Purpose: This study uses driving cycle to investigate and assess traffic demand management (TDM) for a number of traffic corridors in Abu Dhabi. Driving cycle measurements have had many applications to date, including the evaluation of the driver's behaviour and the performance of vehicles in a number of applications, in particular, for fuel consumption estimation and emission predictions. Design/methodology/approach: One TDM measures is considered; bus lanes. At each corridor, a hand-held GPS device was used to record speed, acceleration, deceleration and distances driven at 1 second intervals. Findings: Bus lanes are not a sustainable policy in all cases. These data enabled the analysis of driving cycles for buses and private cars. Originality/value: Use of the driving cycle analysis to assess and evaluate transport policies.


Abstract. Ozone depletion by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) was first proposed by Molina and Rowland in their 1974 Nature paper. Since that time, the scientific connection between ozone losses and CFCs and other ozone depleting substances (ODSs) has been firmly established with laboratory measurements, atmospheric observations, and modeling studies. This science research led to the implementation of international agreements that largely stopped the production of ODSs. In this study we use a fully-coupled radiation-chemical-dynamical model to simulate a future world where ODSs were never regulated and ODS production grew at an annual rate of 3%. In this "world avoided" simulation, 17% of the globally-averaged column ozone is destroyed by 2020, and 67% is destroyed by 2065 in comparison to 1980. Large ozone depletions in the polar region become year-round rather than just seasonal as is currently observed in the Antarctic ozone hole. Very large temperature decreases are observed in response to circulation changes and decreased shortwave radiation absorption by ozone. Ozone levels in the tropical lower stratosphere remain constant until about 2053 and then collapse to near zero by 2058 as a result of heterogeneous chemical processes (as currently observed in the Antarctic ozone hole). The tropical cooling that triggers the ozone collapse is caused by an increase of the tropical upwelling. In response to ozone changes, ultraviolet radiation increases, more than doubling the erythemal radiation in the northern summer midlatitudes by 2060.


This presentation is part of the UNT Speaks Out faculty lecture series, Gas Well Drilling: What Does it Mean for North Texas? In this presentation, the author discusses the economic benefits to natural gas production, reviews the most recent study on regional economic impacts, considers recent trends in drilling activity, and considers some of the downsides.


Globalization has affected the organizations in many aspects such as structure, architecture, internal/external strategies and sourcing management. Outsourcing is one of the recent business strategies used to provide IT needs via external agents. The relationship between the service buyer and provider companies is a constituent playing a significant role in IT outsourcing success or failure. This research has a focus on the influence of organizational culture of buyer companies on the specific factors of trust, cooperation, communication and commitment in their relationship with the IT service provider. Two explorative case studies are done in global companies using ITO which revealed the presence of organizational culture effect. Particularly, being innovative, having open discussion as an organizational culture and looking for extending contracts with providers as a strategy, appeared as the major difference between the two cases organizational culture; which influences the studied factors of ITO relationship in this research.


Why an organization's response to digital disruption should focus on people and processes and not necessarily on technology.Digital technologies are disrupting organizations of every size and shape, leaving managers scrambling to find a technology fix that will help their organizations compete. This book offers managers and business leaders a guide for surviving digital disruptions?but it is not a book about technology. It is about the organizational changes required to harness the power of technology. The authors argue that digital disruption is primarily about people and that effective digital transformation involves changes to organizational dynamics and how work gets done. A focus only on selecting and implementing the right digital technologies is not likely to lead to success. The best way to respond to digital disruption is by changing the company culture to be more agile, risk tolerant, and experimental.The authors draw on four years of research, conducted in partnership with MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte, surveying more than 16,000 people and conducting interviews with managers at such companies as Walmart, Google, and Salesforce. They introduce the concept of digital maturity?the ability to take advantage of opportunities offered by the new technology?and address the specifics of digital transformation, including cultivating a digital environment, enabling intentional collaboration, and fostering an experimental mindset. Every organization needs to understand its ?digital DNA? in order to stop ?doing digital? and start ?being digital.?Digital disruption won't end anytime soon; the average worker will probably experience numerous waves of disruption during the course of a career. The insights offered by The Technology Fallacy will hold true through them all.A book in the Management on the Cutting Edge series, published in cooperation with MIT Sloan Management Review.


Guesstimation is a book that unlocks the power of approximation--it's popular mathematics rounded to the nearest power of ten! The ability to estimate is an important skill in daily life. More and more leading businesses today use estimation questions in interviews to test applicants' abilities to think on their feet. Guesstimation enables anyone with basic math and science skills to estimate virtually anything--quickly--using plausible assumptions and elementary arithmetic.Lawrence Weinstein and John Adam present an eclectic array of estimation problems that range from devilishly simple to quite sophisticated and from serious real-world concerns to downright silly ones. How long would it take a running faucet to fill the inverted dome of the Capitol? What is the total length of all the pickles consumed in the US in one year? What are the relative merits of internal-combustion and electric cars, of coal and nuclear energy? The problems are marvelously diverse, yet the skills to solve them are the same. The authors show how easy it is to derive useful ballpark estimates by breaking complex problems into simpler, more manageable ones--and how there can be many paths to the right answer. The book is written in a question-and-answer format with lots of hints along the way. It includes a handy appendix summarizing the few formulas and basic science concepts needed, and its small size and French-fold design make it conveniently portable. Illustrated with humorous pen-and-ink sketches, Guesstimation will delight popular-math enthusiasts and is ideal for the classroom.


Every approach to conducting research in continuing education involves background assumptions about the nature of what is being studied, the means through which one can acquire knowledge, and the purpose of the research process itself. Although often not explicitly declared, these assumptions have a significant bearing on the choice of research questions, the methods employed to investigate those questions, the relationship between researchers and the subjects of their investigation, and the integration of research findings into communities of scholars and practitioners. The goal of this article is to promote awareness of the range of alternative possible approaches to conducting research in continuing education. It pursues this goal in three stages. First, it compares and contrasts the three predominant world-views in which modern social scientific research has typically been grounded in Canada: positivism, interpretive humanism, and radical structuralism. Each world-view is explored through ontological, epistemological, methodological and ethical questions. Second, the article outlines recent challenges, largely from postmodern and feminist researchers, to the background assumptions and political implications of these three established orientations to research. Third, the article poses a number of questions in order to encourage critical reflection about continuing education research.


Numerical simulation is an important tool in understanding the electromagnetic field and how it interacts with the environment. Different topics for time-domain finite-difference (FDTD) and finite-element (FETD) methods for Maxwell's equations are treated in this thesis. Subcell models are of vital importance for the efficient modeling of small objects that are not resolved by the grid. A novel model for thin sheets using shell elements is proposed. This approach has the advantage of taking into account discontinuities in the normal component of the electric field, unlike previous models based on impedance boundary conditions (IBCs). Several results are presented to illustrate the capabilities of the shell element approach. Waveguides are of fundamental importance in many microwave applications, for example in antenna feeds. The key issues of excitation and truncation of waveguides are addressed. A complex frequency shifted form of the uniaxial perfectly matched layer (UPML) absorbing boundary condition (ABC) in FETD is developed. Prism elements are used to promote automatic grid generation and enhance the performance. Results are presented where reflection errors below -70dB are obtained for different types of waveguides, including inhomogeneous cases. Excitation and analysis via the scattering parameters are achieved using waveguide modes computed by a general frequency-domain mode solver for the vector Helmholtz equation. Huygens surfaces are used in both FDTD and FETD for excitation in waveguide ports. Inverse problems have received an increased interest due to the availability of powerful computers. An important application is non-destructive evaluation of material. A time-domain, minimization approach is presented where exact gradients are computed using the adjoint problem. The approach is applied to a general form of Maxwell's equations including dispersive media and UPML. Successful reconstruction examples are presented both using synthetic and experimental measurement data. Parameter reduction of complex geometries using simplified models is an interesting topic that leads to an inverse problem. Gradients for subcell parameters are derived and a successful reconstruction example is presented for a combined dielectric sheet and slot geometry.


