This dissertation studies two dynamic processes, the production of human capital and evolution of health. The first essay uses data on parents and their children in the longitudinal Panel Study of Income Dynamics and PSID-Child Development Supplement to estimate the effect negative changes in parental health on the children's development of cognitive and non-cognitive skills. The analysis suggests that the onset of a parental health event, on average, does not affect children's cognitive measures and has small negative effects on the level of children's noncognitive skills. However, small average effects mask heterogeneous effects across: the sex of the parent, sex of the child, and the type of health condition. Parental health events are found to significantly impair noncognitive skill development when a father is afflicted with a health event, affect sons more negatively than daughters, and are worse for certain--vascular or cancerous--conditions. Further exploration shows that effects of parental health events on skill development are related to changes in the hypothesized mechanism, changes in skill investments. Specifically, when parental health events are estimated to create the poorest behavior outcomes, large reductions in one measure of skill investment, time that parents participate in activities with children, is also commonly found. The second essay (joint with David Ribar and Christopher Ruhm) uses longitudinal data from the 1984 through 2007 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine how occupational status is related to the health transitions of 30 to 59 year-old U.S. males. A recent history of blue-collar employment predicts a substantial increase in the probability of transitioning from very good into bad self-assessed health, relative to white-collar employment, but with no evidence of occupational differences in movements from bad to very good health. These findings are robust to a series of sensitivity analyses. The results suggest that blue-collar workers "wear out" faster with age because they are more likely, than their white-collar counterparts, to experience negative health shocks. This partly reflects differences in the physical demands of blue-collar and white-collar jobs. The third essay (joint with Jeremy Bray) uses the framework of Bray (2005) to develop a theoretical and accompanying empirical model examining how the productivities of the human capital inputs work and school are affected if individuals work while enrolled in school. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, we model the dynamic processes of work and school input decisions jointly with the effects of these decisions on future wages to discern whether work and school are contemporaneous complements or substitutes in the production of human capital. Endogeneity is corrected through the use of the Discrete Factor Method. The model shows that, on average, work and school are indeed complementary in the production of human capital. However, examination of in-school work at differing schooling levels or across different student occupations shows that certain types of work and school are complementary when simultaneously undertaken while others are substitutes in the production of human capital.


In the present work the modelling and numerical treatment of discontinuities in thermo-mechanical solids is investigated and applied to diverse physical problems. From this topic a structure for this work results, which considers the formulation of thermo-mechanical processes in continua in the first part and which forms the mechanical and thermodynamical framework for the description of discontinuities and interfaces, that is performed in the second part. The representation of the modelling of solid materials bases on the detailed derivation of geometrically nonlinear kinematics, that yields different strain and stress measures for the material and spatial configuration. Accordingly, this results in different formulations of the mechanical and thermodynamical balance equations. On these foundations we firstly derive by means of the concepts of the plasticity theory an elasto-plastic prototype-model, that is extended subsequently. In the centre of interest is the formulation of damage models in consideration of rate-dependent material behaviour. In the next step follows the extension of the isothermal material models to thermo-mechanically coupled problems, whereby also the special case of adiabatic processes is discussed. Within the representation of the different constitutive laws, the importance is attached to their modular structure. Moreover, a detailed discussion of the isothermal and the thermo-mechanically coupled problem with respect to their numerical treatment is performed. For this purpose the weak forms with respect to the different configurations and the corresponding linearizations are derived and discretized. The derived material models are highlighted by numerical examples and also proved with respect to plausibility. In order to take discontinuities into account appropriate kinematics are introduced and the mechanical and thermodynamical balance equations have to be modified correspondingly. The numerical description is accomplished by so-called interface-elements, which are based on an adequate discretization. In this context two application fields are distinguished. On the one side the interface elements provide a tool for the description of postcritical processes in the framework of localization problems, which include material separation and therefore they are appropriate for the description of cutting processes. Here in turn one has to make the difference between the domain-dependent and the domain-independent formulation, which mainly differ in the definition of the interfacial strain measure. On the other side material properties are attached to the interfaces whereas the spatial extension is neglectable. A typical application of this type of discontinuities can be found in the scope of the modelling of composites, for instance. In both applications the corresponding thermo-mechanical formulations are derived. Finally, the different interface formulations are highlighted by some numerical examples and they are also proved with respect to plausibility.


Intussusception is the most common cause of intestinal obstruction in infancy and early childhood. It occurs when one segment of bowel (the intussusceptum) invaginates into an adjacent distal segment of bowel (the intussuscepien). The classic presentation is with intermittent abdominal pain, vomiting and redcurrant jelly-like stool. Diagnosis can be accurately confirmed with an ultrasound scan. Initial management is with fluid resuscitation and antibiotics. Following adequate resuscitation, treatment is usually with a non-operative air enema reduction under fluoroscopic guidance. If this fails to completely reduce the intussusception, the air enema may be repeated in patients that are clinically stable. The main risks associated with an air enema are bowel perforation, failed reduction and recurrence. Surgical intervention is indicated in patients presenting with perforation, those that are clinically unstable or where multiple air enemas have failed to reduce the intussusception. Surgery can be performed open or laparoscopic and involves attempted manual reduction of the intussusception and may require bowel resection and anastomosis.


In previous research, using EMD for voice stress analysis showed promising results. The
original algorithm was developed in Matlab, utilizing many of its functions. The algorithm
decodes audio into a raw format sampling at 8k samples/sec. This signal array is then filtered
and centered about the x-axis and the local maxima and minima are determined.
Matlab's built-in cubic spline interpolation function was then used to create the upper and
lower envelopes. The first Intrinsic Mode Function (IMF) is determined by calculating the
difference between the original signal and the mean of the envelopes. The algorithm continually
extracts IMFs starting with the highest frequency IMF until it extracts the last IMF.
The last IMF represents the frequency of the stress induced tremor in the subjects voice.
The successfulness of the algorithm was measured using a series of questions designed to
invoke a stress response concatenated with irrelevant questions designed not to invoke a
stress response. The difference between the tremor frequency related to the stressful and
non-stressful questions determines if a person may be being untruthful.


This paper tackles the sparsity problem in estimating phrase translation probabilities by learning continuous phrase representations, whose distributed nature enables the sharing of related phrases in their representations. A pair of source and target phrases are projected into continuous-valued vector representations in a low-dimensional latent space, where their translation score is computed by the distance between the pair in this new space. The projection is performed by a neural network whose weights are learned on parallel training data. Experimental evaluation has been performed on two WMT translation tasks. Our best result improves the performance of a state-of-the-art phrase-based statistical machine translation system trained on WMT 2012 French-English data by up to 1.3 BLEU points.


This paper will explore the writings of Immanuel Kant on the state's role within the social contract and his comments regarding the requirements for the effective functioning of the law. It will be argued that within the writings of Kant a liberal justification for the welfare state can be developed based on his ideas about the state and its responsibilities. More specifically, the paper will focus on the role a condition termed "necessity" has on the state's ability to provide security for the population. Necessity represents a condition in which a person perceives that his or her survival is threatened. Kant claimed that action taken out of necessity lies outside the arena of human behavior in which the law can have an effective deterrent value.


Multi-robot path planning is dificult due to the combinatorial explosion of the search space with every new robot added. Complete search of the combined state-space soon becomes intractable. In this paper we present a novel form of abstraction that allows us to plan much more eficiently. The key to this abstraction is the partitioning of the map into subgraphs of known structure with entry and exit restrictions which we can represent compactly. Planning then becomes a search in the much smaller space of subgraph configurations. Once an abstract plan is found, it can be quickly resolved into a correct (but possibly sub-optimal) concrete plan without the need for further search. We prove that this technique is sound and complete and demonstrate its practical effiectiveness on a real map.

A contending solution, prioritised planning, is also evaluated and shown to have similar performance albeit at the cost of completeness. The two approaches are not necessarily conflicting; we demonstrate how they can be combined into a single algorithm which out-performs either approach alone.


Pamphlet published by the U.S.D.A. about problems that cotton-growers may encounter and ways to avoid or fix them. Contents (from page 1): Mistakes that interfere with progress -- Causes of deterioration -- General measures of improvement: - Changing the method of buying cotton - Organizing 1-variety communities -- Some causes of inferior cotton: - Planting poor seed, Planting on price conjectures - Changing the seed - Planting too many varieties - Failure to test varieties - Misleading claims for varieties - Propagating hybrids - Planting unsuitable land - Planting too early - Thinning too early - Spacing too wide - Picking too late - Breeding weevils in the fall - Mixing seed at public gins - Ginning too close - Ginning too wet or too dry.


