Celebrated novelist David Treuer has gained a reputation for writing fiction that expands the horizons of Native American literature. In "Rez Life," his first full-length work of nonfiction, Treuer brings a novelist s storytelling skill and an eye for detail to a complex and subtle examination of Native American reservation life, past and present. With authoritative research and reportage, Treuer illuminates misunderstood contemporary issues of sovereignty, treaty rights, and natural-resource conservation. He traces the waves of public policy that have disenfranchised and exploited Native Americans, exposing the tension that has marked the historical relationship between the United States government and the Native American population. Through the eyes of students, teachers, government administrators, lawyers, and tribal court judges, he shows how casinos, tribal government, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs have transformed the landscape of Native American life. A member of the Ojibwe of northern Minnesota, Treuer grew up on Leech Lake Reservation, but was educated in mainstream America. Exploring crime and poverty, casinos and wealth, and the preservation of native language and culture, "Rez Life" is a strikingly original work of history and reportage, a must read for anyone interested in the Native American story."


The purpose of this study was to create a reliable and valid measure of counselor professional identity (CPI) that could be used with all counseling specialties and across the career span. A comprehensive definition of counselor professional identity was derived from the literature and used as the framework for creating the measure. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the original six subscale structure of the instrument was too simplistic. To gain a better understanding of the factor structure of the measure, exploratory factor analysis, also was conducted. Findings from both the confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis, along with results from additional exploratory analyses are reported. Implications for the counseling profession are discussed in relation to the findings.


The distinction between dictum and holding is at once central to the American legal system and largely irrelevant. In the first systematic empirical study of lower court invocations of the distinction, we show that lower courts hardly ever refuse to follow a statement from a higher court because it is dictum. Specifically, federal courts of appeals meaningfully invoke the distinction in about 1 in 4000 cases; federal district courts in about 1 in 2000 cases; and state courts in about 1 in 4000 cases. In this Essay, we report these findings, describe our coding system, and offer a preliminary assessment of the implications of our study. Most notably, our findings raise questions about the vitality of traditional common law judging. Rather than play a significant role in the development of legal principles by treating extraneous statements in higher court rulings as nonbinding dicta, lower courts cede much of their common law power to higher courts. Higher courts can issue sweeping rulings that address questions not immediately before them, knowing that those statements will not be treated as dicta. In highlighting this dynamic between lower and higher courts, our study also casts light on the ongoing debate over judicial minimalism. The ability of courts to pursue the minimalist project of issuing narrow, fact-specific rulings is undercut by a regime in which lower courts look to higher courts for the enunciation of legal principles. Finally, our study is highly salient to the practice of law. Lawyers, although frequently referencing the holding-dictum distinction in legal briefs, have little reason to think that a lower court will ever invoke the distinction to rule against higher court dicta.


The soybean cyst nematode (SCN) continues to be a major yield-reducing pathogen of soybeans in Iowa, and it occurs in up to 75 percent of fields in the state. Growing SCN-resistant soybeans is an important part of managing SCN. Results from Iowa State University's nine SCN-resistant variety trial experiments in 2013 illustrate how resistant varieties can produce high yields and suppress the buildup of the nematode in infested fields.


This study of mid-century modern residences focuses on how they may be
successfully rehabilitated according to The Secretary of the Interiors Standards
for Rehabilitation with Guidelines for Historic Buildings and how the process may
serve as a model for future rehabilitation strategies for similar resources. With
documented case studies, interviews, and diagnostic data from a sampling of
seven mid-century modern resources located in Greensboro, North Carolina, the
researcher provides strategies for rehabilitating these dwellings that will not
jeopardize future nomination for historic recognition on the local, state and
national level, allowing the resources to represent the intent of the designer
through aesthetics, durability, comfort and, efficiency. Like many suburban
buildings throughout United States, the sophisticated use of prefabricated
standardized industrial materials, large span glazing, flat roofs, plywood, and
aluminum, concrete and, industrial steel framing as well as careful site orientation
characterize the buildings in the case study. As they reach their natural life
cycle, the researcher addresses the very materials and systems deployed in
homes after World War II, a significant challenge to the continued, viable use of
the recent past structures.


This article examines the impact of a senior English teacher's ethos in composing, with her students, a new literacies classroom.  This is a paradigm case where ever-changing technical stuff and a new ethos are encouraged in the literacy events of the classroom context.  Utilizing a metaphor of 'classroom as text', we better understand the importance of the teacher's own literacies, and her role as co-author of new, situated classroom literacies.  In this case, language and literacy teaching becomes tangential through multi-textual readings and compositions that enact an ellipsis where certain previously privileged texts and approaches are omitted.  In this way, through a reciprocal relationship, the teacher fosters rather than defines her students' emergent literacies and critical thinking development.  In turn, the students influence their teacher's conceptions of what it means to be literate; what textual readings and compositions are meaningful to their situated language learning in digital times.


Scent lineups are a powerful tool in the investigation of crimes. With proper procedures, both forensic and judicial, scent lineups can be valuable evidence for a jury to consider. Unfortunately, many courts have been willing to admit poorly conducted procedures, even if giving lip service to the fact that the scent lineup was deficient by saying that its admission was harmless error. The tendency of some courts to view scent lineups as an extension of scent tracking has resulted in admission of scent lineup evidence under inappropriate standards. Tracking cases have set foundational requirements from long-held social and judicial assumptions about the accuracy of dogs. Although no specific set of training procedures or testing protocols need be imposed for the conduct of scent lineups, a protocol with elements that have produced a diagnostic ratio greater than 10 should be required for admission of scent lineup evidence in a criminal prosecution. Dogs should be trained in a series of stages and should not be approved for working trials until they have high proficiency ratios in test trials. Samples should be prepared under rigorous standards that eliminate contamination to the extent possible. Cloth or metal tubes may be used, but the choice of such items will affect the frequency with which objects in the lineups are changed. Handlers and experimenters visible to the dog should be blind as to the location of target scents. Control trials should determine if a dog is willing to work on a particular day or is overly attracted to a suspect's scent, and failure in control trials should preclude the dog's participation in a final trial. Some control trials should probably be zero trials in which no choice is correct. At least two, but preferably three dogs should alert to a suspect's scent in a final trial for the evidence to be advanced as trial evidence (and the number of dogs not alerting correctly should be at least two or three less than the number of dogs alerting correctly). A failure to reach a trial evidence level does not preclude a record of an alert being kept as part of the investigation of a crime. Rigorous research should continue both as to the science and behavior of dogs in identification settings and in designing optimal procedures for such settings. Better coordination between FBI resources and state and local police departments could lead to more solid scent lineup evidence, which can be particularly useful in cases where witnesses tend to disappear or refuse to cooperate with visual lineups. Nevertheless, because the possibility of a false identification cannot be completely eliminated, corroboration by other evidence should be required, probably at a clear and convincing level.


This study discusses how to best respond to non-native writers in Basic Writing classes in order to achieve the most effective learning outcomes. Beginning with an overview concerning how to respond to Basic Writers in general and more specifically non-native writers, the paper then focuses on theories concerning the social aspect of language. Intertwining Contrastive Rhetoric with Mikhail M. Bakhtin's notion of heteroglossia provides valuable guidelines by which instructors may respond to non-native writers in Basic Writing classes. A primary goal is to encourage the development of higher order discourse concerns, or rhetoric, rather than focusing on correcting lower order concerns, or mechanical issues, taking into account process writing theory. A basic premise of this paper is that effective communication in writing goes beyond linguistic rules and includes culturally conditioned thought processes that instructors should recognize and address.


Background/Context In recent years, states, districts, schools, and external partners have recognized the need to proactively foster the use of data to guide educational decision-making and practice. Understanding that data alone will not guarantee use, individuals at all levels have invested in interventions to support better access to, interpretation of, and responses to data of all kinds. Despite the emergence of these efforts, there has been little systematic examination of research on such efforts. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This article synthesizes what we currently know about interventions to support educators' use of data—ranging from comprehensive, system-level initiatives, such as reforms sponsored by districts or intermediary organizations, to more narrowly focused interventions, such as a workshop. The article summarizes what is what is known across studies about the design and implementation of these interventions, their effects at the individual and organizational levels, and the conditions shown to affect implementation and outcomes. Research Design Literature review. Data Collection and Analysis This review entailed systematic searches of electronic databases and careful sorting to yield a total of 41 books, peer-reviewed journal articles, and reports. Summaries of each publication were coded to identify the study methods (design, framework, sample, time frame, data collection), intervention design (level of schooling, focal data and data user, leverage points, components), and findings on implementation, effects, and conditions. Findings/Results The review uncovers a host of common themes regarding implementation, including promising practices (e.g., making data "usable" and "safe," targeting multiple leverage points) and persistent challenges (e.g., developing support that is generic but also customized, sustaining sufficient support). The review also finds mixed findings and levels of research evidence on effects of interventions, with relatively more evidence on effects on educators' knowledge, skills, and practice than on effects on organizations and student achievement. The article also identifies a set of common conditions found to influence intervention implementation and effects, including intervention characteristics (capacity, data properties), broader context (leadership, organizational structure), and individual relationships and characteristics (trust, beliefs and knowledge). Conclusions/Recommendations The review finds that the current research base is limited in quantity and quality. It suggests the need for more methodologically rigorous research and greater attention to the organizational and student-level outcomes of interventions, comparative analyses, interventions that help educators move from knowledge to action, and specific ways in which the quality of data and leadership practices shape the effectiveness of interventions.


