no-nonsense guide to becoming a social media superstar. By now it's clear that whether you're promoting a business, a product, or yourself, social media is near the top of what will determine your success or failure. And there are countless pundits, authors, and consultants eager to advise you. But there's no one quite like Guy Kawasaki, the legendary former chief evangelist for Apple and one of the pioneers of business blogging, tweeting, facebooking, tumbling, and much, much more. Now Guy has teamed up with his Canva colleague Peg Fitzpatrick to offer The Art of Social Media - the one essential guide you need to get the most bang for your time, effort, and money. With more than 100 practical tips, tricks, and insights, Guy and Peg present a ground-up strategy to produce a focused, thorough, and compelling presence on the most popular social-media platforms. They guide you through the steps of building your foundation, amassing your digital assets, going to market, optimizing your profile, attracting more followers, and effectively integrating social media and blogging. For beginners overwhelmed by too many choices, as well as seasoned professionals eager to improve their game, The Art of Social Media is full of tactics that have been proven to work in the real world. Or as Guy puts it, "Great Stuff, No Fluff." Guy Kawasaki, who helped make Macintosh a household name, now runs Garage Technology Ventures, a venture-capital firm. He has held his workshop, "Boot Camp for Start-ups," around the world. Kawasaki is the author of seven previous books, including Art of the Start, Enchantment and Rules for Revolutionaries.


Patients with complex health care needs account for a high percentage of annual medical expenditures. Care management is a set of activities intended to improve patient care and reduce the need for medical services by helping patients and caregivers more effectively manage health conditions. This synthesis reviews the evidence on care management and its ability to improve patient care and reduce costs. Key findings include: care management can improve quality of care, although it takes time; studies that followed patients longer were more likely to reveal improvements. Care management's impact on cost reduction is less consistent. Programs that support patient transitions from hospital-to-home were the most successful because they reduced hospital readmissions. Care management within primary care settings may also generate savings. Elements of effective programs include: good identification of patients who could benefit from care management; specially-trained RN/care managers with low patient loads, working with physicians and a multidisciplinary team; and in-person patient contact. Finally, the current fee-for-service systems present barriers to widespread use of care management.


In October 2011, a U.S. District Court sentenced Raj Rajaratnam to 11 years in federal prison for insider trading. This was the longest sentence for insider trading in U.S. history, but it was significantly less than the 19 to 24-year term requested by the government. Such harsh prison terms (equal in some cases to those meted out for murder or rape) require sound justification in a liberal society. Yet jurists, politicians and scholars have failed to offer a clear articulation of either the economic harm or the moral wrong committed by the insider trader.This article looks to fill this gap by offering a rigorous analysis of insider trading, its criminalization, and its punishment from multiple economic and moral perspectives. This analysis reveals that of the three forms of insider trading currently proscribed under Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act, two are economically harmful and morally impermissible, but surprisingly one is not (Non-Promissory Insider Trading, where the insider trades on material non-public information while having made no promise not to trade). Having reached this conclusion, alternative justifications or explanations for criminalizing Non-Promissory Insider Trading are explored.Virtue theory is considered as offering an alternative justification for the criminalization of Non-Promissory Insider Trading. In particular, the vice of greed is considered. It is concluded that while insider trading does often reflect the vice of greed, a moralistic contempt for this character flaw cannot justify the criminalization of otherwise morally innocent conduct because this would violate the firmly held liberal Harm Principle famously articulated J.S. Mill.But even if the criminalization of Non-Promissory Insider Trading cannot be justified, it remains for it to be explained. The socio-psychological theory of cognitive dissonance (as articulated by Dan Kahan and Eric Posner) is entertained as an explanation for how morally innocent conduct such as Non-Promissory Insider Trading might first become criminalized and then later perceived to be immoral by a population. Under the theory, actors generally regarded as moral innocents may initially be targeted for punishment as scapegoats in the wake of a disastrous or harmful social event. Over time, to avoid cognitive dissonance between the belief that conduct is morally permissible and the act of punishing it, society's shared belief in the moral permissibility of the conduct is simply dropped.This theory of cognitive dissonance fails to explain, however, why Non-Promissory Insider Traders would be targeted as scapegoats to begin with. The moralistic contempt for the vice of greed in insider traders (already discussed) offers one motivation, but the public's own vice of envy concerning the easy money made by insiders may offer another. Since neither motivation supplies a justification for criminalization in a liberal democracy, and since envy in particular has its own harmful effects on society, the Article concludes on the cautionary note that we should perhaps rethink our laws and reconsider our attitudes concerning Non-Promissory Insider Trading.


Even the most hotly contested lawsuits typically end in a confidential settlement forbidding the parties from disclosing their allegations, evidence, or settlement amount. Confidentiality draws fierce criticism for harming third parties by concealing serious misdeeds like discrimination, pollution, defective manufacturing, and sexual abuse. Others defend confidentiality as a mutually beneficial pay-for-silence bargain that facilitates settlement, serves judicial economy, and prevents frivolous copycat lawsuits. This debate is based in economic logic, yet most analyses have been surprisingly shallow as to how confidentiality affects incentives to settle. Depicting a more nuanced, complex reality of litigation and settlement, this Article reaches several conclusions quite different from the economic conventional wisdom - and absent from the existing literature. First, contrary to the conventional wisdom that banning confidentiality would inhibit settlement, a ban may promote early settlements. No ban could effectively cover settlements reached before litigation, so any ban would incentivize parties to settle confidentially pre-filing - and such early settlements save more litigation costs. Second, a ban would affect high- and low-value cases differently, depending on whether publicity-conscious defendants worry more about one big settlement or several small ones. Third, more settlement data could help parties settle and also, by decreasing litigation uncertainty, deter frivolous litigation. Fourth, more settlement data could reveal which companies engage in unlawful practices, yielding more efficient decisions by consumers, workers, and investors who otherwise engage in over-avoidance when unable to distinguish hazardous from safe goods. In sum, a confidentiality ban would decrease settlements of cases already in litigation but it would have many countervailing positive effects: increasing pre-filing settlements; deterring frivolous lawsuits, and improving product and job market decisions. We cannot predict the net effect of all these competing effects, however, contrary to the traditional economic story. Economics thus does not counsel against a confidentiality ban; jurisdictions adopting a ban would be undertaking a worthy experiment with a promising but uncertain policy. This analysis typifies the schism between traditional economic analyses, which reach definite conclusions by simplifying complex realities, and many contemporary economic analyses, which are realistically nuanced but do not yield categorical conclusions. Ultimately, the latter brand of economics is sounder and still can clarify important matters such as parties' incentives, rules' costs and benefits, and the tradeoffs and competing effects of a policy like a confidentiality ban.


Taking the Women's Weekend Conference held at Ruskin College, Oxford as my starting point, this thesis identifies and critically investigates the representation of specific concerns of the Women's Liberation Movement in British feminist artistic practice between 1970 and 1978. These concerns relate in particular to the personal experience of childraising and domesticity, namely, loss of identity and issues surrounding marriage, domestic labour, childcare, motherhood and female isolation.
Approached as a reclamation project based upon the examination of feminist publications, feminist archives, the papers of the Women's Liberation Movement, and oral histories, this thesis establishes the importance of personal issues that were central to the politics of experience adopted by the Women's Liberation Movement. Through a study of the work of feminist artists aligned to the Women's Liberation Movement, this thesis explores their engagement with these issues and the differing ways in which they sought to represent and express them through their work. This thesis argues that their work was - and remains largely unacknowledged - for its representation of liberation politics and its role in raising consciousness of female oppression. However, the more recent publication of feminist and feminist art critiques have provided important insights with which to revisit and re-assess the work.
Locating the work within a micro-history of socialist feminism, the research focuses on the work of Feministo, in particular its three founding members, Su , Richardson, Monica Ross and Kate Walker and participants Tricia Davies and Cathy Nicholson. It also examines the work of Alexis Hunter, Pen Dalton, Mair Davies, Margaret Harrison, Elona Bennett and the Hackney Flashers, with particular reference to Michael Ann Mullen. The films of Sue Crockford, the Camden Film Collective, Wages for Housework Campaign and The London Women's Film Group as well as the Berwick Street Collective are also
discussed. All of these artists and groups were affiliated to the Women's Liberation Movement and fought oppression by raising awareness of domestic issues through their work. The influence of American feminist art, avant-garde film and socially aware conceptual art is assessed as well as the impetus of collective action alongside the adoption of craft methods in challenging modernist art practice and contributing to an emerging post-modem era.
Acknowledging a recent interest in domestic issues, in craft, and the importance of collective artistic strategies associated in the 1990s in Britain with the phenomenon of the 'YBA's (Young British Artists), this thesis proposes a reclamation and re-assessment of the role and work of the artists associated with the Women's Liberation Movement in Britain.