Basaltic monuments from the Aramaic Tell Halaf (built ca. 1000 BC), Syria were severely damaged during fire bombing of the Tell Halaf Museum, Berlin in World War II. While the museum burst into flames part of the statues were covered with burnt bitumen from the roof of the museum, mixed with fragmented quartz of the roofing cardboard, grinded basalt, limestone artwork, and gypsum casts. Detailed mineralogical investigations of the thin carbon coating on the statues revealed that additionally a number of unexpected, non-basaltic minerals formed in the bitumen via temperature-dependent reactions due to the thermal impact by the bomb blasting and subsequent reequilibration during burning of the exhibition hall. The source material of these newly formed phases was provided by the basalt, the gypsum casts, the limestone artwork, the museum roof, the museum pipe system and, last but not least, the incendiary bomb itself. Phases include sphalerite (zinc of the pipe system + sulphur of gypsum casts), smithsonite (zinc of the pipe system + calcite of limestone artwork), wollastonite (calcium of the limestone orthostats + silica of the roofing cardboard), pyrite (iron of the basalt Fe-oxides + sulphur of the gypsum casts), alkali feldspar (saltpetre of the incendiary bomb + basalt plagioclase), and apatite (phosphorus of the incendiary bomb + calcium of the limestone). A conspicuous feature of samples close to the impact is the abundance of silicate glasses. Observed mineral-forming reactions suggest initial temperature conditions of > 980 °C near the fire centre and of 850–980 °C throughout the museum. The cold water used for fire fighting finally resulted in crack-producing stress that caused severe shelled fracturing of the statues.


The standard narrative about Americanism in the twentieth century tells of a robust debate early in the century between "anti-hyphenates," who preached an intense and highly racialized assimilationism, and cosmopolitans, who imagined new Americans' preserving, rather than abandoning, their ethnic and cultural legacies. On this view, World War I put an end to the cosmopolitan project, and the incarceration of Japanese Americans in World War II was the high-water mark of a racist and xenophobic definition of who could count as "American." The cosmopolitan project, in the standard narrative, would not really resume until the 1960s.This paper presents evidence that at least modestly complicates the standard narrative. It focuses on the varying methods that federal government agencies used to evaluate the loyalties of incarcerated American citizens of Japanese ancestry during World War II. Comparing the methods used by military agencies with those of the civilian War Relocation Authority, the paper demonstrates that the civilian agency used a model of Americanism that was at least modestly cosmopolitan, and far less defined by racial conceptions of loyalty than the standard narrative would suggest.


Abstract Aim Preoperative SARS-CoV-2 vaccination could support safer elective surgery. Vaccine numbers are limited so this study aimed to inform their prioritization by modelling. Method The primary outcome was the number needed to vaccinate (NNV) to prevent one COVID-19-related death in 1 year. NNVs were based on postoperative SARS-CoV-2 rates and mortality in an international cohort study (surgical patients), and community SARS-CoV-2 incidence and case fatality data (general population). NNV estimates were stratified by age (18–49, 50–69, 70 or more years) and type of surgery. Best- and worst-case scenarios were used to describe uncertainty. Results NNVs were more favourable in surgical patients than the general population. The most favourable NNVs were in patients aged 70 years or more needing cancer surgery (351; best case 196, worst case 816) or non-cancer surgery (733; best case 407, worst case 1664). Both exceeded the NNV in the general population (1840; best case 1196, worst case 3066). NNVs for surgical patients remained favourable at a range of SARS-CoV-2 incidence rates in sensitivity analysis modelling. Globally, prioritizing preoperative vaccination of patients needing elective surgery ahead of the general population could prevent an additional 58 687 (best case 115 007, worst case 20 177) COVID-19-related deaths in 1 year. Conclusions As global roll out of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination proceeds, patients needing elective surgery should be prioritized ahead of the general population.


We present a novel and practical texture mapping algorithm for hand-drawn cartoons that allows the production of visually rich animations with minimal user effort. Unlike previous techniques, our approach works entirely in the 2D domain and does not require the knowledge or creation of a 3D proxy model. Inspired by the fact that the human visual system tends to focus on the most salient features of a scene, which we observe for hand-drawn cartoons are the contours rather than the interior of regions, we can create the illusion of temporally coherent animation using only rough 2D image registration. This key observation allows us to design a simple yet effective algorithm that significantly reduces the amount of manual labor required to add visually complex detail to an animation, thus enabling efficient cartoon texturing for computer-assisted animation production pipelines. We demonstrate our technique on a variety of input animations as well as provide examples of postprocessing operations that can be applied to simulate 3D-like effects entirely in the 2D domain.


A structural theory of inflation and growth potential is developed based on a two-sector model of the economy, the traded goods sector and the non-traded. Since the traded goods sector is directly exposed to international competition unlike the non-traded, the latter is more prone to inflation. As the non-traded products have inelastic demand, their consumption propensity rises with the sector's price level with the consequence that consumption propensity for traded products falls with inflation. As derived from the model, the threshold inflation rate is the upper bound for non-negative impact of non-traded goods sector on the growth of the traded goods sector, indicating the inflation tolerance level of the traded-goods sector of the economy. The model shows that the threshold inflation varies with the level of output, consumption propensity, investment expenditure ratio, and inflation rate in the non-traded sector. A growth potential indicator based on the inflation threshold rate is constructed for predicting an economy's growth potential or prospects. As applied to Nigeria, the model confirms the expected negative impact of non-traded sector inflation rate on the output of traded goods. The empirical result shows wide yearly variation in the threshold inflation rates; but generally a 1% inflation rate above the threshold causes 0.32% fall in the output of the traded-sector and 0.27% fall in GDP.


Citizen science has seen enormous growth in recent years, in part due to the influence of the Internet, and a corresponding growth in interest. However, the few stand-out examples that have received attention from media and researchers are not representative of the diversity of the field as a whole, and therefore may not be the best models for those seeking to study or start a citizen science project. In this work, we present the results of a survey of citizen science project leaders, identifying sub-groups of project types according to a variety of features related to project design and management, including funding sources, goals, participant activities, data quality processes, and social interaction. These combined features highlight the diversity of citizen science, providing an overview of the breadth of the phenomenon and laying a foundation for comparison between citizen science projects and to other online communities.


This article explores how the step-by-step changes to the Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education (resulting in the merger with the University of the North-West to form the North-West University [NWU]) impacted on the teaching of journalism at the Potchefstroom Campus. It was particularly relevant in 2009, as 50 years of teaching journalism and other communication subjects were celebrated by the School of Communication Studies on the Potchefstroom Cam-pus of the NWU. The article thus also has a definite historio-graphical intention – more specifically as an attempt at writing micro-historiography. It aims to illustrate how a definite Christian perspective on journalism was substituted for a slimmer "value-driven" approach sans an explisit religious dimension. Although it has been suggested by the vice-chancellor that lecturers had the right to express their views in class (including views based on Christian principles), it is argued here that the termination of the formal Christian approach made it very difficult, if not impossible, for lecturers to continue as in the past. As a result of the value-driven approach professional and institutional ethical codes are now used as a basic point of departure. This, however, does not satisfy those who prefer a more fundamental Christian approach to journalism. It is suggested that if this reading of the situation was erroneous, perhaps those Christians with a more positive view of the "name change" could give clearer leadership on how Christian perspectives on science (and journalism) can realistically be accommodated in the curriculum.


Synthetic biology efforts have largely focused on small engineered gene networks, yet understanding how to integrate multiple synthetic modules and interface them with endogenous pathways remains a challenge. Here we present the design, system integration, and analysis of several large scale synthetic gene circuits for artificial tissue homeostasis. Diabetes therapy represents a possible application for engineered homeostasis, where genetically programmed stem cells maintain a steady population of β-cells despite continuous turnover. We develop a new iterative process that incorporates modular design principles with hierarchical performance optimization targeted for environments with uncertainty and incomplete information. We employ theoretical analysis and computational simulations of multicellular reaction/diffusion models to design and understand system behavior, and find that certain features often associated with robustness (e.g., multicellular synchronization and noise attenuation) are actually detrimental for tissue homeostasis. We overcome these problems by engineering a new class of genetic modules for 'synthetic cellular heterogeneity' that function to generate beneficial population diversity. We design two such modules (an asynchronous genetic oscillator and a signaling throttle mechanism), demonstrate their capacity for enhancing robust control, and provide guidance for experimental implementation with various computational techniques. We found that designing modules for synthetic heterogeneity can be complex, and in general requires a framework for non-linear and multifactorial analysis. Consequently, we adapt a 'phenotypic sensitivity analysis' method to determine how functional module behaviors combine to achieve optimal system performance. We ultimately combine this analysis with Bayesian network inference to extract critical, causal relationships between a module's biochemical rate-constants, its high level functional behavior in isolation, and its impact on overall system performance once integrated.


This groundbreaking volume explores the epochal transformations and unexpected continuities in the Byzantine Empire from the seventh to the ninth century. As the period opened, the Empire's southern provinces-the vibrant, diverse areas of North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean-were at the crossroads of trade routes reaching from Spain to China. These regions experienced historic upheavals when their Christian and Jewish communities encountered the emerging Islamic world, and by the ninth century, an unprecedented cross-fertilization of cultures had taken place. This extraordinary age is brought vividly to life by leading international scholars, their writings accompanied by sumptuous illustrations of the period's most notable arts and artifacts. Resplendent images of authority, religion, and trade-embodied in precious metals, brilliant textiles, fine ivories, elaborate mosaics, manuscripts, and icons, many of them never before published-highlight the dynamic dialogue between the rich array of Byzantine styles and the evolving Islamic aesthetic. With its masterful exploration of two centuries that would shape the emerging medieval world, Byzantium and Islam provides a revelatory interpretation of a period with profound ramifications for the modern era.