The past four decades witnessed a tremendous and wide-ranging change in family patterns in Western societies. Amongst these changes are phenomena such as growing number of divorces, births out-of-wedlock, and the absence of fathers because of globalisation, same-sex marriages and cohabitation of people without a marriage contract. Western societies are typified as "highdivorce societies". Furthermore, in the United States the number of couples cohabiting has increased eightfold since 1970 and it is fair to conclude that the situation is similar in other Western societies. The purpose of the article is to deal with these patterns from a Reformed perspective. The central theoretical argument is that these developments can be perceived as a crisis in view of the Biblical perspectives on marriage and family life. However, the Biblical perspectives not only offer a clear indication of healthy marriage and family life entail, but also indicate that a Christian attitude in marriage and family life can serve as a remedy for the damage caused by the new trends.


Autism is a condition characterized by impaired cognitive and social skills, associated with compromised immune function. The incidence is alarmingly on the rise, and environmental factors are increasingly suspected to play a role. This paper investigates word frequency patterns in the U.S. CDC Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) database. Our results provide strong evidence supporting a link between autism and the aluminum in vaccines. A literature review showing toxicity of aluminum in human physiology offers further support. Mentions of autism in VAERS increased steadily at the end of the last century, during a period when mercury was being phased out, while aluminum adjuvant burden was being increased. Using standard log-likelihood ratio techniques, we identify several signs and symptoms that are significantly more prevalent in vaccine reports after 2000, including cellulitis, seizure, depression, fatigue, pain and death, which are also significantly associated with aluminum-containing vaccines. We propose that children with the autism diagnosis are especially vulnerable to toxic metals such as aluminum and mercury due to insufficient serum sulfate and glutathione. A strong correlation between autism and the MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) vaccine is also observed, which may be partially explained via an increased sensitivity to acetaminophen administered to control fever.


A private money is a widely accepted medium of exchange or payment issued by a non-governmental body in the absence of any legal privileges. Private monies do not have to be generally acceptable; they merely have to be widely accepted. Three examples of contemporary private monetary systems are the Liberty Dollar, e-gold and cryptocurrencies. The former two are based on precious metals and the best-known instance of the latter is Bitcoin. There is a public demand for and interest in private currencies from various groups of people. Some wish to hold private currencies in the expectation that they will not diminish in purchasing power as state money has; some wish to conduct illegal activity; some wish to be part of a movement against increasing state control of economic and personal behaviour; and others just want better money. The Liberty Dollar was based on a private mint that issued gold and silver coins; it also issued notes redeemable in precious metals. It was periodically revalued against the US dollar as the value of the latter fell over time against the precious metals. The Liberty Dollar was specifically designed to function in parallel with and in competition to the US dollar and never marketed or represented as official US currency. The Liberty Dollar was highly successful and became the second most popular currency in the US. Though initially tolerated, the US government turned against the Liberty Dollar, declared its use a federal crime and eventually secured a conviction against its founder for counterfeiting, fraud and conspiracy against the United States. This was an extraordinary result given that the purpose of the founders of the Liberty Dollar was to produce a currency that was distinct from but superior to the greenback dollar, and there was never any attempt to pass off the former for the latter. e-gold was a private digital gold currency, a digital payment system in which the unit of account is gold and in which user accounts are backed by gold reserves. It was an 'offshore' payment system rather than a money transmitter or bank as defined under then-existing regulations, not least because gold was not legally 'money'. By 2005, e-gold had grown to be second only to PayPal in the online payments industry: it had 1.2 million accounts and transactions that year totalled $1.5 billion. US law enforcement services also turned on e-gold and its principals were indicted in April 2007. The charges boiled down to e-gold being an unlicensed money-transmitting entity and a means of moving the proceeds of illegal activities with the principals' tacit knowledge. These charges were never proven and even the judge in the e-gold case expressed major doubts about the government case. Bitcoin is a totally decentralised monetary system that would be very difficult for the law enforcement agencies to shut down because it has no single 'point of failure'. Bitcoin is produced by a 'digital mining' process that is intended to limit its supply in a way that is in some ways analogous to the supply process of gold under a gold standard. As with other cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin has the potential to restore financial privacy and create a peaceful crypto-anarchic social order that operates beyond government control. The demand for Bitcoin has taken off since its launch in 2009 and it is increasingly used for both legal and illegal transactions, the latter thanks to its potential to achieve a very high degree of transactions anonymity. These illegal transactions include, most notoriously, its use to trade illegal drugs on the Silk Road dark web marketplace. Though the supply of Bitcoin is limited, the demand is very variable; this variability has made its price very uncertain and created a bubble–bust cycle in the Bitcoin market. Perhaps the safest prediction is that Bitcoin will eventually be displaced by alternative cryptocurrencies with superior features. The appropriate government response to private money is to allow competition on a level playing field between alternative forms of money. As with the provision of other goods and services, competition would best promote good money and drive out bad.


Although "present bias" (or weakness of will, impulsiveness, myopia, or bounded willpower) was flagged as an issue for legal examination by Tom Ulen and Russell Korobkin over a decade ago, the concept has received insufficient attention in the legal field - and most of that attention has focused on its implications for the regulation of credit and savings. But, as demonstrated by this Article, the inconsistency of time preferences has wider implications, especially for criminal law. First, present bias may have significant implications for the general deterrence of crime. Individuals with time-inconsistent preferences may give in to immediate temptations to offend, even though they will not plan to exploit more distant opportunities to offend. To create additional deterrence by exploiting the present bias, one must either make the deferred costs of crime immediate or make the immediate benefits of crime deferred. For this reason, present bias heightens the importance of timing arrests closer to the commission of a crime - which suggests overlooked benefits from undercover operations. It also increases the efficiency of private crime prevention when these measures pose costs that occur contemporaneously with the benefits of crime. Second, present bias explains addiction, otherwise puzzling conditions of probation and parole, and the self-control mechanisms for dealing with addiction and tempting criminal behavior. Preventative measures, whether imposed by the state as a condition of probation and parole or imposed by the potential offender through "self-exclusion," work by preventing an individual from having the opportunity to succumb to temptation.


A research-based conference on networked learning in higher education, lifelong learning & professional development. The 2016 conference is the tenth international networked learning conference, this is a unique opportunity to look back and move forward – what was, what is and what will networked learning research and practice become.  Since 1998 the biennial Networked Learning Conference has been an opportunity to participate in a forum for the critical examination and analysis of research in networked learning – particularly in Higher Education and lifelong learning.  Networked learning has become a broader area of inquiry over the years bringing together research in education and organisations spanning formal and informal learning settings.  It is a conference that has been particularly concerned with critical perspectives, theory, pedagogical values, analysis, practice based research and designs for learning.  The focus of the conference has been research and practice that addresses relational and interactional aspects of learning and development with an emphasis on dialogical learning, collaborative and cooperative learning and learning in social networks. The conference was held at on the 9th, 10th, 11th May, 2016, at Lancaster House Hotel and the local organisers were all members of the Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning in the Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University.


The higher educational institutions produce several times as many college graduates each year as there are jobs available recently in Taiwan. This coupled with the deep recession of economy in recent years have contributed to the intensified competition for jobs. The fierce unemployment among young people has revived the demand on the contribution of educational system to the employability of college graduates. Since exploring how students define an ideal job is a prerequisite for guiding them get a job that better matches their skills and desires, this research is thus endeavored to identify the major determinants of career selection, to calculate the relative importance of each determinant, and to decide the major strengths of different careers. AHP was adopted as the major tool for calculating the relative importance of the determinants of career selection, Correspondence Analysis was used to create perceptual map for identifying major strengths of different careers. The results showed that Career Security and Retirement Policy were the most important determinants of job selection; moreover, students major in education preferred careers in public sectors such as public school teacher and government official.


This special edition of Health at a Glance focuses on health issues across the 27 European Union member states, three European Free Trade Association countries (Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) and Turkey. It gives readers a better understanding of the factors that affect the health of populations and the performance of health systems in these countries.Its 42 indicators present comparable data covering a wide range of topics, including health status, risk factors,  health workforce and health expenditure.
Each indicator in the book is presented in a user-friendly format, consisting of charts illustrating variations across countries and over time, brief descriptive analyses highlighting the major findings conveyed by the data, and a methodological box on the definition of the indicators and any limitations in data comparability. An annex provides additional information on the demographic and economic context within which health systems operate.
This publication is the result of collaboration between the OECD and the European Commission, with the help of national data correspondents from the 31 countries.


Since Noddings (1984/2003) first made a case for acknowledging care as a core element and value in pedagogical relationships, research on care in classrooms has flourished. While research confirms the importance of a supportive environment for the success of the online student, we know little about how online instructors' experience care—for their students and for themselves.  This paper offers a phenomenological exploration of care as it is experienced in online postsecondary instructors' interactions and relations with their students.