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Abstract.
 Water chemistry and fish occurrence in outflows from two lakes recovering from acidification were studied during 2005–2010. The two lakes represented the regional extremes: while Lake Laka (LA) was the least acidified among the Bohemian Forest lakes, Lake Čertovo (CT) was the most acidified. Water chemistry improved downstream in either outlet due to mixing with less acidic water from tributaries. While pH of the LA stream was circumneutral and concentrations of ionic aluminium (Ali) were low (< 50 μg.l-1) except for temporary acidic episodes during snowmelt, the CT stream remained permanently acidified with Ali concentrations (> 200 μg.l-1) throughout the year and was considered as a reference site. Brown trout (Salmo trutta s.l.) survived in the LA stream already at 0.7 km from the lake. A stable trout population, including young-of-the-year fish increasing in numbers, was found in the LA stream between 2005 and 2010 despite the spring short-term acid episodes. Any recovery of the CT stream is unlikely as the outflow continued to be acidic at 1.5 km from the lake and Ali concentrations were still by one order of magnitude higher than the limit acceptable by trout.


The study reflected in the present paper investigated the relationship between Iranian EFL learners' self-regulation, critical thinking ability and their language achievement. The researchers of the present study set out to investigate this association based on theoretical contention in the literature postulating a dynamic interplay between self-regulatory skills and critical thinking ability as well as empirical studies demonstrating the association of each of these constructs with academic achievement. To the researchers' best knowledge, there is hardly any documented study exploring the relationship between these constructs among EFL learners. To attain the purpose of the study, 82 EFL university learners were selected according to a convenience sampling from different universities in Mashhad, a city in the north-east of Iran. They were requested to complete the "Watson-Glaser's Critical Thinking Appraisal" and the "Self-Regulation Trait Questionnaire". They were also asked to indicate the grade point average of their previous term. The data supported the theoretical expectation of a linkage between self-regulation and critical thinking. Subsequent data analyses indicated that among the components of self-regulation, self-monitoring and self-efficacy have the highest correlations and are the positive predictors of critical thinking. In addition, the results demonstrated that EFL learners' self-regulation can predict about 53 % of their language achievement while their critical thinking ability tends to predict about 28% of achievement. The conclusions and recommendations derived from the present study should encourage educators to take advantage of these relationships by developing effective paths for developing EFL university students' self-regulation and critical thinking.


JVRB, 3(2006), no. 8. - Virtual studio technology plays an important role for modern television productions. Blue-screen
matting is a common technique for integrating real actors or moderators into computer generated sceneries. Augmented reality offers the possibility to mix real and virtual in a more general context. This article proposes a new technological approach for combining real studio content with computergenerated information. Digital light projection allows a controlled spatial, temporal, chrominance and luminance modulation of illumination – opening new possibilities for TV studios.


Art and cover by JOE KUBERT Joe Kubert, one of the most influential storytellers in comics history, tells the harrowing, true story of a detachment of Special Forces soldiers on a simple recon mission into the village of Dong Xoai, Vietnam, that turned suddenly deadly. DONG XOAI, VIETNAM 1965 has a unique perspective, since Kubert based the story on extensive information gathered from the surviving members of the unit. It covers not only the action of the event but the details of deployment and build-up that led to the deadly encounter for these young American G.I.s. For decades, Joe Kubert has shown readers the true face of war - all the suffering, horror, loss and heroism of our fighting forces. With DONG XAOI, he goes a step beyond to tell a gut-wrenching tale of sacrifice that will linger long after you are done reading.


The URTeC Technical Program Committee accepted this presentation on the basis of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). The contents of this paper have not been reviewed by URTeC and URTeC does not warrant the accuracy, reliability, or timeliness of any information herein. All information is the responsibi lity of, and, is subject to corrections by the author(s). Any person or entity that relies on any information obtained from this paper does so at their own risk. The information herein does not necessarily reflect any position of URTeC. Any reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper without the written consent of URTeC is prohibited.


One challenge in making online education more effective is to develop automatic grading software that can provide meaningful feedback. This paper provides a solution to automatic grading of the standard computation-theory problem that asks a student to construct a deterministic finite automaton (DFA) from the given description of its language. We focus on how to assign partial grades for incorrect answers. Each student's answer is compared to the correct DFA using a hybrid of three techniques devised to capture different classes of errors. First, in an attempt to catch syntactic mistakes, we compute the edit distance between the two DFA descriptions. Second, we consider the entropy of the symmetric difference of the languages of the two DFAs, and compute a score that estimates the fraction of the number of strings on which the student answer is wrong. Our third technique is aimed at capturing mistakes in reading of the problem description. For this purpose, we consider a description language MOSEL, which adds syntactic sugar to the classical Monadic Second Order Logic, and allows defining regular languages in a concise and natural way. We provide algorithms, along with optimizations, for transforming MOSEL descriptions into DFAs and vice-versa. These allow us to compute the syntactic edit distance of the incorrect answer from the correct one in terms of their logical representations. We report an experimental study that evaluates hundreds of answers submitted by (real) students by comparing grades/feedback computed by our tool with human graders. Our conclusion is that the tool is able to assign partial grades in a meaningful way, and should be preferred over the human graders for both scalability and consistency.


Be sexy but not sexual. Don't be a prude but don't be a slut. These are the cultural messages that barrage teenage girls. In movies and magazines, in music and advice columns, girls are portrayed as the object or the victim of someone else's desire -but virtually never as someone with acceptable sexual feelings of her own. What teenage girls make of these contradictory messages, and what they make of their awakening sexuality - so distant from and yet so susceptible to cultural stereotypes - emerges for the first time in frank and complex fashion in Deborah Tolman's "Dilemmas of Desire". A unique look into the world of adolescent sexuality, this book offers an intimate and often disturbing, sometimes inspiring, picture of how teenage girls experience, understand and respond to their sexual feelings, and of how society mediates, shapes and distorts this experience. In extensive interviews, we listen as actual adolescent girls - both urban and suburban - speak candidly of their curiosity and confusion, their pleasure and disappointment, their fears, defiances or capitulation in the face of a seemingly imperishable double standard that smiles upon burgeoning sexuality in boys yet frowns, even panics, at its equivalent in girls. As a vivid evocation of girls negotiating some of the most vexing issues of adolescence, and as a thoughtful, richly informed examination of the dilemmas these girls face, this readable and revealing book begins the critical work of understanding the sexuality of young women in all its personal, social and emotional significance.


Same-sex marriage is legal in six states, and nearly 50,000 same-sex couples have already married. Yet 43 states have adopted statutes or constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage (typically called mini defense of marriage acts, or "mini-DOMAs"), and the vast majority of these measures not only forbid the creation of same-sex marriages, they also purport to void or deny recognition to the perfectly valid same-sex marriages of couples who migrate from states where such marriages are legal. These non-recognition laws effectively transform the marital parties into complete legal strangers to each other, with none of the customary rights or incidents of marriage. In this paper I argue that an individual who legally marries in her state of domicile, then migrates to another state, has a significant liberty interest under the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause in the ongoing existence of her marriage. This liberty interest creates a right of marriage recognition that prevents a mini-DOMA state from effectively divorcing her by operation of law. This right to marriage recognition is conceptually and doctrinally distinguishable from the constitutional "right to marry." It is a neutral principle, grounded in core Due Process Clause values: protection of reasonable expectations and of marital and family privacy; respect for established legal and social practices; and rejection of the idea that a state can sever a legal family relationship merely by operation of law. A mini-DOMA state will, of course, have interests to be considered in refusing to recognize certain marriages. But under the intermediate form of scrutiny I explain is appropriate, those interests do not rise to a sufficiently important level to justify the nullification of a migratory same-sex marriage.


The effects of global climate change from greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) are diverse and potentially very large, and probably constitute the most serious long-term environmental issue currently facing the world. This paper is prepared as task 1 of the project 'Modelling support for Future Actions - Benefits and Cost of Climate Change Policies and Measures', ENV.C.2/2004/0088, led by K.U.Leuven, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. The paper provides a rapid review and analysis of the impacts and economic costs from climate change. The objective is to provide estimates of the benefits of climate change policy, i.e. from avoided impacts, for support to the Commission in considering the benefits and costs of mitigation efforts, and to support DG Environment in its report to the Spring Council 2005 and in future international negotiations on climate change.