Billions of dollars have flooded new online marketplaces for trading private company stock. These marketplaces stand poised to become important, lasting features of the private company world as they provide a central meeting place for buyers and sellers and potentially increase the liquidity of private company stock. Increased liquidity is particularly important to investors in start-up companies, as these companies have faced longer periods of time before going public or being acquired. The new marketplaces also raise significant information issues, however, that threaten their legitimacy and efficiency. This Article is the first to examine these information issues — lack of information, asymmetric information, conflicts of interest, and insider trading — as well as possible solutions that would allow the markets to continue to evolve while promoting their integrity and investor protection goals. Specifically, the Article proposes establishing a minimum information requirement for secondary trading in private company stock and reexamining the thresholds for accredited investor status in order to ensure that market participants can fend for themselves without additional protections. The Article also examines potential responses to insider trading in these markets, arguing that a case exists for the SEC to take action in the private market context, since harm may be cognizable and the arguments for regulating insider trading are as strong in the private market arena as in the public.


In this paper we compute the generating function of modular, $k$-noncrossing diagrams. A $k$-noncrossing diagram is called modular if it does not contain any isolated arcs and any arc has length at least four. Modular diagrams represent the deformation retracts of RNA tertiary structures and their properties reflect basic features of these bio-molecules. The particular case of modular noncrossing diagrams has been extensively studied. Let ${Q}_k(n)$ denote the number of modular $k$-noncrossing diagrams over $n$ vertices. We derive exact enumeration results as well as the asymptotic formula ${Q}_k(n)\sim c_k n^{-(k-1)^2-{k-1\over2}}\gamma_{k}^{-n}$ for $k=3, \ldots, 9$ and derive a new proof of the formula ${Q}_2(n)\sim 1.4848\, n^{-3/2}\,1.8489^{n}$ (Hofacker et al. 1998).


As part of the on-going key comparison BIPM.QM-K1, a comparison has been performed between the ozone national standard of the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) and the common reference standard of the key comparison, maintained by the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM). The instruments have been compared over a nominal ozone mole fraction range of 0 nmol/mol to 500 nmol/mol. Main text. To reach the main text of this paper, click on Final Report. Note that this text is that which appears in Appendix B of the BIPM key comparison database kcdb.bipm.org/. The final report has been peer-reviewed and approved for publication by the CCQM, according to the provisions of the CIPM Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA).


This Article focuses on the accountability of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in relation to targeted killings, under both United States law and international law. As the CIA, often in conjunction with Department of Defense (DOD) Special Operations forces, becomes more and more deeply involved in carrying out extraterritorial targeted killings both through kill/capture missions and drone-based missile strikes in a range of countries, the question of its compliance with the relevant legal standards becomes ever more urgent. Assertions by Obama administration officials, as well as by many scholars, that these operations comply with international standards are undermined by the total absence of any forms of credible transparency or verifiable accountability. The CIA's internal control mechanisms, including its Inspector-General, have had no discernible impact; executive control mechanisms have either not been activated at all or have ignored the issue; congressional oversight has given a 'free pass' to the CIA in this area; judicial review has been effectively precluded; and external oversight has been reduced to media coverage which is all too often dependent on information leaked by the CIA itself. As a result, there is no meaningful domestic accountability for a burgeoning program of international killing. This in turn means that the United States cannot possibly satisfy its obligations under international law to ensure accountability for its use of lethal force, either under IHRL or IHL. The result is the steady undermining of the international rule of law, and the setting of legal precedents which will inevitably come back to haunt the United States before long when invoked by other states with highly problematic agendas.


Background: Kenya has one of the highest rates of neonatal mortality in the world at 22/1,000 live births. Improving the quality of newborn care would greatly improve survival rates. There is an increasing consensus that strong health systems are key to achieving improved health outcomes. However, there is significantly less agreement on what to strengthen in low and middle-income countries such as Kenya. As nurses are the main caregivers in many inpatient settings, efforts aimed at improving the quality of facility care for sick newborn babies need to take into account nurses views and opinions. Our intent in this paper is to describe the current state of the nursing environment and what would be required to improve the quality of those environs from nurses' perspectives. Methods: Between January 2017 and March 2018, we collected data through non-participant observations, unsolicited conversations and review of admission registers. We also conducted 29 individual in-depth interviews with nurses working in the newborn units (NBU) of a public sector hospital (n=10), a private sector hospital (n=11) and a faith-based hospital (n=8). The interviews were digitally audio recorded, transcribed verbatim and, together with observation notes, analysed using thematic content analysis. Results: Nurses as frontline care givers and intervention intermediaries, irrespective of their work contexts, have similar aspirations, needs and expectations from the health systems of how they should be supported to provide quality inpatient care for newborns. These are about the structure of the work environment, especially human resources for health, and the consequences of inadequate structure. They are also about how care is organised and systems that respond to emergencies. Conclusion: Interventions and investments to improve quality need to be directed towards experienced based co-design where we listen to the problems that nurses experience.


Chlorophyll concentration estimates by ocean-biogeochemical models showtypically significant errors. Data assimilation algorithms based onthe Kalman filter can be applied to improve the model state. However,these algorithms do usually not account for possible biases in themodel prediction. Taking model bias explicitly into account canimprove the assimilation estimates.Here, the effect of bias estimation is studied with the assimilationof chlorophyll data from the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor(SeaWiFS) into the NASA Ocean Biogeochemical Model (NOBM). Theensemble-based SEIK filter has been combined with an online biascorrection scheme. A static error covariance matrix is used for simplicity. The performance of the filter algorithm is assessed by comparisonwith independent in situ data over the 7-year period 1998--2004.Compared to the assimilation without bias estimation, the biascorrection results in significant improvements of the surfacechlorophyll. With bias estimation, the daily surface chlorophyllestimates from the assimilation show about 3.3\% lower error thanSeaWiFS data. In contrast, the error in the global surfacechlorophyll estimate without bias estimation is 10.9\%. Next to theimprovement of the estimated chlorophyll concentrations, the estimatedbiases indicate regions with systemic errors in the model-represenedchlorophyll.


In the debate about originalism in the United States, scholars have devoted scant attention to the question whether the United States stands alone in its fascination with originalism. According to the prevailing view, originalism is distinctively American and the study of comparative originalism is an oxymoron. This Article challenges that conventional view. Drawing on neglected Turkish-language sources, the Article analyzes, as a comparative case study, the use of originalism by the Turkish Constitutional Court (Anayasa Mahkemesi) to interpret the secularism provisions in the Turkish Constitution. Comparing the Turkish version of originalism to American originalism, the Article sheds light on broader debates in the United States about the origins, functioning, and limits of originalism. This comparative study calls into question the existing theories in the American legal literature about why originalism thrives in certain nations. This Article suggests a new hypothesis that views support for originalism as a cultural, not legal, phenomenon: Originalism blossoms in a nation when a political leader associated with the creation or revision of the Constitution has developed a cult of personality. The cult-of-personality hypothesis explains why originalism has thrived in nations such as Turkey and the United States, where the nation's founders have developed a strong cult of personality, but has failed to find a strong and sustained following in nations such as Australia, where the founders are held in no special reverence. The Turkish case study is also instructive on the limits of originalism. Critics of originalism in the United States argue that originalism allows the dead hand of the past to rule an evolving society. In response to the critics, originalists note that the legislature has the option of amending the Constitution if its original meaning no longer comports with societal norms. But what if constitutional amendment were not an available option? The Turkish case study suggests that when the legislature lacks a plausible method - however difficult it may be - for amending the Constitution in times evolving societal norms, the continued use of originalism by the judiciary may motivate the legislature to place political constraints on the courts. In Turkey, the Constitutional Court's embrace of originalism but rejection of legislative attempts to amend the Constitution led to the adoption of a court-packing plan in September 2010.


Demand response (DR) resources present a potentially important source of grid flexibility particularly on future systems with high penetrations of variable wind and solar power generation. However, managed loads in grid models are limited by data availability and modeling complexity. This presentation focuses on the value of co-optimized DR resources to provide energy and ancillary services in a production cost model. There are significant variations in the availabilities of different types of DR resources, which affect both the operational savings as well as the revenue for each DR resource. The results presented include the system-wide avoided fuel and generator start-up costs as well as the composite revenue for each DR resource by energy and operating reserves. In addition, the revenue is characterized by the capacity, energy, and units of DR enabled.