Everyone knows the small-world phenomenon: soon after meeting a stranger, we are surprised to discover that we have a mutual friend, or we are connected through a short chain of acquaintances. In his book, Duncan Watts uses this intriguing phenomenon--colloquially called "six degrees of separation"--as a prelude to a more general exploration: under what conditions can a small world arise in any kind of network?The networks of this story are everywhere: the brain is a network of neurons; organisations are people networks; the global economy is a network of national economies, which are networks of markets, which are in turn networks of interacting producers and consumers. Food webs, ecosystems, and the Internet can all be represented as networks, as can strategies for solving a problem, topics in a conversation, and even words in a language. Many of these networks, the author claims, will turn out to be small worlds.How do such networks matter? Simply put, local actions can have global consequences, and the relationship between local and global dynamics depends critically on the network's structure. Watts illustrates the subtleties of this relationship using a variety of simple models---the spread of infectious disease through a structured population; the evolution of cooperation in game theory; the computational capacity of cellular automata; and the sychronisation of coupled phase-oscillators.Watts's novel approach is relevant to many problems that deal with network connectivity and complex systems' behaviour in general: How do diseases (or rumours) spread through social networks? How does cooperation evolve in large groups? How do cascading failures propagate through large power grids, or financial systems? What is the most efficient architecture for an organisation, or for a communications network? This fascinating exploration will be fruitful in a remarkable variety of fields, including physics and mathematics, as well as sociology, economics, and biology.


This report outlines a strategy for the new AOGCM/ESM modeling components in terms of aerosols/atmospheric chemistry and carbon cycle/dynamic vegetation components that are under development and implementation in ESMs that involves a proposed experimental design that integrates impacts and scenarios (represented in IPCC WG2 and WG3, respectively) and physical climate science (WG1). We summarize with a suite of recommendations for the joint WGCM, AIMES and IPCC communities.


This article will explore the roots of law in Malay Muslim Society. In the incident research is a documentary research which objectives of the study are to explore the historical background of the areas which will illustrate the reasons that were responsible for shaping the current Malay society and discuss about the relationship between the local norm and concept of norm which is a central to sociology of law. The study found that three major periods that influence the Malay society. The first was before entering of Hindu into this area, the local people following the custom of tribe; second was the arrival of Hinduism that influenced people's lives, the Hindu law has been implemented into  society at this time and ; third was the entering of Islam into the Malay Peninsula, the Islamic law has been implemented and changed the local people's beliefs. Malay society is governed by 'adat' , (a word borrowed from Arabic) and Muslim law in addition to the general law is applicable to all communities. 'Adat' as norm in Malay society, being the living law at a certain time in a certain place, adat is elastic and adaptable to social needs and as such not suitable for codification. 'Adat' is commonly classified into two varieties; the adat perpateh and the adat temengung . The primary purpose of adat is threefold the protection, regulation and preservation of the society.


The name W. Edwards Deming is synonymous with the most insightful views, ideas, and commentary on management and quality control. Referred to as "the high prophet of quality" by the New York Times, Deming was instrumental in the spectacular rise of Japanese industry after World War II and influenced many of the world's most innovative managers in the ensuing decades. His original ideas led directly to the creation of relationships with suppliers and a plethora of quality initiatives. Now, with The Essential Deming, Fordham University professor and Deming expert Joyce Orsini draws on a wealth of previously unavailable material to present the legendary thinker's most important management principles in one indispensable volume. The book is filled with articles, papers, lectures, and notes touching on a wide range of topics, but which focus on Deming's overriding message: quality and operations are all about systems, not individual performance; the system has to be designed so that the worker can perform well. The Essential Deming reveals Deming's unique insight about: How poor management infects an entire organization The critical importance of management on producing quality products and services Improving management in any company The effective management of people--the manager's single most important task How to educate workers into critical thinkers Ways to preserve statistical integrity while dealing with real-world problems Fully authorized by the Deming estate and published in cooperation with The W. Edwards Deming Institute, The Essential Deming is the first book to distill Deming's life's worth of thinking and writing into a single source. Orsini provides expert commentary throughout, delivering a powerful, practical guide to superior management. With The Essential Deming, you have the rationale, insight, and best practices you need to transform your organization. "To move from the wilderness of news into the paths of history, we must distinguish true turning points from mistaken ones. W. Edwards Deming has seen the future and it works. He is a turning point of business history made flesh." -U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT "I engaged Dr. Deming to assist Ford in planning, developing, and implementing the plans to accomplish major improvement in the way people worked together and in the quality of our products. . . . Ford achieved major success in this effort, and I consider Ed Deming to have been a key element in our progress." -DONALD E. PETERSEN, former Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Ford Motor Company "It can be said of very few that they changed the way the world thinks, but Dr. Deming is among them. . . . The legacy of Dr. Deming's genius, already immense, grows even larger with this new collection of his thoughts." -DONALD M. BERWICK , Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress "Toyota Motor Corporation was awarded a Deming Prize in 1965. This laid the foundations for the present growth of our company. I do believe the ideas and theories of Dr. Deming emphasizing the importance of quality control are very useful for people of all ages." -TATSURO TOYODA, Senior Advisor, Toyota Motor Corporation "Few rival W. Edwards Deming for impact on management in the twentieth century. Indeed, Deming and Drucker, to my


This article examines the religious significance of the mukaekō, an annual performance ritual held at Taimadera, which commemorates Chūjōhime's attainment of rebirth in Amida's Pure Land. Focusing on the artistic, religious, historical, and social circumstances that contributed to the popularity of Pure Land Buddhism in the Kamakura period (1185-1333), the reasons behind early medieval Japanese society's aspiration of faith in Amida and the desire to be reborn in his Pure Land are explored. My discussion of the interrelationship of history and art examines how both faith in Amida and pictorial expressions of this faith inspired the creation of the mukaekō ritual.  Through this analysis, I will show that the mukaekō is a living tradition of medieval Japanese Pure Land Buddhism and a unique embodiment of mutual influences of art, religion, and history.


Help Yourself! provides the second year results of a four-year study on how food price volatility affects everyday life and uncovers grassroots realities related to the right to food. Do people at risk of hunger think they have a right to food? What does a right to food mean, and how can it be claimed and enforced? We asked these questions of around 1500 people in 10 low and middle income countries. Customary rights and responsibilities, patchy and uneven at the best of times, are affected by rapid changes in food prices and responses to them; becoming less effective buffers against the global drivers of food insecurity. People at risk of hunger are keenly receptive to state and civil society action that strengthens their sense of right to food, but formal responsibilities for action are often unclear and monitoring systems rarely capture local realities. Food security programmes are often demeaning, divisive, unreliable, discriminatory and discretionary. This weakness of public accountability for food security would matter less if people felt that markets were doing the job of guaranteeing access to good food. However, complaints about volatile and rising food prices continue to be a feature of everyday life, contrary to the overall impression of falling prices on world markets. Individual country reports will be added below as they become available. The research is funded by the UK Government and Irish Aid.


In 1992, Glenn Shafer completed a draft of three chapters for an intended book on join-tree compu-tation methods for combining evi-dence and other aspects of computa-tion in expert systems. However, he found his attention increasingly dis-tracted by the possibilities provided by probability trees for understanding probability and causality -- so much so, in fact, that instead of finishing the first book, he wrote a different one on this second topic. It is this second book that is the subject of this review, and it is easy to see why the power and breadth of the ideas seduced Shafer from his original purpose. (Do not despair, however, those three draft chapters have now also appeared, although without the others that were originally intended to accompany them, in Probabilistic Expert Systems, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, 1996).


The "trial penalty" is a concept widely accepted by all the major actors in the criminal justice system: defendants, prosecutors, defense attorneys, court employees, and judges. The notion is that defendants receive longer sentences at trial than they would have through plea bargain, often substantially longer. The concept is intuitive: longer sentences are necessary in order to induce settlements and without a high settlement rate it would be impossible for courts as currently structured to sustain their immense caseload. While intuitively appealing, this view of the trial penalty is completely at odds with economic prediction. Since both prosecutors and defendants have the ability to reject unappealing settlements, sentences at trial should be nearly the same as those arrived at through pleas. This is a straightforward application of the "shadow of the law" concept articulated by Mnookin and Kornhauser, as well as others. This article attempts to answer two questions relating to the trial penalty. Why is belief in its existence so widespread, given that it is at odds with basic economic theory? Which theory does empirical analysis of actual sentencing data support? I argue that there is a fundamental misunderstanding that is largely responsible for the belief in the trial penalty: the failure to distinguish between conditional and unconditional expected values. I also provide a brief overview of an empirical study that attempts to distinguish between the two theories. The results of that study are surprising and support neither theory-not only is there no evidence for a trial penalty, there appears to be a trial discount!