Mercury exists in mainly two oxidation states in the atmosphere, Hg0 and Hg(II).
Inorganic divalent mercury, Hg(II), has a greater solubility; therefore is in higher
concentration in rainwater, than Hg0. The toxic species, methylmercury is an organic
form of Hg(II) and is present in low concentration. Mercury is released into the
atmosphere by natural and anthropogenic sources. Rainwater is thought to be a main
removal mechanism for atmospheric mercury. The concentration and speciation of
mercury were determined in rainwater from Wilmington, NC, from September 1, 2003 to
September 30, 2005. Volume weighted averages for total Hg in unfiltered rainwater,
total dissolved Hg, particulate Hg, dissolved gaseous Hg (Hg0) and methyl-Hg were 52.9
± 4.7 pM, 40.6 ± 4.0 pM, 13.7± 1.5 pM, 4.3 ± 0.9 pM and 1.1 ± 0.1 pM, respectively.
All mercury species were present in all seasons with no significant difference in
concentrations between summer and winter, except dissolved gaseous mercury
concentration was higher in the winter, with a higher ratio of Hg(II)/Hg(0) in summer
relative to winter events. Diurnal variation was seen where Hg(II) decreased during the
day into the night, suggesting photochemical reduction of Hg(II). All Hg concentrations
were higher in continental storms relative to coastal rain events. Both total mercury
species (UFHg and TDHg) were positively correlated with particulate mercury. Total
mercury species were washed out of the atmosphere by rainwater with lower
concentrations for larger rain events. A weak positive correlation was observed between
TDHg and NO3
-, TDHg and SO4
2-, DGHg and Cl-, and Hgpart and DOC.
The photochemistry of mercury from Wilmington was also investigated. UFHg,
TDHg, and DGHg were generally produced upon irradiation of rainwater samples by simulated sunlight. Particulate Hg concentrations generally declined upon irradiation and
MMHg concentrations showed no pattern, in some instances, increasing, decreasing or
remaining the same. Positive correlation was observed between, production of UFHg and
Hgpart and a negative correlation was observed between production of TDHg and Hgpart.
Continental events increased in Hgpart while decreasing in TDHg, whereas coastal events
increased in TDHg while decreasing in Hgpart after irradiation. Seasonal differences
between Hg species were similar with an increase in TDHg and DGHg, while decreasing
in Hgpart and greater changes were observed during the winter. Diurnal variations of
Hg(II)/Hg(0) ratio increased during the afternoon and decreased there after.
Atmospheric global inputs by natural and anthropogenic sources, 4.1 x 106 kg or
2.0 x 107 mol per year, were in good agreement with calculated total flux of mercury
removed via wet deposition, 3.8 x 106 kg or 1.9 x 107 mol per year, suggesting that
essentially all mercury released into the atmosphere is removed via rain.


Prosecutorial discretion exists throughout the criminal justice system but plays a particularly significant role for environmental crime. Congress made few distinctions under the environmental laws between acts that could result in criminal, civil, or administrative enforcement. As a result, there has been uncertainty about which environmental violations will result in criminal enforcement and persistent claims about the over-criminalization of environmental violations. To address these concerns – and to delineate an appropriate role for criminal enforcement in the environmental regulatory scheme – I have proposed that prosecutors should reserve criminal enforcement for violations that involve one or more of the following aggravating factors: (1) significant environmental harm or public health effects; (2) deceptive or misleading conduct; (3) operating outside the regulatory system; or (4) repetitive violations. By doing so, prosecutors can focus on violations that undermine pollution prevention efforts and avoid targeting defendants acting in good faith or those who committed technical violations of the law. This Article presents the results of an empirical study to determine how often those factors were present in cases investigated by EPA that resulted in criminal charges from 2005-10. My empirical research demonstrates that prosecutors charged violations involving these aggravating factors for nearly every defendant prosecuted over a six-year period. Indeed, most defendants engaged in conduct that involved multiple aggravating factors. These findings suggest that prosecutors are exercising their discretion reasonably under the environmental laws and provide empirical evidence that should inform our understanding of the role of criminal enforcement and lessen concerns about over-criminalization.


Multicomponent superconductors described by several complex matter fields have properties radically different from those of their single-component counterparts. Examples include partially ordered phases and spontaneous breaking of time-reversal symmetry due to frustration between Josephsoncoupled components. Recent experimental results make such symmetry breaking a topic of central interest in superconductivity. Multicomponent gauge theories appear as effective theories e.g. for quantum antiferromagnets, and are thus of interest well beyond superconductivity. The nature of the phase transitions in these models is of great importance in modern physics, and yet remains poorly understood. These models and phenomena are studied theoretically in this thesis, mainly using large-scale Monte Carlo simulations. Superconducting s + is states have recently been described for superconductors with N = 3 components. The novelty of these states is that they break time-reversal symmetry due to frustration of interband couplings. In the first paper, we consider whether there can be new states in N -component Ginzburg-Landau models with bilinear Josephson couplings when N ≥ 4. We find that these models have new states associated with accidental continuous ground-state degeneracies. Also, we show that the possible combinations of signs of the couplings can for any N be divided into equivalence classes in a way that is related to the graph-theoretical concept of Seidel switching. In the second paper, we consider fluctuation effects in models of SU(N) symmetric superconductors. We demonstrate that there is a novel type of paired phase that is given by proliferation of non-topological vortices for N = 3 and 4, and that despite the absence of topologically stable vortices these systems form vortex lattices in external magnetic field; these lattices involve structures that are not simply hexagonal and differ between components. In the third paper, we consider fluctuation effects in London models of U(1) symmetric superconductors. These models are of central interest due to the theory of deconfined quantum criticality, according to which such gauge theories may describe phase transitions beyond the Ginzburg-Landau-Wilson paradigm. The direct transitions from fully ordered to fully disordered phases have been reported to be continuous for N = 1 and N = 183, and discontinuous for N = 2. The nature of the phase transitions for small N is an outstanding open question. We demonstrate that the degree of discontinuity of the direct transitions increases with N , at least for small N , and that the transitions from paired phases to fully disordered phases can be discontinuous. Both these results are in contrast to previous expectations. In the fourth and final paper, we report the first experimental observation of a state of matter that has an order parameter that is fourth order in fermionic fields: a bosonic Z2 metal, in which time-reversal symmetry is broken due to partial ordering of Cooper pairs despite superconducting order being absent. By considering fluctuation effects in phase-frustrated threecomponent Ginzburg-Landau models, we place constraints on the models used to describe the material in question. Also, we give an example of this anomalous state occurring in a type-2 Ginzburg-Landau model in external magnetic field, despite it not occurring in this model in the absence of external field.


Two rectangular cavity configurations at Mach 0.85 are investigated with the objective of assessing the extent to which 3D CFD with advanced turbulence modeling is capable of predicting narrowband and broadband flow noise. A non-linear, two-equation, eddy-viscosity model run in unsteady mode (URANS) is compared with Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) on a cavity with a L/D ratio of 5, representing cavity flow in so-called shear layer mode. Detailed experimental data for this cavity, configured with and without doors, provides a valuable opportunity to compare predictions of the spectra at many points along the cavity ceiling and band limited amplitude along the cavity length.


Believable agents designed for long-term interaction with human users need to adapt to them in a way which appears emotionally plausible while maintaining a consistent personality. For short-term interactions in restricted environments, scripting and state machine techniques can create agents with emotion and personality, but these methods are labor intensive, hard to extend, and brittle in new environments. Fortunately, research in memory, emotion and personality in humans and animals points to a solution to this problem. Emotions focus an animal's attention on things it needs to care about, and strong emotions trigger enhanced formation of memory, enabling the animal to adapt its emotional response to the objects and situations in its environment. In humans this process becomes reflective: emotional stress or frustration can trigger reevaluating past behavior with respect to personal standards, which in turn can lead to setting new strategies or goals. To aid the authoring of adaptive agents, we present an artificial intelligence model inspired by these psychological results in which an emotion model triggers case-based emotional preference learning and behavioral adaptation guided by personality models. Our tests of this model on robot pets and embodied characters show that emotional adaptation can extend the range and increase the behavioral sophistication of an agent without the need for authoring additional hand-crafted behaviors.


While sustainability is in danger of being reduced to a meaningless platitude, the brutal fact remains that industrial countries make a disproportionately large and negative impact on the environment. A serious transition to sustainability will require changing people's mindsets and social institutions, in addition to public policies, technologies and business practices.
This book presents a path-breaking analysis as well as highly innovative proposals for managing this transition. Emanating from Europe's foremost environmental policy think-tank, it has already stirred up a major new debate in Germany on radical, but feasible, directions in which the governments of industrial societies ought to be moving. The concept of "environmental space" and its ingenious development of indicators for measuring an economy's national and global impact combine with its delineation of concrete policies to give this book its intellectual power and potential political impact.


Most tasks require a person or an automated system to reason -- to reach conclusions based on available information. The framework of probabilistic graphical models, presented in this book, provides a general approach for this task. The approach is model-based, allowing interpretable models to be constructed and then manipulated by reasoning algorithms. These models can also be learned automatically from data, allowing the approach to be used in cases where manually constructing a model is difficult or even impossible. Because uncertainty is an inescapable aspect of most real-world applications, the book focuses on probabilistic models, which make the uncertainty explicit and provide models that are more faithful to reality. Probabilistic Graphical Models discusses a variety of models, spanning Bayesian networks, undirected Markov networks, discrete and continuous models, and extensions to deal with dynamical systems and relational data. For each class of models, the text describes the three fundamental cornerstones: representation, inference, and learning, presenting both basic concepts and advanced techniques. Finally, the book considers the use of the proposed framework for causal reasoning and decision making under uncertainty. The main text in each chapter provides the detailed technical development of the key ideas. Most chapters also include boxes with additional material: skill boxes, which describe techniques; case study boxes, which discuss empirical cases related to the approach described in the text, including applications in computer vision, robotics, natural language understanding, and computational biology; and concept boxes, which present significant concepts drawn from the material in the chapter. Instructors (and readers) can group chapters in various combinations, from core topics to more technically advanced material, to suit their particular needs.