How is the current condition of religious free exercise, and religious accommodation in specific, best understood? What is the relationship of the two most important free exercise cases of the past half-century, Employment Division v. Smith and Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC? This essay explores four possible answers to these questions.1. Smith and Hosanna-Tabor are the twin suns of religious accommodation under the Constitution. They are distinctively powerful approaches.2. Hosanna-Tabor's approach to constitutional free exercise is now more powerful than Smith's. Smith has been eclipsed.3. Hosanna-Tabor has shown itself to be feeble. It has been eclipsed by Smith.4. Smith augured the waning of religious accommodation, which proceeds apace. Hosanna-Tabor does little to change that.In describing these possibilities, the essay considers the cases themselves, various doctrinal developments (focusing on subsequent Supreme Court cases as well as lower court decisions interpreting Hosanna-Tabor), and the broader political and social context in which claims for religious accommodation are now received. It concludes that though each possibility has persuasive points (perhaps with the exception of the second), the last is most accurate. Smith's approach to free exercise continues to control for constitutional purposes and is, for more general political purposes, more entrenched than ever. Its admonition about fabulously remote threats of anarchy in a world where each "conscience is a law unto itself" has ironically become more apt as a warning against the multiplying number of secular interests argued to be legally cognizable than against religious accommodation run amok. There is no clearer manifestation of these developments than the recent emergence of theories maintaining that new dignitary and other third party harms resulting from religious accommodation ought to defeat religious freedom claims. These theories reflect the swollen ambit of state authority and defend surprising understandings of the limits of religious accommodation — understandings that pose grave threats to the American political tradition of providing generous religious exemptions from general laws. The ministerial exception simply represents the refracted glow of constitutional protection in the gathering gloom. It is free exercise by moonlight.


Praise for "Mind Gym": "Believing in yourself is paramount to success for any athlete. Gary's lessons and David's writing provide examples of the importance of the mental game." - Ben Crenshaw, two-time Masters champion and former Ryder Cup captain. "Mind Gym hits a home run. If you want to build mental muscle for the major leagues, read this book." - Ken Griffey Jr, Major League Baseball MVP. "I read "Mind Gym" on my way to the Sydney Olympics and really got a lot out of it. Gary has important lessons to teach, and you'll find the exercises fun and beneficial." - Jason Kidd, NBA All-Star and Olympic gold-medal winner. In "Mind Gym", noted sports psychology consultant Gary Mack explains how your mind influences your performance on the field or on the court as much as your physical skill does, if not more so.Through forty accessible lessons and inspirational anecdotes from prominent athletes - many of whom he has worked with - you will learn the same techniques and exercises. Mack uses to help elite athletes build mental "muscle." "Mind Gym" will give you the "head edge" over the competition.


Over 50 percent of U.S. cities of varying sizes contract all or part of their refuse collection services. The National Solid Wastes Management Association (now Environmental Industries Association) has estimated that at least 50 percent of disposal capacity is privately owned and operated. While no comprehensive surveys have recently been undertaken, the private-sector role in the provision of waste management services appears to be increasing. U.S. models of privatization take many forms. For collection services, at least six different models of private-sector service delivery exist. These include: single-district, winner-take-all competitive contracting; multi-district competitive contracting; noncompetitive negotiated contracting;"free-for-all" competition; non exclusive franchising, and competitive exclusive franchising. In addition to these different privatization models, local governments employ a variety of procedures for: specifying the desired scope of service; evaluating service-delivery options; selecting service providers, and monitoring providers performance. The breadth and diversity of experience in privatization thus permits an evaluation of what procedures and programs result in high-quality, cost-effective waste management services. This paper will identify those privatization procedures and programs that enhance success. Three primary forces have motivated the trend toward privatization in the United States: pursuit of cost savings; desire to access new technologies; and desire to reduce risks associated with providing waste management services. Successful implementation of competitive service delivery involves three stages: an initial evaluation and review of available options; a well-designed service-delivery procurement process (qualifying to bid, bidding, and contracting), and ongoing monitoring and performance reviews (contract administration). Success lies more in the implementation process than in the specific contracting model selected. Successful transitioning from public-sector to private-sector contracting of waste services requires up-front evaluation of the existing public system: What are the components of the current system?; How do these components interrelate?; who currently provides each service component?; one central purpose of privatization is to harness competitive market forces to generate ongoing incentives for more efficient and less costly solid waste management service. Central to this harnessing process is a procurement document that allows for precise and objective evaluation, flexibility, economies of scale, efficient contract length, and accountability. The hard work really begins after the successful proposer has been selected through the RFQ/RFB process. The aim in contract negotiation should be to establish an agreement whereby the local government maintains needed control over its waste stream, residents are assured low-cost/high-quality waste management services, and the private contractor is able to maintain a profitable business. The contract should include several critical elements. These include: a clear definition of the scope of work required. Waste management involves an array of different services. Successful privatization requires that one define which of these services will be transferred to the private sector. A definition of minimum service requirements. Once the scope of service is defined, public officials need to clearly define minimum service-level requirements. This includes such matters as frequency of collection, permitted hours of operation,insurance and bonding requirements, health and safety restrictions, permissible service complaint levels, and other basic service parameters. A description of risk, rate, and termination provisions. There is no single best way to structure the contracting of solid waste and recycling collection services. However, in any contracting decision, the twin goals of service quality and competitive cost should guide the design of the bidding process and the delineation of contract details. Ultimately, long-term success of contracting depends on depoliticizing the contracting decision as much as possible, using clear quantitative and qualitative performance standards, and clearly spelling out the responsibilities of the public and private sectors


They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth. Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself" (Whitman 1959)


Plant-parasitic nematodes are microscopic worms that live in the soil and feed on plant roots. Nematodes that feed on corn occur in almost every field in Iowa, but most do not reduce corn yields measurably until they increase to high population densities (numbers). Fall is not a recommended time to check fields for damaging population densities of nematodes that feed on corn.


Knowledge has been the most coveted possession of mankind since the industrial revolution. The industrial boom after the World Wars has highlighted the importance of the so-called intellectual knowledge. Recently, the importance of knowledge that has been in the public domain (and, therefore, accessible) has come into question. The pattern of evolution of society, has been marked by a process by which the societies in developed countries have moved towards a more technological orientation. Consequentially, some traditional knowledge, including traditional practices, has been left behind and newer practices that are better, or at least considered better, are being used. Knowledge that is no longer part of the so-called developed societies, but retained by traditional societies has, of late, gained attention because of its value, materially and otherwise. There is, however, a difference between the knowledge vested in indigenous peoples and the corporate interests in using that knowledge. This leads to a gap between source materials and end producers, which can be described as the "gap between producers and users." Treatises assert that it is only the corporate interests that are finally rewarded. This increasingly threatens the viability of knowledge systems of indigenous peoples and local communities. This paper addresses the issues involved in attempting to protect, as intellectual property, the traditional knowledge prevailing within traditional societies. It outlines the debate on the issues and explores the possible ambit of property rights vested in the traditional knowledge. Finally, this paper, examines the slow but steady increase in the pace of the property holders to claim their rights. It is critical of the lack of appreciation, of the knowledge and the holders of such knowledge by the developed countries. In doing so, this paper highlights that in order for traditional knowledge to be protected effectively either within the prevailing intellectual property regime or by a separate regime, the bargaining power of developing countries must be strengthened. The paper argues that efforts to respect, protect, and understand traditional knowledge will increase the need for intellectual property systems in developing countries, where such systems are currently weak. On the other hand, this article also suggests that forcing the prevailing Western intellectual property rights upon developing countries without respecting the rights in traditional knowledge may have counterproductive results. Part I details the lifestyle of the people targeted by this paper. Part II describes the various intellectual property systems and the difficulties involved in trying to fit traditional knowledge within one of the prevailing systems or any combination of the prevailing intellectual property systems. This part also explores the prospect of protection through a sui generis mechanism. The object is to focus on the theoretical as well as the practical difficulties in attempting to protect traditional knowledge. Part III details the various international agreements regarding intellectual property in order to highlight the international activities of indigenous people. The slow recognition of the intellectual property rights in the traditional knowledge is traced and evaluated critically. This part concludes that none of the efforts have produced satisfactory results. Part IV examines the responses of courts in various jurisdictions to traditional knowledge issues in order to highlight the difficulty in recognizing and protecting such property rights. It argues that prevailing intellectual property regime is incapable of fitting the emerging issues within its mold. It also argues that there are inherent biases in protecting traditional knowledge. Part V highlights the efforts made by individual countries toward protecting traditional knowledge.


Let P2r be the projective plane blown up at r generic points. Denote by E0; E1; : : : ; Er the strict transform of a generic straight line on P2 and the exceptional divisors of the blown-up points on P2r respectively. We consider the variety Virr of all irreducible curves C with k nodes as the only singularities and give asymptotically nearly optimal sufficient conditions for its smoothness, irreducibility and non-emptiness. Moreover, we extend our conditions for the smoothness and the irreducibility on families of reducible curves. For r ^ 9 we give the complete answer concerning the existence of nodal curves in Virr.