By July 2011, North American carsharing had grown to an industry of nearly 640,000 members since its inception on the continent more than 15 years ago. Carsharing engenders changes in member travel patterns both towards and away from public transit and non-motorized modes. This study, which builds on the work of two previous studies, evaluates this shift in travel based on a 6281 respondent survey completed in late-2008 by members of major North American carsharing organizations. Across the entire sample, the results showed an overall decline in public transit use that was statistically significant, as 589 carsharing members reduced rail use and 828 reduced bus use, while 494 increased rail use and 732 increased bus use. Thus for every five members that use rail less, four members use rail more, and for every 10 members that ride a bus less, almost nine members ride the bus more. The people increasing and decreasing their transit use are fundamentally different in terms of how carsharing impacts their travel environment. This reduction, however, is also not uniform across all organizations; it is primarily driven by a minority (three of eleven) of participating organizations. At the same time, members exhibited a statistically significant increase in travel by walking, bicycling, and carpooling. Across the sample, 756 members increased walking versus a 568 decrease, 628 increased bicycling versus a 235 decrease, and 289 increased carpooling versus a decrease of 99 study participants. The authors found that 970 members reduced their auto commuting to work, while 234 increased it. Interestingly, when these shifts are combined across modes, more people increased their overall public transit and non-motorized modal use after joining carsharing than decreased it. Data collected on the commute distance of respondents found that carsharing members tend to have shorter commutes than most people living in the same zip code. The analysis also evaluates the distribution of residential population density of members and its association with average changes in driving. The analysis finds that average driving reductions are consistent across population densities up to 10,000 persons/square kilometer but become more varied at higher densities.


In this article, the authors hope to shift the debate in the practice disciplines concerning quality in qualitative research from a preoccupation with epistemic criteria toward consideration of aesthetic and rhetorical concerns. They see epistemic criteria as inevitably including aesthetic and rhetorical concerns. The authors argue here for a reconceptualization of the research report as a literary technology that mediates between researcher/writer and reviewer/reader. The evaluation of these reports should thus be treated as occasions in which readers seek to make texts meaningful, rather than for the rigid application of standards and criteria. The authors draw from reader-response theories, literature on rhetoric and representation in science, and findings from an on-going methodological research project involving the appraisal of a set of qualitative studies.


Abstract. Fast measurements of aerosol and gas-phase constituents coupled with the ISORROPIA-II thermodynamic equilibrium model are used to study the partitioning of semivolatile inorganic species and phase state of Mexico City aerosol sampled at the T1 site during the MILAGRO 2006 campaign. Overall, predicted semivolatile partitioning agrees well with measurements. PM2.5 is insensitive to changes in ammonia but is to acidic semivolatile species. For particle sizes up to 1μm diameter, semi-volatile partitioning requires 15–30 min to equilibrate; longer time is typically required during the night and early morning hours. Aerosol and gas-phase speciation always exhibits substantial temporal variability, so that aerosol composition measurements (bulk or size-resolved) obtained over large integration periods are not reflective of its true state. When the aerosol sulfate-to-nitrate molar ratio is less than unity, predictions improve substantially if the aerosol is assumed to follow the deliquescent phase diagram. Treating crustal species as "equivalent sodium" (rather than explicitly) in the thermodynamic equilibrium calculations introduces important biases in predicted aerosol water uptake, nitrate and ammonium; neglecting crustals further increases errors dramatically. This suggests that explicitly considering crustals in the thermodynamic calculations is required to accurately predict the partitioning and phase state of aerosols.


For author Gish Jen, the daughter of Chinese immigrant parents, books were once an Outsiders' Guide to the Universe. But they were something more, too. Through her eclectic childhood reading, Jen stumbled onto a cultural phenomenon that would fuel her writing for decades to come: the profound difference in self-narration that underlies the gap often perceived between East and West. Drawing on a rich array of sources, from paintings to behavioral studies to her father's striking account of his childhood in China, this accessible book not only illuminates Jen's own development and celebrated work but also explores the aesthetic and psychic roots of the independent and interdependent self--each mode of selfhood yielding a distinct way of observing, remembering, and narrating the world. The novel, Jen writes, is fundamentally a Western form that values originality, authenticity, and the truth of individual experience. By contrast, Eastern narrative emphasizes morality, cultural continuity, the everyday, the recurrent. In its progress from a moving evocation of one writer's life to a convincing delineation of the forces that have shaped our experience for millennia, Tiger Writing radically shifts the way we understand ourselves and our art-making.


This Amicus Brief was filed in the United States Court of Appeal for the Second Circuit in the case of Authors Guild v. Hathitrust on June 4, 2013. The case is on Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 11 CV 6351 (Baer, J.) Amici are over 100 professors and scholars who teach, write, and research in computer science, the digital humanities, linguistics or law, and two associations that represent Digital Humanities scholars generally. Mass digitization, especially by libraries, is a key enabler of socially valuable computational and statistical research (often called "data mining" or "text mining"). While the practice of data mining has been used for several decades in traditional scientific disciplines such as astrophysics and in social sciences like economics, it has only recently become technologically and economically feasible within the humanities. This has led to a revolution, dubbed "Digital Humanities," ranging across subjects like literature and linguistics to history and philosophy. New scholarly endeavors enabled by Digital Humanities advancements are still in their infancy but have enormous potential to contribute to our collective understanding of the cultural, political, and economic relationships among various collections (or corpora) of works – including copyrighted works – and with society. The Court's ruling in this case on the legality of mass digitization could dramatically affect the future of work in the Digital Humanities. The Amici argue that the Court should affirm the decision of the district court below that library digitization for the purpose of text mining and similar non-expressive uses present no legally cognizable conflict with the statutory rights or interests of the copyright holders. Where, as here, the output of a database – i.e., the data it produces and displays – is noninfringing, this Court should find that the creation and operation of the database itself is likewise noninfringing. The copying required to convert paper library books into a searchable digital database is properly considered a "non-expressive use" because the works are copied for reasons unrelated to their protectable expressive qualities – the copies are intermediate and, as far as is relevant here, unread. The mass digitization of books for text-mining purposes is a form of incidental or "intermediate" copying that enables ultimately non-expressive, non-infringing, and socially beneficial uses without unduly treading on any expressive – i.e., legally cognizable – uses of the works. The Court should find such copying to be fair use.


We use a three-dimensional chemical transport model to examine the shortwave radiative effects of clouds on the tropospheric ozone budget. In addition to looking at changes in global concentrations as previous studies have done, we examine changes in ozone chemical production and loss caused by clouds and how these vary in different parts of the troposphere. On a global scale, we find that clouds have a modest effect on ozone chemistry, but on a regional scale their role is much more significant, with the size of the response dependent on the region. The largest averaged changes in chemical budgets (±10–14%) are found in the marine troposphere, where cloud optical depths are high. We demonstrate that cloud effects are small on average in the middle troposphere because this is a transition region between reduction and enhancement in photolysis rates. We show that increases in boundary layer ozone due to clouds are driven by large-scale changes in downward ozone transport from higher in the troposphere rather than by decreases in in-situ ozone chemical loss rates. Increases in upper tro-pospheric ozone are caused by higher production rates due to backscattering of radiation and consequent increases in pho-tolysis rates, mainly J(NO 2). The global radiative effect of clouds on isoprene, through decreases of OH in the lower tro-posphere, is stronger than on ozone. Tropospheric isoprene lifetime increases by 7% when taking clouds into account. We compare the importance of clouds in contributing to uncertainties in the global ozone budget with the role of other radiatively-important factors. The budget is most sensitive to the overhead ozone column, while surface albedo and clouds have smaller effects. However, uncertainty in representing the spatial distribution of clouds may lead to a large sensitivity of the ozone budget components on regional scales.


Lyme disease is a tick-borne multisystemic disease caused by Borrelia burgdorferi. Administering antibiotics is the primary treatment for this disease; however, relapse often occurs when antibiotic treatment is discontinued. The reason for relapse remains unknown, but recent studies suggested the possibilities of the presence of antibiotic resistant Borrelia persister cells and biofilms. In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of whole leaf Stevia extract against B. burgdorferi spirochetes, persisters, and biofilm forms in vitro. The susceptibility of the different forms was evaluated by various quantitative techniques in addition to different microscopy methods. The effectiveness of Stevia was compared to doxycycline, cefoperazone, daptomycin, and their combinations. Our results demonstrated that Stevia had significant effect in eliminating B. burgdorferi spirochetes and persisters. Subculture experiments with Stevia and antibiotics treated cells were established for 7 and 14 days yielding, no and 10% viable cells, respectively compared to the above-mentioned antibiotics and antibiotic combination. When Stevia and the three antibiotics were tested against attached biofilms, Stevia significantly reduced B. burgdorferi forms. Results from this study suggest that a natural product such as Stevia leaf extract could be considered as an effective agent against B. burgdorferi.


In the past thirty years, China has transformed from an impoverished country where peasants comprised the largest portion of the populace to an economic power with an expanding middle class and more megacities than anywhere else on earth. This remarkable transformation has required, and will continue to demand, massive quantities of resources. Like every other major power in modern history, China is looking outward to find them. In By All Means Necessary, Elizabeth C. Economy and Michael Levi explore the unrivaled expansion of the Chinese economy and the global effects of its meteoric growth. China is now engaged in a far-flung quest, hunting around the world for fuel, ores, water, and land for farming, and deploying whatever it needs in the economic, political, and military spheres to secure the resources it requires. Chinese traders and investors buy commodities, with consequences for economies, people, and the environment around the world. Meanwhile the Chinese military aspires to secure sea lanes, and Chinese diplomats struggle to protect the country's interests abroad. And just as surely as China's pursuit of natural resources is changing the world--restructuring markets, pushing up commodity prices, transforming resource-rich economies through investment and trade--it is also changing China itself. As Chinese corporations increasingly venture abroad, they must navigate various political regimes, participate in international markets, and adopt foreign standards and practices, which can lead to wide-reaching social and political ramifications at home. Clear, authoritative, and provocative, By All Means Necessary is a sweeping account of where China's pursuit of raw materials may take the country in the coming years and what the consequences will be--not just for China, but for the whole world.