Image restoration and enhancement methods that respect important features such as edges play a fundamental role in digital image processing. In the last decades a large
variety of methods have been proposed. Nevertheless, the correct restoration and
preservation of, e.g., sharp corners, crossings or texture in images is still a challenge, in particular in the presence of severe distortions. Moreover, in the context of image denoising many methods are designed for the removal of additive Gaussian noise and their adaptation for other types of noise occurring in practice requires usually additional efforts.

The aim of this thesis is to contribute to these topics and to develop and analyze new
methods for restoring images corrupted by different types of noise:
First, we present variational models and diffusion methods which are particularly well
suited for the restoration of sharp corners and X junctions in images corrupted by
strong additive Gaussian noise. For their deduction we present and analyze different
tensor based methods for locally estimating orientations in images and show how to
successfully incorporate the obtained information in the denoising process. The advantageous
properties of the obtained methods are shown theoretically as well as by
numerical experiments. Moreover, the potential of the proposed methods is demonstrated
for applications beyond image denoising.
Afterwards, we focus on variational methods for the restoration of images corrupted
by Poisson and multiplicative Gamma noise. Here, different methods from the literature
are compared and the surprising equivalence between a standard model for
the removal of Poisson noise and a recently introduced approach for multiplicative
Gamma noise is proven. Since this Poisson model has not been considered for multiplicative
Gamma noise before, we investigate its properties further for more general
regularizers including also nonlocal ones. Moreover, an efficient algorithm for solving
the involved minimization problems is proposed, which can also handle an additional
linear transformation of the data. The good performance of this algorithm is demonstrated
experimentally and different examples with images corrupted by Poisson and
multiplicative Gamma noise are presented.
In the final part of this thesis new nonlocal filters for images corrupted by multiplicative
noise are presented. These filters are deduced in a weighted maximum likelihood
estimation framework and for the definition of the involved weights a new similarity measure for the comparison of data corrupted by multiplicative noise is applied. The
advantageous properties of the new measure are demonstrated theoretically and by
numerical examples. Besides, denoising results for images corrupted by multiplicative
Gamma and Rayleigh noise show the very good performance of the new filters.


Congressman John Boehner recently suggested that President Obama replace his top economic advisers. I think he may have a point. The economic "recovery" has been disappointing, to put it mildly, and it has become increasingly clear that the blame lies with the policies of the Obama administration, not with those of its predecessor. In general, the current administration has been too focused on expanding government, redistributing more from rich to poor, and stimulating aggregate demand. I have previously criticized the stimulus package as cost-ineffective. In particular, whatever tax reductions were in the package did not involve the cuts in marginal income tax rates that encourage investment, work effort and productivity growth. Now the administration wants to kill the 2003 income-tax cuts, at least the parts that reduced marginal income tax rates for highincome earners and for all recipients of dividend income. This proposal is particularly disturbing because the 2003 law was George W. Bush's main economic achievement; unlike most of Mr. Bush's policies, this one was well-conceived and effective. I want to focus here on another dimension of the Obama administration's policies: the expansion of unemployment-insurance eligibility to as much as 99 weeks from the standard 26 weeks. The unemployment-insurance program involves a balance between compassion—providing for persons temporarily without work—and efficiency. The loss in efficiency results partly because the program subsidizes unemployment, causing insufficient job-search, job-acceptance and levels of employment. A further inefficiency concerns the distortions from the increases in taxes required to pay for the program. In a recession, it is more likely that individual unemployment reflects weak economic conditions, rather than individual decisions to choose leisure over work. Therefore, it is reasonable during a recession to adopt a more generous unemployment-insurance program. In the past, this change entailed extensions to perhaps 39 weeks of eligibility from 26 weeks, though sometimes a bit more and typically conditioned on the employment situation in a person's state of residence. However, we have never experienced anything close to the blanket extension of eligibility to nearly two years. We have shifted toward a welfare program that resembles those in many Western European countries. The administration has argued that the more generous unemployment-insurance program could not have had much impact on the unemployment rate because the recession is so severe that jobs are unavailable for many people. This perspective is odd on its face because, even at the worst of the downturn, the U.S. labor market featured a tremendous amount of turnover in the form of large numbers of persons hired and separated every month. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that, near the worst of the recession in March 2009, 3.9 million people were hired and 4.7 million were separated from jobs. This net loss of 800,000 jobs in one month indicates a very weak economy—but nevertheless one in which 3.9 million people were hired. A program that reduced incentives for people to search for and accept jobs could surely matter a lot here. Moreover, although the peak unemployment rate (thus far) of 10.1% in October 2009 is very disturbing, the rate was even higher in the 1982 recession (10.8% in November-December 1982). Thus, there is no reason to think that the United States is in a new world in which incentives provided by more generous unemployment-insurance programs do not matter much for unemployment. Another reason to be skeptical about the administration's stance is that generous unemployment-insurance programs have been found to raise unemployment in many Western European countries in which unemployment rates have been far higher than the current U.S. rate. In Europe, the influence has worked particularly through increases in long-term unemployment. So the key question is what happened to longterm unemployment in the United States during the current recession? To begin with a historical perspective, in the 1982 recession the peak unemployment rate of 10.8% in November-December 1982 corresponded to a mean duration of unemployment of 17.6 weeks and a share of long-term unemployment (those unemployed more than 26 weeks) of 20.4%. Long-term unemployment peaked later, in July 1983, when the unemployment rate had fallen to 9.4%. At that point, the mean duration of unemployment reached 21.2 weeks and the share of long-term unemployment was 24.5%. These numbers are the highest observed in the post-World War II period until recently. Thus, we can think of previous recessions (including those in 2001, 199091 and before 1982) as featuring a mean duration of unemployment of less than 21 weeks and a share of long-term unemployment of less than 25%. These numbers provide a stark contrast with joblessness today. The peak unemployment rate of 10.1% in October 2009 corresponded to a mean duration of unemployment of 27.2 weeks and a share of long-term unemployment of 36%. The duration of unemployment peaked (thus far) at 35.2 weeks in June 2010, when the share of long-term unemployment in the total reached a remarkable 46.2%. These numbers are way above the ceilings of 21 weeks and 25% share applicable to previous post-World War II recessions. The dramatic expansion of unemployment-insurance eligibility to 99 weeks is almost surely the culprit. To get a rough quantitative estimate of the implications for the unemployment rate, suppose that the expansion of unemployment-insurance coverage to 99 weeks had not occurred and—I assume—the share of long-term unemployment had equaled the peak value of 24.5% observed in July 1983. Then, if the number of unemployed 26 weeks or less in June 2010 had still equaled the observed value of 7.9 million, the total number of unemployed would have been 10.4 million rather than 14.6 million. If the labor force still equaled the observed value (153.7 million), the unemployment rate would have been 6.8% rather than 9.5%. Consider how the prospects for Democrats in the November elections would look if the unemployment rate were now only 6.8%. Obviously, this change would make all the difference, and President Obama can reasonably blame his economic advisers. They should have protected their boss by standing firm and arguing that a reckless expansion of unemployment-insurance coverage to 99 weeks was unwise economically and politically. Congressman Boehner's advice to Mr. Obama seems correct, though possibly too late to matter.


This Article introduces two research projects towards assistive robotic arms for people with severe body impairments. Both projects aim to develop new control and interaction designs to promote accessibility and a better performance for people with functional losses in all four extremities, e.g. due to quadriplegic or multiple sclerosis. The project MobILe concentrates on using a robotic arm as drinking aid and controlling it with smart glasses, eye-tracking and augmented reality. A user oriented development process with participatory methods were pursued which brought new knowledge about the life and care situation of the future target group and the requirements a robotic drinking aid needs to meet. As a consequence the new project DoF-Adaptiv follows an even more participatory approach, including the future target group, their family and professional caregivers from the beginning into decision making and development processes within the project. DoF-Adaptiv aims to simplify the control modalities of assistive robotic arms to enhance the usability of the robotic arm for activities of daily living. lo decide on exemplary activities, like eating or open a door, the future target group, their family and professional caregivers are included in the decision making process. Furthermore all relevant stakeholders will be included in the investigation of ethical, legal and social implications as well as the identification of potential risks. This article will show the importance of the participatory design for the development and research process in MobILe and DoF-Adaptiv.


The vertically oriented postcard depicts a neon Bayer Aspirin sign above a building with a silhouette of people below. The sky is dark and the only illumination is the sign and the interior of the building. A few stars twinkle in the sky and some Japanese text runs along the bottom.