SharePoint 2007 Development Recipes offers a range of readytouse code recipes that provide the building blocks for solving many common SharePoint 2007 programming dilemmas. This practical, handson guide categorizes recipes by problem area, for example site management, event handlers, users, lists, and web parts, and source code is provided in both VB and C#. As well as providing an invaluable reference, Mark Gerow also includes clear, supporting guidelines to help you modify the code samples for the broadest range of applications. For each recipe you will find Background and design considerations Source code in both VB and C# Discussion of variations on the provided examples Crossreference to core SharePoint classes If you find yourself asking, How do I solve this SharePoint development problem? you will find all the answers in Mark Gerows supremely useful book. What youll learn SharePoint Recipes will provide readytouse examples of how to programmatically Add web parts to pages. Calculate exact storage used for a list, site, or group of sites. Track and record site, page, and link hits. Manage users, roles, and groups using both Windows and Formsbased authentication. Create sites and site collections. Create lists and a document library. Upload and edit documents and list items. Develop event handlers and workflows. Use JavaScript to alter the behavior of web part pages. Edit builtin web site properties. Work with features and solutions. And much more Who is this book for? This book is for intermediatetoadvanced .NET programmers who want to get the most out of SharePoint 2007 by using the classes and web services provided in the SDK. It can be used both as a tutorial for those new to SharePoint programming and as a reference by those more experience developers who just need working examples that can be modified to suit a job at hand. Related Titles Microsoft SharePoint: Building Office 2007 Solutions in C# 2005 Microsoft SharePoint: Building Office 2007 Solutions in VB 2005 Pro SharePoint 2007 Development Techniques Pro SharePoint Solution Development: Combining .NET, SharePoint and Office 2007 Workflow in the 2007 Microsoft Office System


The thesis at hand deals with the numerical solution of multiscale problems arising in the modeling of processes in fluid and thermo dynamics. Many of these processes, governed by partial differential equations, are relevant in engineering, geoscience, and environmental studies. More precisely, this thesis discusses the efficient numerical computation of effective macroscopic thermal conductivity tensors of high-contrast composite materials. The term "high-contrast" refers to large variations in the conductivities of the constituents of the composite. Additionally, this thesis deals with the numerical solution of Brinkman's equations. This system of equations adequately models viscous flows in (highly) permeable media. It was introduced by Brinkman in 1947 to reduce the deviations between the measurements for flows in such media and the predictions according to Darcy's model.


ECG simulators, available on the market, imitate the electric activity of the heart in a simplified manner. Thus, they are suitable for education purposes but not really for testing algorithms to recognize complex arrhythmias needed for pacemakers and implantable defibrillators. Especially certain discrimination between various morphologies of atrial and ventricular fibrillation needs simulators providing native electrograms of different patients' heart rhythm events. This explains the necessity to develop an ECG simulator providing high-resolution native intracardiac and surface electrograms of in-vivo rhythm events. In this paper we demonstrate an approach for an ECG simulator based on a consumer multichannel soundcard and a corresponding software application for a laptop computer. This Live-ECG Simulator is able to handle invasive electrogram recordings from electrophysiological studies and send the data to a modified external soundcard for subsequent digital to analog conversion. The hardware is completed with an electronic circuit providing level adjustment to adapt the output amplitude to the input conditions of several cardiac implants.


Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are considered as an engine for economic growth all over the world and especially for developing countries. During the past decade, new product development (NPD) has increasingly been recognized as a critical factor in ensuring the continued survival of SMEs. On the other hand, the rapid rate of market and technological changes has accelerated in the past decade, so this turbulent environment requires new methods and techniques to bring successful new products to the marketplace. Virtual team can be a solution to answer the requested demand. However, literature have shown no significant differences between traditional NPD and virtual NPD in general, whereas NPD in SME's virtual team has not been systematically investigated in developing countries. This paper aims to bridge this gap by first reviewing the NPD and its relationship with virtuality and then identifies the critical factors of NPD in virtual teams. The statistical method was utilized to perform the required analysis of data from the survey. The results were achieved through factor analysis at the perspective of NPD in some Malaysian and Iranian manufacturing firms (N = 191). The 20 new product development factors were grouped into five higher level constructs. It gives valuable insight and guidelines, which hopefully will help managers of firms in developing countries to consider the main factors in NPD.


Case one: A little girl goes missing in the night. Case two: A beautiful young office worker falls victim to a maniac's apparently random attack. Case three: A new mother finds herself trapped in a hell of her own making - with a very needy baby and a very demanding husband - until a fit of rage creates a grisly, bloody escape.Thirty years after the first incident, as private investigator Jackson Brodie begins investigating all three cases, startling connections and discoveries emerge ...


Daytime soap operas. Evening news. Late-night talk shows. Television has long been defined by its daily schedule, and the viewing habits that develop around it. Technologies like DVRs, iPods, and online video have freed audiences from rigid time constraints—we no longer have to wait for a program to be "on" to watch it—but scheduling still plays a major role in the production of television. Prime-time series programming between 8:00 and 11:00 p.m. has dominated most critical discussion about television since its beginnings, but Beyond Prime Time brings together leading television scholars to explore how shifts in television's industrial practices and new media convergence have affected the other 80% of the viewing day. The contributors explore a broad range of non-prime-time forms including talk shows, soap operas, news, syndication, and children's programs, non-series forms such as sports and made-for-television movies, as well as entities such as local affiliate stations and public television. Importantly, all of these forms rely on norms of production, financing, and viewer habits that distinguish them from the practices common among prime-time series and often from each other. Each of the chapters examines how the production practices and textual strategies of a particular programming form have shifted in response to sweeping industry changes, together telling the story of a medium in transition at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Contributors: Sarah Banet-Weiser, Victoria E. Johnson, Jeffrey P. Jones, Derek Kompare, Elana Levine, Amanda D. Lotz, Jonathan Nichols-Pethick, Laurie Ouellette, Erin Copple Smith


The acoustic blast is one of the most recurrent sound devices in horror
cinema. It is designed to elicit the startle response from the audience, and
thus gives them a "jump scare." It can occur both in the form of a diegetic bang
and in the form of a nondiegetic stinger (i.e., a musical blare provided by the
score). In this article, I will advance the hypothesis that silence plays a crucial
role in contemporary horror films, both perceptually, since it leaves the sound
field free for the acoustic blast, and cognitively, since it posits the audience in
an aversive anticipatory state that makes the startle more intense. I will analyze
the acoustic startle using a neurofilmological approach, which takes into
account findings from experimental sciences in order to better understand
the relationship between physiological and psychological factors that make
such an effect possible during the filmic experience.


Leaders of university continuing education units frequently dedicate significant energy to managing relationships between their units and senior university administrators. Many CJUCE readers know of cases where a particularly sympathetic (or unsympathetic) university president or provost has substantially changed the trajectory of a continuing education unit. Using historical documents from the University of British Columbia, the author of this article constructs a case study of the influence of presidential support on the philosophy and practice of university extension and continuing education. In short, UBC' Extension department emerged and flourished under the leadership of two long-serving presidents who expressed significant support for its function as a primary role of the university. In the 1960s, following the appointment of a president who considered research and degree credit teaching to be the university' distinctive mission, the department experienced a crisis. However, the period following 1975 brought renewed executive support when a new president with an expansive vision of the contribution that the university should make to society was appointed. This article not only presents an interesting historical case study but also provokes reflection on how contemporary leaders in continuing education can nurture support from senior administrators.


Bayesian belief networks have grown to prominence because they provide compact representations for many problems for which probabilistic inference is appropriate, and there are algorithms to exploit this compactness. The next step is to allow compact representations of the conditional probabilities of a variable given its parents. In this paper we present such a representation that exploits contextual independence in terms of parent contexts; which variables act as parents may depend on the value of other variables. The internal representation is in terms of contextual factors (confactors) that is simply a pair of a context and a table. The algorithm, contextual variable elimination, is based on the standard variable elimination algorithm that eliminates the nonquery variables in turn, but when eliminating a variable, the tables that need to be multiplied can depend on the context. This algorithm reduces to standard variable elimination when there is no contextual independence structure to exploit. We show how this can be much more efficient than variable elimination when there is structure to exploit. We explain why this new method can exploit more structure than previous methods for structured belief network inference and an analogous algorithm that uses trees.


Dolphins are interactive graded readers specially designed to make developing language skills fun for younger learners. Full-colour illustrations and cross-curricular content stimulate students' interest and maintain their attention, while carefully graded English introduces them to new language points in an entertaining context. Integrated activities for every page of story text encourage students to practise newly acquired language skills.