This paper identified and examined the possible impacts of portfolio diversification strategy on the generated Property Companies' (PCs) stocks returns, and the real estate industry performance and risk in the Middle East Real Estate Industry (MEREI) observed over the time period from Feb. 2008 to Feb. 2012. It is important to mention that there are two components of portfolio risk; the first one is non-systematic risk which can be diversified. The second one is systematic or non-diversifiable risk, which cannot be reduced by portfolio diversification; it is also called the market risk. Also, in order to measure the effectiveness of the portfolio, there are two critical variables must be considered, standard deviation and beta. The standard deviation reflects the unsystematic or company specific risk which can be avoided by diversification. However beta measures the type and degree of relationship between the company and the market, where it is very important for the investor to know how much the stock price will change due to a given change in the market. This paper clarifies the impact of diversification on the portfolio performance by including different companies from different sectors in one portfolio, and measuring both risk and return for this portfolio. This paper also aims to recommend the local and regional real estate industry investors as to how useful the diversification strategy is. The first impact considered in this paper is the independent relationship between the real estate portfolio diversification strategy and the PCs stocks returns generated by the portfolios from single stock to the portfolios of ten stocks. This study explains the second impact in terms of the relationship between the systematic risk (beta) of the PC stock and the degree of its correlation with the local and regional markets. The impact of portfolio diversification strategy on the non-systematic risk (standard deviation) is also being considered in this paper. Hence, by increasing the number of PCs stocks in the portfolio this risk can be eliminated. The final issue that the paper addresses is the advices to the investors that the portfolio diversification is a passive strategy and to secure maximum returns and lowest risk, which it is necessary to actively monitor their real estate portfolio and switch among investments if necessary. This study concluded that the investment from the ninth asset portfolio holds only the systematic risk of 0.005%. At this point the diversifiable risk is zero and the only risk that is relevant is the systematic or non-diversifiable or the company specific risk of 0.005% which cannot be eliminated even if an 11th asset is added to the portfolio. Also the study concluded that it is evident that there is no distinct relationship between expected return and the number of real estate assets held in the portfolio. In other words, the principle of diversification has nothing to do with the returns that the real estate assets in the portfolio generate together. In fact, it is the correlation of the return of these listed property companies with the real estate markets in the Middle East. The study recommended the investors in the Middle East to actively review their Real Estate portfolio and interchange the combinations of the assets in forming the portfolio. This may result earning a positive return from their Real Estate investment. Moreover we advise shareholders to not completely rely on the passive strategy of Real Estate portfolio diversification.


The practice of corporate environmental disclosure (CED) has been in existence for more than a decade now, rising to prominence as a result of the upsurge in environmental accounting in the 1990s. Ahmad (2004), by studying in the period of 1998‐2001, found that there is no evidence of environmental disclosure either in term of its quantity or in term of its quality, especially if the health and safety category is excluded; more than 5 years passed now. Some key changes happened in Libyan context such as establishment of Libyan Stock Market and issue of Libyan environmental law no, 15 of 2003. These changes may push CED in Libya steps forward. Thus, the objective of this study is to examine to what extent current CED practice in Libya has been improved. Content analysis is used in this study to investigate CED practices by all the 18 largest industrial companies quoted on Industrial and Mineralisation Secretary (IMS) in Libya. The results of this study reveal that CED in Libya, both in term of its quantity and quality, has been developed over the period between 2001 and 2007. Such development was explained in the shadow of reciprocal direct and indirect accountability model of industrial companies within the main central authorities especially, the relationship with IMS.


Economic inequality is out of control. In 2019, the world's billionaires, only 2,153 people, had more wealth than 4.6 billion people. This great divide is based on a flawed and sexist economic system that values the wealth of the privileged few, mostly men, more than the billions of hours of the most essential work – the unpaid and underpaid care work done primarily by women and girls around the world. Tending to others, cooking, cleaning and fetching water and firewood are essential daily tasks for the wellbeing of societies, communities and the functioning of the economy. The heavy and unequal responsibility of care work perpetuates gender and economic inequalities. This has to change. Governments around the world must act now to build a human economy that is feminist and values what truly matters to society, rather than fuelling an endless pursuit of profit and wealth. Investing in national care systems to address the disproportionate responsibility for care work done by women and girls and introducing progressive taxation, including taxing wealth and legislating in favour of carers, are possible and crucial first steps. Time to Care online report summary Learn more about the WE-Care programme


After millennia of condoning and even encouraging intimate partner violence (IPV), during the past few decades society has increasingly and appropriately condemned this violence and adopted multiple measures, most of them involving the criminal justice system, to limit, control, and remediate it. Considerable resources have been devoted to this effort, but the success of these programs is mixed at best. While there has been some diminishment in the overall prevalence of IPV, this likely can be attributed more to society's somewhat improved attitudes regarding this violence than to the direct impact of these measures. The number of individuals suffering from IPV and the magnitude of its adverse consequences continue to remain staggering. Critics of society's response to IPV often argue that various provisions of domestic violence laws such as mandatory reporting, mandatory arrest, and no-drop policies have led to an "over-reliance on criminal strategies." Moreover, the adoption of these measures has been driven by a few widely publicized cases. These notorious cases tend to be relatively "easy" ones where culpability and an apparent appropriate response is readily deduced in retrospect, but too great a focus on a few cases has resulted in what tends to be a one-size-fits-all approach that fails to adequately address the complexity of IPV and the range of factors and behaviors associated with it. This societal response can be counterproductive if it fails to adequately distinguish among or provide sufficient latitude, flexibility, and nuance for responding to the various types of IPV, as well as the diverse needs, desires, and circumstances of the victims. For example, exclusive reliance on a traditional criminal justice approach, without also empowering the victim, can diminish the victim's feelings of self-worth and increase the victim's isolation, dependence, and vulnerability. This is not to say, however, that traditional criminal justice remedies have no place: when an injured victim has been rendered isolated and dependent or otherwise unable to exercise their autonomy as a result of IPV, the protection and safety that can be afforded by the criminal justice system should be readily forthcoming. Additionally, the nature of the abuse and the characteristics and motivations of the abuser should be taken into account when devising a remedy. Mandatory criminal justice intervention is generally appropriate when the abuse reflects a systematic, terrorizing violence perpetrated to maintain control over the victim, but an alternative victim-directed approach tends to be better suited when the IPV involves a relatively isolated outburst of mild violence linked to circumstances that are relatively unlikely to be repeated or can be readily avoided. In general, more emphasis needs to be placed on assessing the nature and causes of a given case of IPV and the characteristics of the parties involved. For example, an assessment should be made of whether victims understand their predicament, whether they are unable to exercise their autonomy because of isolation or dependence, and whether they have access to adequate remedial options before deciding whether the autonomy of the victim should take priority or interventions should be imposed over the victim's objection. This approach would empower victims whenever possible to make their own choices about whether to invoke society's assistance, educate them about the services that are available, and acknowledge that cases of IPV vary considerably and require an individualized response, while still providing protection to victims who are unable to help themselves. Once this assessment is completed, there should be a range of programs from which to select - including a greater number of education, treatment, and rehabilitation programs - that better respond to the needs and risks particular to the individuals involved. A failure to respond appropriately to such disputes can overlook significant dangers, but can also solidify conflict and convert what could have been a temporary disagreement into a relatively intransigent one from which long-term adverse consequences result. For some cases of IPV, a more graduated, measured, inclusive, and individualized approach may better defuse an otherwise explosive situation and avoid many of the adverse short- and long-term consequences that can otherwise result. In crafting the societal response to IPV, it should be recognized that IPV is a complex phenomenon for which the most appropriate and effective response can vary considerably. While intimate partner violence should under no circumstances be condoned, a more enlightened understanding of IPV and the factors that contribute to it can lead to a more rational, nuanced, and efficient use of society's resources to combat it.


