Abstract. We introduce an alternative method for the retrieval of polarisation in the ultraviolet by the satellite spectrometer SCIAMACHY. Unlike the operational polarisation retrieval algorithm, this method does not use the Polarisation Measurement Devices (PMDs) onboard SCIAMACHY, but only requires the reflectance signal. This makes the algorithm more robust and less sensitive to calibration errors caused by either improper characterisation of the instrument's response functions (key data) or degradation of the optical components. The alternative polarisation retrieval is able to retrieve the full state of atmospheric polarisation in the wavelength range between 330 and 400 nm, which is essentially the wavelength region covered by SCIAMACHY's PMD 1. This allows a direct comparison with the current operational product. When we compare the alternative polarisation algorithm with the operational algorithm, we find in some cases agreement, but not in other cases. The alternative algorithm compares well with an analytical model of the polarisation of a cloud-free scene. Using the alternative algorithm the polarisation-sensitive feature in the SCIAMACHY reflectance around 350 nm is automatically corrected for.


State personhood laws pose a puzzle. These laws would establish fertilized eggs as persons and, by doing so, would ban all abortions. Many states have consistently supported laws restricting abortion care. Yet, thus far no personhood laws have passed. Why? This Article offers a possible explanation and draws lessons from that explanation for understanding and resisting abortion restrictions more broadly. I suggest that voters' recognition of the implications of personhood legislation for health issues other than abortion may have led to personhood's defeat. In other words, opponents of personhood proposals appear to have successfully reconnected abortion to pregnancy care, contraception, fertility, and women's health in general. Public concern over the "side effects" of personhood laws seems to have persuaded even those opposed to abortion to reject personhood legislation. If this is so, personhood opponents may have struck on a strategy that could apply more broadly. As this Article explains, various anti-abortion regulations — not just personhood laws — have deleterious "side effects" on women's health. Focusing the public's attention on these side effects could not only create stronger support for access to abortion care but could also better promote the full spectrum of women's healthcare needs.


Americans have a seemingly unquenchable thirst for knowledge of our Founding Fathers. Now Michael Toth brings us the story of Oliver Ellsworth, key member of the Constitutional Convention, sponsor of the Judiciary Act in the Senate, and chief justice for four crucial years. Ellsworth was a critical figure, and Toth describes his contributions with clear prose and an eagle eye for legal argument. Michael Barone Lucid and comprehensive, Founding Federalist brings to light for a modern audience one of the most important of the constitutional framers. David Frum Toth presents the enduring contributions of this pivotal and esteemed founding father to the Constitution and to all three branches of the federal government .[His] eloquent biography, peppered with quotations from Ellsworth s contemporaries, historians, and from Ellsworth himself, brings to life an august founder who today is only acknowledged indirectly through his lasting achievements. "The University Bookman""A brief, wonderfully readable biography of the most important American you've never heard of." Peter Robinson, "Richochet""Founding Federalist is clearly and gracefully written, as readable as any of David McCullough s books." "The Washington Examiner"In "Founding Federalist, " Michael C. Toth provides an in-depth look at the life and work of Oliver Ellsworth, a largely forgotten but eminently important Founding Father.The American Founding was the work of visionaries and revolutionaries. But amid the celebrated luminaries, the historic transformations, the heroic acts, and unforgettable discourses were practical politicians, the consensus builders who made the system work. Oliver Ellsworth Framer, senator, chief justice, diplomat was such a leader."Founding Federalist" brings to life a figure whose contributions shape American political life even today. Vividly capturing the pivotal debates at Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, Toth shows how Ellsworth was a vital force in shaping the Constitution as a Federalist document, one that did not extinguish the role of the states even as it recognized the need for national institutions. The author illuminates what Ellsworth and other Founders understood to be the meaning of the new constitutional order a topic highly relevant to twenty-first-century debates about the role of government. Toth, an attorney, also brilliantly analyzes Ellsworth s most important legislative achievement: the creation of the U.S. federal court system.With this insightful new biography, Michael Toth has reclaimed a figure who made crucial contributions to a lasting creation: a federal republic."


Recently, scholars and lawmakers have suggested that the United States, or even states, cease to recognize citizenship of the American-born children of undocumented aliens. This would seem to be a direct contravention of the text of the Fourteenth Amendment, which begins by saying, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." Conservative legal scholars have begun to advance scholarly arguments suggesting that the "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" language was "intended" by the Framers of the Amendment to require legal status and "full allegiance" to the United States to activate the citizenship guarantee. A review of the legislative debates during the framing of the Amendment reveals little evidence to support this contention. It indicates that the language was designed to exclude two and only two groups: (1) children of diplomats accredited to the United States and (2) members of Indian tribes who maintained quasi-sovereign status under federal Indian law as it existed in 1868. The contrary contention arises out of a partial and strained reading of the debates and an at best partial understanding of the intellectual background of the Amendment. That proponents of a narrower view propound their interpretation as embodying the "clear intent" of the Framers seems to contrary to the record as to raise questions about the very meaningfulness of "originalist" arguments in general.


In 2017, Android hit a global mobile market share of 88% which makes it the most popular mobile platform. Application stores, such as the Google Play Store, are offering millions of mobile applications to consumers, which are installed and updated on a daily basis. However, the security of those applications is a major concern. A thorough security analysis before the publication of each application is time and resource consuming. Hence, platform providers cannot and do not manually vet every application handed in for publication. Consequently, many malicious and vulnerable applications find their way to the app stores and through there to the end users' devices. Those applications exhibit serious security issues, such as leaking of sensitive information. During the previous years, researchers proposed a myriad of techniques and tools to detect such issues. There also exist large scale taxonomies classifying such tools into different categories. However, it is unclear how these tools perform compared to each other. Such a comparison is almost infeasible, since most tools are no longer available or cannot be set up any more. In this work, we review static analysis tools for detecting data leaks in Android applications. Out of 87 tools in the vulnerability detection domain, we are able to obtain 22 tools. We then identify 5 tools in the data leak detection domain and run them. We run them on a given data set with known data leak vulnerabilities and compare their performance. Furthermore, we run the tools on a larger set of real-world applications to assess the prevalence of data leak issues in open-source Android applications. We propose our own approach—DistillDroid—to compare security analysis tools by normalising their interfaces. This simplifies result reproduction and extension to other security vulnerability domains. In addition, the user experience and usability is highly improved.


Combining ultracold atomic gases with the peculiar properties of Rydberg excited atoms gained a lot of theoretical and experimental attention in recent years. Embedded in the ultracold gas, an interaction between the Rydberg atom and the surrounding ground state atoms arises through the scattering of the Rydberg electron from an intruding perturber atom. This peculiar interaction gives rise to a plenitude of previously unobserved effects. Within the framework of the present thesis, this interaction is studied in detail for Rydberg \(P\)-states in rubidium.

Due to their long lifetime, atoms in Rydberg states are subject to scattering with the surrounding ground state atoms in the ultracold cloud. By measuring their lifetime as a function of the ground state atom flux, we are able to obtain the total inelastic scattering cross section as well as the partial cross section for associative ionisation. The fact that the latter is three orders of magnitude larger than the size of the formed molecular
ion indicates the presence of an efficient mass transport mechanism that is mediated by the Rydberg–ground state interaction. The immense acceleration of the collisional process shows a close analogy to a catalytic process. The increase of the scattering cross section renders associative ionisation an important process that has to be considered for experiments in dense ultracold systems.

The interaction of the Rydberg atom with a ground state perturber gives rise to a highly oscillatory potential that supports molecular bound states. These so-called ultralong-range Rydberg molecules are studied with high resolution time-of-flight spectroscopy, where we are able to determine the binding energies and lifetimes of the molecular states between the two fine structure split \(25P\)-states. Inside an electric field, we observe a broadening of the
molecular lines that indicates the presence of a permanent electric dipole moment, induced by the mixing with high angular momentum states. Due to the mixing of the ground state atom's hyperfine states by the molecular interaction, we are able to observe a spin-flip of the perturber upon creation of a Rydberg molecule. Furthermore, an incidental near-degeneracy in the underlying level scheme of the \(25P\)-state gives rise to highly entangled states between the Rydberg fine structure state and the perturber's hyperfine structure. These mechanisms can be used to manipulate the quantum state of a remote particle over distances that exceed by far the typical contact interaction range.

Apart from the ultralong-range Rydberg molecules that predominantly consist of only one low angular momentum state, a class of Rydberg molecules is predicted to exist that strongly mixes the high angular momentum states of the degenerate hydrogenic manifolds. These states, the so-called trilobite- and butterfly Rydberg molecules, show very peculiar properties that cannot be observed for conventional molecules. Here we present the first experimental observation of butterfly Rydberg molecules. In addition to an extensive spectroscopy that reveals the binding energy, we are also able to observe the rotational structure of these exotic molecules. The arising pendular states inside an electric field allow us, in comparison to the model of a dipolar rotor, to extract the precise bond
length and dipole moment of the molecule. With the information obtained in the present study, it is possible to photoassociate butterfly molecules with a selectable bond length, vibrational state, rotational state, and orientation inside an electric field.