How do return migrants reintegrate back into the society? This question has been explored by much academic scholarship interested in the migration and development nexus. This paper contributes to these debates, but focuses on the experiences of re-adaptation of return migrants in the legal sphere. It systematically addresses three interrelated questions. First, how do return migrants re-establish their relationship with the legal system upon arrival? Second, how do their experiences of return and re-adaptation, upon being exposed to different ways of understanding and relating to the law, contribute to their interpretations of legality, and influence their values and attitudes to law? Finally, how do return migrants' responses to the law in the commonplace contribute to the production of legal knowledge? (cf. Yngvesson and Coutin 2006: 178; Riles 2006). The analysis is based on 99 in-depth interviews conducted in Ukraine with return migrants, family members of migrants and representatives of organizations that help return migrants reintegrate back into the society. The data has been gathered under the auspices of THEMIS project. Discussing migrants' legal adaptations I pay particular attention to the logic of difference (Moore 1986) between how law and legality are being perceived 'at home' and abroad, and what this can tell us about 1) the safety and personal security of return migrants; 2) their relationships with the police, bureaucracy and local officials; and 3) their choice of career paths and business ventures in Ukraine. I employ the comparative lens on the role of law to grapple with the fabrications of some of socially constructed 'myths' about legality in Ukraine.


Two decades after its birth, the World Wide Web is in decline, as simpler, sleeker services — think apps — are less about the searching and more about the getting. Chris Anderson explains how this new paradigm reflects the inevitable course of capitalism. And Michael Wolff explains why the new breed of media titan is forsaking the Web for more promising (and profitable) pastures. Image: article illustration / Andrew Odlyzko


leyds-60-8206.pdf created from original pamphlet in the WJ Leyds Collection held in the Africana Section of the Stellenbosch University Library and Information Service.


Abstract. A continuous tropospheric and stratospheric vertically resolved ozone time series, from 1850 to 2099, has been generated to be used as forcing in global climate models that do not include interactive chemistry. A multiple linear regression analysis of SAGE I+II satellite observations and polar ozonesonde measurements is used for the stratospheric zonal mean dataset during the well-observed period from 1979 to 2009. In addition to terms describing the mean annual cycle, the regression includes terms representing equivalent effective stratospheric chlorine (EESC) and the 11-yr solar cycle variability. The EESC regression fit coefficients, together with pre-1979 EESC values, are used to extrapolate the stratospheric ozone time series backward to 1850. While a similar procedure could be used to extrapolate into the future, coupled chemistry climate model (CCM) simulations indicate that future stratospheric ozone abundances are likely to be significantly affected by climate change, and capturing such effects through a regression model approach is not feasible. Therefore, the stratospheric ozone dataset is extended into the future (merged in 2009) with multi-model mean projections from 13 CCMs that performed a simulation until 2099 under the SRES (Special Report on Emission Scenarios) A1B greenhouse gas scenario and the A1 adjusted halogen scenario in the second round of the Chemistry-Climate Model Validation (CCMVal-2) Activity. The stratospheric zonal mean ozone time series is merged with a three-dimensional tropospheric data set extracted from simulations of the past by two CCMs (CAM3.5 and GISS-PUCCINI) and of the future by one CCM (CAM3.5). The future tropospheric ozone time series continues the historical CAM3.5 simulation until 2099 following the four different Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). Generally good agreement is found between the historical segment of the ozone database and satellite observations, although it should be noted that total column ozone is overestimated in the southern polar latitudes during spring and tropospheric column ozone is slightly underestimated. Vertical profiles of tropospheric ozone are broadly consistent with ozonesondes and in-situ measurements, with some deviations in regions of biomass burning. The tropospheric ozone radiative forcing (RF) from the 1850s to the 2000s is 0.23 W m−2, lower than previous results. The lower value is mainly due to (i) a smaller increase in biomass burning emissions; (ii) a larger influence of stratospheric ozone depletion on upper tropospheric ozone at high southern latitudes; and possibly (iii) a larger influence of clouds (which act to reduce the net forcing) compared to previous radiative forcing calculations. Over the same period, decreases in stratospheric ozone, mainly at high latitudes, produce a RF of −0.08 W m−2, which is more negative than the central Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) value of −0.05 W m−2, but which is within the stated range of −0.15 to +0.05 W m−2. The more negative value is explained by the fact that the regression model simulates significant ozone depletion prior to 1979, in line with the increase in EESC and as confirmed by CCMs, while the AR4 assumed no change in stratospheric RF prior to 1979. A negative RF of similar magnitude persists into the future, although its location shifts from high latitudes to the tropics. This shift is due to increases in polar stratospheric ozone, but decreases in tropical lower stratospheric ozone, related to a strengthening of the Brewer-Dobson circulation, particularly through the latter half of the 21st century. Differences in trends in tropospheric ozone among the four RCPs are mainly driven by different methane concentrations, resulting in a range of tropospheric ozone RFs between 0.4 and 0.1 W m−2 by 2100. The ozone dataset described here has been released for the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) model simulations in netCDF Climate and Forecast (CF) Metadata Convention at the PCMDI website ( http://cmip-pcmdi.llnl.gov/ ).


Born to parents who were enthusiastic naturalists, and linked through his wider family to a clutch of accomplished scientists, Richard Dawkins was bound to have biology in his genes. But what were the influences that shaped his life and intellectual development? And who inspired him to become the pioneering scientist and public thinker now famous (and infamous to some) around the world? In An Appetite for Wonder we join him on a personal journey back to an enchanting childhood in colonial Africa. There the exotic natural world was his constant companion. Boarding school in England aged 8, and later, public school at Oundle introduce him, and the reader, to strange rules and eccentric school masters vividly described with both humorous affection and some reservation. An initial fervent attachment to Church of England religion soon gives way to disaffection and, later, teenage rebellion. Early signs of a preference for music, poetry and reading over practical matters become apparent as he recalls the opportunities that entered his small world. Oxford, however, is the catalyst to his life. Vigorous debate in the dynamic Zoology Department unleashes his innate intellectual curiosity; and inspirational mentors together with his own creative thinking ignite the spark that results in his radical and new vision of Darwinism, The Selfish Gene. From innocent child to charismatic world-famous scientist, Richard Dawkins paints a colourful, richly-textured canvas of his early life. Honest self-reflection and witty anecdote are interspersed with touching reminiscences of his best-loved family and friends, literature, poetry and songs. We are finally able to understand the private influences that shaped the public man who more than anyone else in his generation explained our own origins.


Violence against women has been described as "perhaps the most shameful human rights violation, and the most pervasive."1 Addressing violence against women is central to the achievement of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 3 on women's empowerment and gender equality, as well as MDGs 4, 5 and 6.2 It is also a peace and security issue. In spite of this recognition, investment in prevention and in services for survivors remains woefully inadequate.

Research on violence against women – especially male partner violence – has increased. Since 2005, when the first results of the World Health Organization (WHO) Multi-Country Study on Women's Health and Domestic Violence3 were launched, the number of intimate partner violence prevalence studies increased fourfold, from 80 to more than 300, in 2008. We now have population-based prevalence data on intimate partner violence from more than 90 countries, although there are still some regions – such as the Middle East and west Africa – where there is relatively limited data. Similarly, there is also a growing body of evidence about the range of negative health and development consequences of this violence.

Women suffer violent deaths either directly – through homicide – or indirectly, through suicide, maternal causes and AIDS. Violence is also an important cause of morbidity from multiple mental, physical, sexual and reproductive health outcomes, and it is also linked with known risk factors for poor health, such as alcohol and drug use, smoking and unsafe sex.4,5 Violence during pregnancy has also been associated with an increased risk of miscarriage, premature delivery and low birth weight.6,7

When the cumulative impacts on mortality and morbidity are assessed, the health burden is often higher than for other, more commonly accepted, public health priorities. In Mexico City, for example, rape and intimate partner violence against women was estimated to be the third most important cause of morbidity and mortality, accounting for 5.6% of all disability-adjusted life years lost.8 In Victoria, Australia, partner violence accounted for 7.9% of the overall disease burden among women of reproductive age and was a larger risk to health than factors such as raised blood pressure, tobacco use and increased body weight.9

In addition to the human costs, research also shows that violence has huge economic costs, including the direct costs to health, legal, police and other services. In 2002, Health Canada estimated that the direct medical costs of all forms of violence against women was 1.1 billion Canadian dollars.10 In low-resource settings, relatively few women may seek help from formal services, but because of the high prevalence of violence, the overall costs are substantial. In Uganda, for example, the cost of domestic violence was estimated at 2.5 million United States dollars in 2007.11

The broader social costs are profound but difficult to quantify.12 Violence against women is likely to constrain poverty reduction efforts by reducing women's participation in productive employment. Violence also undermines efforts to improve women's access to education, with violence and the fear of violence contributing to lower school enrolment for girls. Domestic violence has also been shown to affect the welfare and education of children in the family.