11 July 2014 | New York – UN Member States have reaffirmed their commitment to take bold measures to reduce the avoidable burden of noncommunicable diseases. These ailments, including heart disease and stroke, cancer, diabetes and lung disease kill 38 million people every year, many of them before they reach the age of 70. Most of these largely preventable deaths occur in developing countries, where this epidemic threatens to undermine social and economic development. Member States, gathered for the second time in three years at the United Nations in New York to discuss this topic, pledged to intensify efforts to combat the growing menace of NCDs. They acknowledged that progress has been too slow and uneven since 2011, when the UN General Assembly adopted the Political Declaration and pledged to better protect the lives of their people. "Three years ago we agreed that it is time to act," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a message. "The global epidemic of non-communicable diseases is a major and growing challenge to development." He also noted that "success will depend on finding new ways to strengthen the ability of countries to adopt bolder measures," calling for strong leadership and action from governments, the private sector and others. Under the leadership of the World Health Organization (WHO), the international community agreed in 2011 on global mechanisms including a Global NCD Action Plan. This plan aims to reduce the number of premature deaths from NCDs by 25% by 2025, in part by addressing factors such as tobacco use, harmful use of alcohol, unhealthy diet and physical inactivity that increase people's risk of developing these diseases. The United Nations, through an Interagency Task Force established by the Secretary-General, is providing support to developing countries. Civil society, academia and the private sector contribute to NCD prevention and control worldwide through a Global Coordination Mechanism, and achievements are measured by a set of joint indicators. "The obesity epidemic has been getting worse, not better, for more than three decades," stressed WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan. "Industry practices, especially the marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to children, play a contributory role." She noted that the article in the political declaration calling for collaboration with the private sector "has not been fully implemented. Healthier food formulations are neither affordable nor accessible in large parts of the developing world. Unfortunately, the unhealthiest foods are usually the cheapest and most convenient." The most recent WHO NCD country profiles give a detailed picture on the situation in 194 Member States and identify existing gaps and weaknesses. They also indicate that countries need to do more to reduce the toll of death and disease from NCDs. As one of the results of the New York meeting WHO will prepare a Framework for Country Action together with partners. WHO was also tasked to establish systems to register and publish contributions of the private sector, philanthropies and civil society to the achievement of the nine voluntary targets of the Global NCD Action Plan. The first UN General Assembly High-level on NCDs took place in 2011 and resulted in the adoption of a Political Declaration that put NCDs high on the development agenda. In 2018, the UN General Assembly will convene a third high-level meeting to take stock of progress.


Grammars for programming languages are traditionally specified statically. They are hard to compose and reuse due to ambiguities that inevitably arise. PetitParser combines ideas from scannerless parsing, parser combinators, parsing expression grammars and packrat parsers to model grammars and parsers as objects that can be reconfigured dynamically. Through examples and benchmarks we demonstrate that dynamic grammars are not only flexible but highly practical.


This paper contains the proceedings of the Proxy Access Roundtable that was held by the Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance on October 7, 2009. The Roundtable brought together prominent participants in the debate - representing a range of perspectives and experiences - for a day of discussion on the subject. The day's first two sessions focused on the question of whether the Securities and Exchange Commission should provide an access regime, or whether it should leave the adoption of access arrangements, if any, to private ordering on a company-by-company basis. The third session focused on how a proxy access regime should be designed, assuming the Securities and Exchange Commission were to adopt such an access regime. The final session went beyond proxy access and focused on whether there are any further changes to the arrangements governing corporate elections that should be considered. Speakers in the roundtable included Joseph Bachelder (The Bachelder Firm), Michal Barzuza (University of Virginia School of Law), Lucian Bebchuk (Harvard Law School), Robert Clark (Harvard Law School), John Coates (Harvard Law School), Isaac Corre (Eton Park Capital Management L.P.), Steven M. Davidoff (University of Connecticut School of Law), Jay Eisenhofer (Grant & Eisenhofer P.A.), Richard Ferlauto (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees [AFSCME]), Abe Friedman (Barclays Global Investors), Byron Georgiou (Of Counsel, Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins LLP), Kayla Gillan (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission), Jeffrey Gordon (Columbia Law School), Edward Greene (Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP), Joseph Grundfest (Stanford Law School), Howell Jackson (Harvard Law School), Roy Katzovicz (Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P.), Stephen Lamb (Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP), Mark Lebovitch (Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP), Lance Lindblom (The Nathan Cummings Foundation), Simon Lorne (Millennium Management LLC), Robert Mendelsohn (formerly of Royal and Sun Alliance Insurance Group), Ted Mirvis (Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz), James Morphy (Sullivan & Cromwell LLP), Toby Myerson (Paul,Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP), Annette Nazareth (Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP), John F. Olson (Georgetown University Law Center), Mark Roe (Harvard Law School), Eric Roiter (Boston University School of Law), Leo Strine (Delaware Chancery Court), Daniel Summerfield (Universities Superannuation Scheme), Greg Taxin (formerly of Glass, Lewis & Co.) and John C. Wilcox (Sodali Ltd). Note: Lucian Bebchuk and Scott Hirst are the editors, not the authors, of this paper.


[1] A tunable diode laser absorption spectrometer (TDLAS) was operated on the NASA DC-8 aircraft during the summer INTEX-NA study to acquire ambient formaldehyde (CH2O) measurements over North America and the North Atlantic Ocean from ∼0.2 km to ∼12.5 km altitude spanning 17 science flights. Measurements of CH2O in the boundary layer and upper troposphere over the southeastern United States were anomalously low compared to studies in other years, and this was attributed to the record low temperatures over this region during the summer of 2004. Formaldehyde is primarily formed over the southeast from isoprene, and isoprene emissions are strongly temperature-dependent. Despite this effect, the median upper tropospheric (UT) CH2O mixing ratio of 159 pptv from the TDLAS over continental North America is about a factor of 4 times higher than the median UT value of 40 pptv observed over remote regions during TRACE-P. These observations together with the higher variability observed in this study all point to the fact that continental CH2O levels in the upper troposphere were significantly perturbed during the summer of 2004 relative to more typical background levels in the upper troposphere over more remote regions. The TDLAS measurements discussed in this paper are employed together with box model results in the companion paper by Fried et al. to further examine enhanced CH2O distributions in the upper troposphere due to convection. Measurements of CH2O on the DC-8 were also acquired by a coil enzyme fluorometric system and compared with measurements from the TDLAS system.


OBJECTIVE To explore patients' and health professionals' experiences of initiating insulin as part of the Treating To Target in Type 2 Diabetes (4-T) randomized controlled trial. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Interviews were conducted with 45 trial participants and 21 health professionals and thematically analyzed. RESULTS Patients were generally psychologically insulin receptive when approached to participate in the 4-T trial. Their receptiveness arose largely from their personal experiences observing intensifying prior treatments and deteriorating blood glucose control over time, which led them to engage with and accept the idea that their diabetes was progressive. Health professionals also fostered receptiveness by drawing on their clinical experience to manage patients' anxieties about initiating insulin. CONCLUSIONS Previous studies may have overemphasized the problem of psychological insulin resistance and overlooked factors and treatment experiences that may promote insulin receptiveness among type 2 patients.


The paper contemplates a radical reformation of our entire system for taxing exempt organizations and their patrons. First, all non-charitable exempt organizations that compete with taxable commercial businesses (such as fraternal benefit societies that provide insurance (section 501(c)(8)) and credit unions (501(c)(4))) would become taxable. Also, business leagues, chambers of commerce, and the Professional Golf Association and National Football League would be taxable but could operate as partnerships. Thus, section 501(c)(6) would be repealed.Most other tax-exempt organizations would be reassigned into one of five categories, corresponding roughly to current section 501(c)(1) (U.S. governmental organizations), section 501(c)(3) (charitable), section 501(c)(4) (social welfare), section 501(c)(7) (social clubs, but stated more generally as mutual benefit organizations), and retirement plans.The paper leaves section 501(c)(1) entirely intact, and largely leaves section 501(c)(3) alone, except that it proposes that certain very large public charities with "excessive endowments" be taxable on their investment income to the extent the income is not used directly for charitable purposes.This paper also generally leaves section 501(c)(4) alone, except that any 501(c)(4) (or other tax-exempt organization) that engages in a significant amount of lobbying or campaigning would be taxable on all of its investment income.The fourth catchall category – corresponding roughly to the tax treatment of social clubs ‒ would cover virtually all other tax-exempt organizations (other than retirement plans). Very generally, these organizations would not be subject to tax on donations or per capita membership dues, but would be taxable on investment income, fees charged to non-members, and fees charged to members disproportionately.The paper proposes two significant changes to the treatment of donors. First, section 84 would be expanded to treat any donation of appreciated property to a tax-exempt organization as a sale of that property. Second, any donation to a tax-exempt organization that engages in significant lobbying or campaigning and does not disclose the name of the donor would be treated as a taxable gift by the donor (subject to the annual exclusion and lifetime exemption).Finally, the paper proposes two measures of relief for tax-exempt organizations. First, the unrelated debt-financed income rules would be repealed. Second, limited amounts of political statements by the management of 501(c)(3) organizations (like election-time sermons) would not jeopardize the tax-exempt status of the organization.