By shedding light on various previously unrevealed aspects, the experiments presented in this thesis significantly deepen our knowledge on the Rydberg–ground state interaction and the peculiar effects arising from it. The obtained spectroscopic information on Rydberg molecules and the changed reaction dynamics for molecular ion creation will surely provide valuable data for quantum chemical simulations and provide necessary data to plan future experiments. Beyond that, our study reveals that the hyperfine interaction in Rydberg molecules and the peculiar properties of butterfly states provide very promising new ways to alter the short- and long-range interactions in ultracold many-body systems. In this sense the investigated Rydberg–ground state interaction not only lies right at
the interface between quantum chemistry, quantum many-body systems, and Rydberg physics, but also creates many new and fascinating possibilities by combining these fields.


In recent years, a number of scholars have argued that the Supreme Court has always been, and is destined to be, a majoritarian institution. Building on the work of Robert Dahl, these scholars collectively offer both historical and predictive claims: they assert that the Court's decisions have tended to reflect the values and preferences of national majorities and that deep structural forces and incentives constrain will continue to constrain the Court from departing from the preferences of these national majorities. This article takes issue with those claims. Using as a starting point the Court's dramatically countermajoritarian recent decision in the Citizens United case, this article identifies at least six problems with the majoritarian thesis: (1) lack of clarity about who the relevant majority is that purportedly constrains the Court, such as national lawmaking majorities, national popular opinion majorities, or other possible definitions of the majority; (2) lack of convincing accounts of the mechanisms by which one or another of these majorities manages to constrain the Court; (3) disagreement about whether the Court's most momentous decisions, such as Brown v. Board of Education, were in fact majoritarian or not; (4) confusion between whether individual Court decisions reflect majoritarian preferences and whether the Court over long periods of time eventually reflects majoritarian beliefs; (5) failure to take into adequate account the changing power of the Court over time; (6) issues about whether data support the majoritarian thesis. In addition, this article argues that good reasons exist to believe that the history of judicial review will not necessarily predict its future. However independent the Court might or might not have been in the past of political and popular constraints, the Court is likely to have more autonomy going forward than in the past. The strongest mechanism through which the Court reflects the outcomes of electoral processes, the appointments process, has been attenuated by the much longer average time Justices now serve; seats now become vacant on average every 3.1 years, rather than the 1.6 years that had long been the norm. That makes even more random any linkage between judicial appointments and national electoral outcomes. The article concludes by offering Citizens United as a powerful reminder that, despite the best efforts of modern majoritarian theorists, Bickel's countermajoritarian difficulty endures. Citizens United may prove to be an isolated but important episode – or a harbinger of an assertive new era of judicial review that operates with a good deal of independence from national lawmaking and popular majorities.


This extraordinary collection, a trove of enchanting designs, appealing colors, and forgotten motifs that stir the imagination, features an unprecedented assortment of ephemera, or paper collectibles, related to food. It includes images of postcards, match covers, menus, labels, posters, brochures, valentines, packaging, advertisements, and other materials from nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. Internationally acclaimed food historian William Woys Weaver takes us on a lively tour through this dazzling collection in which each piece tells a new story about food and the past. Packed with fascinating history, the volume is the first serious attempt to organize culinary ephemera into categories, making it useful for food lovers, collectors, designers, and curators alike. Much more than a catalog, "Culinary Ephemera" follows this paper trail to broader themes in American social history such as diet and health, alcoholic beverages, and Americans abroad. It is a collection that, as Weaver notes, will 'transport us into the vicarious worlds of dinners past, brushing elbows with the reality of another time, another place, another human condition'.


In the 1991 case of Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., Inc., the Supreme Court held unanimously that only those aspects of works which exhibited a "modicum of creativity" could be protected by copyright, and hence that factual matter was not copyrightable. Feist confirmed and expanded on the Court's statements in the 1918 case of International News Service v. Associated Press that news was not copyrightable apart from its literary form. Yet for the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century, the notion that copyright incorporated an originality requirement which excluded factual matter from protection was unknown to Anglo-American law. Courts routinely found infringement of fact-based works, such as maps, charts, road-books, directories, and calendars, on the basis of the copying of their factual content, and concluded that the industry of plaintiffs in gathering and presenting facts should be protected under copyright law. What caused the transformation in the doctrine of originality between the Civil War and World War I? This article argues that the rise of creativity-based originality in copyright law has strong ties to a previously little-examined episode in copyright history: the debate over legal protection for news in the last decades of the nineteenth century. Until the 1880s, the American news industry remained in a pre-copyright era, and played no part in copyright discourse. Newspaper editors followed a widespread custom of freely copying text from other newspapers. That custom was acknowledged and encouraged by a massive government subsidy in the form of free postage for newspaper copies that were being exchanged between editors. Newspaper owners never registered their papers before publication, and thus forsook copyright protection for them. In the middle decades of 1800s, however, technological changes, foremost among them the introduction of the telegraph, radically changed the structure of the news industry. The telegraph provided newspapers with an opportunity to invest in more timely news; yet together with improvements in typesetting, printing, and transportation technology, it also created an appropriability problem. It shrank the lead-time advantage that newspapers traditionally had relied upon to realize the value of their investment in news, and also exposed them to competition from which they had previously been geographically isolated. At the same time, the new communications technologies led to the emergence of companies and large associations that dominated markets, often with the aid of anticompetitive practices. Prominent among these were the news industry organizations of the Associated Press and the Western Union. Within this context, the Associated Press, Western Union and others began in the 1880s to press for legal protection of news reports, in both legislative and judicial arenas. Opposition to those efforts led to the first prominent articulations of the notion that facts are not created by authors, and are therefore not copyrightable subject matter. Paradoxically, that notion was then reinforced by proponents of legal protection for news, when they resolved to seek that protection outside of statutory copyright, in common law misappropriation, and made the tactical decision to argue that news was not copyrightable in order to avoid copyright preemption of their common law claims. An earlier, shorter version of this article will appear in a collection of essays published by Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc.


'An ancient and ever-altering constitution is like an old man who still wears with attached fondness clothes in the fashion of his youth: what you see of him is the same; what you do not see is wholly altered.' Walter Bagehot's The English Constitution (1867) is the best account of the history and working of the British political system ever written. As arguments raged in mid-Victorian Britain about giving the working man the vote, and democracies overseas were pitched into despotism and civil war, Bagehot took a long, cool look at the 'dignified' and 'efficient' elements which made the English system the envy of the world. His analysis of the monarchy, the role of the prime minister and cabinet, and comparisons with the American presidential system are astute and timeless, and pertinent to current discussions surrounding devolution and electoral reform.
Combining the wit and panache of a journalist with the wisdom of a man of letters steeped in evolutionary ideas and historical knowledge, Bagehot produced a book which is always thoughtful, often funny, and seldom dull. This edition reproduces Bagehot's original 1867 work in full, and introduces the reader to the dramatic political events that surrounded its publication.


The author examines the legal status of international organizations and foreign states in trade and commerce in the Russian Federation. The specifi c issues which are touched upon by the author include general problems of the participation of public entities—such as international organizations as legal persons and the immunity of foreign states and international organizations—in civil law relations. The author concludes that domestic legislation should not be considered to be the only source of law for regulating private international relations involving states; practice illustrates that international treaties are also a source of such rules and regulations. Special attention in this article is devoted to characteristic features of the legal personality of international organizations, the sources of law regulating relations in which international organizations participate, the role of domestic law and internal rules of international organization itself, the various aspects of the legal capacity of international organizations as subjects of Russian civil law including agreements involving international organizations, the legal status of their separate divisions, issues relating to the property rights of international organization, and the civil law status of representatives of foreign states attached to international organizations (and their civil servants). The legal base for this research is formed by international treaties, the charters and internal rules of international organizations, and rules of Russian civil legislation as well as decisions of Russian and international judicial bodies. By way of conclusion, the author postulates that it is wise for domestic (and foreign) natural and legal persons, which enter into relations with the international organizations and foreign states, to take into consideration the specifi c nature of the above-mentioned subjects. In practice, this may result in dismissal of a plaintiff 's claim in a RF court where the defendant is an international organization or foreign state. It may thereby be impossible to hold such an organization or state civilly liable (without its consent) for breaching a contractual undertaking.


This paper addresses the effects of macroeconomic volatility on government consumption expenditure (GCE) in Nigeria well as the burdens and challenges it has been imposing on public welfare. Methodologically, a dynamic macro econometric stochastic model was used to analysis the nature of the impacts, where GCE is presumed to depend upon changes in various indicators of macroeconomic performances. We empirically mode the relationship between GCE and the macro economy with a hybrid model that employs a reduced form coefficients of simultaneous equation models, to capture the dynamic interactions among the data and a structural economic model to describe the contemporaneous relationship between the variables. The Structural Auto-Regression (SVAR) process including the GCE, real exchange rate, general price level (inflation rate), unemployment rate and debt service obligation, is estimated over the period 1980-2008. The model ascertained the extent in which volatility of the macroeconomics does lead to a decline in GCE. We find that, the GCE response to structural one innovation appears to be greater in inflation than other endogenous and exogenous variables that is, an economic shock to inflation effect is stronger on the GCE at longer horizon. Also, inflation innovations play a larger role in explaining GCE forecast error variance in the short run than they do in the long run and this generates negative net effects on public welfare in the short run than long run.