The security of systems such as operating systems, hypervisors, and web browsers depend critically on reference monitors to correctly enforce their desired security policy in the presence of adversaries. Recent progress in developing reference monitors with small code size and narrow interfaces has made automated formal verification of reference monitors a more tractable goal. However, a significant remaining factor for the complexity of automated verification is the size of the data structures (e.g., access control matrices) over which the programs operate. This paper develops a parametric verification technique that scales even when reference monitors and adversaries operate over unbounded, but finite data structures. Specifically, we develop a parametric guarded command language for modeling reference monitors and adversaries. We also present a parametric temporal specification logic for expressing security policies that the monitor is expected to enforce. The central technical results of the paper are a set of small model theorems. These theorems state that in order to verify that a policy is enforced by a reference monitor with an arbitrarily large data structure, it is sufficient to model check the monitor with just one entry in its data structure. We apply our methodology to verify the designs of two hypervisors, SecVisor and the sHype mandatory-access-control extension to Xen. Our approach is able to prove that sHype and a variant of the original SecVisor design correctly enforces the expected security properties in the presence of powerful adversaries.


Texture informs our interpretation of the visual world. It provides a cue to the shape and orientation of a surface, to segmenting an image into meaningful regions, and to classifying those regions, e.g. in terms of material properties. This chapter discusses recent advances in understanding of segmentation and representation of visual texture. Successful models have described texture by a rich set of image statistics ("stuff") rather than by the features of discrete, pre-segmented texture elements ("things"). Texture processing mechanisms may also underlie important phenomena in peripheral vision known as crowding. If true, such mechanisms would influence the information available for object recognition, scene perception, and many visual-cognitive tasks.


The review confirms that fuel poverty is a serious national problem and shows that it is set to rise rapidly. It affects people with low incomes and energy costs above typical levels. It proposes a new way of measuring the problem, focused both on the number of people affected and the severity of the problem they face. Using the proposed measure: Nearly 8 million people in England, within 2.7 million households, both had low incomes and faced high energy costs in 2009 (the most recent year with available data). These households faced costs to keep warm that added up to £1.1 billion more than middle or higher income people with typical costs. The review's central projection is that this "fuel poverty gap" – already three-quarters higher than in 2003 – will rise by a further half, to £1.7 billion by 2016. This means fuel poor households will face costs nearly £600 a year higher on average than better-off households with typical costs. The report also argues that: Fuel poverty exacerbates other hardship faced by those on low incomes, has serious health effects (including contributing to extra deaths every winter), and acts as a block to efforts to cut carbon emissions. The current official way of measuring it, based on whether a household would need to spend more than 10 per cent of its income on energy, is flawed, giving a misleading impression of trends, excluding some affected by the problem at some times and including people with high incomes at others. Interventions targeted on the core of the problem – especially those that improve the energy efficiency of homes lived in by people with low incomes – can make a substantial difference, but the impact of those planned to be in place by 2016 is only to reduce the problem by a tenth.


Perl is a versatile, powerful programming language used in a variety of disciplines, ranging from system administration to web programming to database manipulation. One slogan of Perl is that it makes easy things easy and hard things possible. Intermediate Perl is about making the leap from the easy things to the hard ones.Originally released in 2003 as Learning Perl Objects, References, and Modules and revised and updated for Perl 5.8, this book offers a gentle but thorough introduction to intermediate programming in Perl. Written by the authors of the best-selling Learning Perl, it picks up where that book left off. Topics include:Packages and namespacesReferences and scopingManipulating complex data structuresObject-oriented programmingWriting and using modulesTesting Perl codeContributing to CPANFollowing the successful format of Learning Perl, we designed each chapter in the book to be small enough to be read in just an hour or two, ending with a series of exercises to help you practice what you've learned. To use the book, you just need to be familiar with the material in Learning Perl and have ambition to go further.Perl is a different language to different people. It is a quick scripting tool for some, and a fully-featured object-oriented language for others. It is used for everything from performing quick global replacements on text files, to crunching huge, complex sets of scientific data that take weeks to process. Perl is what you make of it. But regardless of what you use Perl for, this book helps you do it more effectively, efficiently, and elegantly.Intermediate Perl is about learning to use Perl as a programming language, and not just a scripting language. This is the book that turns the Perl dabbler into the Perl programmer.


The pork meat industry in Chile exhibits significant rates of
production growth, with a decreasing trend in the wholesale market
price and growing levels of concentration of the supply in a reduced
number of companies. The structural element that sustains concentration
and expansion of the production is the presence of increasing returns
to scale in the production process. This investigation had the
objective to verify the presence of economies of scale in this
industry. Using a Cobb-Douglas cost function and the assumption of
maximization of the benefits of the company in imperfect competition
markets, an econometric model was estimated, that allowed considering
indirectly the coefficients of the function of underlying production.
One was that for the period 1975-2005, the industry presented
increasing returns to scale, with an elasticity product-scale of 1.23
and economies of scale, with elasticity cost-production of 0.81. It was
concluded that this industry shows conditions to increase its advantage
in costs and of expanding its competitiveness in international markets.


Transnational multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) – voluntary partnerships between governments, civil society, and the private sector – are an increasingly prevalent strategy for promoting government responsiveness and accountability to citizens. While most transnational MSIs involve using voluntary standards to encourage socially and environmentally responsible private sector behavior, a handful of these initiatives – the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (CoST), the Open Government Partnership (OGP), the Global Initiative on Fiscal Transparency (GIFT) and the Open Contracting Partnership (OCP) – focus on information disclosure and participation in the public sector. Unlike private sector MSIs, which attempt to supplement weak government capacity to enforce basic social and environmental standards through partnerships between businesses and civil society, public sector MSIs ultimately seek to bolster public governance. But how exactly are these MSIs supposed to work? And how much has actually been achieved?The purpose of this study is to identify and consolidate the current state of the evidence for public governance-oriented MSI effectiveness and impact. Researchers collected over 300 documents and interviewed more than two-dozen MSI stakeholders about their experiences with five public governance oriented multi-stakeholder initiatives.This report provides a 'snapshot' of the evidence related to these five MSIs, and suggests that the process of leveraging transparency and participation through these initiatives for broader accountability gains remains uncertain. The report highlights the ongoing process of defining MSI success and impact, and how these initiatives intersect with other accountability actors and processes in complex ways. The study closes with key recommendations for MSI stakeholders.


In this paper, we show the feasibility of low supply voltage for SRAM (Static Random Access Memory) by adding error correction coding (ECC). In SRAM, the memory matrix needs to be powered for data retentive standby operation, resulting in standby leakage current. Particularly for low duty- cycle systems, the energy consumed due to standby leakage current can become significant. Lowering the supply voltage (VDD) during standby mode to below the specified data retention voltage (DRV) helps decrease the leakage current. At these VDD levels errors start to appear, which we can remedy by adding ECC. We show in this paper that addition of a simple single error correcting (SEC) ECC enables us to decrease the leakage current by 45% and leakage power by 72%. We verify this on a large set of commercially available standard 40nm SRAMs.


We study the link between household structure and cross country differences in the wealth distribution using a recently compiled data set for the euro area (HFCS). We estimate counterfactual distributions using non-parametric re-weighting to examine the extent to which differences in the unconditional distributions of wealth across euro area countries can be explained by differences in household structure. We find that imposing a common household structure has strong effects on both the full unconditional distributions as well as its mappings to different inequality measures. For the median 50% of the differences are explained for Austria, 15% for Germany, 25% for Italy, 14% for Spain and 38% for Malta. For others as Belgium, France, Greece, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovenia and Slovakia household structure masks the differences to the euro area median and Finland and the Netherlands change their position from below to above the euro area median. The impact on the mean and percentile ratios is similarly strong and varies with regard to direction and level across countries and their distributions. We can confirm the finding of Bover (2010) that the effect on the Gini is somewhat less pronounced, but might mask relevant information by being a net effect of different accumulated effects along the distribution. Country rankings based on almost all of these measures are severely affected alluding to the need for cautious interpretation when dealing with such rankings. Furthermore, the explanatory power of household structure changes along the net wealth distribution. Therefore we argue for more flexible controls for household structure. We provide such a set of controls to account for household type fixed effects which are based on the number of household members as well as possible combinations of age categories and gender. JEL Classification: D30, D31


A Thesis submitted to the Department of Accounting and Finance,Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration (Finance Option)