The "Quatuor pour temps incertains" is a Quartet for Bb Clarinet, Violin, 'Cello, and Piano, inspired by the work "Quatuor pour la fin du temps" by Oliver Messiaen. The present work is also in 8-movements, and composed with the same instrumentation as Messiaen's work. The parts are based on aspects of life, memory, spirit, and prayer, for example, though not directly tied to Messiaen's biblical inspirations. The composer of the present work first got the idea to write this "Quatuor," after reading a piece about Messiaen by clarinetist Nurhak Tuncer, for whom this was written. The 8-movements of this piece include: Part 1: Incertitude, Part 2: Fragilte, Part 3: Recherche, Part 4: E'quilibre, Part 5: Esprit, Part 6: Repos, Part 7: Priere, Part 8: Resurrection. (All individual parts for the 8 movements will be available on Academic Commons).


Whereas the federal government has exclusive authority over immigration in the United States, during the past decade (and particularly since 9/11), many cities have formulated "grassroots" policies that enable local immigration policing "through the backdoor," and have the indirect—but intended—effect of excluding undocumented immigrants from their jurisdictions. Providing a national overview and three case studies from the Phoenix, Arizona, metropolitan region, this article focuses specifically on the way in which cities are deploying public space ordinances to police (presumed) undocumented day laborers within their jurisdictions. This study underscores how noncitizen status can compromise claims to "the city," and thus makes an argument that the legal geographic literature on city ordinances, public space, and the "right to the city" must engage with immigrant legal status and break free from the "territorial trap" of the nation-state, in which citizenship status is either assumed or considered a non-issue. [


Until Alzheimer's disease wreaked its gradual destruction, Ronald Reagan was an inveterate writer. He wrote not only letters, short fiction, poetry, and sports stories, but speeches, newspaper articles, and radio commentary on public policy issues, both foreign and domestic. Most of Reagan's original writings are pre-presidential. From 1975 to 1979 he gave more than 1,000 daily radio broadcasts, two-thirds of which he wrote himself. They cover every topic imaginable: from labor policy to the nature of communism, from World War II to the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, from the future of Africa and East Asia to that of the United States and the world. They range from highly specific arguments to grand philosophy to personal stories. Even those who knew him best were largely unaware of Reagan's output. George Shultz, as he explains in the Foreword, was surprised when he first saw the manuscripts, but on reflection he really was not surprised at all. Here is definitive proof that Ronald Reagan was far more than a Great Communicator of other people's ideas. He was very much the author of his own ideas, with a single vision that he pursued relentlessly at home and abroad. Reagan, In His Own Hand presents this vision through Reagan's radio writings as well as other writings selected from throughout his life: short stories written in high school and college, a poem from his high school yearbook, newspaper articles, letters, and speeches both before and during the presidency. It offers many surprises, beginning with the fact that Reagan's writings exist in such size and breadth at all. While he was writing batches and batches of radioaddresses, Reagan was also traveling the country, collaborating on a newspaper column, giving hundreds of speeches, and planning his 1980 campaign. Yet the wide reading and deep research self-evident here suggest a mind constantly at work. The selections are reproduced with Reagan's own edits, offering a unique window into his thought processes. These writings show that Reagan had carefully considered nearly every issue he would face as president. When he fired the striking air-traffic controllers, many thought that he was simply seizing an unexpected opportunity to strike a blow at organized labor. In fact, as he wrote in the '70s, he was opposed to public-sector unions using strikes. There has been much debate as to whether he deserves credit for the end of the cold war; here, in a 1980 campaign speech draft, he lays out a detailed vision of the grand strategy that he would pursue in order to encourage the Soviet system to collapse of its own weight, completely consistent with the policies of his presidency. Furthermore, in 1984, Reagan drafted comments he would make to Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko at a critical meeting that would eventually lead to history's greatest reductions in armaments. Ronald Reagan's writings will change his reputation even among some of his closest allies and friends. Here, in his own hand, Reagan the thinker is finally fully revealed.


Context. Most exoplanet imagers consist of ground-based adaptive optics coronagraphic cameras which are currently limited in contrast, sensitivity and astrometric precision, but advantageously observe in the near-infrared window (1–5 μm). Because of these practical limitations, our current observational aim at detecting and characterizing planets puts heavy constraints on target selection, observing strategies, data reduction, and follow-up. Most surveys so far have thus targeted young systems (1–100 Myr) to catch the putative remnant thermal radiation of giant planets, which peaks in the near-infrared. They also favor systems in the solar neighborhood (d < 80 pc), which eases angular resolution requirements but also ensures a good knowledge of the distance and proper motion, which are critical to secure the planet status, and enable subsequent characterization. Aims. Because of their youth, it is very tempting to target the nearby star forming regions, which are typically twice as far as the bulk of objects usually combed for planets by direct imaging. Probing these interesting reservoirs sets additional constraints that we review in this paper by presenting the planet search that we initiated in 2008 around the disk-bearing T Tauri star IM Lup, which is part of the Lupus star forming region (140–190 pc). Methods. We show and discuss why age determination, the choice of evolutionary model for both the central star and the planet, precise knowledge of the host star proper motion, relative or absolute (between different instruments) astrometric accuracy (including plate scale calibration), and patience are the key ingredients for exoplanet searches around more distant young stars. Results. Unfortunately, most of the time, precision and perseverance are not paying off: we discovered a candidate companion around IM Lup in 2008, which we report here to be an unbound background object. We nevertheless review in details the lessons learned from our endeavor, and additionally present the best detection limits ever calculated for IM Lup. We also accessorily report on the successful use of innovative data reduction techniques, such as the damped-LOCI and iterative roll subtraction.


As we all know by now, wireless networks offer many advantages over fixed (or wired) networks. Foremost on that list is mobility, since going wireless frees you from the tether of an Ethernet cable at a desk. But that's just the tip of the cable-free iceberg. Wireless networks are also more flexible, faster and easier for you to use, and more affordable to deploy and maintain. The de facto standard for wireless networking is the 802.11 protocol, which includes Wi-Fi (the wireless standard known as 802.11b) and its faster cousin, 802.11g. With easy-to-install 802.11 network hardware available everywhere you turn, the choice seems simple, and many people dive into wireless computing with less thought and planning than they'd give to a wired network. But it's wise to be familiar with both the capabilities and risks associated with the 802.11 protocols. And 802.11 Wireless Networks: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition is the perfect place to start. This updated edition covers everything you'll ever need to know about wireless technology. Designed with the system administrator or serious home user in mind, it's a no-nonsense guide for setting up 802.11 on Windows and Linux. Among the wide range of topics covered are discussions on: deployment considerationsnetwork monitoring and performance tuningwireless security issueshow to use and select access pointsnetwork monitoring essentialswireless card configurationsecurity issues unique to wireless networks With wireless technology, the advantages to its users are indeed plentiful. Companies no longer have to deal with the hassle and expense of wiring buildings, and households with several computers can avoid fights over who's online. And now, with 802.11 Wireless Networks: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition, you can integrate wireless technology into your current infrastructure with the utmost confidence.


We describe an Australia-wide Clostridium difficile outbreak in 2011 and 2012 involving the previously uncommon ribotype 244. In Western Australia, 14 of 25 cases were community-associated, 11 were detected in patients younger than 65 years, 14 presented to emergency/outpatient departments, and 14 to non-tertiary/community hospitals. Using whole genome sequencing, we confirm ribotype 244 is from the same C. difficile clade as the epidemic ribotype 027. Like ribotype 027, it produces toxins A, B, and binary toxin, however it is fluoroquinolone-susceptible and thousands of single nucleotide variants distinct from ribotype 027. Fifteen outbreak isolates from across Australia were sequenced. Despite their geographic separation, all were genetically highly related without evidence of geographic clustering, consistent with a point source, for example affecting the national food chain. Comparison with reference laboratory strains revealed the outbreak clone shared a common ancestor with isolates from the United States and United Kingdom (UK). A strain obtained in the UK was phylogenetically related to our outbreak. Follow-up of that case revealed the patient had recently returned from Australia. Our data demonstrate new C. difficile strains are an on-going threat, with potential for rapid spread. Active surveillance is needed to identify and control emerging lineages.


My creative research has been an investigation of how different characteristics of line
quality convey emotions or feelings in purely abstract work. The line quality that is used
in the figurative work of Frank Auerbach (Berlin, 1931) conveys a completely different
energy from that of Sam Messer (American, 1955). When these linear elements are used,
the figures hold different feelings based on the artist's expression and method. The work
of Jackson Pollock (American, 1912 – 1956) explores the same feelings that a line can
create, but in a purely abstract work. I intend to further exercise how line can evoke
different emotional reactions from the viewer in abstract forms. Studying how line can
describe figurative drawings in different ways will continue to inform my method of
abstract expression. Training myself to not only be a viewer of my work, but to
understand how my feelings alter my work during the creative process will allow me
recognize how the different emotional characteristics take form themselves in my work.


Activist-academic Meg John Barker and cartoonist Julia Scheele illuminate the histories of queer thought and LGBTQ+ action in this groundbreaking non-fiction graphic novel. A kaleidoscope of characters from the diverse worlds of pop-culture, film, activism and academia guide us on a journey through the ideas, people and events that have shaped 'queer theory'.