This growing understanding of the impact of violence needs to be translated into investment in primary, secondary and tertiary level prevention: including both services that respond to the needs of women living with or who have experienced violence and interventions to prevent violence. WHO has recently published Preventing intimate partner and sexual violence against women: taking action and generating evidence.13 This publication summarizes the existing evidence on strategies for primary prevention, identifying those that have been shown to be effective and those that seem promising or theoretically feasible. The review highlights the urgent need for more evidence on effective prevention interventions and for integrating sound evaluation into new initiatives, both to monitor and improve their impact and to expand the global evidence base in this area. It recognizes how infant and early childhood experiences influence the likelihood of people later becoming perpetrators or victims of intimate partner and sexual violence, as well as the need for early childhood interventions, especially for children growing up in families where there is abuse. It also recognizes the importance of strategies to empower women, financially and personally, and of challenging social norms that perpetuate this violence. Laws and policies that promote and protect the human rights of women are also necessary, if not sufficient, to address violence against women. In addition, health and other services need to be available and responsive to the needs of women suffering abuse. Concerted action is needed in all of these areas, but there is limited research on the most effective approaches.

To help address this gap, the Bulletin would like to invite submissions of papers describing research that addresses violence against women. We are particularly interested in research with a strong intervention focus, including ways to get violence against women onto different policy agendas and lessons about how to address some of the challenges policy-makers face; innovative approaches to prevention or to service provision, including community-based programmes in both conflict- and crises-affected and more stable settings; research to address more neglected forms of violence against women, and evidence on the costs and cost-effectiveness of intervention responses. Descriptive research that contributes to a better understanding of the global prevalence and costs of violence, or that provides evidence about the root causes of such violence will also be considered. Submissions can be made throughout 2011 at: http://submit.bwho.org


Globalisation and the political process of European integration opened the European Union member states to one another. As different EU member states have different languages, participation in globalisation and the process of European integration is dependent on Europeans' ability to speak the languages of others. Those who speak multiple languages can more easily come into contact with citizens of other countries, conduct business and diplomacy, cooperate academically, organise protests across national boundaries, or enter into romantic relations with them. In short, they can socialise transnationally in a number of different dimensions. Those who only speak their native language are, in contrast, tied to their home country and can only take slight advantage of the perks of a united Europe and a globalised world. Possessing transnational linguistic capital is a deciding factor in whether or not someone can participate in an emerging European society; it becomes a new measure of social inequality, a resource that can either lead to societal inclusion or exclusion.The question central to our study is to what degree citizens in the twenty‐ seven EU member states possess transnational linguistic capital and how to explain the differences in multilingualism both between and within the member states. We present a general explanatory model for foreign language proficiency, create hypotheses from this model and test them empirically. Drawing on a survey conducted in twenty‐seven European countries it can be shown that the peoples' ability to speak different languages can be very well predicted with the help of the different explanatory factors. We find that country size, the prevalence of a respondent's native language, the linguistic difference between one's mother tongue and the foreign language, and age affect language acquisition negatively, whereas a country's level of education has a positive influence. Using Bourdieu's theory of social class, we show that besides other factors a respondent's social class position and the level of education are important micro‐level factors that help to increase a person's transnational linguistic capital.One must put these results in the context of the state of the art. The analysis of multilingualism is a major topic in linguistics, psychology, and education. The societal conditions in which language learners are embedded are hardly taken into account in these studies. This would not be worth discussing any further if sociology was not relevant to multilingualism; but the contrary seems to be true. Our analysis shows that the neglected societal conditions are actually of central importance in determining transnational linguistic capital.


The Life Line, a thrilling scene of rescue on stormy seas, firmly established Winslow Homer (1836-1910) as one of the leading American painters of his day, and one of the foremost maritime artists of all time. Combining a close analysis of Homer's masterpiece with an engaging look at the history of images of disaster and rescue in art and popular culture, Shipwreck! explores the making and meaning of an iconic American work of art. Kathleen A. Foster locates The Life Line within the tradition of shipwreck paintings from the 17th century onward, as well as in relation to Homer's earlier work, which also featured themes of disaster, suspense, and salvation. This intriguing book presents new research that tracks Homer's delicate management of the figures' erotic embrace, and traces how the artist was influenced by popular contemporary images of drowning, rescue, and mourning as well as the development of new life-saving technologies.


The Cayman Islands are one of the world's leading offshore financial centers (OFCs). Their development from a barter economy in 1960 to a leading OFC for the location of hedge funds, captive insurance companies, yacht registrations, special purpose vehicles, and international banking today was the result of a collaborative policy making process that involved local leaders, expatriate professionals, and British officials. Over several decades, Cayman created a political system that enabled it to successfully compete in world financial markets for transactions, participate in major international efforts to control financial crimes, and avoid the political, economic, racial, and social problems that plague many of its Caribbean neighbors. Using archival sources, participant interviews, and a wide range of other materials, this Article describes how the collaborative policy making process developed over time and discusses the implications of Cayman's success for financial reform efforts today.


Processing bodies (P-bodies) are cytoplasmic foci implicated in the regulation of mRNA translation, storage, and degradation. Key effectors of microRNA (miRNA)-mediated RNA interference (RNAi), such as Argonaute-2 (Ago2), miRNAs, and their cognate mRNAs, are localized to these structures; however, the precise role that P-bodies and their component proteins play in small interfering RNA (siRNA)-mediated RNAi remains unclear. Here, we investigate the relationship between siRNA-mediated RNAi, RNAi machinery proteins, and P-bodies. We show that upon transfection into cells, siRNAs rapidly localize to P-bodies in their native double-stranded conformation, as indicated by fluorescence resonance energy transfer imaging and that Ago2 is at least in part responsible for this siRNA localization pattern, indicating RISC involvement. Furthermore, siRNA transfection induces up-regulated expression of both GW182, a key P-body component, and Ago2, indicating that P-body localization and interaction with GW182 and Ago2 are important in siRNA-mediated RNAi. By virtue of being centers where these proteins and siRNAs aggregate, we propose that the P-body microenvironment, whether as microscopically visible foci or submicroscopic protein complexes, facilitates siRNA processing and siRNA-mediated silencing through the action of its component proteins.


Given difficult to access pre-colonial forms of surplus extraction, African colonial governments faced severe constraints to raise revenue for incipient colonial state formation. This paper compares the ways in which the British and the French dealt with this challenge in a quantitative framework. We exploit colonial government budget accounts to construct PPP-adjusted comparisons of per capita government revenue by source. A comparison of fiscal capacity building shows that pragmatic responses to varying local economic, political and demographic conditions can easily be mistaken for specific metropolitan blueprints of colonial governance and that under comparable local circumstances the French and British operated in remarkably similar ways.


The Work of the Holy Spirit "I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. 5 But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' 6 But because I have said these things to you,sorrow has filled your heart. 7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment:9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; 11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. 12 "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.


The history of Capital Punishment is as old as that of mankind. In the Western world the first instance seems to be The Law of Moses, inflicting death for blasphemy. By 1179 B.C. murder was a capital crime among Egyptians and Greeks. In the beginning, offences against religion and morality attracted Capital Punishment. However, the primitive societies soon grew up into kingdoms and consequently criminal law also changed quickly. Whether it was West or East, offences against the King were considered as more serious. Thus, the political offences were also added to the religious and moral offences and Capital Punishment was prescribed for such offences also. With the advent of industrialization and advancement of civilization, Capital Punishment was prescribed for offences against the property and human body. Now, in the modern world, capital offences further covered drug-trafficking, hijacking the airplanes, bribery etc. Some Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia even want to add artificial insemination also to the list of capital offences. Retentionists of Capital Punishment argue that Capital Punishment is necessary to maintain peace in the world since it acts as a deterrent to potential offenders. In the beginning, public opinion was also in favor of Capital Punishment in preference to life imprisonment. On the other hand abolitionists argue that Capital Punishment failed as a deterrent and no major work of any researcher ever proved its efficacy. Further they maintain that it is an inhuman punishment arbitrarily imposed on the poor, the minority, the uneducated and the downtrodden. The conflict of opinion between the abolitionists and retentionists over Capital Punishment generated a debate throughout the world about the utility of Capital Punishment in the modern world, where great importance is attached to basic human freedoms.


Cytochrome P450 enzymes (P450s) are heme containing monooxygenases with great potential in applications focused in biotechnological areas. An understanding of the precise chemical process behind this enzyme is essential in research in the areas of pharmaceuticals and biochemistry. In order to get a better understanding of P450s, it is important to provide spectroscopic characterization of the electron spin distributions within the heme macrocycle. Paramagnetic NMR has been shown to be a powerful tool for probing electronic distribution and spin-densities within the heme macrocycle. Selective incorporation of 13C may facilitate the use of 13C-NMR in the study of P450 monooxygenase. Furthermore, selective labeling with 15N or 2H at specific positions within the heme group maybe also be useful in the application of other spectroscopic techniques when applied to P450 enzymes. All of these labeling studies could be accomplished using a recombinant expression system involving a strain of E.coli which cannot produce aminolevulinic acid (ALA), a biosynthetic heme precursor. By synthesizing 2H, 13C or 15N labeled ALA, incorporation of these isotopes into the heme of dehaloperoxidase, a model heme protein, via the biosynthetic pathway of the heme cofactor maybe accomplished. A successfully method was developed to make 2H-ALA in a way that is both economical and time efficient, and the relative ability of this expression system to incorporate 2H into the heme was evaluated, relative to 13C or 15N.