Chile has been at the forefront of pension reform, having switched in 1980 from a pay-as-you-go system to a fully funded privatized accounts system. The Chilean system served as a model for reform in many other Latin American countries and has also been considered by U.S. policy makers as a possible prototype for social security reform. Some of the criticisms of the Chilean system are low coverage rates and contributions rates among certain segments of the population. In 2006, the Chilean government proposed some reforms aimed at increasing coverage and contribution rates and expanding the safety net provided by the system to poor households. This study evaluates how changes in pension system rules affect working behavior and pension contribution patterns using data from a new Chilean household survey administered in 2002 and 2004 linked with administrative data from the pension regulatory agency. It develops and estimates a dynamic model of decision-making about working in the covered or uncovered sectors of the economy and studies implications for pension accumulations. The estimated model is used to simulate behavior under different pension system rules, such as a change in the number of years of contributions required for the minimum pension or a change in pension plan fees.


William Glasser, M.D., puts his successful choice theory to work in our schools--with a new approach in increasing student motivation. "Dr. Glasser translates choice theory into a productive, classroom model of team learning with emphasis on satisfaction and excitement. Working in small teams, students find that knowledge contributes to power, friendship and fun. Because content and the necessary student collaboration skills must be taught, teachers need to develop skills if they are to use this model successfully. The dividends are 'turned-on ' students and satisfied teachers." --Madeline Hunter, University of California at Los Angeles "Choice Theory in the Classroom is a landmark book, without question one of the most important and useful books for teachers to appear in a long while. Written with rare lucidity and grace, the book has numerous instantly usable ideas that will contribute fundamentally to the success of classroom teachers. William Glasser combines his extensive theoretical expertise and wide practical experience to provide a practical and illuminating guide for teachers [that] should be required reading in every college of education in the country." --David and Roger Johnson, University of Minnesota "Choice Theory in the Classroom presents an insightful analysis of what is wrong with traditional school and what need to be done about it. Dr. Glasser gives a compelling rationale for the use of learning-teams in schools to capture the excitement and commitment students display in sports but rarely in the classroom. The book is well written and persuasive. I hope every teacher in America buys it, believes it, and behaves accordingly." --Robert Slavin, John Hopkins University


"This material was prepared by resident physicians in partial fulfillment of educational requirements established for the Postgraduate Training Program of the UTMB Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery and was not intended for clinical use in its present form. It was prepared for the purpose of stimulating group discussion in a conference setting. No warranties, either express or implied, are made with respect to its accuracy, completeness, or timeliness. The material does not necessarily reflect the current or past opinions of members of the UTMB faculty and should not be used for purposes of diagnosis or treatment without consulting appropriate literature sources and informed professional opinion."


Take your idea from concept to production with this unique guide Whether it's called physical computing, ubiquitous computing, or the Internet of Things, it's a hot topic in technology: how to channel your inner Steve Jobs and successfully combine hardware, embedded software, web services, electronics, and cool design to create cutting-edge devices that are fun, interactive, and practical. If you'd like to create the next must-have product, this unique book is the perfect place to start. Both a creative and practical primer, it explores the platforms you can use to develop hardware or software, discusses design concepts that will make your products eye-catching and appealing, and shows you ways to scale up from a single prototype to mass production. Helps software engineers, web designers, product designers, and electronics engineers start designing products using the Internet-of-Things approach Explains how to combine sensors, servos, robotics, Arduino chips, and more with various networks or the Internet, to create interactive, cutting-edge devices Provides an overview of the necessary steps to take your idea from concept through production If you'd like to design for the future, Designing the Internet of Things is a great place to start.


Today, it is no secret that the regime of copyright law, once an often-overlooked footnote to our legal system of property, now occupies a central position in modern debates surrounding the relationship between freedom of expression, language, and ownership. Curiously, however, while contemporary scholarship on copyright now embraces a wide range of political and economic approaches, it has often failed to consider how intellectual property law - as it is owned, constituted, created, and enforced - both benefits and disadvantages segments of the population in divergent ways. This absence is both vexing and fascinating. While issues of distributive justice have permeated almost every other area of legal scholarship, scholarship on intellectual property, while perfectly poised to grapple with these aspects, has traditionally reflected a striking lack of attention to these considerations. Indeed, far from being a value-neutral regime, the history of intellectual property law reveals an astonishing number of incidences where the laws of copyright, trademark and patent have been used - often with great success - to silence transgressive depictions of sexuality, sexual identity, and gender expression. While depictions of sex and sexuality have always been fraught with cultural controversy, these incidents also demonstrate how, increasingly, such incidences of semiotic disobedience personify an underlying tension between our legal regimes of intellectual property and speech, and reveal how issues of distributive justice are invisibly intertwined within the interstices of commodified representations. In this article, I explore one particular type of fan fiction as an example of this trend, known as slash fan fiction, which demonstrates how copyright both protects and prohibits divergent kinds of expression. Women have long been the dominant force behind fan fiction; like many types of creative work performed by women, their contributions are usually circulated among informal, decentralized, and largely unrecognized communities outside of the mainstream. Slash fan fiction, like other types of fan fiction, is just one example of the myriad number of ways in which female audience participation can drastically alter the performance and interpretation of a given text. Yet slash fan fiction takes the trope of the engaged audience to a new level. Slash fan fiction involves fictional, homoerotic pairings between male characters in mainstream television and science fiction programs. As I show, slash fan fiction empowers the virtual community to actively rework traditional narratives between men, demonstrating how queering mainstream characters can actually deconstruct, and then transcend, traditional gender norms and stereotypes. Unlike the commodified world of the content industries, which are largely dominated by men, slash fan fiction represents a striking example of how female consumers can radically rework and recode existing texts to create new works that add to the marketplace of ideas to create a kind of alternative cultural and political economy that surrounds a copyrighted work, and, as I argue, actually slash the strictures of gender stereotyping in the process. To show how this world is possible, I draw on performance theory to demonstrate the need for copyright's active reengagement with its audience. By creating spaces for such reworkings of cultural texts, we allow texts to transcend their fixed, stable form - and instead to become properties that are performative in nature; that is, they become ripe for audience participation and contribution. I suggest that copyright law must embrace a clear division between the product as property and the product as performance. While most conventional scholarship tends to think of the audience as a largely passive body of recipients, performance theory has helped us to radically rethink these assumptions, and instead has offered scholars a host of insights regarding the multiple and intersecting ways in which audiences respond to performances, often creating rich and varied interpretations of a preexisting work, fan fiction being a single example. Along these lines, I argue that copyright must view its commodities not as fixed, stable texts, but rather as a set of starting points, a set of ongoing performances that can be recoded and reanalyzed by an active audience. In other words, I argue that copyright law needs to equalize the authorial monopoly of the creator in favor of a more dialogic and dynamic relationship between producers and consumers in the process.


'I have a truly marvellous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.' It was with these words, written in the 1630s, that Pierre de Fermat intrigued and infuriated the mathematics community. For over 350 years, proving Fermat's Last Theorem was the most notorious unsolved mathematical problem, a puzzle whose basics most children could grasp but whose solution eluded the greatest minds in the world. In 1993, after years of secret toil, Englishman Andrew Wiles announced to an astounded audience that he had cracked Fermat's Last Theorem. He had no idea of the nightmare that lay ahead. In 'Fermat's Last Theorem' Simon Singh has crafted a remarkable tale of intellectual endeavour spanning three centuries, and a moving testament to the obsession, sacrifice and extraordinary determination of Andrew Wiles: one man against all the odds.


The technology likely to have the greatest impact on the future of the world economy has arrived, and its not self-driving cars, solar energy, or artificial intelligence. Its called the blockchain. The first generation of the digital revolution brought us the Internet of information. The second generationpowered by blockchain technologyis bringing us the Internet of value: a new, distributed platform that can help us reshape the world of business and transform the old order of human affairs for the better. Blockchain is the ingeniously simple, revolutionary protocol that allows transactions to be simultaneously anonymous and secure by maintaining a tamperproof public ledger of value. Though its the technology that drives bitcoin and other digital currencies, the underlying framework has the potential to go far beyond these and record virtually everything of value to humankind, from birth and death certificates to insurance claims and even votes. Why should you care? Maybe youre a music lover who wants artists to make a living off their art. Or a consumer who wants to know where that hamburger meat really came from. Perhaps youre an immigrant whos sick of paying big fees to send money home to loved ones. Or an entrepreneur looking for a new platform to build a business. And those examples are barely the tip of the iceberg. This technology is public, encrypted, and readily available for anyone to use. Its already seeing widespread adoption in a number of areas. For example, forty-two (and counting) of the worlds biggest financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Credit Suisse, have formed a consortium to investigate the blockchain for speedier and more secure transactions. As with major paradigm shifts that preceded it, the blockchain will create winners and losers. And while opportunities abound, the risks of disruption and dislocation must not be ignored. Don Tapscott, the bestselling author of Wikinomics, and his son, blockchain expert Alex Tapscott, bring us a brilliantly researched, highly readable, and utterly foundational book about the future of the modern economy. Blockchain Revolution is the business leaders playbook for the next decade and beyond.


MapReduce is a programming model and an associated implementation for processing and generating large data sets. Users specify a map function that processes a key/value pair to generate a set of intermediate key/value pairs, and a reduce function that merges all intermediate values associated with the same intermediate key. Many real world tasks are expressible in this model, as shown in the paper. Programs written in this functional style are automatically parallelized and executed on a large cluster of commodity machines. The run-time system takes care of the details of partitioning the input data, scheduling the program's execution across a set of machines, handling machine failures, and managing the required inter-machine communication. This allows programmers without any experience with parallel and distributed systems to easily utilize the resources of a large distributed system. Our implementation of MapReduce runs on a large cluster of commodity machines and is highly scalable: a typical MapReduce computation processes many terabytes of data on thousands of machines. Programmers (cid:2)nd the system easy to use: hundreds of MapReduce programs have been implemented and upwards of one thousand MapReduce jobs are executed on Google's clusters every day.