From identity politics and gender roles to privilege and exclusion, Queer explores how we came to view sex, gender and sexuality in the ways that we do; how these ideas get tangled up with our culture and our understanding of biology, psychology and sexology; and how these views have been disputed and challenged.

Along the way we look at key landmarks which shift our perspective of what's 'normal', such as Alfred Kinsey's view of sexuality as a spectrum between heterosexuality and homosexuality, Judith Butler's view of gendered behavior as a performance, the play Wicked, which reinterprets characters from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, or moments in Casino Royale when we're invited to view James Bond with the kind of desiring gaze usually directed at female bodies in mainstream media.


Tourism constitutes an important sector in the economy of many countries around the world and it is recognized as being a powerful factor for the economic development and improvement of livelihood of rural communities. In this context, tourism ventures have emerged and have been developed to attract and increase the flow of tourists to certain rural communities with only partial success, due to the lack of appropriate management and business skills. Research has revealed that rural tourism is not perfectly organized so to be sustainable and to maximize the benefit for the local community. Based on the review of literature, key elements determining the success of the development of tourism ventures in rural areas, along with management recommendations targeting to sustainable tourism development, are discussed. The proposed recommendations aim to address the main elements on how to successfully manage tourism enterprises within rural communities.


VOLUME 1: Fundamentals and Theory Part 1: Electron Theory of Magnetism Density Functional Theory of Magnetism Hubbard Model Dynamical Mean Field Theory of Itinerant Electron Magnetism Quantum Monte Carlo Methods Part 2: Strongly Correlated Electronic Systems Heavy Fermions: electrons at the edge of magnetism The Kondo Effect Orbital physics in transition metal oxides: Magnetism and optics Part 3:Theory of Magnetic Spectroscopy and Scattering Magnetic Spectroscopy X-ray and Neutron Scattering by Magnetic Materials Part 4:Spin Dynamics and Relaxation Spin Waves History and A Summary of Recent Developments Dissipative Magnetization dynamics close to the adiabatic regime Part 5:Phase Transitions and Finite Temperature Magnetism Experiment and Analysis Electron Theory of Finite Temperature Magnetism Theory of Magnetic Phase Transitions Disordered and Frustrated Spin Systems Quantum Phase Transitions Part 6: Theory of Magneocrystalline Anisotropy and Magnetoelasticity Theory of Magnetocrystalline Anisotropy and Magnetoelasticity in transition metal systems Theory of Magnetocrystalline Anisotropy and Magnetoelasticity for 4f and 5f Metals Magnetostriction and Magnetoelasticity Theory: a Modern View Part 7: Theory of Transport and Exchange Phenomena in Layer Systems Exchange Coupling in Magnetic Multilayers Enhanced Magnetoresistance Berry phase in magnetism and the anomalous Hall effect Theory of Spin-Dependent Tunneling Part 8: Magnetism of Low Dimensions Magnetism of Low-dimensional Metallic Structures Magnetism of Low-Dimensional Systems: Theory Part 9: Molecular Magnets: Phenomenology and Theory Molecular Magnets: Phenomenology and Theory Part 10: Magnetism and Superconductivity Interplay of Superconductivity and Magnetism Magnetic Superconductors VOLUME 2: Micromagnetism Part 1: Fundamentals of Micromagnetism and Discrete Computational Models General Micromagnetic Theory Numerical Micromagnetics : Finite Difference Methods Numerical Methods in Micromagnetics (FEM) Magnetization dynamics including thermal fluctuations: basic phenomenology, fast remagnetization processes and transitions over high energy barriers Nonlinear Magnetization Dynamics in Nanomagnets Classical Spin Models Part 2: Micromagnetics Applications: Distribution of Equilibrium Configurations, Phase Diagrams and Hysteretic Properties- Small Objects Magnetization Configurations and reversal in small magnetic elements Magnetic Properties of Systems of Low Dimensions Part 3: Micromagnetics Applications: Distribution of Equilibrium Configurations, Phase Diagrams and Hysteretic Properties- Wall in Nanowires Domain Wall Propagation in Magnetic Wires Current Induced Domain-Wall Motion in Magnetic Nanowires The Motion of Domain Walls in Nano-Circuits and its Application to Digital Logic Part 4: Micromagnetics Applications: Distribution of Equilibrium Configurations, Phase Diagrams and Hysteretic Properties- Microstructure and Magnetization Processes Guided Spin Waves Micromagnetism-Microstructure Relations. Micromagnetism of the Hysteresis Loop Modelling of Non-linear Behaviour and Hysteresis in Magnetic Materials Part 5: Magnetization dynamics, solitons, Modes and Thermal Excitations Magnetization Dynamics: Thermal Driven Noise in Magnetoresistive Sensors Modes, Theory and Experiment Nonlinear Multi-dimensional Spin Wave Excitations in Magnetic Films Part 6: Micromagnetics of Spin angular transfer Theory of Spin-Transfer Torque Microwave Generation in Magnetic Multilayers and Nanostructures VOLUME 3: Novel Techniques for Characterizing and Preparing Samples Part 1: X-Ray and Neutron Diffraction Techniques Spin Structures and Spin Wave Excitations Domain States determined by Neutron Refraction and Scattering Polarized neutron reflectivity and scattering of magnetic nanostructures and spintronic materials Part 2: Synchrotron Radiation Techniques, Circular Dichroism of Hard & Soft X-Rays Synchrotron radiation techniques based on X-ray magnetic circular dichroism Part 3: Time and Space Resolved Magnetization Dynamics Ultrafast Magnetodynamics with Lateral Resolution: A View by Photoemission Microscopy Part 4: Electron Microscopy and Electron Holography Lorentz Microscopy of Thin Film Systems Electron Holography Of Ferromagnetic Materials Spin-Polarized Low Energy Electron Diffraction Spin-polarized Low Energy Electron Microscopy (SPLEEM) Scanning Electron Microscopy with Polarisation Analysis Part 5: Magneto-optical Techniques Investigation of Domains and Dynamics of Domain Walls by the Magneto-optical Kerr-effect Magnetization-induced second harmonic generation technique Investigation of Spin Waves and Spin Dynamics by Optical Techniques Time-resolved Kerr-effect and spin dynamics in itinerant ferromagnets Part 6: Spin Polarized Electron Spectroscopies Investigation of Ultrathin Ferromagnetic Films by Magnetic Resonance Spin-Polarized Photoelectron Spectroscopy as a probe of Magnetic Systems High-energy surface spin-waves studied by Spin-polarized Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy Part 7: Nano Magnetism- Application and Charaterisation Scanning Probe Techniques: MFM and SP-STM Alternative Patterning Techniques : Magnetic Interactions in Nanomagnet Arrays Chemical Synthesis of Monodisperse Magnetic Nanoparticles Nanoimprint Technology for Patterned Magnetic Nanostructures Part 8: Growth Techniques Growth of Magnetic Materials using Molecular Beam Epitaxy Epitaxial Heusler alloys on III-V semiconductors Crystal Growth of magnetic materials VOLUME 4: Novel Materials Part 1: Soft Magnetic Materials Amorphous Alloys Soft Magnetic Materials - Nanocrystalline Alloys Soft Magnetic Bulk Glassy and Bulk Nanocrystalline Alloys Advanced Soft Magnetic Materials for Power Applications Part 2 : Hard Magnetic Materials Rare earth intermetallics for permanent magnet applications Rare-earth (RE) Transition-Metal (T M) Magnets Rare earth nanocrystalline and nanostructured magnets Current Status of Magnetic Industry in China & its Future Part 3: Ferro- and ferrimagnetic oxides and alloys Ferrimagnetic Insulators Crystallography and Chemistry of Perovskites Chalcogenides and Pnictides Dilute Magnetic Oxides and Nitrides Heusler alloys Half Metals Part 4: Ferro- and ferrimagnetic particles Superparamagnetic Particles Novel Nanoparticulate Magnetic Materials and Structures Part 5: Micro- and Nanowires Advanced Magnetic Microwires Template-based Synthesis and Characterization of High-Density Ferromagnetic Nanowire Arrays Magnetic Carbon Part 6: Magnetic Thin Films Magnetic Ultra-hyphen thin Films Magnetic Thin Films Hard Magnetic Films Part 7: Magnetic Materials with outstanding properties Magneto-optical materials Magnetocaloric Materials Magnetostrictive Materials and Magnetic Shape Memory Materials Ferroelectricity in Incommensurate Magnets Magnetism and Quantum Critically in Heavy-Fermion Compounds: Interplay with Superconductivity Molecular nanomagnets Part 8: Biomagnetic Materials Spintronic Biochips For Biomolecular Recognition Application of Magnetic Particles in Medicine and Biology VOLUME 5: Spintronics and Magnetoelectronics Part 1: Metal Spintronics Magnetic Tunnel Junctions including Applications Spin angular momentum transfer in magnetoresistive nano-junctions Spin-transfer in high magnetic fields and single magnetic layer nanopillars Microwave Excitations in Spin Momentum Transfer Devices Theory of Spin-Polarized Current and Spin-Transfer Torque in Magnetic Multilayers Part 2: Exotic Materials High Temperature Superconductivity- Magnetic Mechanisms Ferromagnetic Manganite Films Magnetic Polarons Kondo Effect in Mesoscopic Quantum Dots Ferromagnetic Semiconductors Diluted ferromagnetic semiconductors - theoretical aspects Part 3: Semiconductor spintronics Spin Engineering in Quantum Well Structures Hot Electron Spintronics Spin-dependent transport of carriers in semiconductors Spintronic devices/spin relaxation Theory of Spin Hall Effects in Semiconductors Manipulation of Spins and Coherence in Semiconductors Quantum computing with spins in solids Part 4: Quantum computation The Magnetic Resonance Force Microscope Part 5: Magnetoresistance Tunneling Magnetoresistance in Semiconductors Spin-dependent Tunneling: Role of Evanescent and Resonant States Unusual magnetoresistance including extraordinary and Ballistic