This Article examines the debates of the Founders over the separation of powers doctrine as it relates to the executive branch. After surveying the experience in the colonies and under the post-Revolutionary state constitutions, it analyzes the relevant issues at the Constitutional Convention. Rather than focusing on abstract discussions of political theory, the article examines specific decisions and controversies in which separation of powers was a concern. The Article offers a detailed recounting of those debates. At the Convention, separation of powers arose most prominently in the arguments over nine issues: choosing the Executive, permitting the Executive to stand for second term, removing the Executive, devising the Executive veto, requiring legislative advice and consent for executive appointments, authorizing the Executive to grant reprieves and pardons, and making the Vice President the President of the Senate.The Article demonstrates that much of the discussion centered on allocating power between the Legislative and Executive branches and thus really amounted to a struggle over defining the nascent office of the Executive. It thus offers the historical background for today's debates over separation of powers. For the Founders, separation of powers served not as a rigid rule, but as a functional guide, designed to help construct a working constitution with a workable executive branch.


The Comparative Manifesto Project (CMP) dataset is the only dataset providing information about the positions of parties for comparative researchers across time and countries. This article evaluates its structure and finds a peculiarity: A high number of zeros and their unequal distribution across items, countries and time. They influence the results of any procedure to build a scale, but especially those using factor analyses. The article shows that zeroes have different meanings: Firstly, there are substantial zeroes in line with saliency theory. Secondly, zeroes exist for non-substantial reasons: The length of a manifesto and the percentage of uncoded sentences, both strongly varying across time and country. We quantify the problem and propose a procedure to identify data points containing non-substantial zeroes. For the future comparative use of the dataset we plead for a theoretical selection of items combined with the information about the likelihood that zeroes are substantially meaningful.


This paper is a critical attempt to justify the history of Equity Jurisdiction. The aim is to point out that the tradition of theorizing Equity - like any other tradition - tends to be willed and it becomes an intellectual project. The origins of Equity as the other face of English Justice are settled into the constitutional framework that deeply shapes English Politics and English Law. Moving from a 'political theology perspective', this paper tries to clarify how Political Reason precedes and marks the definition of English Justice, sets the place of sovereignty, composes the languages of the historical bargaining with their basic structures and strategies. In a broader sense, this is an inquiry both on the complex relationship between Politics and the history of Law and on its proper form of public communication.


Scientific discovery is often regarded as romantic and creative -- and hence unanalyzable -- whereas the everyday process of verifying discoveries is sober and more suited to analysis. Yet this fascinating exploration of how scientific work proceeds argues that however sudden the moment of discovery may seem, the discovery process can be described and modeled. Using the methods and concepts of contemporary information-processing psychology (or cognitive science) the authors develop a series of artificial-intelligence programs that can simulate the human thought processes used to discover scientific laws. The programs -- BACON, DALTON, GLAUBER, and STAHL -- are all largely data-driven, that is, when presented with series of chemical or physical measurements they search for uniformities and linking elements, generating and checking hypotheses and creating new concepts as they go along. Scientific Discovery examines the nature of scientific research and reviews the arguments for and against a normative theory of discovery; describes the evolution of the BACON programs, which discover quantitative empirical laws and invent new concepts; presents programs that discover laws in qualitative and quantitative data; and ties the results together, suggesting how a combined and extended program might find research problems, invent new instruments, and invent appropriate problem representations. Numerous prominent historical examples of discoveries from physics and chemistry are used as tests for the programs and anchor the discussion concretely in the history of science.


The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'

--- Isaac Asimov

From the discovery of penicillin and x-rays to the development of many of today's chemotherapy agents, serendipitous findings tangential to the researcher's intended purpose, those "That's funny..." moments, have greatly impacted the health and well-being of society. As an information behavior, these unexpected findings are an example of the Opportunistic Discovery of Information (ODI). ODI has been described in many contexts, from information behavior in virtual worlds to the impact of information encountering on health behaviors. Yet, little is known about instances of ODI within the context of scientific research. This study uses content analysis to reveal reported instances of ODI in recently published biomedical literature. Our findings propose a taxonomy of term use indicating the presence of serendipity in the research process and reveal the relationship between the authors' word choice for serendipity and specific types of ODI experiences.


Text describes action on various war fronts: Navy announces victory -- End for Corregidor -- Rationing moves closer -- Japs push into China -- Marblehead limps in -- Stark for new fronts -- Iceland has its first air fight -- Army of 6,000,000 -- Launch four destroyers -- Anti-Axis move in Spain -- Army camps inspected -- Germans strike convoy -- Malta downs 154 planes -- Madagascar tip seized -- U.S. aids Middle East -- Nazi drive predicted -- RAF attacks roar on.

Large world map is keyed to text and illustrates time zones around the world.

Inset maps: Corregidor -- Madagascar.

Includes photographs: Lt. Gen. Wainwright -- Maj. Gen. Brereton -- Navy raid on Marshall Islands in February -- Under Sec. Patterson -- Kearney destroyer -- Bombs being readied for planes -- Four-engined bomber flying somewhere in Europe -- Cavalry regiment changes mounts to speedy steel.


The designations employed and the presentation of material in this information product do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. All rights reserved. Reproduction and dissemination of material in this information product for educational or other non-commercial purposes are authorized without any prior written permission from the copyright holders provided the source is fully acknowledged. Reproduction of material in this information product for resale or other commercial purposes is prohibited without written permission of the copyright holders. Applications for such permission should be addressed to the Chief,


"If you're looking for solid, easy-to-follow advice on estimation, requirements gathering, managing change, and more, you can stop now: this is the book for you." --Scott Berkun, Author of The Art of Project Management What makes software projects succeed? It takes more than a good idea and a team of talented programmers. A project manager needs to know how to guide the team through the entire software project. There are common pitfalls that plague all software projects and rookie mistakes that are made repeatedly--sometimes by the same people! Avoiding these pitfalls is not hard, but it is not necessarily intuitive. Luckily, there are tried and true techniques that can help any project manager. In Applied Software Project Management, Andrew Stellman and Jennifer Greene provide you with tools, techniques, and practices that you can use on your own projects right away. This book supplies you with the information you need to diagnose your team's situation and presents practical advice to help you achieve your goal of building better software. Topics include: Planning a software project Helping a team estimate its workload Building a schedule Gathering software requirements and creating use cases Improving programming with refactoring, unit testing, and version control Managing an outsourced project Testing software Jennifer Greene and Andrew Stellman have been building software together since 1998. Andrew comes from a programming background and has managed teams of requirements analysts, designers, and developers. Jennifer has a testing background and has managed teams of architects, developers, and testers. She has led multiple large-scale outsourced projects. Between the two of them, they have managed every aspect of software development. They have worked in a wide range of industries, including finance, telecommunications, media, nonprofit, entertainment, natural-language processing, science, and academia. For more information about them and this book, visit http://www.stellman-greene.com.


In our "Westphalian" regime of international arbitration, conflict and competition between national jurisdictions, with overlapping and yet plausible claims to supervise the process, become inevitable. The conventional starting point for any discussion - the fulcrum around which the entire arbitral enterprise pivots - has been the supposed dichotomy between the state of the "seat" - where the arbitration finds its juridical "home," and whose jurisdiction over the process is therefore "primary" - and all other states whose jurisdiction must therefore be deemed only "secondary." Both legislation and Convention envisage an exclusive role for the former in setting the process in motion - for example, by appointing the arbitrators - and above all in monitoring compliance with the agreement - for example, by annulling or vacating the resulting award. That the "seat" is the privileged starting point with respect to any allocation of judicial authority has traditionally been a simple reflection of the power of any sovereign over acts taking place within its "territory"; an alternative and perhaps more robust explanation would be somewhat more "contractualist," giving priority to the parties' exercise of autonomy in the very act of selecting the place of arbitration - and to the intuition that, by extension, they have presumptively chosen to subject themselves both to a certain body of "arbitration law," and to the supervisory jurisdiction of the courts charged with applying that law. I begin by canvassing the various fact patterns in which the traditional allocation of international competence on the basis of "primary" and "secondary" jurisdiction might possibly be thought useful: It has become, for example, the heuristic of choice to test the extraterritorial effect of an award, in circumstances where the agreement of the parties has subjected the arbitral process to a particular legal system whose own courts have found it lacking in legitimacy. All this is much controverted, but generally well understood. The inevitable problem, though, is that none of this is a universal solvent - the world can after all be understood and patterned and divided up in all sorts of ways. What may have begun as a rough attempt to allocate responsibility over the unfolding of the process, has often been unthinkingly applied to all sorts of new and unexpected and inappropriate contexts. Where, for example, a party has asked a court to enjoin an arbitration against him that has been threatened or initiated - perhaps on the fundamental ground that he has never even given his assent - American courts will increasingly hold that, whatever power they might have to enjoin a "local" arbitration, it would be "inconsistent with the purpose of the New York Convention" to enjoin arbitral proceedings in a state of "secondary jurisdiction" - and thus they "lack jurisdiction" to do so. Where a party has claimed that a foreign award has been obtained by bribery and corruption, and wishes to institute a "collateral attack" in this country through a RICO action, it may equally be held that the court lacks "subject matter jurisdiction" to reassess an award rendered in a state of "primary jurisdiction"; "under the framework of the New York Convention, the proper method of obtaining this relief is by moving to set aside or modify the award in a court of primary jurisdiction." American courts thus seem curiously mesmerized, when asked to deploy familiar procedural devices in aid of their nationals, by a rhetoric invented for quite different purposes. What purports in cases like these to be a commendable solicitude for the needs of international arbitration, takes the form of an abdication of any decision making power whatever, in favor of the courts of the seat. To invoke a putative lack of "power" based upon absolute prohibitions that supposedly emanate from the Convention seems a crude and clumsy and overbroad and irresponsible way of responding; even a legal system quite committed, for example, to the proposition that attempts to evade the arbitral process are likely to be quite without merit - or for that matter to the proposition that international neutrals cannot possibly be corrupt - need not shrink, on the prophylactic grounds of lack of jurisdiction, from testing any challenges.