The Tropical Forest and Fire Emissions Experiment (TROFFEE) used laboratory measurements followed by airborne and ground based field campaigns during the 2004 Amazon dry season to quantify the emissions from pristine tropical forest and several plantations as well as the emissions, fuel consumption, and fire ecology of tropical deforestation fires. The airborne campaign used an Embraer 110B aircraft outfitted with whole air sampling in canisters, mass-calibrated nephelometry, ozone by UV absorbance, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and proton-transfer mass spectrometry (PTR-MS) to measure PM10, O-3, CO2, CO, NO, NO2, HONO, HCN, NH3, OCS, DMS, CH4, and up to 48 non-methane organic compounds (NMOC). The Brazilian smoke/haze layers extended to 2 - 3 km altitude, which is much lower than the 5 - 6 km observed at the same latitude, time of year, and local time in Africa in 2000. Emission factors (EF) were computed for the 19 tropical deforestation fires sampled and they largely compare well to previous work. However, the TROFFEE EF are mostly based on a much larger number of samples than previously available and they also include results for significant emissions not previously reported such as: nitrous acid, acrylonitrile, pyrrole, methylvinylketone, methacrolein, crotonaldehyde, methylethylketone, methylpropanal, '' acetol plus methylacetate,'' furaldehydes, dimethylsulfide, and C-1-C-4 alkyl nitrates. Thus, we recommend these EF for all tropical deforestation fires. The NMOC emissions were similar to 80% reactive, oxygenated volatile organic compounds (OVOC). Our EF for PM10 (17.8 +/- 4 g/kg) is similar to 25% higher than previously reported for tropical forest fires and may reflect a trend towards, and sampling of, larger fires than in earlier studies. A large fraction of the total burning for 2004 likely occurred during a two-week period of very low humidity. The combined output of these fires created a massive '' mega-plume '' > 500 km across that we sampled on 8 September. The mega-plume contained high PM10 and 10 - 50 ppbv of many reactive species such as O-3, NH3, NO2, CH3OH, and organic acids. This is an intense and globally important chemical processing environment that is still poorly understood. The mega-plume or '' white ocean '' of smoke covered a large area in Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay for about one month. The smoke was transported > 2000 km to the southeast while remaining concentrated enough to cause a 3 - 4-fold increase in aerosol loading in the S (a) over tildeo Paulo area for several days.


Greasemonkey Hacks is an invaluable compendium 100 ingenious hacks for power users who want to master Greasemonkey, the hot new Firefox extension that allows you to write scripts that alter the web pages you visit. With Greasemonkey, you can create scripts that make a web site more usable, fix rendering bugs that site owners can't be bothered to fix themselves, or add items to a web site's menu bar. You can alter pages so they work better with technologies that speak a web page out loud or convert it to Braille. Greasemonkey gurus can even import, combine, and alter data from different web sites to meet their own specific needs. Greasemonkey has achieved a cult-like following in its short lifespan, but its uses are just beginning to be explored. Let's say you're shopping on an e-commerce site. You can create a script that will automatically display competitive prices for that particular product from other web sites. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination and your Greasemonkey expertise. Greasemonkey Hacks can't help you with the imagination part, but it can provide the expert hacks-complete with the sample code-you need to turn your brainstorms into reality. More than just an essential collection of made-to-order Greasemonkey solutions, Greasemonkey Hacks is crammed with sample code, a Greasemonkey API reference, and a comprehensive list of resources, to ensure that every resource you need is available between its covers. Some people are content to receive information from websites passively; some people want to control it. If you are one of the latter, Greasemonkey Hacks provides all the clever customizations and cutting-edge tips and tools you need to take command of any web page you view.


Health Sciences and Diseases, is an open source,  peer reviewed medical journal that covers all aspects of medicine, pharmacy, biomedical and health sciences, including public health and societal issues. It is an "online first" publication, which means that all the publications articles appear on the website before being included in the print journal. The papers are published in full on the website, with open access. Our vision is to be the leader medical journal in our region. Our mission is to inform and educate all the health professionals and to promote constructive debate on health issues that matter in the management not only of diseases but of health as a whole. The HSD team is based in Yaounde (Cameroon). Acceptance of manuscripts is based on the originality, the quality of the work and validity of the evidence, the clarity of presentation, and the relevance to our readership. Publications are expected to be concise, well organized and clearly written. Authors submit a manuscript with the understanding that the manuscript (or its essential substance) has not been published other than as an abstract in any language or format and is not currently submitted elsewhere for print or electronic publication.


We study optimal contracting in team settings where agents have many opportunities to shirk, task-level monitoring is needed to provide useful incentives, and it is difficult to write individual performance into formal contracts. Incentives are provided informally, using wasteful sanctions like guilt and shame, or slowed promotion. These features give rise to optimal contracts with under performance, forgiving sanctioning schemes, and endogenous supervision structures. Agents optimally take on more assigned tasks than they intend to complete, leading to the concentration of supervisory responsibility in the hands of one or two agents.


Summary We report a case of a female with hemihypertrophy, who developed five recurrences of pheochromocytomas until the age of 35. Timely follow-up of the patient's blood pressure assisted in early diagnosis and treatment of recurrent tumors. Learning points Recurrent benign pheochromocytomas should raise suspicion of a genetic syndrome. A pheochromocytoma at a young age has a high propensity to recur and strict follow-up is mandatory.


In this paper we present a comparison of different data driven modeling methods. The first instance of a data driven linear Bayesian model is compared with several linear regression models, a Kriging model and a genetic programming (GP) model. The models are build on industrial data for the development of a robust gas sensor. The data contain limited amount of samples and a high variance. The mean square error of the models implemented in a test dataset is used as the comparison strategy. The results indicate that standard linear regression approaches as well as Kriging and GP show good results, whereas the Bayesian approach, despite the fact that it requires additional resources, does not lead to improved results.


This article provides an overview of recent developments in investment treaty practice with regard to the protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs). The analysis departs from traditional IPR studies developed almost exclusively in the context of the WTO-TRIPS Agreement. The aim of this study is to clarify the extent to which and how international investment agreements (IIAs), including Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) with an investment chapter, increase the scope of IPR protection beyond TRIPS minimum standards. Some IPR provisions found in the sample of RTAs extend IPR protection beyond WTO-TRIPS minimum standards, by providing supplementary coverage of specific standards or additional obligations under the intellectual property chapter. Expanded IPR protection can also derive from the unqualified treatment protection provisions found in IIAs. This note further explores possible reasons for the limited role played by investor-state arbitration in the enforcement of IPRs.


The prevalence of coronary artery disease (CAD) is increasing in Iran. Patients with depression who have a myocardial infarction are more likely to die and patients who have depressive symptoms during hospitalization may have increased cardiovascular events. This study aimed to determine the relationship between anxiety, depression and coronary artery disease among patients undergoing angiography in Ghaem Hospital, Mashhad. This was a case-control study conducted between September 2011 and August 2012 among patients undergoing coronary angiography in Ghaem Hospital, Mashhad, Iran. There were 486 cases that were found to have one or more coronary stenoses, with a stenosis of equal or more than 50% of the diameter of at least one major coronary artery. The other patient group consisted of the patients in whom the coronary artery stenosis was less than 50% in diameter which was classified as angiography negative, and a control group that consisted of 440 healthy adults aged 18 years old and above who were selected among people who attended for routine medical checkup and medical examination of employment. The dependent variables were Beck Anxiety and Depression Inventory scores and the independent factors were coronary artery disease, and socioeconomic profiles. Validated and reliability-tested questionnaires were used for data collection. The mean age of patients was 55.75 ± 10.64 years and in the healthy group was 55.83 ± 8.55 years; there was no significant difference in age between subject groups (p = 0.897) nor a significant difference in the gender frequency distribution of subjects (p = 0.610). There was a significant difference in anxiety score between the Angio positive and Angio negative patients and healthy control subjects (p


You can find many different things on this site, all of them relevant to the sciences of developmental biology and reproductive biology. First, you can find encyclopedia articles [2] that describe and explain everything from the people and experiments that made those sciences, to the laws and social contexts that shaped them, and were in turn shaped by them. Second, you can find original graphics [3] produced by our scientific illustrators. Third, you can find historical pictures [4], some of their original lectures, or images of their slides. Fourth, there are Embryo Project Essays [5]. Compared to encyclopedia articles, Embryo Project essays are more scholarly contributions, written by professional scholars, and they often provide arguments in ways that the regular encyclopedia articles don't. Those essays represent the views of their authors and not necessarily of the Embryo Project editors.