In recent years, Thermal Energy Storage (TES) is becoming more and more important in different engineering applications. As far as the building sector is concerned, TES is considered a crucial feature to reach the net-Zero Energy Building (nZEB) goal. Commonly, TES in building is obtained using the sensible heat property of conventional building materials (building thermal inertia). The drawbacks of this strategy are: the low amount of thermal energy that can be stored; the overheating of the indoor environment that may occur if elevate amount of heat is collected by a conventional building material. On the contrary, the exploitation of the latent heat of dedicate materials (the so-called Phase Change Materials - PCMs) for TES purpose (Latent Heat Thermal Energy Storage - LHTES) presents different advantages: it allows a much higher energy storage density; it allows "temperature selective" thermal energy absorption and release (by choosing the melting temperature range of the PCM). Moreover, since the storage is done at almost isothermal conditions, it is easier to match the energy demand of the building, with the requirements posed by indoor thermal comfort conditions. An exhaustive collection of both laboratory and commercial grade PCMs of different nature and for different purposes can be found in [1]. The exploitation of LHTES is now gaining popularity [2]: different applications of PCMs in construction are currently under investigation [3-5] and, sometimes, commercially available. The most common applications concern the incorporation of PCMs into opaque elements for indoor partitions, structural components and insulation layers. The adoption of PCMs may also occur in combination with active systems (e.g. air-based heating systems, floor heating). Furthermore, because of the ability of certain PCMs to transmit (part of) the visible spectrum of the solar radiation, some transparent/semi-transparent building envelope elements filled with PCMs have been also investigated [6-9]. Some systems based on PCMs integration into transparent components have also appeared on the market and have been adopted in some buildings too. The chemical stability and thermal reliability of PCMs and their live spam are key features to ensure the economic feasibility of exploiting LHTES. The requirements on the stability of the PCMs' thermal properties may depend on the different application of PCMs. However, as a general rule, it is mandatory that no relevant changes occur in the melting temperature and in the latent heat of fusion due to the thermal cycles the PCM undergoes. In common applications, such as in gypsum wallboard, thermal cycles are mostly caused by energy absorption and release by conduction and convection. If radiative transfers occur, only the long-wavelength infrared region is involved. On the contrary, in the case of PCMs contained into transparent elements and directly exposed to the solar radiation, the entire electromagnetic solar spectrum passes through and heats the materials. Thus, it may occur that the high energy radiation contained in the UV-VIS range negatively affects the thermal stability of PCMs. Thermal reliability of PCMs has been investigated since time. Accelerated thermal cycle test is usually adopted to simulate the ageing of the material. This technique consists in multi melt/freeze cycles (up to some thousands of cycles) conducted in laboratory by means of dedicated devices, under controlled and fixed conditions. The evolution of the thermal properties of the materials (i.e. the melting temperature and the latent heat of fusion) is then evaluated by means of Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) on different samples of the material, which correspond to different ageing times. Following this procedure, several studies have been conducted to assess the thermal reliability of different PCMs. The literature survey reveals the lack of dedicated investigations that concern the chemical stability and thermal reliability of PCMs which are supposed to be directly exposed to the solar radiation. Although this application is not one of the main popular and developed, the use of PCMs in transparent components is under evaluation since time [6-9] and some solutions are already commercially available [10]. As mentioned above, this type of application may cause chemical instability and degradation. In fact, PCMs can be damaged by the combined action of the UV-VIS electromagnetic radiation and oxidative processes. The aim of this research is to characterize and analyze the evolution of the thermal properties, and to evaluate the thermal reliability, of a paraffin wax exposed to the solar radiation. The analysis is conducted on four samples of the same PCM collected at regular interval during an on-field experimental campaign on a PCM glazing [9], that was exposed to operative conditions in a test cell equipment for more than one year


The International Labour Law Reports is a series of annual publications of labour law judgements by the highest courts in a number of jurisdictions. ILLR is intended primarily for the use of judges, labour law practitioners, industrial relations specialists and students who need or desire ready access to authoritative information of a comparative nature on problems arising in the field of labour law and industrial relations.
Each judgement reprinted in ILLR is accompanied by Headnotes and in practically all cases by an Annotation which sets forth, among other things, the read morelegal issues involved, the basic facts of the case (if not included in the judgement itself), the relevant statutory provisions and judicial precedents, the labour law and industrial relations context in which the case arose and the significance of the judgement in the development of the law. As a rule, judgements are printed in extenso; editorial discretion has been relied upon to delete or to summarize portions of judgements that are purely technical or only of marginal interest. This volume covers the period 1 October 2009 to 30 September 2010.


These are letters from the Charles B. Moore Collection. The first two are written by Alice Griffin, who was Adelitia "Dinkie" McGee's daughter and niece and cousin to members of the Moore family. An additional letter is written by Frank M. Griffin, Alice's husband. In Alice's letter, she informs the Moore family of the goings-on in Gallatin, Tennessee and the news includes: an update on family members health, news about the weather, a discussion about Matilda Dodd, a dialogue about pickling and preserving, a dialogue about Bailey Love, details about deaths in the community and general community news, a discussion about Bessie, Mattie, Birdie, and Hattie Love, an update on the dress she is making for Matilda, details about Pete who is helping Matilda, and news of Bettie and Matilda's visit. In Alice's second letter, she details Matilda's and Bettie's visit, discusses news about family and friends, mentions her garden and box flowers,and writes about a dress she is having made and a dress she is making for Birdie. She notes that she wishes they could visit her next year. A visit from her does not seem possible she mentions, due to financial reasons. She closes the letter by wishing the Moore family would write soon and she promises to write more often.

In Frank's letter, he updates the Moore family on the goings-on in Gallatin from his perspective. The news in his letter includes: news about his livestock, an update on the weather, a discussion about the sewing machine ordered for Alice, a dialogue about the crops, details about weaning a colt and purchasing a mule, news about the demand for jersey cows, a discussion about Alice losing her poultry and turkeys to limber neck or break neck, a dialogue about making money from butter and the jersey cow they traded for, and details about his hogs. He closes the letter and notes that while in town to mail the letter the sewing machine has come in. The envelope is included with the letters.


For Luce Irigaray, one of the most original French feminist theorists, deconstructing the patriarchal tradition is not enough. She admits that it is not an easy task, but she believes that it is necessary to also define new values directly or indirectly suitable to feminine subjectivity and to feminine identity. She begins this project by analyzing and interpreting the absence of the feminine subject in the definition of dominant cultural values. She then wonders how these new values can be constructed without simply reversing the roles. Far from implying a hierarchy, difference affirms the coexistence and fruitful encounter of two different identities. These two heterogeneous identities, masculine and feminine, are not socially but ontologically constructed and describing the feminine requires establishing methods other than those already used by the masculine subject.Why Different? is a collection of interviews, conducted in both France and Italy, that deal explicitly with the relationship between daughter and mother, the sexuation of language, the symbolic order, and the importance of both history and philosophy for the liberation of the feminine subject. In Why Different? Irigaray elaborates on issues brought up in her other books, Speaking is Never Neutral, I Love to You, Thinking the Difference, and To Be Two and brings them to fruition.


The task of handling non-rigid one-dimensional objects by a robot manipulation system is investigated. To distinguish between different non-rigid object behaviors, five classes of deformable objects from a robotic point of view are proposed. Additionally , an enumeration of all possible contact states of one-dimensional objects with polyhedral obstacles is provided. Finally, the qualitative motion behavior of linear objects is analyzed for stable point contacts. Experiments with different materials validate the analytical results.


Economic forecasts for a presidential election year always consider the alleged existence of an electoral cycle that is orchestrated by vote-maximizing incumbents to ensure their party's reelection. The assumption of vote-maximizing behavior by politicians has led to the search for empirical evidence of politically induced cycles in key variables such as unemployment, inflation, and real disposable income or in policies such as government purchases, transfer payments, taxes, and monetary growth (reviewed in sec. 2). The purpose of this paper is to develop a model, presented in section 3, from which a Federal Reserve reaction function is employed to test for the significance of an electoral cycle variable modeled to capture politically induced changes in monetary policy. The empirical results are presented in section 4 with concluding remarks in section 5.


The game of chess is the most widely-studied domain in the history of artificial intelligence. The strongest programs are based on a combination of sophisticated search techniques, domain-specific adaptations, and handcrafted evaluation functions that have been refined by human experts over several decades. In contrast, the AlphaGo Zero program recently achieved superhuman performance in the game of Go, by tabula rasa reinforcement learning from games of self-play. In this paper, we generalise this approach into a single AlphaZero algorithm that can achieve, tabula rasa, superhuman performance in many challenging domains. Starting from random play, and given no domain knowledge except the game rules, AlphaZero achieved within 24 hours a superhuman level of play in the games of chess and shogi (Japanese chess) as well as Go, and convincingly defeated a world-champion program in each case.


The Study Group on a European Civil Code has taken upon itself the task of drafting common European principles for the most important aspects of the law of obligations and for certain parts of the law of property in movables which are especially relevant for the functioning of the common market. Like the Commission on European Contract Law's Principles of European Contract Law, the results of the research conducted by the Study Group on a European Civil Code seek to advance the process of Europeanisation of private law. Among other topics the series tackles sales and service contracts, distribution contracts and security rights, renting contracts and loan agreements, negotiorum gestio, delicts and unjustified enrichment law, transfer of property, and trust law. The principles furnish each of the national jurisdictions a grid reference. They can be agreed upon by the parties within the framework of the rules of private international law. They may provide a stimulus to both the national and European legislator for moulding private law. Beyond this, they aim to further discussion about the creation of a European Civil Code, or a Common Frame of Reference in the area of patrimonial law, by submitting a concrete model. The Principles of European Law are published in co-operation with Bruylant (Belgium), Sellier (Germany) and Staempfli Publishers Ltd. (Switzerland).


Abundant studies have shown that visualization is advantageous for software developers, yet adopting visualization during software development is not a common practice due to the large effort involved in finding an appropriate visualization. Developers require support to facilitate that task. Among 368 papers in SOFTVIS/VISSOFT venues, we identify 86 design study papers about the application of visualization to relieve concerns in software development. We extract from these studies the task, need, audience, data source, representation, medium, and tool, and we characterize them according to the subject, process, and problem domain. On the one hand, we support software developers to put visualization in action by mapping existing visualization techniques to particular needs from different perspectives. On the other hand, we highlight the problem domains that are overlooked in the field and need more support.