In the fasted rat, efficient glucose-stimulated insulin secretion (GSIS) is absolutely dependent on an elevated level of circulating free fatty acids (FFAs). To determine if this is also true in humans, nonobese volunteers were fasted for 24 h (n = 5) or 48 h (n = 5), after which they received an infusion of either saline or nicotinic acid (NA) to deplete their plasma FFA pool, followed by an intravenous bolus of glucose. NA treatment resulted in a fall in basal insulin concentrations of 35 and 45% and in the area under the insulin response curve (area under the curve [AUC]) to glucose of 47 and 42% in the 24- and 48-h fasted individuals, respectively. The 48-h fasted subjects underwent the same procedure with the addition of a coinfusion of Intralipid plus heparin (together with NA) to maintain a high concentration of plasma FFAs throughout the study. The basal level and AUC for insulin were now completely normalized (C-peptide profiles paralleled those for insulin). To assess the effect of an overnight fast, nonobese (n = 6) and obese (n = 6) subjects received an infusion of either saline or NA, followed by a hyperglycemic clamp (200 mg/dl). The insulin AUC in response to glucose was unaffected by lowering of the FFA level in nonobese subjects, but fell by 29% in the obese group. The data clearly demonstrate that in humans, the rise in circulating FFA levels after 24 and 48 h of food deprivation is critically important for pancreatic beta-cell function both basally and during subsequent glucose loading. They also suggest that the enhancement of GSIS by FFAs in obese individuals is more prominent than that seen in their nonobese counterparts.


We present a non-linear camera pose estimator, which is able to handle a combined input of point and line feature correspondences. For three or more correspondences, the estimator works on any arbitrary number and choice of the feature type, which provides an estimation of the pose on a preferably small and flexible amount of 2D-3D correspondences. We also give an analysis of different minimization techniques, parametrizations of the pose data, and of error measurements between 2D and 3D data. These will be tested for the usage of point features, lines and the combination case. The result shows the most stable and fast working non-linear parameter set for pose estimation in model-based tracking.


There is increasing evidence from in vivo recordings in monkeys trained to respond to stimuli by making left- or rightward eye movements, that firing rates in certain groups of neurons in oculo-motor areas mimic drift-diffusion processes, rising to a (fixed) threshold prior to movement initiation. This supplements earlier observations of psychologists, that human reaction-time and error-rate data can be fitted by random walk and diffusion models, and has renewed interest in optimal decision-making ideas from information theory and statistical decision theory as a clue to neural mechanisms. We review results from decision theory and stochastic ordinary differential equations, and show how they may be extended and applied to derive explicit parameter dependencies in optimal performance that may be tested on human and animal subjects. We then briefly describe a biophysically-based model of a pool of neurons in locus coeruleus, a brainstem nucleus implicated in widespread norepinephrine release. This neurotransmitter can effect transient gain changes in cortical circuits of the type that the abstract drift-diffusion analysis requires. We also describe how optimal gain schedules can be computed in the presence of time-varying noisy signals. We argue that a rational account of how neural spikes give rise to simple behaviors is beginning to emerge.


Significance Political polarization on important issues can have dire consequences for society, and divisions regarding the issue of climate change could be particularly catastrophic. Building on research in social cognition and psychology, we show that temporal comparison processes largely explain the political gap in respondents' attitudes towards and behaviors regarding climate change. We found that conservatives' proenvironmental attitudes and behaviors improved consistently and drastically when we presented messages that compared the environment today with that of the past. This research shows how ideological differences can arise from basic psychological processes, demonstrates how such differences can be overcome by framing a message consistent with these basic processes, and provides a way to market the science behind climate change more effectively. Conservatives appear more skeptical about climate change and global warming and less willing to act against it than liberals. We propose that this unwillingness could result from fundamental differences in conservatives' and liberals' temporal focus. Conservatives tend to focus more on the past than do liberals. Across six studies, we rely on this notion to demonstrate that conservatives are positively affected by past- but not by future-focused environmental comparisons. Past comparisons largely eliminated the political divide that separated liberal and conservative respondents' attitudes toward and behavior regarding climate change, so that across these studies conservatives and liberals were nearly equally likely to fight climate change. This research demonstrates how psychological processes, such as temporal comparison, underlie the prevalent ideological gap in addressing climate change. It opens up a promising avenue to convince conservatives effectively of the need to address climate change and global warming.


The rising prevalence of allergies represents an increasing socioeconomic burden. A detailed understanding of the immunological mechanisms that underlie the development of allergic disease, as well as the processes that drive immune tolerance to allergens, will be instrumental in designing therapeutic strategies to treat and prevent allergic disease. Improved characterization of individual patients through the use of specific biomarkers and improved definitions of disease endotypes are paving the way for the use of targeted therapeutic approaches for personalized treatment. Allergen-specific immunotherapy and biologic therapies that target key molecules driving the Th2 response are already used in the clinic, and a wave of novel drug candidates are under development. In-depth analysis of the cells and tissues of patients treated with such targeted interventions provides a wealth of information on the mechanisms that drive allergies and tolerance to allergens. Here, we aim to deliver an overview of the current state of specific inhibitors used in the treatment of allergy, with a particular focus on asthma and atopic dermatitis, and provide insights into the roles of these molecules in immunological mechanisms of allergic disease.


This report supplements the Safety Evaluation Report (SER), NUREG-0847 (June 1982), Supplement No. 1 (September 1982), Supplement No. 2 (January 1984), Supplement No. 3 (January 1985), Supplement No. 4 (March 1985), Supplement No. 5 (November 1990), Supplement No. 6 (April 1991), Supplement No. 7 (September 1991), Supplement No. 8 (January 1992), Supplement No. 9 (June 1992), Supplement No. 10 (October 1992), Supplement No. 11 (April 1993), Supplement No. 12 (October 1993), Supplement No. 13 (April 1994), and Supplement No. 14 (December 1994) issued by the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission with respect to the application filed by the Tennessee Valley Authority, as applicant and owner, for licenses to operate the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and 2 (Docket Nos. 50-390 and 50-391). The facility is located in Rhea County, Tennessee, near the Watts Bar Dam on the Tennessee River. This supplement provides recent information regarding resolution of some of the outstanding and confirmatory items, and proposed license conditions identified in the SER.


All oxyopid spider species collected in a long-term ecological canopy project in northern Borneo are described. A total of nine species in three genera could be established, one of which belongs to a new genus. Four species could be assigned to known species, five are described as new species in the cosmotropical genus Hamataliwa. Description of one new species has been added from the ground collection. One species of Oxyopes was synonimised with Hamataliwa incompta (Thorell, 1895). H. helia Chamberlin, 1929, known hitherto only from southern U.S.A. and Mexico was found in the Bornean canopy. With nine species, Oxyopidae rank 10th on the list of 33 families in the Bornean canopy project. Tapponia micans Simon, 1885, typus generis is redescribed from the Bornean canopy, all other Tapponia species listed in the World Spider Catalog are unrelated to this species and are removed from Tapponia. Five species are transferred to Hamataliwa, nine remaining species previously classified in the genus Tapponia are transferred to the new genus Hamadruas. All but one species placed in Hamadruas are "old" species, described in the 19th century; no new species are added to this genus, the type species and two others are redescribed, one of which (H. superba (Thorell, 1887)) from the Bornean tree canopy. For most of the canopy species additional records are given from hand-collected material from other localities in Borneo, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and British Guyana. The genus Megullia Thorell, 1898 (type species M. truncata Thorell, 1898 from Burma) is synonymised with Hamataliwa. An identification key is provided for the genera Oxyopes, Tapponia, Hamataliwa, Peucetia and Hamadruas gen. nov. Nine immature specimens of a Hamataliwa species were found inside shells of living snails of the genus Alycaeus (Cyclophoridae), suspended with long thin lines on limestone walls. It is not known whether spiders produced the lines and attached them for some unknown purpose or whether the snails did it themselves. How they haul themselves up from their pending position remains to be investigated.


Abstract. Satellite observations and meteorological reanalysis are used to examine the transition from unbroken sheets of stratocumulus to fields of scattered cumulus, and the processes controlling them, in four subtropical oceans. A Lagrangian analysis suggests that both the transition, defined as the temporal evolution in cloudiness, and the processes driving the transition, are quite similar among the subtropical oceans. The increase in sea surface temperature and the associated decrease in lower tropospheric stability appear to play a far more important role in cloud evolution than other factors including changes in large scale divergence and upper tropospheric humidity. During the summer months, the transitions in marine boundary layer cloudiness appear so systematically that their characteristics obtained by documenting the flow of thousands of individual air masses are well reproduced by the mean (or climatological) fields of the different data sets. This highlights interesting opportunities for future observational and modeling studies of these transitions.