"About 167 million children under five years of age —almost one-third of the developing world's children —are malnourished. If they survive childhood, many of these children will suffer from poorer cognitive development and lower productivity. As adults, their ability to assure good nutrition for their children could be compromised, perpetuating a vicious cycle. What will it take to eradicate child malnutrition in developing countries? As Lisa Smith and Lawrence Haddad point out in this 2020 Vision discussion paper, Overcoming Child Malnutrition in Developing Countries: Past Achievements and Future Choices, we must first understand the causes of malnutrition and delineate which are the most important before we can identify and act upon those areas of intervention that will be most successful in reducing malnutrition. Toward that end, their path-breaking research identifies and assesses the contribution of each key determinant to reductions in child malnutrition over the past quarter century. The most startling and important finding is that improvements in women's education have contributed by far the most, accounting for 43 percent of the reduction in child malnutrition between 1970 and 1995, while improvements in per capita food availability con tributed about 26 percent. In a signal service to policymakers, Smith and Haddad also evaluate the potential of these factors to further reduce malnutrition durng the next two decades to 2020 and lay out the key policy priorities for each major developing region. By shedding light on which areas of intervention will be most successful in overcoming child malnutrition in developing countries, this research will contribute to realizing the 2020 Vision of a world where hunger and malnutrition are absent." (Forward by Per Pinstrup-Andersen)


For decades the volume of asbestos claims has been a unique and mesmerizing phenomenon. This historic wave of civil claims would never have been possible had U.S. common law courts not adopted two radical dispensations from orthodox rules for the proof of causation, tantamount to causal fictions, that enabled asbestos plaintiffs to establish against each defendant factual causation to the plaintiffs' entire physical condition for which the defendant would, therefore, be jointly and severally liable. Yet these proof-of-causation doctrines have gone virtually unremarked by courts and the academy. What are these radical proof-of-causation doctrines? Why were they adopted? Why have they yet to face rigorous academic analysis? Why was the Products Liability Restatement silent about them? What might we learn from this apparently profound failure of the restatement process?This Article is divided into six Parts. Part I describes how, in asbestosis cases, U.S. courts absolve plaintiffs from the requirement of proving the portion of the total injury for which each culpable exposer was responsible, and thereby, in effect, proceed on the fiction that asbestosis is an indivisible injury attracting joint and several liability. Part II investigates the origin of this indivisibility-of-injury doctrine in Borel v. Fibreboard Paper Products Corp, while Part III argues that this special proof-of-causation doctrine could apply to any cumulative condition that the court is prepared to hold is not "reasonably capable of being divided" on the available evidence.Part IV describes a second, far more radical doctrine concerning proof of causation that U.S. courts developed in claims for asbestos-related cancer whereby a plaintiff is allowed to establish factual causation against a defendant merely by showing that the defendant's tort exposed the plaintiff to a significant amount of asbestos and therefore to a significant risk of contracting an asbestos-related cancer. In effect, this allows the plaintiff to proceed on the basis that each significant exposure to the risks of asbestos was causally involved in the triggering of the cancer. Functionally, this doctrine is tantamount to the fiction that asbestos-related cancer is contracted by a threshold mechanism, which in turn explains why this doctrine is accompanied by a rule of joint and several liability. Part V argues that this exposure-to-risk doctrine, which allows proof of causation of a condition by merely proving exposure to the risk of that condition, could apply whenever a plaintiff sues for an indivisible condition (such as a cancer), the mechanism of which is unknown, and the defendant's tort made a substantial contribution to the risk of that condition being contracted. Such a rule has a truly explosive potential in the field of toxic torts beyond asbestos. Part VI investigates why these two extraordinary proof-of-causation doctrines have been neglected by the parties to asbestos claims, the academy, and the American Law Institute itself.


This Article explores the conceptions of responsible agency that informed legal analysis in nineteenth-century America. Standing behind the "reasonable man" famously drawn by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., there was a second figure, which I call the "default legal person," who personified mental attributes an individual needed to possess - at a minimum - in order to be deemed a legally accountable agent. This default legal person, I argue, was first articulated in the post-Revolutionary period by jurists drawing on new "enlightened" forms of Protestantism, and particularly on the Scottish Common Sense philosophy in which they were schooled, in order to delineate the mental prerequisites of legal responsibility. The figure they constructed was, in essence, a creature of Common Sense, one divinely endowed with intellect, free will, and moral sense. Turning to the law reports published over the course of the century, and focusing more particularly on the little-studied civil side of the docket, we find that judges tended to deploy the default legal person in the same fashion across cases and time. In any instance in which a plea of incapacity was made, this legal figure served to set the threshold of mental competence - to illustrate how much "mind" a person needed for a particular civil act or wrong to be attributed to him. Yet this is not to say that the threshold of capacity was set at the same level in every doctrinal field. To the contrary, judges altered the character of the default legal person as they transposed it from one field of law to the next, suggesting as they did that the specific mental attributes one needed to be a competent legal actor differed, depending upon the nature of the act involved - whether it was a will, contract, deed, or tort. Across all doctrinal fields, however, judges faced a similar and perplexing problem: How could they determine whether a given individual actually lacked the capacity to act with feeling, intelligence, prudence, or malice? Was it sufficient to show that the act itself was eccentric, or was it necessary to demonstrate that the party in question suffered from some sort of mental disease, as defined by medical men? In contending with this problem over the course of the century, American judges took a variety of tacks, with more than a few lapsing into incoherence or simply evading the difficulties that litigants presented. However, upon closer scrutiny, it is possible to detect certain patterns to these rulings, and to see judges working to refine their characterizations of the default legal person, in part by varying the standard of mental capacity from one field of private law to the next. As they deployed this legal model in everyday adjudication, I argue, their judicial opinions helped to constitute a conception of responsible agency that was serviceable in the courtroom and beyond. Thus, I conclude that the default legal person may best be seen as a pragmatic means by which judges endeavored to monitor the borderlands of legal competency as they struggled to reconcile competing commitments to natural justice, market efficiency, and social welfare. In deciding cases by reference to this mental threshold, judges in this era demarcated the limits of rationality and responsibility in ways that were culturally contingent, politically consequential, and eminently contestable, ultimately reflecting basic ambiguities and tensions in the liberal legal construction of the moral agent.


Seventeen of the European Union's 27 member states share an economic and monetary union (EMU) with the euro as a single currency. These countries are effectively referred to as the Eurozone. What has become known as the Eurozone crisis began in early 2010 when financial markets were shaken by heightened concerns that the fiscal positions of a number of Eurozone countries, beginning with Greece, were unsustainable. This report provides background information and analysis on the future of the Eurozone in six parts, including discussions on the origins and design challenges of the Eurozone, proposals to define the Eurozone crisis, possible scenarios for the future of the Eurozone, and the implications of the Eurozone crisis for U.S. economic and political interests.


Responsibility. Courage. Compassion. Honesty. Friendship. Persistence. Faith. Everyone recognizes these traits as essentials of good character. In order for our children to develop such traits, we have to offer them examples of good and bad, right and wrong. And the best places to find them are in great works of literature and exemplary stories from history. William J. Bennett has collected hundreds of stories in "The Book of Virtues, " an instructive and inspiring anthology that will help children understand and develop character -- and help adults teach them. From the Bible to American history, from Greek mythology to English poetry, from fairy tales to modern fiction, these stories are a rich mine of moral literacy, a reliable moral reference point that will help anchor our children and ourselves in our culture, our history, and our traditions -- the sources of the ideals by which we wish to live our lives. Complete with instructive introductions and notes, "The Book of Virtues" is a book the whole family can read and enjoy -- and learn from -- together.