This Article examines a patent licensing practice that has hitherto escaped the attention of U.S. antitrust law: the no challenge clauses. Under these clauses, a patent licensee is prohibited from challenging the validity of the licensed patent. These clauses have so far only been examined under patent law in terms of enforceability. This oversight by antitrust law is unfortunate, as no challenge clauses can create consumer harm by protecting an otherwise invalid patent from challenges and artificially extending the exclusive period granted by the patent law. This means that consumers have to bear supra-competitive prices for longer than necessary. A number of factors are relevant to the analysis of the legality of no challenge clauses, such as market power, patent validity, and market structure at the licensee level. This Article proposes a framework based on the Rule of Reason that incorporates all of these relevant factors and structures them in a way that renders the framework easy to apply. Lastly, the Article rejects a number of justifications that have been offered to argue for the legality of these clauses across the board.


The goal of the Workshop on Adaptation and Learning in Multiagent Systems was to focus on research that addresses unique requirements for agents learning and adapting to work in the presence of other agents. Recognizing the applicability and limitations of current machine-learning research as applied to multiagent problems and developing new learning and adaptation mechanisms particularly targeted to this class of problems were the primary research issues that we wanted the authors to address. This article outlines the presentations that were made at the workshop and the success of the workshop in meeting the established goals. Issues that need to be better understood are also presented.


Derived from the renowned multi-volume International Encyclopaedia of Laws, this practical analysis of sports law in South Africa deals with the regulation of sports activity by both public authorities and private sports organizations. The growing internationalization of sports inevitably increases the weight of global regulation, yet each country maintains its own distinct regime of sports law and its own national and local sports organizations. Sports law at a national or organizational level thus gains a growing relevance in comparative law. The book describes and discusses both state-created rules and autonomous self-regulation regarding the variety of economic, social, commercial, cultural, and political aspects of sports activities. Self- regulation manifests itself in the form of by-laws, and encompasses organizational provisions, disciplinary rules, and rules of play. However, the trend towards more professionalism in sports and the growing economic, social and cultural relevance of sports have prompted an increasing reliance on legal rules adopted by public authorities. This form of regulation appears in a variety of legal areas, including criminal law, labour law, commercial law, tax law, competition law, and tort law, and may vary following a particular type or sector of sport. It is in this dual and overlapping context that such much-publicized aspects as doping, sponsoring and media, and responsibility for injuries are legally measured. This monograph fills a gap in the legal literature by giving academics, practitioners, sports organizations, and policymakers access to sports law at this specific level. Lawyers representing parties with interests in South Africa will welcome this very useful guide, and academics and researchers will appreciate its value in the study of comparative sports law


Because ammonia and its reaction products can cause considerable damage to human health and ecosystems, there is a need for reliably operating and reversibly interacting sensor materials to monitor traces of gaseous ammonia in ambient air, which at best can be used on-site for in-the-field measurements. Herein, the development of a sensor material for gaseous ammonia in the lower ppm to ppb range using optical fluorescence as transduction mechanism is presented. A fluorescent dye, which shows reversible fluorescence enhancement in the presence of ammonia is incorporated into a polymer matrix, the latter to ensure the accumulation of ammonia. The sensor material is integrated into a prototype of a miniaturized sensor device, facilitating long-term operation. To calibrate the optical sensor system a gas standard generator, producing standard gas mixtures, is used, leading to a sensitivity down to lower ppm concentrations of ammonia.


Offering great flexibility, information and communication technologies (ICTs) facilitate immediate communication and interaction in either hybrid instruction or online training. Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL), mediated by ICTs, have come a long way to be embedded in learning management systems (LMSs). In the context of CSCL, groups of participants are involved to collaborate or interact within the group or between the groups. Of interest, this study proposes a conceptual model integrating Biggs' Presage, Process, Product (3P) model and Front-end Analysis (FEA) to explore determinants of distributed cognition in CSCL. This study affirms that (1) the presage factors (i.e., learner attributes, instructional attributes, contextual attributes have an influence on collaborative practice (CP); (2) the process factor, collaborative practice (CP), has an influence on distributed cognition (Dcog); and (3) participation is a mediator on learner attributes to collaborative practices. The finding lends support to the empirical study by conducting the Delphi technique for qualitative method and/or a large-scale survey for quantitative study. The findings are discussed and further studies are suggested.


Experimental Techniques for Measuring Temperature and Velocity Fields to Improve the Use and Validation of Building Heat Transfer Models Brent Griffith, Daniel Turler, Howdy Goudey, and Dariush Arasteh P.E., ASHRAE member Abstract When modeling thermal performance of building components and envelopes, researchers have traditionally relied on average surface heat-transfer coefficients that often do not accurately represent surface heat-transfer phenomena at any specific point on the component being evaluated. The authors have developed new experimental techniques that measure localized surface heat-flow phenomena resulting from convection. The data gathered using these new experimental procedures can be used to calculate local film coefficients and validate complex models of room and building envelope heat flows. These new techniques use a computer- controlled traversing system to measure both temperatures and air velocities in the boundary layer near the surface of a building component, in conjunction with current methods that rely on infrared (IR) thermography to measure surface temperatures. Measured data gathered using these new experimental procedures are presented here for two specimens: (1) a Calibrated Transfer Standard (CTS) that approximates a constant-heat-flux, flat plate; and (2) a dual-glazed, low-emittance (low-e), wood-frame window. The specimens were tested under steady-state heat flow conditions in laboratory thermal chambers. Air temperature and mean velocity data are presented with high spatial resolution (0.25- to 25-mm density). Local surface heat-transfer film coefficients are derived from the experimental data by means of a method that calculates heat flux using a linear equation for air temperature in the inner region of the boundary layer. Local values for convection surface heat-transfer rate vary from 1 to 4.5 W/m 2 ·K. Data for air velocity show that convection in the warm-side thermal chamber is mixed forced/natural, but local velocity maximums occur from 4 to 8 mm from the window glazing. Keywords: air, condensation, convection, fenestration, heat transfer, temperature, window


Literature aimed at addressing ways to meet learning needs of disenfranchised students can be enhanced through the addition of case studies. International comparative approaches looking at the specifics of cases can also add to the literature on schooling for disenfranchised students. The purpose of our research was to elicit the perceptions of humanities educators in Spain and in Canada regarding enhancing opportunities to retain disenfranchised students in secondary schools. Our analysis was based on case studies and document analysis. For the purpose of this research, disenfranchised is defined as at-risk of leaving school prior to high school completion due to personal difficulties resulting from environmental conditions (such as poverty, family difficulties, drug addiction, and violent communities).


This paper takes an economic approach to investigate the role of geographical proximity for organizing new product development (NPD) activities within inter-firm linkages. Product development theory and the resource-based view is discussed from an inter-firm perspective and contrasted to arguments in the literature on geographical economics. The approach in this paper assumes that geographical proximity is crucial for inter-firm learning, knowledge transfer and creation of capabilities to a higher extent in inter-firm linkages with a high level of interaction, in industries where knowledge is relatively more important as a resource and where collaboration partners are important. Hypotheses are tested by means of a quantitative analysis of a data set containing information about 4842 domestic and international inter-firm linkages of Danish firms in manufacturing industries. The findings in this analysis exhibit low support for the general role of geographical proximity for organizing NPD activities within inter-firm linkages. The result suggests that geographical proximity seems to play a role in inter-firm linkages in few cases. For instance, it is shown that knowledge intensive firms exhibit a propensity for international linkages. It is further suggested closer geographical distance for inter-firm linkages with medium and high level of interaction, suppliers or customers accounting for more than one third of total purchases or sales, and for linkages lasting for at least 10 years.


With the rapid advancement of information discovery techniques, machine learning and data mining continue to play a significant role in cybersecurity. Although several conferences, workshops, and journals focus on the fragmented research topics in this area, there has been no single interdisciplinary resource on past and current works and possible paths for future research in this area. This book fills this need. From basic concepts in machine learning and data mining to advanced problems in the machine learning domain, Data Mining and Machine Learning in Cybersecurity provides a unified reference for specific machine learning solutions to cybersecurity problems. It supplies a foundation in cybersecurity fundamentals and surveys contemporary challengesdetailing cutting-edge machine learning and data mining techniques. It also: Unveils cutting-edge techniques for detectingnew attacks Contains in-depth discussions of machine learning solutions to detection problems Categorizes methods for detecting, scanning, and profiling intrusions and anomalies Surveys contemporary cybersecurity problems and unveils state-of-the-art machine learning and data mining solutions Details privacy-preserving data mining methods This interdisciplinary resource includes technique review tables that allow for speedy access to common cybersecurity problems and associated data mining methods. Numerous illustrative figures help readers visualize the workflow of complex techniques and more than forty case studies provide a clear understanding of the design and application of data mining and machine learning techniques in cybersecurity.