This invaluable little book highlights the real mistakes that students make in the exam - and shows how to avoid them. Based on analysis of thousands of exam scripts, each unit targets a key problem area. Clear explanations and exercises help students to use the language accurately. Regular tests offer students a further opportunity to check and consolidate what they have learnt. * Highlights common mistakes that learners really make. * Based on analysis of thousands of exam scripts. * Short, snappy explanations focus on key problem areas. * Includes exam-style exercises.


Equity risk premiums are a central component of every risk and return model in finance and are a key input in estimating costs of equity and capital in both corporate finance and valuation. Given their importance, it is surprising how haphazard the estimation of equity risk premiums remains in practice. We begin this paper by looking at the economic determinants of equity risk premiums, including investor risk aversion, information uncertainty and perceptions of macroeconomic risk. In the standard approach to estimating equity risk premiums, historical returns are used, with the difference in annual returns on stocks versus bonds over a long time period comprising the expected risk premium. We note the limitations of this approach, even in markets like the United States, which have long periods of historical data available, and its complete failure in emerging markets, where the historical data tends to be limited and volatile. We look at two other approaches to estimating equity risk premiums – the survey approach, where investors and managers are asked to assess the risk premium and the implied approach, where a forward-looking estimate of the premium is estimated using either current equity prices or risk premiums in non-equity markets. In the next section, we look at the relationship between the equity risk premium and risk premiums in the bond market (default spreads) and in real estate (cap rates) and how that relationship can be mined to generated expected equity risk premiums. We close the paper by examining why different approaches yield different values for the equity risk premium, and how to choose the "right" number to use in analysis.


The Measure of America is the first-ever human development report for a wealthy, developed nation. It introduces the American Human Development Index, which provides a single measure of well-being for all Americans, disaggregated by state and congressional district, as well as by gender, race, and ethnicity. The Index rankings of the 50 states and 436 congressional districts reveal huge disparities in the health, education, and living standards of different groups. Clear, precise, objective, and authoritative, this report will become the basis for all serious discussions concerning the realization of a fair, just, and globally competitive American society.


The forthright brand of shareholder activism hedge funds deploy emerged by the mid-2000s as a major corporate governance phenomenon. This paper explains the rise of hedge fund activism and offers predictions about future developments. The paper begins by distinguishing the "offensive" form of activism hedge funds engage in from "defensive" interventions "mainstream" institutional investors (e.g. pension funds or mutual funds) undertake. Variables influencing the prevalence of offensive shareholder activism are then identified using a heuristic device, "the market for corporate influence". The rise of hedge funds as practitioners of offensive shareholder activism is traced by reference to the "supply" and "demand" sides of this market, with the basic chronology being that, while there were direct antecedents of hedge fund activists as far back as the 1980s, hedge funds did not move to the activism forefront until the 2000s. The paper brings matters up-to-date by discussing the impact of the recent financial crisis on hedge fund activism and draws upon the market for corporate influence heuristic to predict that activism by hedge funds is likely to remain an important element of corporate governance going forward. This is a revised version of "The Rise and Fall (?) of Shareholder Activism by Hedge Funds", available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1489336.


OBJECTIVE
To estimate the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of three methods of ankle support compared with double layer tubular compression bandage.

DESIGN
A randomised controlled trial, designed to reflect practice in UK hospital emergency departments.

SETTING
Eight emergency departments in England.

PARTICIPANTS
Aged 16 or over with acute severe ankle sprain, unable to weight bear, no fracture.

INTERVENTIONS
584 participants were randomised to one of four treatment arms: tubular bandage, below knee cast, Aircast ankle brace or Bledsoe boot, all applied 2-3 days after presentation to allow swelling to resolve.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Response to treatment was assessed using the Foot and Ankle Outcome Score and generic measures (Functional Limitations Profile, SF-12 and EQ-5D).

RESULTS
When adjusted for age, sex and baseline scores, the below knee cast offered a small but statistically significant benefit at 4 weeks in terms of pain (FAOS pain difference 5.1; 95% CI 0.4-9.8), foot- and ankle-related quality of life (QoL) (FAOS QoL difference 5.9; 95% CI 0.1-11.8) and the physical component of the SF-12 (SF-12 score difference 2.2; 95% CI 0.0-4.4). Neither the Aircast brace nor the Bledsoe boot was statistically or clinically better. At 12 weeks the below knee cast was significantly better than tubular bandage in terms of pain (FAOS pain difference 5.1; 95% CI 0.3-10.0), activities of daily living (FAOS ADL difference 3.5; 95% CI 0.4-6.6), sports (FAOS sports difference 8.7; 95% CI 1.6-15.7) and QoL (FAOS QoL difference 8.7; 95% CI 2.4-15.0), and the Aircast brace was better only in terms of ankle-related QoL and mental health. The Bledsoe boot conferred no significant advantage over tubular bandage. By 9 months there were no significant differences. Based on mean direct health-care costs per participant, the Bledsoe boot was the most expensive (215 pounds) and tubular bandage the least so (1 pound 44 pence). Inclusion of indirect costs (sick leave) raised overall costs substantially and removed any significant differences between the therapies. Cost-utility analysis demonstrated that the Aircast brace [301 pounds per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY)] and below knee cast (339 pounds per QALY) were more cost-effective than the Bledsoe boot (2116 pounds per QALY). However, inclusion of indirect costs produced different rank orders, depending on the assumptions made, and results should be treated with caution.

CONCLUSIONS
The below knee cast and the Aircast brace offered cost-effective alternatives to tubular bandage for acute severe ankle sprain, the former having the advantage in terms of overall recovery at 3 months. As there were no differences in long-term outcome, practitioners should consider likely compliance and acceptability to patients when choosing a brace.


Some have argued that Establishment Clause jurisprudence is the enemy of religion, and, in particular, Christianity. This Article reaches an opposing conclusion: Core principles behind current Establishment Clause jurisprudence were derived from Christian denominations at the time of the founding. The United States did not begin as a unified Christian culture, but rather as a pluralistic collection of religious believers, some living in tension with other believers and some more tolerant. While it is true that the vast majority of denominations were Christian, the sense of difference among them was profound. There were Anglicans, Congregationalists, Methodists, Deists, Dutch Reformed, Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, and Catholics, as well as Jews. Protestants, taken as a whole, extended a strong influence, but the category, "Protestant," hides a wide array of religious beliefs and institutions - none of which ever held sole power over all of the colonies or states. The diversity of faith meant that there were numerous religious perspectives available to influence governing structures and theories. Conversely, it also means that no one religious tradition can claim sole responsibility for the structures that have been chosen. There are numerous distinctive influences that led to basic establishment principles recognized today, including (1) the functional separation of church and state in the society; (2) a prohibition on government preferring one religion over another; (3) a right against government coercion of belief; (4) government tolerance of all religious belief (even if not all religious conduct); and (5) the necessity of embracing the principles of democratic republican governance even as one is a member of a church that employs very different governing principles. This Article is an intellectual, religious history of the Establishment Clause. Today's Establishment Clause jurisprudence is illuminated when one learns how individual Christian denominations contributed to many of its basic principles.


The Definitive Java Programming Guide Fully updated for Java SE 8, Java: The Complete Reference, Ninth Edition explains how to develop, compile, debug, and run Java programs. Bestselling programming author Herb Schildt covers the entire Java language, including its syntax, keywords, and fundamental programming principles, as well as significant portions of the Java API library. JavaBeans, servlets, applets, and Swing are examined and real-world examples demonstrate Java in action. New Java SE 8 features such as lambda expressions, the stream library, and the default interface method are discussed in detail. This Oracle Press resource also offers a solid introduction to JavaFX. Coverage includes: Data types, variables, arrays, and operators Control statements Classes, objects, and methods Method overloading and overriding Inheritance Interfaces and packages Exception handling Multithreaded programming Enumerations, autoboxing, and annotations The I/O classes Generics Lambda expressions String handling The Collections Framework Networking Event handling AWT and Swing The Concurrent API The Stream API Regular expressions JavaFX JavaBeans Applets and servlets Much, much more


The Evidence Based Library and Information Practice Conference (EBLIP4) is an exciting international event that has emerged in response to the growing interest among all types of libraries in using the best available research-based evidence to improve information practice. The conference on May 6-9, 2007 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina will be followed by two days of CE. The conference provides a forum for the presentation of high quality papers and posters as well as examples of how EBLIP is being implemented in library and information settings around the globe. EBLIP4 invites submissions for contributed papers and posters including both original research and innovative applications of EBLIP in library and information management. Papers that deal with library support of evidence-based practice in other fields such as health, social work and public policy are also welcome. Additional info may be found at: www.eblip4.unc.edu

Important Dates

January 8, 2006
Submission deadline for abstracts for papers and posters

February 11, 2007
Final decisions for accepted papers

February 15, 2007
Final decisions for accepted posters

March 15, 2007
Submission deadline for full papers

If you have previously experience difficulties in submitting an abstract please try again using the new address provided. Should you have any difficulties, please contact Carol Perryman, EBLIP4 Co-Chair, at: email@example.com.