An understanding of the glacial history of the Amundsen Sea Embayment (ASE) and Pine Island Bay (PIB) is essential for proposing models on the future development of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. This requires an understanding of the tectonic history and knowledge of tectonic features such as lineaments, ridges, sills and basins, because basement morphology and inherited erosional features control the flow direction of ice-sheets and the influx of Circum-Polar Deep Water (CDW). This is an attempt to reconstruct the tectonic history with the aim to search for basement features and crustal boundaries which may be correlated to the flow and dynamics of the ice-sheet. The Amundsen Sea Embayment of West Antarctica is in a prominent location for a series of tectonic and magmatic events from Paleozoic to Cenozoic times. Seismic, magnetic and gravity data from the embayment and PIB reveal the crustal thickness and significant tectonic features. NE-SW trending magnetic and gravity anomalies and the thin crust indicate a former rift zone which was active during or in the run-up to the breakup process between Chatham Rise and West Antarctica before or at 90 Ma. NW-SE trending gravity and magnetic anomalies, following a prolongation of Peacock Sound, indicate the extensional southern boundary to the Bellingshausen Plate which was active between 79 and 61 Ma. It is likely that the prominent Pine Island Trough follows a structural boundary between the crustal blocks of Ellsworth Land and Marie Byrd Land. Data are shown from the ASE and PIB which can be interpreted in context with the reconstruction of the ice advance and retreat history in this area. Differences in the behaviour of the ice-sheet are shown to exist for the western and eastern parts of PIB due to basement structures affecting the inflow of CDW.


After the writings of Charles S. Peirce and William James became popular among intellectuals in the early twentieth century, American judges started to use pragmatic parlance to decide cases. Starting with a trilogy of opinions by Supreme Court of Florida Justice Thomas M. Shackelford, a variety of prominent jurists deployed pragmatic analysis in their opinions. These judges included Benjamin Cardozo, Learned Hand, Robert Jackson, and Jerome Frank. American judicial theorists can learn a lot from this early use of pragmatism language in judicial opinions written before 1950.


Abstract According to Article 12 of Regulation (EC) No 396/2005, EFSA has reviewed the maximum residue levels (MRLs) currently established at European level for the pesticide active substance metaflumizone. To assess the occurrence of metaflumizone residues in plants, processed commodities, rotational crops and livestock, EFSA considered the conclusions derived in the framework of Commission Regulation (EU) No 188/2011, the MRLs established by the Codex Alimentarius Commission and the European authorisations reported by Member States (including the supporting residues data). Based on the assessment of the available data, MRL proposals were derived and a consumer risk assessment was carried out. Some information required by the regulatory framework was missing and a possible acute risk to consumers was identified. Hence, the consumer risk assessment is considered indicative only, some MRL proposals derived by EFSA still require further consideration by risk managers and measures for reduction of the consumer exposure should also be considered.


Woody invading alien plants, many of which are nitrogen-fixing legumes (Fabaceae family), are currently cleared in South African catchments to reduce water loss and preserve streamflow, and for the restoration of the ecosystem. This study tested the hypothesis that clearing invasive alien vegetation may disturb the vegetation-micro-organism-soil N cycling system by producing a large once-off input of fresh tree litterfall rich in N and by eliminating a large N sink. Three experimental plots were established at the Riverlands Nature Reserve (Western Cape, South Africa): a site invaded by Acacia saligna to be used as control; a site cleared of Acacia saligna; and a site with natural vegetation to be used as background. Nitrogen concentrations in soil and groundwater, volumetric soil water contents, root density and weather conditions were measured during 2007. Oxidised forms of nitrogen, in particular NO3-, were dominant in the system. Recharge and leachate were simulated with the HYDRUS-2D model and used as inputs into Visual MODFLOW to predict the spatial distribution of nitrate plus nitrite (NOx) in groundwater. NOx levels in soil and groundwater were higher in alien-invaded areas compared to fynbos-covered land. A quick release of NOx into groundwater was observed due to high residual N reserves in the rooting zone, decreased  evapotranspiration and increased recharge in the treatment cleared of alien vegetation. In the long run, high NOx concentrations in groundwater underlying cleared land will last only until all the excess nitrogen has been leached from the soil. A decrease in NOx concentration in groundwater can be expected thereafter. Clearing land of alien invasive legumes may therefore have a beneficial effect by reducing groundwater contamination from NOx and reducing water losses in catchments.


Melanin is investigated as a pigment that is responsible for colorization in human skin. The color of human skin varies from dark brown to nearly colorless "pinkish white". The amount of skin melanin in the individual skin depends on both genetic and environmental factors. This offers some protection against the damaging effects of ultraviolet radiation. For the studies of laser effects on the skin melanin, the suitable sample is chosen depends on the availability for getting the sample and also the existence of skin melanin on that sample. Therefore, the skin of laboratory rat is used as an experimental sample. Carbon dioxide laser is used as a source of radiation in this study because of its 10.6μm of wavelength which has an ability to penetrate effectively on soft tissue that contains 90% of water. The rat skin is exposed to carbon dioxide laser "CO2 laser" radiation and any changes on the skin is observed and analyzed. After the exposure, the pieces of normal and exposed skin are preserved. In order to go through the sample, histological method is carried out to make the standard slides for examination under the compound light microscope. The images obtained on the both skin sample the normal and the exposed skin show that there are changes in both skin structures which can be seen clearly under the microscope lenses. These changes contributed by the interaction of the skin cells to the heat and energy produced by the carbon dioxide laser "CO2 laser" during the exposure time.


Wharton, Thomas. The Fathomless Fire . Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2012. Print. The Fathomless Fire is a sequel to Wharton's first fantasy novel, The Shadow of Malabron . In Shadow , we met Will Lightfoot, an angry young teen catapulted into the magical world of the Perilous Realm. This land consists of all the characters and plot conventions of the fairy and folk tales of our world. They have been deftly altered to place them in a realistic medieval setting, with a few twists. Stories are the key to the magic of the Realm, and the power of the land is in the hands of those who understand these stories. There, Will meets Rowen and her grandfather, the Loremaster. The Perilous Realm is under siege by Malabron, the Dark Lord, who wishes to end all stories but his own, bringing the land into shadow. Sound familiar? It should, as Wharton has brought all of the traditional archetypes and elements of fantasy to bear in these tales: Troubled young protagonist, the dark lord, the wise wizard, the knight, and the companions who are assembled for the quest, to assist the protagonist in his fight against the evil in a medieval setting. Wharton has used these conventions to his own advantage here, creating a rich and detailed world. Shadow of Malabron ended with Rowen discovering that she is the new Loremaster, and Will's return to our world. The Fathomless Fire begins with Will discovering that his friends need his help, so he revisits the Realm. This time, the narrative is divided between Will and Rowen's separate storylines. Will is off to find his friend Shade, a talking wolf who was his closest companion. Rowen is in the town of Fable, working with her grandfather to develop her skills as a Loremaster. Of course, neither journey is as easy as it seems, and both Will and Rowen must be flexible to follow the twists and turns of their fates. Wharton has obviously done his homework. He has built a vibrant and interesting world, full of detail and character. However, it appears that Wharton, in his eagerness to introduce as many recognizable stories from our world, misses opportunities to flesh out situations which would allow the reader to fully experience his world. Characters remain blocky, lacking the in-depth characterization which would deepen our connection to them. While the multiplicity of story threads Wharton has woven throughout this book may be overwhelming for some younger readers, those with a good understanding of the fantasy genre will be drawn to this series. Wharton is an accomplished writer, and his language and descriptive passages draws the reader into the Perilous Realm and the journeys of Will and Rowen. I recommend reading Shadow of Malabron first, to become familiar with the Realm, before embarking on this second novel. Readers who are looking for a new high fantasy novel, but who are not quite ready for The Lord of the Rings will find this tale intriguing and enjoyable. Recommended: 3 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Lissa Davies Lissa Davies is an elementary teacher-librarian in Edmonton. She is a passionate reader, and is always excited to share new books and engage readers!