In this paper, we address a critical problem in conversation systems: limited input interpretation capabilities. When an interpretation error occurs, users often get stuck and cannot recover due to a lack of guidance from the system. To solve this problem, we present a hybrid natural language query recommendation framework that combines natural language generation with query retrieval. When receiving a problematic user query, our system dynamically recommends valid queries that are most relevant to the current user request so that the user can revise his request accordingly. Compared with existing methods, our approach offers two main contributions: first, improving query recommendation quality by combining query generation with query retrieval; second, adapting generated recommendations dynamically so that they are syntactically and lexically consistent with the original user input. Our evaluation results demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach.


Sino-EU relations are officially described as a 'comprehensive strategic partnership' and are bound to play a key role in shaping the character of the newly-emerging multi-polar system. At present, the EU is China's biggest trading partner, while China is the EU's largest source of imports and second largest two-way trading partner. However, while recognising such closeness, this paper will adopt a slightly more critical stance towards Sino-EU relations. I analyse how internal political debates within China influences how leading Chinese actors construct various images of Europe. Central to this analysis will be Chinese attempts to create counter narratives of both colonial history and of the structure of the state system as a way of challenging dominant European conceptions of order – that is to say, the paper will describe China's efforts to launch an ideational challenge to the Westphalian system.


The traditional reliability design methods are imperfect because the designed systems aim at fewer faults, but once a fault happens, the systems might hard fail. To solve this problem, we present a self-maintenance machine (SMM), one that can maintain its functions flexibly even though faults occur. To achieve the capabilities of diagnosing and repair planning, a model-based approach that uses qualitative physics was proposed. Regarding the repair-executing capability, control-type repair strategy was followed. A prototype of the SMM was developed, and it succeeded in maintaining its functions if the structure did not change. However, the prototype revealed the following problems when its reasoning system was used with a commercial product as embedded software: (1) poor performance of the reasoning system, (2) system size that was too large, (3) low adaptability to environmental changes, and (4) roughness of qualitative repair operations. To solve these problems, we proposed new reasoning method based on virtual cases and fuzzy qualitative values. This methodology is one of knowledge compilation, which gives better reasoning performance and can deal with real-world applications such as the SMM. By using this method, we finally developed a commercial photocopier that has self-maintainability and is more robust against faults. The commercial version has been supplied worldwide as a product of Mita Industrial Co., Ltd., since April 1994.


An analytical study on air flow effects and resulting dynamics on the PACE Formula 1 race car is presented. The study incorporates Computational Fluid Dynamic analysis and simulation to maximize down force and minimize drag during high speed maneuvers of the race car. Using Star CCM+ software and mentoring provided by CD – Adapco, the simulation employs efficient meshing techniques and realistic loading conditions to understand down force on front and rear wing portions of the car as well as drag created by all exterior surfaces. Wing and external surface loading under high velocity runs of the car are illustrated. Optimization of wing orientations (direct angle of attack) and geometry modifications on outer surfaces of the car are performed to enhance down force and lessen drag for maximum stability and control during operation. The use of Surface Wrapper saved months of time in preparing the CAD model. The Transform tool and Contact Prevention tool in Star CCM+ proved to be an efficient means of correcting and modifying geometry instead of going back to the CAD model. The CFD simulations point out that the current front and rear wings do not generate the desired downforce and that the rear wing should be redesigned.


Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). Letter to the Editor


Government secrecy frequently fails. Despite the executive branch's obsessive hoarding of certain kinds of documents and its constitutional authority to do so, recent high-profile events — among them the WikiLeaks episode, the Obama administration's infamous leak prosecutions, and the widespread disclosure by high-level officials of flattering confidential information to sympathetic reporters — undercut the image of a state that can classify and control its information. The effort to control government information requires human, bureaucratic, technological, and textual mechanisms that regularly founder or collapse in an administrative state, sometimes immediately and sometimes after an interval. Leaks, mistakes, and open sources all constitute paths out of the government's informational clutches. As a result, permanent, long-lasting secrecy of any sort and to any degree is costly and difficult to accomplish.This Article argues that information control is an implausible goal. It critiques some of the foundational assumptions of constitutional and statutory laws that seek to regulate information flows, while complicating and countering the extensive literature on secrecy, transparency, and leaks that rest on those assumptions. By focusing on the functional issues relating to government information and broadening its study beyond the much-examined phenomenon of leaks, the Article catalogs and then illustrates the formal and informal means by which information flows out of the state in a series of case studies. These informal means play an especially important role in limiting both the ability of state actors to keep secrets and the extent to which formal legal doctrines can control the flow of government information. The same bureaucracy and legal regime that keep open government laws from creating a transparent state also keep the executive branch from creating a perfect informational dam. The Article draws several implications from this descriptive, functional argument for legal reform and for the study of administrative and constitutional law.


It is suggested that a system of chemical substances, called morphogens, reacting together and diffusing through a tissue, is adequate to account for the main phenomena of morphogenesis. Such a system, although it may originally be quite homogeneous, may later develop a pattern or structure due to an instability of the homogeneous equilibrium, which is triggered off by random disturbances. Such reaction-diffusion systems are considered in some detail in the case of an isolated ring of cells, a mathematically convenient, though biologically unusual system. The investigation is chiefly concerned with the onset of instability. It is found that there are six essentially different forms which this may take. In the most interesting form stationary waves appear on the ring. It is suggested that this might account, for instance, for the tentacle patterns onHydra and for whorled leaves. A system of reactions and diffusion on a sphere is also considered. Such a system appears to account for gastrulation. Another reaction system in two dimensions gives rise to patterns reminiscent of dappling. It is also suggested that stationary waves in two dimensions could account for the phenomena of phyllotaxis.The purpose of this paper is to discuss a possible mechanism by which the genes of a zygote may determine the anatomical structure of the resulting organism. The theory does not make any new hypotheses; it merely suggests that certain well-known physical laws are sufficient to account for many of the facts. The full understanding of the paper requires a good knowledge of mathematics, some biology, and some elementary chemistry. Since readers cannot be expected to be experts in all of these subjects, a number of elementary facts are explained, which can be found in text-books, but whose omission would make the paper difficult reading.


Background/Context Performance funding in higher education ties government funding to institutional performance on indicators such as retention, graduation, and job placement. Performance funding can also be found in state K-12 funding policies and higher education quality assurance programs abroad. One of the puzzles about higher education performance funding is that half of the states establishing it later abandoned it. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This study examines the factors that have led many states to drop performance funding for higher education. Research Design This qualitative case study contrasts the experiences of three states that dropped performance funding in whole or in part (Missouri, Washington, and Florida) and a fourth (Tennessee) that has retained it more than 30 years. Discussion Our analysis is based on documentary records and extensive interviews with higher education officials, legislators and staff, governors and advisors, business leaders, minority group leaders, researchers, and outside consultants. Our findings concur with but also go beyond prior analyses of the demise of state performance funding systems. We concur that higher education opposition played a key role in this demise, stimulated by a perception of inadequate consultation with higher education institutions, use of performance indicators that institutions found invalid, high implementation costs to institutions, and erosion of campus autonomy. At the same time, our analysis turned up other causes of higher education opposition to performance funding that were not discovered by previous studies. A major cause of higher education opposition was the downturn in state finances in the early 2000s, which led institutions to focus on preserving their core state funding and giving up performance funding. Higher education opposition was also provoked if performance funding took the form not of adding to existing state funding but instead holding back a portion of the state appropriation and requiring institutions to earn it back through improved performance. These findings agree and disagree with theories and findings in the research literatures on policy termination and program sustainability. Conclusions/Recommendations If its advocates are to create a sustainable basis for state performance funding, they must find ways to insulate its funding from the ups and downs of the state revenue cycle, better secure the support of public institutions, and expand its breadth of political support by reaching out, for example, to business and to social groups driven primarily by the values of educational equality rather than educational efficiency.


For the past two decades Louise Lawler has been taking photographs of art in situ, from small poignant black-and-white images of art in people's homes to large format glossy color pictures of art in museums and in auction houses. In addition she has produced a variety of objects--paperweights, etched drinking glasses, matchbooks, gallery announcements--all of which cleverly describe how art comes to accrue value as it moves through various systems of exchange.Lawler's oeuvre was essential in creating an expanded field for photography, it was crucial in postmodern debates over theories of representation, it remains indelible within the field of institutional critique, and it has always been trenchant and witty in its sustained commitment to a feminist vision of art, art history, and contemporary art practice. But Lawler is also an old-fashioned "artist's artist," long overdue for the kind of serious reconsideration and recognition that this volume affords. The very self-effacing nature of Lawler's practice, however, her continual suspicion about notions of authorship--and her sly disregard for museological conventions--have meant that she has resisted precisely the usual mid-career retrospective. Twice Untitled and Other Pictures, published in conjunction with Lawler's first major museum exhibition in the United States, organized by the Wexner Center for the Arts, eats away at the standard museum practices of chronology, linear development, and the presentation of masterpieces, opting instead to explore such dynamic themes and undercurrents in Lawler's practice as her relationship to sculpture, her long history of collaborative projects, her production of such ephemera as napkins, matchbooks, and announcement cards, and the steady political dimension of her work--which culminated most recently in works that are deeply critical of the American invasion of Iraq. With essays by art historian and political theorist Rosalyn Deutsche and curators Ann Goldstein and Helen Molesworth, Twice Untitled and Other Pictures promises to be an essential volume for anyone interested in late twentieth- and early twenty-first- century art.