Fully illustrated and beautifully designed, this is a unique and wonderfully creepy tale that is sure to delight Murakami fans. 'All I did was go to the library to borrow some books'. On his way home from school, the young narrator of The Strange Library finds himself wondering how taxes were collected in the Ottoman Empire. He pops into the local library to see if it has a book on the subject. This is his first mistake. Led to a special 'reading room' in a maze under the library by a strange old man, he finds himself imprisoned with only a sheep man, who makes excellent donuts, and a girl, who can talk with her hands, for company. His mother will be worrying why he hasn't returned in time for dinner and the old man seems to have an appetite for eating small boy's brains. How will he escape?


Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococci) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) are human-specific commensals of the upper respiratory tract. Every individual is asymptomatically colonized with both bacteria at least once in their life-time. The opportunistic pathogens can affect further organs and invade into deeper tissue. The occupation of normally sterile niches of the human body with the bacteria can lead to local infections such as sinusitis, otitis media and abscesses, or to life-threatening diseases like pneumonia, meningitis or sepsis. A strong interaction between the bacterium and the respiratory epithelial cells is a prerequisite for a successful colonization. This interaction is ensured by bacterial surface proteins, so called adhesins. The binding of the adhesins to the epithelial lineage occurs predominantly indirectly via components of the extracellular matrix (ECM), but also directly to cellular receptors. Pneumococci and S. aureus bind to various ECM glycoproteins, amongst others: fibronectin, fibrinogen, vitronectin, and collagen. Also binding of both pathogens to human thrombospondin-1 has been described. Thrombospondin-1 is mainly stored in the α-granula of thrombocytes (platelets) and released into the circulation upon activation. However, thrombospondin-1 is also produced and secreted by other cell types like endothelial cells, macrophages, and fibroblasts, which gets subsequently incorporated as component into the ECM. So far, no thrombosponin-1-binding adhesins of pneumococci were identified. PspC, Hic, and PavB are important surface-localized virulence factors, which were shown to interact with human ECM and plasma proteins. PspC and Hic bind to vitronectin and factor H, which inhibits the complement cascade of the human immune system. PavB interacts with fibronectin and plasminogen, and a pavB-deficient mutant of S. pneumoniae showed diminished capacity in colonization in a mouse model. Among the surface proteins of S. aureus, only Eap was identified as thrombospondin-1-binding adhesin. Beyond colonization, pneumococci and S. aureus can enter the blood circulation, interact with platelets, and cause their activation. The aggregation of platelets, especially initiated by S. aureus, plays an important role in the clinic, because most of the septic patients develop thrombocytopenia. Surface localized factors of
S. pneumoniae triggering platelet activation are unknown to date. In contrast, few proteins of S. aureus with potential to activate platelets, including Eap, were identified previously.
This study identified the surface proteins PavB, PspC, and Hic of S. pneumoniae as specific ligands of the human thrombospondin-1. Flow cytometric, surface plasmon resonance spectroscopic and immunological analyses revealed interactions between the pneumococcal proteins and soluble as well as immobilized thrombospondin-1. The use of specific pneumococcal deletion mutants verified the importance of the three virulence factors as binding partners of soluble thrombospondin-1. The results suggest that pneumococci are capable of acquiring soluble thrombospondin-1 from blood as well as utilizing immobilized glycoprotein of the ECM as substrate for adhesion. Furthermore, the thrombospondin-1-binding domain within the pneumococcal proteins was analyzed by use of recombinant fragments of PavB, PspC, and Hic. The binding capacity of thrombospondin-1 increased proportionally with the amount of repetitive sequences in PavB and PspC, and the length of the α-helical region within the Hic molecule. The binding behavior of thrombospondin-1 towards PavB and PspC is comparable with that of the ECM proteins vitronectin and fibronectin, but is unique towards Hic.
The localization of the binding domain of the adhesins within the thrompospondin-1 molecule occurred via use of glycosaminoglycans as competitive inhibitors for the interaction. The results suggest that the pneumococcal proteins Hic and PspC target the identical binding region within thrombospondin-1, which differs from the binding domain for PavB. However, all three virulence factors seem to bind in the N-terminal part of thrombospondin-1.
Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis, thrombospondin-1 overlay assay and subsequent mass spectrometric analysis identified AtlA of S. aureus as a surface localized interaction partner of human thrombospondin-1. Moreover, a vitronectin binding activity for AtlA was determined. Immunological and surface plasmon resonance binding studies with recombinant AtlA fragments revealed that interactions with both matrix proteins is mediated via the C-terminal located repeats R1R2 of the AtlA amidase domain. Binding of thrombospondin-1 and vitronectin occurred not simultaneously, due to a competitive inhibition.
The second part of the study focused on the activation of human platelets by recombinant pneumococcal and staphylococcal proteins. In total, 28 proteins of S. pneumoniae and 52 proteins of S. aureus were incubated with human platelets. The activation of the cells was detected by flow cytometry using the activation markers P-selectin and the dimerization of the integrin αIIbβIII. The proteins CbpL, PsaA, PavA, and SP_0899 of S. pneumoniae induced platelet activation, however, the detailed mechanism has to be deciphered in further studies. Furthermore, the secreted proteins CHIPS, FLIPr, and AtlA of S. aureus were discovered as inductors for the activation of platelets. In addition, the domains of AtlA and Eap, crucial for platelet activation, were narrowed down. Interestingly, CHIPS, FLIPr, and Eap were described as inhibitors of neutrophil recruitment. Platelets are recently recognized as immune cells, due to the expression of immune receptors. The data obtained in this study highlight a comprehensive spectrum of effects of the S. aureus proteins towards different type of immune cells. Besides the activation of platelets in suspension buffer and plasma, the aggregation of platelets in whole blood was triggered by the proteins CHIPS, AtlA, and Eap. These results suggest a contribution of the proteins during the S. aureus-induced infectious endocarditis. Secretion of the platelet activating virulence factors, which were identified within this study, might represent a pathogenic strategy during S. aureus infection in which a direct contact between S. aureus and platelets is not required or even avoided.
In conclusion, PavB, PspC, and Hic of S. pneumoniae and AtlA of S. aureus were identified as interaction partners of human thrombospondin-1. Furthermore, CHIPS, FLIPr, AtlA, and Eap were characterized as platelet activators. This study provides candidates for the development of protein-based vaccines, to prevent bacterial colonization and to neutralize secreted pathogenic factors.


For over 30 years Alan Weiss has consulted, coached, and advised everyone from Fortune 500 executives, state governors, non-profit directors, and entrepreneurs to athletes, entertainers, and beauty pageant contestants That's quite an assortment of people, and they run into the thousands Most of them have had what we euphemistically call "means, " and some of them have had a lot more than that Others have been aspiring and with more ends in sight than means on hand Alan Weiss states: I've dealt with esteem (low), narcissism (high), family problems, leadership dysfunctions, insecurities, addictions, and ethical quandaries And I've talked with them through the coronavirus crisis But don't get the wrong idea About 95% of these people have been well-meaning, honest (to the best of their knowledge), and interested in becoming a better person and better professional Otherwise, they wouldn't be talking to me I found the equivalent of the "runner's wall" in their journeys, where they must break through the pain and the obstacles and then can keep going with renewed energy and spirit But runners know how far they must go after the breakthrough, be it another half lap or another five miles There is a finish line I've found that people in all positions, even after the "breakthrough, " don't know where they are in the race, let alone where the finish line is They do not know what meaning is for them They may have money in the bank, good relationships, the admiration of others, and the love of their dogs But they have no metrics for "What now?" They believe that at the end of life there is a tallying, some metaphysical accountant who totals up their contributions, deducts their bad acts, and creates the (hopefully positive) difference That difference, they believe, is their "legacy " But the thought that legacy arrives at the end of life is as ridiculous as someone who decides to sell a business and tries to increase its valuation the day prior Legacy is now Legacy is daily Every day we create the next page in our lives, but the question becomes who is writing it and what's being written Is someone else creating our legacy? Or are we, ourselves, simply writing the same page repeatedly? Or do we leave it blank? Our organic, living legacy is marred and squeezed by huge normative pressures There is a "threshold" point, at which one's beliefs and values are overridden by immense peer pressure Our metrics are forced to change In an age of social media, biased press, and bullying, we've come to a point where our legacy, ironically, is almost out of our hands Yet our "meaning" - our creation of meaning and not a search for some illusive alchemy - creates worth and impact for us and all those with whom we interact © 2021 Taylor & Francis


Legal education reform advocates agree that law schools should integrate "professionalism" throughout the curriculum. Ultimately, it falls to individual professors to decide how to incorporate professionalism into each course. This can be an especially difficult task for doctrinal professors. The law — and not the practice of law — is the focus of most doctrinal casebooks. Law students typically do not act in role as lawyers in these classes, so they are not compelled to resolve professional dilemmas in class, as students would be in a clinic or simulation-based course. As a result, it takes some additional preparation and thought to introduce professionalism issues into these courses. Some professors may resist making this change — not knowing which aspect or aspects of professionalism should be the focus, fearing that time spent on professionalism will detract from the real subject matter of the class, or believing professionalism is adequately covered elsewhere in the curriculum. This Article considers how and why doctrinal professors should address the challenge of integrating professionalism into the classroom. Part I briefly discusses the multitude of meanings ascribed to attorney professionalism and argues that the lack of a clear, concise, and shared definition is a substantial barrier to effectively incorporating professionalism into the law school curriculum. Next, Part II provides a more coherent, streamlined definition of attorney professionalism. This Part also identifies and describes three primary aspects of lawyer professionalism: fulfilling duties to clients, satisfying duties to the bar, and possessing core personal values essential to being a good lawyer. This simplified conception of professionalism should begin to address the concerns of professors who do not know where to begin to incorporate professionalism into their classes. It is also intended to persuade skeptics that professionalism is something they can and should teach as part of their doctrinal classes. Thereafter, Part III provides guidance for developing course outcomes that connect course subject matter and professionalism. Questions prompt doctrinal professors to look for the natural connections between their course subject matter and issues of professionalism. Then, Part IV considers various methods doctrinal professors can use to introduce professionalism topics into their courses. Integrating professionalism into the classroom does not require professors to abandon their casebooks; using case law can be an effective method. This Part also considers other teaching methods and materials for combining doctrine, skills, and professionalism. Finally, Part V concludes with thoughts on how students benefit when professors make the effort to incorporate professionalism into every law school classroom.