In Chemical Genetics, A New Strategy Could Speed Drug Discovery Philadelphia-Researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center have developed a new technique to speed discovery of drug targets in chemical genetics. As highlighted on the April, 2006 cover of Chemistry & Biology, Fox Chase researcher Jeffrey R. Peterson, Ph.D., and his colleagues describe a new way to swiftly find the proteins targeted by small molecule inhibitors during high-throughput screening (HTS) experiments. The new work offers a critical solution to a common stumbling block in this booming field of drug discovery. HTS allows researchers to test thousands of small drug-like molecules at once for a specific biological activity, such as inhibiting the cell movements that allow cancer cells to spread in the body. Screening for potential new drug compounds in complex systems differs from the traditional drug discovery approach, which begins with one particular protein of interest and tries tofind inhibitors for that specific target. By starting with many small molecules and screening for a certain biological effect, researchers rapidly pinpoint drug candidates. But that's where chemical genetics hits a wall. Once researchers find an inhibitor, or potential drug, they want to know how it works, by identifying the protein on which the inhibitor acts. But how? "This is a significant problem for the entire field," Peterson says. "What particular protein is the small molecule hitting to get that biological effect?" In this case, Peterson and his colleagues identified an inhibitor called pirl1, which, when added to cell extracts, blocks the assembly of actin fibers used for cell motility. The methods scientists typically use to find protein targets only work in certain cases. For instance, if an inhibitor binds tightly to its target, then researchers could use that to pull both the inhibitor and its target protein back out of the cell extract. Pirl1, however, like many small molecule inhibitors, binds to its target only weakly. Or, if the researchers knew most of the proteins involved in cell motility, they could add back each pure protein individually to the mix until actin fiber assembly was restored. But this method is time-consuming and only works if the protein players in a biological system are already known. "This forced us to think outside the box. We didn't have a lightening strike out of the blue, but we were inspired by classical genetics," Peterson says. In classical genetics, a technique called genetic suppression screening is used to identify an unknown gene that causes a certain biological effect. Imagine you have a taste for a particular ice cream flavor, but you can't remember the name. So you decide to taste all 32 flavors at the ice cream shop, one at a time, until you find the flavor that gives you that delicious hit. Genetic suppression works something like this. Peterson and his colleagues adapted this approach, creating a technique called biochemical suppression. The team tested batches of separated cell extract proteins to see if they could add back the one protein being inhibited, and therefore restore actin fiber assembly. Think of starting with triple ice cream cones-instead of 32 single cones-to speed the process of identification. If a triple cone has the tasty hit, you can then test each of the three flavors in that cone individually to see which one is the key. Similarly, when a batch of proteins restored the activity, that batch was separated into even smaller batches, until finally, the researchers narrowed the search down to two possible target protein complexes, Cdc42/RhoGDI and Arp2/3. In the test tube, pirl1 did not directly inhibit Arp2/3, but it did inhibit Cdc42/RhoGDI. It turns out that Arp2/3 acts downstream of Cdc42/RhoGDI in the pathway that assembles the actin fibers. This shows an advantage of the biochemical suppression method-discovering other proteins in the same biological pathway. Also, biochemical suppression allows researchers to identify the target even if it is composed of a more than one protein. Going back to ice cream, imagine that the perfect flavor is a mix of vanilla AND chocolate. If you tested all possible flavors individually you would never get a "hit." In fact with pirl1, the target turned out to be a complex of two proteins, Cdc42 and RhoGDI. These advantages make this technique a powerful way to identify multiple components of a complex biological system, such as the spread of cancer cells. "In these small molecule inhibitor screens, we are letting the biology tell us which proteins are going to 'druggable'," Peterson notes. Unlike traditional drug development where a target is studied intensely, or validated, before the search for inhibitors of that specific target begins, phenotypic screens with multiple potential targets are faster out of the starting gates. But before now, they had faced a roadblock in discovering the protein target's identity. "This biochemical suppression technique is a new tool that makes it feasible to do these screens because now you have a method to identify the target at the end," Peterson says. Testing pirl1, Peterson and his collaborators placed the inhibitor on monkey kidney cells, where it stifled cell membrane ruffling, a process related to cell motility. Next, they hope to determine whether pirl1, or chemicals with similar structure and activity, will work similarly on other cell types and in animal models of cancer. Fox Chase Cancer Center was founded in 1904 in Philadelphia, Pa. as the nation's first cancer hospital. In 1974, Fox Chase became one of the first institutions designated as a National Cancer Institute Comprehensive Cancer Center. Fox Chase conducts basic, clinical, population and translational research; programs of prevention, detection and treatment of cancer; and community outreach. For more information about Fox Chase activities, visit the Center''s web site at www.fccc.edu.


Directly reading documents and being able to answer questions from them is an unsolved challenge. To avoid its inherent difficulty, question answering (QA) has been directed towards using Knowledge Bases (KBs) instead, which has proven effective. Unfortunately KBs often suffer from being too restrictive, as the schema cannot support certain types of answers, and too sparse, e.g. Wikipedia contains much more information than Freebase. In this work we introduce a new method, Key-Value Memory Networks, that makes reading documents more viable by utilizing different encodings in the addressing and output stages of the memory read operation. To compare using KBs, information extraction or Wikipedia documents directly in a single framework we construct an analysis tool, WikiMovies, a QA dataset that contains raw text alongside a preprocessed KB, in the domain of movies. Our method reduces the gap between all three settings. It also achieves state-of-the-art results on the existing WikiQA benchmark.


"As long as the music is playing, you've got to get up and dance. We're still dancing.**This now infamous quote by Charles Prince, Citigroup's former Chief Executive Officer, captures the high-risk, high-reward mentality and overconfidence that permeates much of corporate America. These attributes in turn helped to facilitate a global recession and some of the largest economic losses ever experienced in the financial sector. They also represent certain cognitive biases and cultural norms in corporate boardrooms and management suites that make implementing a meaningful risk culture and thereby mitigating the impact of future economic downturns a challenging proposition.The global recession highlighted significant failures in firms' risk management practices. These failures implicated weaknesses not only in firms' financial risk modeling but also the human/governance side of risk management. Unfortunately, fixing the former might be significantly easier than attending to the latter. Studies suggest that cognitive biases, including confirmation bias, overconfidence/optimism bias and framing, can impair a board's and management's ability to assess risk accurately. These problems are compounded by the typical incentive structure and the "winner-take-all" mentality adopted by many corporations in the United States.This essay analyzes the potential benefits of improved risk management practices, commonly called enterprise risk management (ERM), and the potential barriers to implementing meaningful ERM at U.S. firms. ERM is an integrated risk management framework that seeks to improve knowledge of and communication about potential risks throughout the firm, starting with the board and senior management team. Indeed, the board and senior management team are vital to creating a risk culture. The essay considers the impact of boardroom dynamics and U.S. corporate culture on risk management practices. The essay further considers whether regulation or a different approach is needed to encourage U.S. corporations to invest the necessary human capital in meaningful ERM.** Michiyo Nakamoto & David Wighton, Citigroup Chief Stays Bullish on Buy-Outs, FT.COM, July 9, 2007


The antiradical and antimicrobial activity of lignin and lignin-based films are both of great interest for applications such as food packaging additives. The polyphenolic structure of lignin in addition to the presence of O-containing functional groups is potentially responsible for these activities. This study used DPPH assays to discuss the antiradical activity of HPMC/lignin and HPMC/lignin/chitosan films. The scavenging activity (SA) of both binary (HPMC/lignin) and ternary (HPMC/lignin/chitosan) systems was affected by the percentage of the added lignin: the 5% addition showed the highest activity and the 30% addition had the lowest. Both scavenging activity and antimicrobial activity are dependent on the biomass source showing the following trend: organosolv of softwood > kraft of softwood > organosolv of grass. Testing the antimicrobial activities of lignins and lignin-containing films showed high antimicrobial activities against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria at 35 °C and at low temperatures (0–7 °C). Purification of kraft lignin has a negative effect on the antimicrobial activity while storage has positive effect. The lignin release in the produced films affected the activity positively and the chitosan addition enhances the activity even more for both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. Testing the films against spoilage bacteria that grow at low temperatures revealed the activity of the 30% addition on HPMC/L1 film against both B. thermosphacta and P. fluorescens while L5 was active only against B. thermosphacta. In HPMC/lignin/chitosan films, the 5% addition exhibited activity against both B. thermosphacta and P. fluorescens.


The identical "Jim twins" were raised in separate families and met for the first time at age thirty-nine, only to discover that they both suffered tension headaches, bit their fingernails, smoked Salems, enjoyed woodworking, and vacationed on the same Florida beach. This example of the potential power of genetics captured widespread media attention in 1979 and inspired the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart. This landmark investigation into the nature-nurture debate shook the scientific community by demonstrating, across a number of traits, that twins reared separately are as alike as those raised together. As a postdoctoral fellow and then as assistant director of the Minnesota Study, Nancy L. Segal provides an eagerly anticipated overview of its scientific contributions and their effect on public consciousness. The study's evidence of genetic influence on individual differences in traits such as personality (50 per cent) and intelligence (70 per cent) overturned conventional ideas about parenting and teaching. Treating children differently and nurturing their inherent talents suddenly seemed to be a fairer approach than treating them all the same. Findings of genetic influence on physiological characteristics such as cardiac and immunologic function have led to more targeted approaches to disease prevention and treatment. And indications of a stronger genetic influence on male than female homosexuality have furthered debate regarding sexual orientation.


Farmers in Laos, U.S. allies during the Vietnam War, refugees in Thailand, citizens of the Western world -- the stories of the Hmong who now live in America have been told in detail through books and articles and oral histories over the past several decades. Like any immigrant group, members of the first generation may yearn for the past as they watch their children and grandchildren find their way in the dominant culture of their new home. For Hmong people born and educated in the United States, a definition of self often includes traditional practices and tight-knit family groups but also a distinctly Americanised point of view. How do Hmong Americans negotiate the expectations of these two very different cultures? In an engaging series of essays featuring a range of writing styles, leading scholars, educators, artists, and community activists explore themes of history, culture, gender, class, family, and sexual orientation, weaving their own stories into depictions of a Hmong American community where people continue to develop complex identities that are collectively shared but deeply personal as they help to redefine the multicultural America of today. Contributors: Mary Louise Buley-Meissner, Amy DeBroux, Jeremy Hein, Vincent K Her, Don Hones, Gary Yia Lee, Song Lee, Pao Lor, Bic Ngo, Keith Quincy, Chan Vang, Hue Vang, Ka Vang, Kou Vang, May Vang, Ma Lee Xiong, Shervun Xiong, Kao Kalia Yang, Kou Yang.