The construction of exclosures along two of the most important rivers in the Kruger National Park was done to investigate how patterns of spatial and temporal heterogeneity of the riparian zone is affected by fire, flood and herbivory. To assist this research programme, vegetation surveys were conducted within exclosures along the Letaba River to classify and map the vegetation of the area. The history and experimental design of the Letaba exclosures are similar to that of the Nkhuhlu exclosures along the Sabie River, which is directly related to questions surrounding elephant management. The main difference between the Nkhuhlu and Letaba exclosures is local heterogeneity, since the latter lies within the Mopaneveld, which is floristically and physiognomically much more homogenous than the vegetation of the southern Kruger National Park. Nevertheless, four plant communities, eight sub-communities and six variants were recognised and mapped for the Letaba exclosures. The vegetation description was done in relation to prevailing soil forms, differences in species richness, diversity and community structure, and therefore should serve as a basis for further detailed and broad-based botanical studies. Vegetation mapping was done to sub-community level and, where possible, to variant level. As expected in Mopaneveld vegetation, the plant communities could broadly be related to soil types, although smaller-scale variations correspond to soil moisture availability because the Mopaneveld is considered 'event-driven', especially in the herbaceous layer. Conservation implications: Floristic surveying and vegetation mapping of a long-term monitoring site, such as the Letaba exclosures, is seen as a baseline inventory to assist natural resource management. Linking mapping units to biodiversity strengthens the understanding needed to maintain biodiversity in all its natural facets and fluxes.


We present the user-centered, iterative design of Mobile Facets, a mobile application for the faceted search and exploration of a large, multi-dimensional data set of social media on a touchscreen mobile phone. Mobile Facets provides retrieval of resources such as places, persons, organizations, and events from an integration of different open social media sources and professional content sources, namely Wikipedia, Eventful, Upcoming, geo-located Flickr photos, and GeoNames. The data is queried live from the data sources. Thus, in contrast to other approaches we do not know in advance the number and type of facets and data items the Mobile Facets application receives in a specific contextual situation. While developingrnMobile Facets, we have continuously evaluated it with a small group of fifive users. We have conducted a task-based, formative evaluation of the fifinal prototype with 12 subjects to show the applicability and usability of our approach for faceted search and exploration on a touchscreen mobile phone.


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Adoptive cell transfer of T-cell receptor-engineered lymphocytes: lessons from recent modeling. Journal: Future Oncol Publication Year: 2010 Authors: Antoni Ribas, Richard C Koya PubMed link: 21142653 Funding Grants: Stem Cells for Immune System Regeneration to Fight Cancer Public Summary: This article reviews the recent advances made in adoptive cell transfer of T-cell receptor-engineered lymphocytes in animal models. This approach is currently being used for cancer immunotherapy. Improvements have been made to optimize the genetic sequences that direct the expression of the engineered T-cell receptors. Markers have been included in these genetic sequences that allow the cells to be imaged with PET imaging. This allows one to track the distribution of the cells in mice and eventually in patients. Advancements made in animal models are rapidly being translated into the clinic. Scientific Abstract:


When Charles Darwin finished The Origin of Species, he thought that he had explained every clue, but one. Though his theory could explain many facts, Darwin knew that there was a significant event in the history of life that his theory did not explain. During this event, the "Cambrian explosion," many animals suddenly appeared in the fossil record without apparent ancestors in earlier layers of rock. In Darwin's Doubt, Stephen C. Meyer tells the story of the mystery surrounding this explosion of animal life—a mystery that has intensified, not only because the expected ancestors of these animals have not been found, but because scientists have learned more about what it takes to construct an animal. During the last half century, biologists have come to appreciate the central importance of biological information—stored in DNA and elsewhere in cells—to building animal forms. Expanding on the compelling case he presented in his last book, Signature in the Cell, Meyer argues that the origin of this information, as well as other mysterious features of the Cambrian event, are best explained by intelligent design, rather than purely undirected evolutionary processes.


Abstract. Biomass burning (BB) is the second largest source of trace gases and the largest source of primary fine carbonaceous particles in the global troposphere. Many recent BB studies have provided new emission factor (EF) measurements. This is especially true for non-methane organic compounds (NMOC), which influence secondary organic aerosol (SOA) and ozone formation. New EF should improve regional to global BB emissions estimates and therefore, the input for atmospheric models. In this work we present an up-to-date, comprehensive tabulation of EF for known pyrogenic species based on measurements made in smoke that has cooled to ambient temperature, but not yet undergone significant photochemical processing. All EFs are converted to one standard form (g compound emitted per kg dry biomass burned) using the carbon mass balance method and they are categorized into 14 fuel or vegetation types. Biomass burning terminology is defined to promote consistency. We compile a large number of measurements of biomass consumption per unit area for important fire types and summarize several recent estimates of global biomass consumption by the major types of biomass burning. Post emission processes are discussed to provide a context for the emission factor concept within overall atmospheric chemistry and also highlight the potential for rapid changes relative to the scale of some models or remote sensing products. Recent work shows that individual biomass fires emit significantly more gas-phase NMOC than previously thought and that including additional NMOC can improve photochemical model performance. A detailed global estimate suggests that BB emits at least 400 Tg yr−1 of gas-phase NMOC, which is almost 3 times larger than most previous estimates. Selected recent results (e.g. measurements of HONO and the BB tracers HCN and CH3CN) are highlighted and key areas requiring future research are briefly discussed.


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Studies have demonstrated that articulatory information can model speech variability effectively and can potentially help to improve speech recognition performance. Most of the studies involving articulatory information have focused on effectively estimating them from speech, and few studies have actually used such features for speech recognition. Speech recognition studies using articulatory information have been mostly confined to digit or medium vocabulary speech recognition, and efforts to incorporate them into large vocabulary systems have been limited. We present a neural network model to estimate articulatory trajectories from speech signals where the model was trained using synthetic speech signals generated by Haskins Laboratories' task-dynamic model of speech production. The trained model was applied to natural speech, and the estimated articulatory trajectories obtained from the models were used in conjunction with standard cepstral features to train acoustic models for large-vocabulary recognition systems. Two different large-vocabulary English datasets were used in the experiments reported here. Results indicate that employing articulatory information improves speech recognition performance not only under clean conditions but also under noisy background conditions. Perceptually motivated robust features were also explored in this study and the best performance was obtained when systems based on articulatory, standard cepstral and perceptually motivated feature were all combined.


As a service to readers, Wind Energy regularly conducts literature surveys and publishes lists of relevant articles drawn from recent issues of Wind Energy itself and a large number of periodicals including Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics , International Journal of Energy Research , Renewable Energy , Energy Sources , Journal of Solar Energy Engineering , American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Journal , Electric Power Components and Systems along with a number of periodicals published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, etc. The list is limited exclusively to journals not speci fi cally devoted to wind energy and its applications. To assist the reader, the list is separated into broad categories. Although many papers fi t several categories, each paper is listed only once under the category thought most appropriate. Please note that the inclusion in the list is not an endorsement of a paper ' s quality. Compiled by Christian Pavese, Department of Wind Energy, Technical University of Denmark, PO 49, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark. Please email any suggestions to email@example.com. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


In the post-Civil War North Carolina Piedmont, hardship visited all Southerners, and cast unprecedented numbers of women from every socioeconomic level, not merely the lowest ranks, into roles as providers. Increasing numbers of women sustained alternatives to the traditional patriarchal household and challenged conventional notions regarding a woman's nature and place by serving as breadwinners and courtroom advocates for themselves and their families. During Reconstruction, women gained legal recourse for protecting their assets as well as their individual freedoms, and the courtroom became an important site of their economic agency. Despite the public discourse that built up an ideal of economic and legal dependency for women, North Carolina's married women's property legislation and other safeguards available to women, including divorce, were avenues through which women could gain control of their assets and income. The imperative among white Southerners to distinguish white women from black women influenced an almost thoroughly racially divided female labor force in Piedmont cities. Increasing numbers of white urban women entered the labor force as small businesswomen, operating boarding houses and working as dressmakers and milliners, while black women worked most often as servants for white families. The race and gender hierarchy that kept black women in a degraded position simultaneously ignored the economic contributions of most white women, who were traditionally portrayed as non-laborers in opposition to the laboring identity assigned to black women, and even when their economic contributions to their families were quite significant. Their concentration in white and "female" occupations ensured that white women's labor reinscribed race and gender hierarchies as they simultaneously gained greater economic independence and challenged conventional notions of their roles.
White women did not generally seek to overturn the ideal of white womanhood that ignored their roles as providers for fear that they might slip from the pedestal constructed for them. Nonetheless, their daily lives were marked by demands on their labor and they engaged in a wide range of economic activities that frequently played crucial roles in supporting their families. Although all women were constrained by the race and gender hierarchy, the economic agency of white women reveals how they also benefited from and contributed to that system in the late-nineteenth century Piedmont.