Learning board games by self-play has a long tradition in computational intelligence for games. Based on Tesauro's seminal success with TD-Gammon in 1994, many successful agents use temporal difference learning today. But in order to be successful with temporal difference learning on game tasks, often a careful selection of features and a large number of training games is necessary. Even for board games of moderate complexity like Connect-4, we found in previous work that a very rich initial feature set and several millions of game plays are required. In this work we investigate different approaches of online-adaptable learning rates like Incremental Delta Bar Delta (IDBD) or temporal coherence learning (TCL) whether they have the potential to speed up learning for such a complex task. We propose a new variant of TCL with geometric step size changes. We compare those algorithms with several other state-of-the-art learning rate adaptation algorithms and perform a case study on the sensitivity with respect to their meta parameters. We show that in this set of learning algorithms those with geometric step size changes outperform those other algorithms with constant step size changes. Algorithms with nonlinear output functions are slightly better than linear ones. Algorithms with geometric step size changes learn faster by a factor of 4 as compared to previously published results on the task Connect-4.


"Cesaire's essay stands as an important document in the development of third world consciousness--a process in which [he] played a prominent role." --Library Journal This classic work, first published in France in 1955, profoundly influenced the generation of scholars and activists at the forefront of liberation struggles in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Nearly twenty years later, when published for the first time in English, Discourse on Colonialism inspired a new generation engaged in the Civil Rights, Black Power, and anti-war movements and has sold more than 75,000 copies to date. Aime Cesaire eloquently describes the brutal impact of capitalism and colonialism on both the colonizer and colonized, exposing the contradictions and hypocrisy implicit in western notions of "progress" and "civilization" upon encountering the "savage," "uncultured," or "primitive." Here, Cesaire reaffirms African values, identity, and culture, and their relevance, reminding us that "the relationship between consciousness and reality are extremely complex. . . . It is equally necessary to decolonize our minds, our inner life, at the same time that we decolonize society." An interview with Cesaire by the poet Rene Depestre is also included."


Book synopsis:
Giuseppe Mazzini - Italian patriot, humanist, and republican - was one of the most celebrated and revered political activists and thinkers of the nineteenth century. This volume is the first to compare and contrast the perception of his thought and the transformation of his image across the world.

Mazzini's contribution to the Italian Risorgimento was unparalleled; he stood for a 'religion of humanity'; he argued against tyranny, and for universal education, a democratic franchise and the liberation of women.

The papers in this volume reflect the range of Mazzini's political thought, discussing his vision of international relations, his concept of the nation and the role of arts in politics. And they detail how his writings and reputation influenced nations and leaders across Europe, the Americas, and India.

Linking the study of political history to the history of art, literature and religion, this volume is essential reading for all those interested in modern nationalism and the history of democracy.


Letters to the Editor are welcomed. They may report new clinical or laboratory observations and new developments in medical care or may contain comments on recent contents of the Journal. They will be published, if found suitable, as space permits. Like other material submitted for publication, letters must be typewritten, double-spaced, and submitted in duplicate. They must not exceed two typewritten pages in length. No more than five references and one figure or table may be used. See "Information for Authors" for format of references, tables, and figures. Editing, possible abridgment, and acceptance remain the prerogative of the Editors.


Create music CDs and photo DVDs or even watch TV Move your files to a new computer, or get your old PC ready for Vista The thing that's made Windows For Dummies so successful is that it's packed with the basics you need to make Windows work. This book gets you through all the Windows Vista tasks and tripwires, including starting programs, finding files, navigating the new see-through interface, staying safe while you cruise the Internet, and much more. Discover how to Find files when they're hiding Hook up with another computer Make Vista work like XP Block Internet bad guys Share a PC without sharing your files Fix problems yourself


This document describes the Access Node Control Protocol (ANCP). ANCP operates between a Network Access Server (NAS) and an Access Node (e.g., a Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer (DSLAM)) in a multi-service reference architecture in order to perform operations related to Quality of Service, service, and subscribers. Use cases for ANCP are documented in RFC 5851. As well as describing the base ANCP protocol, this document specifies capabilities for Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) topology discovery, line configuration, and remote line connectivity testing. The design of ANCP allows for protocol extensions in other documents if they are needed to support other use cases and other access technologies. ANCP is based on the General Switch Management Protocol version 3 (GSMPv3) described in RFC 3292, but with many modifications and extensions, to the point that the two protocols are not interoperable. For this reason, ANCP was assigned a separate version number to distinguish it. Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License. This document may contain material from IETF Documents or IETF Contributions published or made publicly available before November 10, 2008. The person(s) controlling the copyright in some of this material may not have granted the IETF Trust the right to allow modifications of such material outside the IETF Standards Process. Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s) controlling the copyright in such materials, this document may not be modified outside the IETF Standards Process, and derivative works of it may not be created outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format it for publication as an RFC or to translate it into languages other than English.


Abstract. We use a global chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem CTM) to interpret observations of black carbon (BC) and organic aerosol (OA) from the NASA ARCTAS aircraft campaign over the North American Arctic in April 2008, as well as longer-term records in surface air and in snow (2007–2009). BC emission inventories for North America, Europe, and Asia in the model are tested by comparison with surface air observations over these source regions. Russian open fires were the dominant source of OA in the Arctic troposphere during ARCTAS but we find that BC was of prevailingly anthropogenic (fossil fuel and biofuel) origin, particularly in surface air. This source attribution is confirmed by correlation of BC and OA with acetonitrile and sulfate in the model and in the observations. Asian emissions are the main anthropogenic source of BC in the free troposphere but European, Russian and North American sources are also important in surface air. Russian anthropogenic emissions appear to dominate the source of BC in Arctic surface air in winter. Model simulations for 2007–2009 (to account for interannual variability of fires) show much higher BC snow content in the Eurasian than the North American Arctic, consistent with the limited observations. We find that anthropogenic sources contribute 90% of BC deposited to Arctic snow in January-March and 60% in April–May 2007–2009. The mean decrease in Arctic snow albedo from BC deposition is estimated to be 0.6% in spring, resulting in a regional surface radiative forcing consistent with previous estimates.


[1] The direct and semidirect effects of aerosols produced by Indonesian biomass burning (BB) during August–November 2006 on tropical dynamics have been examined using NASA's Goddard Earth Observing System, version 5, (GEOS-5) atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM). Simulations were driven by two sets of aerosol forcing fields calculated offline by a separate aerosol transport model, one that included Indonesian BB aerosol emissions and one that did not. In order to separate the influence of the aerosols from internal model variability, the means of two ten-member ensembles were compared. Diabatic heating from BB aerosols increased temperatures over Indonesia between 150 and 400 hPa. The higher temperatures resulted in strong increases in upward grid-scale vertical motion, which increased water vapor and CO over Indonesia. In October, the largest increases in water vapor were found in the midtroposphere (∼25%) while the largest increases in CO occurred just below the tropopause (80 ppbv or ∼50%). Diabatic heating from the Indonesian BB aerosols caused CO to increase by 9% throughout the tropical tropopause layer in November and 5% in the lower stratosphere in December. The results demonstrate that aerosol heating plays an important role in the transport of BB pollution and troposphere-to-stratosphere transport. Changes in vertical motion and cloudiness induced by aerosol heating can also alter the transport and phase of water vapor in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere.


Interviews were conducted with administrators and a student government association representative at each institution. Additional data related to enrollment, sports and funding were provided by the institution that participates in athletics. The researcher made site visits to each campus for interviews. The institution that offers athletics is Rockingham Community College (RCC) and the institution that does not is Cleveland Community College (CCC). An analysis of the data revealed a variety of elements that included enrollment and admissions, fundraising and funding, and publicity and marketing. It was clear from those interviewed at RCC that athletics had a higher impact on enrollment due to the number of athletes who are enrolled. However, the carryover to general recruitment was not evident. Publicity was found to have the least impact. While at CCC, publicity was considered an area that would have the most impact if sports were offered. Fundraising and funding of sports are a combined effort at RCC as fundraising efforts play a major part in budgeting for the athletics program. At CCC, it was perceived that targeted fundraising for sports would be a requirement in order to sustain an athletics program. At RCC, a portion of student activity funds are used to assist the sports budget and those at CCC agreed that student activity fees could be a possible revenue source to assist funding for an athletic program. Findings indicate that the main reason why sports are not offered at CCC is that the focus is on academics, workforce training, and a capital campaign to build additional classroom space. At RCC, findings indicate the main reason why athletics were implemented was to provide a well-rounded collegiate environment for all students and an opportunity for athletes to continue their athletic participation and education.