Network Intrusion Detection System (NIDS) is a security system that monitors the network traffic and analyzes activities for possible hostile attacks. A novel collaborative visual analytics application for cognitive overloaded site security officer (SSO) in the network intrusion detection environment is presented. The system was developed for site security officers who need to analyze heterogeneous, complex intrusion under time pressure, and then make predictions and time-critical decisions rapidly and correctly under a constant influx of intrusion alert/alarm. This purpose was achieved by designing system architecture of a Treemaps Visualization on NIDs. The Treemaps Network Intrusion Detection System was implemented using the Java platform. The results of an informal usability of the network system were evaluated by the security experts in the context of Endley's three levels of situation awareness. The proposed visualization tool has some economic advantages by aiding NID's SSO to dynamically discover intrusive zone which will reduce cost of manual analysis and high risks, efficient space utilization, interactivity, comprehension and esthetics.


The world is a better place than it used to be. People are healthier, wealthier, and live longer. Yet the escapes from destitution by so many has left gaping inequalities between people and nations. In The Great Escape, Angus Deaton--one of the foremost experts on economic development and on poverty--tells the remarkable story of how, beginning 250 years ago, some parts of the world experienced sustained progress, opening up gaps and setting the stage for today's disproportionately unequal world. Deaton takes an in-depth look at the historical and ongoing patterns behind the health and wealth of nations, and addresses what needs to be done to help those left behind. Deaton describes vast innovations and wrenching setbacks: the successes of antibiotics, pest control, vaccinations, and clean water on the one hand, and disastrous famines and the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the other. He examines the United States, a nation that has prospered but is today experiencing slower growth and increasing inequality. He also considers how economic growth in India and China has improved the lives of more than a billion people. Deaton argues that international aid has been ineffective and even harmful. He suggests alternative efforts--including reforming incentives to drug companies and lifting trade restrictions--that will allow the developing world to bring about its own Great Escape. Demonstrating how changes in health and living standards have transformed our lives, The Great Escape is a powerful guide to addressing the well-being of all nations.


How do radical religious sects run such deadly terrorist organizations? Hezbollah, Hamas, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the Taliban all began as religious groups dedicated to piety and charity. Yet once they turned to violence, they became horribly potent, executing campaigns of terrorism deadlier than those of their secular rivals. In Radical, Religious, and Violent, Eli Berman approaches the question using the economics of organizations. He first dispels some myths: radical religious terrorists are not generally motivated by the promise of rewards in the afterlife (including the infamous seventy-two virgins) or even by religious ideas in general. He argues that these terrorists (even suicide terrorists) are best understood as rational altruists seeking to help their own communities. Yet despite the vast pool of potential recruits -- young altruists who feel their communities are repressed or endangered -- there are less than a dozen highly lethal terrorist organizations in the world capable of sustained and coordinated violence that threatens governments and makes hundreds of millions of civilians hesitate before boarding an airplane. What's special about these organizations, and why are most of their followers religious radicals? Drawing on parallel research on radical religious Jews, Christians, and Muslims, Berman shows that the most lethal terrorist groups have a common characteristic: their leaders have found a way to control defection. Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Taliban, for example, built loyalty and cohesion by means of mutual aid, weeding out "free riders" and producing a cadre of members they could rely on. The secret of their deadly effectiveness lies in their resilience and cohesion when incentives to defect are strong.These insights suggest that provision of basic social services by competent governments adds a critical, nonviolent component to counterterrorism strategies. It undermines the violent potential of radical religious organizations without disturbing free religious practice, being drawn into theological debates with Jihadists, or endangering civilians.


Human Reproduction features full-length, peer-reviewed papers reporting original research, clinical case histories, as well as opinions and debates on topical issues. Papers published cover the scientific and medical aspects of reproductive physiology and pathology, endocrinology, andrology, gonad function, gametogenesis, fertilization, embryo development, implantation, pregnancy, genetics, genetic diagnosis, oncology, infectious disease, surgery, contraception, infertility treatment, psychology, ethics and social issues. The highest scientific and editorial standard is maintained throughout the journal along with a rapid rate of publication.


This paper (Part 2 of a two-part set of papers) discusses models and illustrates the adverse effects of weak layers, interlayers, laminations and/or weak interfaces in flexible and semi-flexible pavements, also incorporating lightly cemented layers. The modelling is based on mechanistic analyses for pavement design and evaluation. In Part 1, the effects of these relatively weak layers, interlayers, laminations and/or weak interfaces were discussed. It was shown that methodologies are available to detect and investigate the existence of these weak layers in cemented pavement layers. In Part 2, several cases of the above conditions for different road pavement types are discussed, with field examples. Mechanistic analyses were done on a typical hot mix asphalt (HMA), several cases of a cemented base pavement and a granular base pavement, with and without these weak layers and interface conditions to demonstrate their adverse effects. The analyses focus on the strain energy of distortion (SED) as a pavement response parameter to indicate the potential for structural damage expected within the pavement structure or layer. Generally, the higher the SED, the higher the potential damage in the pavement layer. SED shows some potential for quantifying the relative effects of these weak layers, interlayers, laminations and / or weak interfaces within flexible and semi-flexible pavements.


How should a court set the negligence standard in a given area of activity when future (potential) injurers or victims are unlikely to know the standard set by the court? In particular, how should the standard be set in the oft-occurring case where one of the future parties is a professional actor who is likely to know the legal standard of negligence, while the other is an amateur, who is unlikely to know it? In this case, it may be optimal for the court to set the standards at the first-best level despite the amateur's ignorance of the law. The amateur may be able to infer the standards, either from the situation itself (from his knowledge of the costs and benefits of precautions), or from the act performed by the professional party. Moreover, the amateur may take due care because he realizes that the professional party will have an incentive to live up to the standard, and that the risk of a loss will therefore be on the amateur. However, when the ignorance of the amateur is "large," involving not only the legal standards but also the risks inherent in the activity, it may well be optimal for the court to depart from first best standards.


Courts are now routinely applying the corporate law doctrine of veil piercing to limited liability companies. This extension of a seriously flawed doctrine into a new arena is not required by statute and is unsupportable as a matter of policy. The standards by which veil piercing is effected are vague, leaving judges great discretion. The result has been uncertainty and lack of predictability, increasing transaction costs for small businesses. At the same time, however, there is no evidence that veil piercing has been rigorously applied to affect socially beneficial policy outcomes. Judges typically seem to be concerned more with the facts and equities of the specific case at bar than with the implications of personal shareholder liability for society at large. A standard academic move treats veil piercing as a safety valve allowing courts to address cases in which the externalities associated with limited liability seem excessive. In doing so, veil piercing is called upon to achieve such lofty goals as leading LLC members to optimally internalize risk, while not deterring capital formation and economic growth, while promoting populist notions of economic democracy. The task is untenable. Veil piercing is rare, unprincipled, and arbitrary. Abolishing veil piercing would refocus judicial analysis on the appropriate question - did the defendant - LLC member do anything for which he or she should be held directly liable?


OBJECT
The authors sought to assess the functional tolerance and tumor control rate of cavernous sinus meningiomas treated by gamma knife radiosurgery (GKS).

METHODS
Between July 1992 and October 1998, 92 patients harboring benign cavernous sinus meningiomas underwent GKS. The present study is concerned with the first 80 consecutive patients (63 women and 17 men). Gamma knife radiosurgery was performed as an alternative to surgical removal in 50 cases and as an adjuvant to microsurgery in 30 cases. The mean patient age was 49 years (range 6-71 years). The mean tumor volume was 5.8 cm3 (range 0.9-18.6 cm3). On magnetic resonance (MR) imaging the tumor was confined in 66 cases and extensive in 14 cases. The mean prescription dose was 28 Gy (range 12-50 Gy), delivered with an average of eight isocenters (range two-18). The median peripheral isodose was 50% (range 30-70%). Patients were evaluated at 6 months, and at 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7 years after GKS. The median follow-up period was 30.5 months (range 12-79 months). Tumor stabilization after GKS was noted in 51 patients, tumor shrinkage in 25 patients, and enlargement in four patients requiring surgical removal in two cases. The 5-year actuarial progression-free survival was 92.8%. No new oculomotor deficit was observed. Among the 54 patients with oculomotor nerve deficits, 15 improved, eight recovered, and one worsened. Among the 13 patients with trigeminal neuralgia, one worsened (contemporary of tumor growing), five remained unchanged, four improved, and three recovered. In a patient with a remnant surrounding the optic nerve and preoperative low vision (3/10) the decision was to treat the lesion and deliberately sacrifice the residual visual acuity. Only one transient unexpected optic neuropathy has been observed. One case of delayed intracavernous carotid artery occlusion occurred 3 months after GKS, without permanent deficit. Another patient presented with partial complex seizures 18 months after GKS. All cases of tumor growth and neurological deficits observed after GKS occurred before the use of GammaPlan. Since the initiation of systematic use of stereotactic MR imaging and computer-assisted modern dose planning, no more side effects or cases of tumor growth have occurred.

CONCLUSIONS
Gamma knife radiosurgery was found to be an effective low morbidity-related tool for the treatment of cavernous sinus meningioma. In a significant number of patients, oculomotor functional restoration was observed. The treatment appears to be an alternative to surgical removal of confined enclosed cavernous sinus meningioma and should be proposed as an adjuvant to surgery in case of extensive meningiomas.