Andrei Markov's 1890 method for convergence-acceleration of series bears an amazing resemblance to WZ theory, as was recently pointed out by M. Kondratieva and S. Sadov. But Markov did not have Gosper and Zeilberger's algorithms, and even if he did, he wouldn't have had a computer to run them on. Nevertheless, his beautiful ad-hoc method, when coupled with WZ theory and Gosper's algorithm, leads to a new class of identities and very fast convergence-acceleration formulas that can be applied to any infinite series of hypergeometric type.


Changes in exercise behavior and negative emotional states (i.e., depression, anxiety, and stress) in combat sport (e.g., boxing, wrestling, martial arts) athletes were examined the month prior to gym closures related to the COVID-19 pandemic (February 2020), and approximately 1 month following gym closures (May 2020). A total of 312 combat sport athletes from 33 different countries responded to the study solicitation. Results indicated a significant decrease in combat sport training following gym closures; however, participation in other exercise activities did not significantly change. Significant mean increases in depression, anxiety, and stress were found following combat gym closures. Regression analyses revealed that number of hours of participants participated in combat sport training added significant incremental variance explained in depressive and stress symptoms above and beyond that accounted for by sex differences, preexisting conditions, and training level. Practical implications regarding losses to preferred exercise activities are discussed.


By looking at the wide variety of Hispanic Christian worship that exists within the Hispanic community, Alabadle! highlights the cultural, generational, and denominational elements that comprise the spectrum of Hispanic worship. Justo L. Gonzalez and seven other contributors provide an insightful look into the variety of worship styles that exist among numerous church traditions including Assemblies of God, United Methodist, Catholic, American Baptist, Presbyterian, and Disciples of Christ. And yet, in the midst of this variety, is a common thread of excitement - about worship and about the gospel! Anyone interested in exploring worship, music, and liturgy styles from a particular Hispanic perspective will find Alabadle! a valuable learning tool.


Meet the Challenge of Comprehensive Health Education in Elementary School Human Kinetics recognizes that health education may be challenging to fit into your busy schedule. That is why we developed the World of Wellness Health Education series (WOW!): -With WOW! you can deliver top-quality health education within the limited hours of the school day, promote health literacy, meet the mandates of No Child Left Behind legislation, and enhance your efforts to achieve the objectives of the overall curriculum that you work so hard to implement. -WOW! is designed to develop strong and compelling links between what students should know and what they should be able to do in the areas of reading and writing. -Finally--but no less importantly--WOW! emphasizes the importance of physical activity and nutrition throughout the health education strands. Through careful design and execution, a coordinated approach, and consideration for real students and teachers in real school settings, WOW! not only helps you meet the challenge, but does so in a way that appeals to kids of all ages. Fun. Easy. Complete. The World of Wellness Health Education series enables you to teach your students the importance of leading an active and healthy life through conceptually grounded, context-based lessons. What's even more exciting is that while your students are learning, they'll become acquainted with a very special group of friends who will take them on a wellness journey throughout the school year. Ruby, Cody, T.J., Sydney, and others will help your students learn about health while strengthening their abilities in reading, writing, and other cross-curricular topics. WOW! functions as a group of kits--without the cost of a kit! Ancillaries other publishers might make you pay extra for are included with the teacher's guides for each level of the WOW! series at a very affordable price. Plus, few supplies are need for delivering the dynamic lessons found in WOW!, and the few little things you might need for activities or demonstrations are inexpensive and easily found in a school or discount store. That means that you can deliver WOW! content expertly, smoothly, and affordably with very little prep time! Coordinated School Health Connections Today's child needs an updated, multifaceted approach in order to achieve health literacy, or the ability to make choices that will enhance personal health and well-being now and in the future. For many years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have promoted the key to children's health and well-being through their Coordinated School Health Model. This model encompasses eight interactive areas: -Health education -Physical education -Health services -Nutrition services -Counseling, psychological, and social services -Healthy school environment -Health promotion for staff -Family and community involvement WOW! Delivers Coordinated School Health With concern rapidly growing about childhood obesity, inactivity, and other health risks such as type 2 diabetes, states and municipalities are now responding by passing laws requiring coordinated school health. The WOW! Health Education series meets these needs by providing the four components that are most frequently required: -Health education core content meeting the relevant national standards -Physical education helping students meet the national standards -Parent involvement newsletters provided per unit and per grade level, in both English and Spanish -Nutrition education and services for students and parents alike. Professional development opportunities are available through the authors to support each essential component. This Is How WOW! Works Each level of The World of Wellness Health Education series consists of the following: -a teacher's guide -a teacher's resource CD-ROM -a student book that corresponds to the students' levels For kindergarten students, the student book is a big book, a large colorful book for the teacher to read to the group; first- through fifth-grade students have their own books. In addition, an abridged first-grade student book is available in big book format. Color Coding Across the series, kindergarten through fifth grade, WOW! uses a color-coded system to denote grade levels. This allows you the additional flexibility of using a lower level to meet the needs of students with academic challenges or a higher level to challenge gifted students. In today's world of tight budgets and increasing demands on school resources, rest assured that the WOW! student books are not intended to be used as workbooks. Rather, they are meant to last multiple years while still being cost-effective. This complies with the directives of most school districts not to purchase student consumables.


"There is no one quite like Barbara Kingsolver in contemporary literature," raves the Washington Post Book World, and it is right. She has been nominated three times for the ABBY award, and her critically acclaimed writings consistently enjoy spectacular commercial success as they entertain and touch her legions of loyal fans. In "High Tide in Tucson", she returns to her familiar themes of family, community, the common good and the natural world. The title essay considers Buster, a hermit crab that accidentally stows away on Kingsolver's return trip from the Bahamas to her desert home, and turns out to have manic-depressive tendencies. Buster is running around for all he's worth-- one can only presume it's high tide in Tucson. Kingsolver brings a moral vision and refreshing sense of humor to subjects ranging from modern motherhood to the history of private property to the suspended citizenship of human beings in the Animal Kingdom. Beautifully packaged, with original illustrations by well-known illustrator Paul Mirocha, these wise lessons on the urgent business of being alive make it a perfect gift for Kingsolver's many fans.


In an aerobic environment the occurrence of reactive oxygen species (ROS) is a common phenomenon. The diverse roles of ROS in cellular function and in diseases make them a target of interest in many research areas. Substances capable of directly or indirectly reducing the (harmful) effects of ROS are referred to as "antioxidants". However, the term is applied miscellaneously in the chemical and the biological context to describe different attributes of a substance. In this work the potential of an electrochemical assay to detect different ROS in-vitro was explored. The method was optimized to investigate the radical scavenging activities (antioxidant potential) of trolox and different plant compounds (ascorbic acid, caffeic acid, epigallocatechin gallate, ferulic acid, kaempferol, quercetin, rutin, and Gynostemma pentaphyllum extract) in-vitro. The obtained data was compared to established antioxidant in-vitro assays. Further, the impact of the plant substances on cellular parameters was evaluated with the electrochemical assay and established cell assays.
The optimization of the electrochemical assay allowed the reproducible detection of ROS. The sensor electrode proved differently sensitive towards individual ROS species. The highest sensitivity was recorded for hydroxyl radicals while superoxide and hydrogen peroxide had little impact on the sensor. Extracellular ROS concentrations could be detected from cell lines releasing elevated ROS into the extracellular space. The antioxidant activity of the investigated plant substances could be demonstrated with all in-vitro assays applied. However, the absolute as well as the relative activity of the individual substances varied depending on the experimental parameters of the assays (pH, radical species, phase, detection method).
The plant compounds modified redox related intracellular parameters in different cell lines. However, a direct correlation between intracellular and extracellular effects of the plant compounds could not be established.
The work demonstrates the feasibility to use the electrochemical assay to sense ROS as well as to evaluate the radical scavenging activity of molecules. The in-vitro antioxidant activities demonstrated for the individual plant substances are not reliable to predict the cellular effects of the molecules.


The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. VNatalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting


This survey compiles ideas and recommendations from more than a dozen researchers with different backgrounds and from different institutes around the world. Promoting best practice in benchmarking is its main goal. The article discusses eight essential topics in benchmarking: clearly stated goals, well-specified problems, suitable algorithms, adequate performance measures, thoughtful analysis, effective and efficient designs, comprehensible presentations, and guaranteed reproducibility. The final goal is to provide well-accepted guidelines (rules) that might be useful for authors and reviewers. As benchmarking in optimization is an active and evolving field of research this manuscript is meant to co-evolve over time by means of periodic updates.