This paper represents a very early stage of a collaborative research project on transnational NT regulation. In this project, we seek to apply a multidisciplinary perspective to the question of regulation of nanotechnology (NT). We begin in Section I by considering the nature of NT and some risks it may pose as it is more fully developed and utilized over time. We next consider the nature of transnational "regulation," suggesting the range of legal, institutional and substantive forms this term can encompass. Because NT and its regulation are (like our project) at such early stages of development, we emphasize the importance of regulatory flexibility. In Section II, we consider a series of strategic choices that must be faced in designing transnational regulation in any issue area, including NT; these include the level and scope of regulation, the actors authorized to promulgate regulatory norms, the legal and institutional form of regulation, and finally its substantive content. In Section III, we argue that it is useful, although not definitive, to study models of transnational regulation developed for similar issues arising out of other forms of technology. While few if any of these models will be directly applicable to the unique characteristics of NT, the designers of these regulatory regimes faced similar strategic choices as well as similar problems, and the models they created can offer useful lessons. We briefly discuss a few potential models to illustrate the approach. Our larger research project will expand the study of transnational models beyond those discussed here, with a view to developing more specific recommendations for NT regulation. Consistent with our emphasis on regulatory flexibility, we conclude by tentatively suggesting a sequencing of regulatory approaches designed to allow NT regulation to develop over time into broader, more elaborate and more highly legalized form as we gain greater knowledge of, and experience with, the benefits and costs of NT.


Sherman Jackson offers a trenchant examination of the career of Islam among the blacks of America. Jackson notes that no one has offered a convincing explanation of why Islam spread among Blackamericans (a coinage he explains and defends) but not among white Americans or Hispanics. The assumption has been that there is an African connection. In fact, Jackson shows, none of the distinctive features of African Islam appear in the proto-Islamic, black nationalist movements of the early 20th century. Instead, he argues, Islam owes its momentum to the distinctively American phenomenon of "Black Religion," a God-centered holy protest against anti-black racism. Islam in Black America begins as part of a communal search for tools with which to combat racism and redefine American blackness. The 1965 repeal of the National Origins Quota System led to a massive influx of foreign Muslims, who soon greatly outnumbered the blacks whom they found here practicing an indigenous form of Islam. Immigrant Muslims would come to exercise a virtual monopoly over the definition of a properly constituted Islamic life in America. For these Muslims, the nemesis was not white supremacy, but "the West." In their eyes, the West was not a racial, but a religious and civilizational threat. American blacks soon learned that opposition to the West and opposition to white supremacy were not synonymous. Indeed, says Jackson, one cannot be anti-Western without also being on some level anti-Blackamerican. Like the Black Christians of an earlier era struggling to find their voice in the context of Western Christianity, Black Muslims now began to strive to find their black, American voice in the context of the super-tradition of historical Islam. Jackson argues that Muslim tradition itself contains the resources to reconcile blackness, American-ness, and adherence to Islam. It is essential, he contends, to preserve within Islam the legitimate aspects of Black Religion, in order to avoid what Stephen Carter calls the domestication of religion, whereby religion is rendered incapable of resisting the state and the dominant culture. At the same time, Jackson says, it is essential for Blackamerican Muslims to reject an exclusive focus on the public square and the secular goal of subverting white supremacy (and Arab/immigrant supremacy) and to develop a tradition of personal piety and spirituality attuned to distinctive Blackamerican needs and idiosyncrasies.


The present thesis deals with multi-user mobile radio systems, and more specifically, the downlinks (DL) of such systems. As a key demand on future mobile radio systems, they should enable highest possible spectrum and energy efficiency. It is well known that, in principle, the utilization of multi-antennas in the form of MIMO systems, offers considerable potential to meet this demand. Concerning the energy issue, the DL is more critical than the uplink. This is due to the growing importance of wireless Internet applications, in which the DL data rates and, consequently, the radiated DL energies tend to be substantially higher than the corresponding uplink quantities. In this thesis, precoding schemes for MIMO multi-user mobile radio DLs are considered, where, in order to keep the complexity of the mobile terminals as low as possible, the rationale receiver orientation (RO) is adopted, with the main focus to further reduce the required transmit energy in such systems. Unfortunately, besides the mentioned low receiver complexity, conventional RO schemes, such as Transmit Zero Forcing (TxZF), do not offer any transmit energy reductions as compared to conventional transmitter oriented schemes. Therefore, the main goal of this thesis is the design and analysis of precoding schemes in which such transmit energy reductions become feasible - under virtually maintaining the low receiver complexity - by means of replacing the conventional unique mappings by the selectable representations of the data. Concerning the channel access scheme, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (OFDM) is presently being favored as the most promising candidate in the standardization process of the enhanced 3G and forthcoming 4G systems, because it allows a very flexible resource allocation and low receiver complexity. Receiver oriented MIMO OFDM multi-user downlink transmission, in which channel equalization is already performed in the transmitter of the access point, further contributes to low receiver complexity in the mobile terminals. For these reasons, OFDM is adopted in the target system of the considered receiver oriented precoding schemes. In the precoding schemes considered the knowledge of channel state information (CSI) in the access point in the form of the channel matrix is essential. Independently of the applied duplexing schemes FDD or TDD, the provision of this information to the access point is always erroneous. However, it is shown that the impact of such deviations not only scales with the variance of the channel estimation errors, but also with the required transmit energies. Accordingly, the reduced transmit energies of the precoding schemes with selectable data representation also have the advantage of a reduced sensitivity to imperfect knowledge of CSI. In fact, these two advantages are coupled with each other.


Expert PHP and MySQL takes you beyond learning syntax to showing you how to apply proven software development methods to building commerce-grade PHP and MySQL projects that will stand the test of time and reliably deliver on customer needs. Developers of real-world applications face numerous problems that seem trivial on the surface, but really do take some skill to get right. Error handling is about more than just the mechanics in the PHP syntax, but also about handling MySQL errors, logging those errors, and about hiding information about application internals that error messages sometimes can expose. Meet these challenges and more head-on! Author Marc Rochkind shows how to begin a project right, with a clear contract and set of written requirements. Youll learn about project organization, setting up a solid development environment, connecting with client personnel. Database design is essential, and Expert PHP and MySQL has you covered with guidance on creating a sound model and database, and on pushing functionality into the database as appropriate; not everything should be done in PHP. Error handling is covered at both the PHP and MySQL levels. Application structure is covered. Guidance is provided on reporting. And finally there is conversion. In Expert PHP and MySQL youll explore the following: The popular and widely used combination of PHP and MySQL Commercial-grade application of language and database features Human factors such as planning and organization Organizing a project to meet requirements and satisfy the customer Structuring an application for efficient development and future modification Coding PHP for productivity, reliability, security Generating online, downloadable, and printed reports Converting existing data to the new application What youll learn Organize a project to meet requirements and satisfy the customer. Structure an application for efficient development and future modification. Design a database to model the business and support the application. Code PHP for productivity, reliability, security. Generate online, downloadable, and printed reports. Convert existing data to the new application. Who this book is for Expert PHP and MySQL is aimed at programmers competent in PHP and MySQL. Readers should know the mechanics of the language and the database, and have a desire to learn to build commercial systems that will stand the test of time and reliably deliver on customer needs. Table of Contents Organizing a Project:People, Logistics, Legalities Setting Your Targets: Requirements and Specifications Creating Development, Test, and Deployment Platforms Modelling and Managing the Database Designing the Application Coding with PHP Best-Practices Building Reports and Exports Getting Value from the Data Conversion


This research on low-cost housing is a detailed socio-cultural background of the people living in the apartment-housing in Malaysian context. Purposefully, this research has been done to explore the housing situation in two low-cost apartments located in Gombak, Kuala Lumpur having based on a sample survey of 60 households who were interviewed and investigated most extensively to know the prevailing cultural fabrics and living condition in these two selected apartment houses. Because there is a fast pace of urban development in Malaysia, it therefore becomes a vital issue for us to understand what is happening in the life of this group of people who have had settled in these low-cost apartments. Based on our objectives, this paper deals with the dwelling features and living condition of the people housed in these low-cost apartments and accordingly, generates data on the basic amenities of life of the people residing in these low cost accommodations. On the basis of our findings, the research finally provides some suggestions in the form of specific recommendations for future planning.


"I'm getting too old to battle it," sixty-nine-year old farmer Matthew Grant lamented in an 1987 interview. He had purchased his first sixty acres in 1947 for $3500 and eventually expanded his holdings to 190 acres, but increasing costs, low returns, and old age made him question whether or not he should keep up the struggle to retain his farm enterprise. Indeed, he was among the last black farm owners in a large section of North Carolina. "We don't have any black farmers left in Tillery," his son said, noddin g toward his father, "This is it." Only a generation
before nearly 100 Negro families had been involved in the Tillery Farm Project of Halifax County as part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal
"forty acres and a mule" program to establish America's poor on land of their own.