Increased diversity among participants in the justice system, particularly judges, has fueled debates about the values and perspectives that women bring to the law. Difference theories advanced by social psychologists and feminist scholars argue for the premise that men and women in the legal system approach questions of justice differently. By contrast, empirical scholarship offers only limited support for the expectation that the sex of the judge is related to behavioral outcomes. Although most research has not uncovered differences in voting between men and women judges, one area in which consistent differences has been found is in sex discrimination cases.
 Recent studies suggest, however, that individual differences between men and women judges may emerge if the focus shifts to the litigation process. In one study of trial courts, cases assigned to women judges were more likely to be settled. In another study of appellate courts, women judges were more likely to pen majority opinions that adopted a compromise position. These findings suggest the promise of shifting the analytical focus away from behavioral outcomes to consider whether, and how, women and men in the legal system shape litigation processes. Doing so will require additional data and triangulated approaches that employ both quantitative and qualitative methods.
 Additional research is also needed to explore how shifts in the gender composition of the bench affect organizational norms and practices in the legal system at the federal, state, and local levels. Some work suggests that gender diversity affects deliberations on small appellate panels and consensual norms on larger courts. As the number of women and minorities appointed by recent Democratic and Republican presidents has increased, scholars are also now well positioned to conduct empirical research with larger numbers to investigate how women of color on the bench differ from white women and minority men.


The challenges facing Lutherans in South(ern) Africa. This article seeks to discuss what the future appears to hold for Lutheranism in South Africa. In order to do this, it is important to look at the past through the history and involvement of Lutheranism in South Africa. This will show the strengths, weaknesses, challenges, and opportunities for Lutheran theology and the Lutheran churches in South Africa in relation to Lutheranism in its global context. Accordingly the article starts off by providing a brief history of Lutheranism in South Africa, examining the role of missionaries from Germany, Norway and Sweden in establishing Lutheranism in South Africa. The article also looks at how apartheid divided the faithful along racial lines, thereby pointing to the challenges, weaknesses, as well as the strengths of the mission of Lutheran churches in this part of Africa. It then moves on to discuss some challenges before Lutheranism in South Africa today. Some of the challenges discussed in this article are as follows: (1) efforts to unite the Black and White Lutherans have so far not succeeded, (2) the role of Lutheran theological education in equipping ministers to address current societal challenges, (3) financial sustainability, (4) African Religious Pluralism, (5) the promotion of gender sensitivity and equality amongst Lutheran congregants, (6) ethnicity and (7) the role and status of self-supporting ministry. And, finally, the article highlights few issues about the changing world of Lutheranism globally.


In contrast to major legislative reform packages in the 20 century, the Affordable Care Act of 2010 took the form of a tax bill. Although this legislation is the first massive social and regulatory overhaul completed through the tax code, in the past twenty-five years the U.S. Congress and Presidential administrations have substantially increased their use of tax law for non-revenue-raising purposes. Growing reliance on the tax code represents a structural transformation of how Congress and Presidential administrations have come to approach lawmaking goals. This transformation defies the near-consensus of previous tax scholarship, which, following Stanley Surrey, disapproves of embedding programs in the tax code. However, that dominant view rests on assumptions that have become outdated. This Article analyzes the ongoing structural transformation by observing and explaining the advantages that accrue from pursuing social and regulatory objectives through the tax code. In particular, this Article identifies a number of legislative and normative advantages that tax-embedded policies offer.


Experts, pundits, and politicians agree: public debt is hindering growth and increasing unemployment. Governments must reduce debt at all cost if they want to restore confidence and get back on a path to prosperity. Maurizio Lazzarato's diagnosis, however, is completely different: under capitalism, debt is not primarily a question of budget and economic concerns but a political relation of subjection and enslavement. Debt has become infinite and unpayable. It disciplines populations, calls for structural reforms, justifies authoritarian crackdowns, and even legitimizes the suspension of democracy in favor of "technocratic governments" beholden to the interests of capital. The 2008 economic crisis only accelerated the establishment of a "new State capitalism," which has carried out a massive confiscation of societies' wealth through taxes. And who benefits? Finance capital. In a calamitous return to the situation before the two world wars, the entire process of accumulation is now governed by finance, which has absorbed sectors it once ignored, like higher education, and today is often identified with life itself. Faced with the current catastrophe and the disaster to come, Lazzarato contends, we must overcome capitalist valorization and reappropriate our existence, knowledge, and technology. In Governing by Debt, Lazzarato confronts a wide range of thinkers -- from Felix Guattari and Michel Foucault to David Graeber and Carl Schmitt -- and draws on examples from the United States and Europe to argue that it is time that we unite in a collective refusal of this most dire status quo.


Abstract A dual probe was investigated by UV-Vis, fluorescence, and ESR spectroscopy. It comprises the pyrene chromophore and the paramagnetic 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidinyl-N-oxyl radical that are covalently linked together via an ester bridge. The dual probe was used to investigate molecular solvents of different polarity as well as ionic liquids bearing either imidazolium or pyrrolidinium cations and various anions, such as bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide, tetrafluoroborate, tris(pentafluoroethyl)trifluorophosphate, or dicyanamide. The dual probe does not show solvatochromism that is typical for some pyrenes. Furthermore, the dual probe is considerable less mobile compared to 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidinyl-N-oxyl (TEMPO) without additional substituent as detected by ESR spectroscopy. This is caused by the bulky pyrenyl substituent bound at the dual probe resulting in a reduced mobility of the dual probe.


Our Missing Manual is hands-down the bestselling book on iPhoto. And now, updated to cover Apple's newest release, iPhoto 5: The Missing Manual comes fully loaded--and in full color--so you can exercise all the power, flexibility, and creativity of the stunning new iPhoto 5. Some of iPhoto 5's fifty new features are tiny nips and tucks, such as menu rewordings, quiet refinements, and secret keystrokes that take most people days to stumble through. Others are big-ticket overhauls aimed at both power users (RAW-file import and editing, color correction sliders, real-time histogram) and everyday shutterbugs (nested file folders, individual-photo control in slideshows, and a completely rewritten book-layout kit). Additional improvements include a robust search feature (similar to that of iTunes) and the addition of "objects" for slideshow and book projects (using objects, you can manipulate images without affecting pictures in your master library). iPhoto 5: The Missing Manual covers them all with the scrupulous objectivity, clever wit, and technical wisdom you count on from David Pogue along with the Mac and digital photography expertise of Derrick Story. Their authoritative guide starts out with a crash course on digital photography, complete with tutorials on buying a digital camera, composing brilliant photos in various situations (including sports photography, portraits, nighttime photography--even kid photography!) and making digital movies. iPhoto 5: The Missing Manual then launches into every detail of iPhoto, from camera-meets-Mac basics to storing, searching, and editing; from sharing your digital photography with the world (via customized slideshows--complete with iTunes soundtrack, if you like--prints, photo books, email, the Web, and even your network) to exporting to QuickTime and iDVD. And don't forget iPhoto "stunts," such as building custom screen savers and desktop backdrops; exporting pictures; making the most of plug-ins, add-ons, and beef-ups; using AppleScript; and managing files with backups, CDs, and photo libraries. iPhoto 5: The Missing Manual gives you everything you need to become the digital photographer extraordinaire you want to be.


One goal in teacher education is to prepare prospective teachers (PTs) for a career of systematic re_ ection and learning from their own teaching. One important skill involved in systematic re_ ection, which has received little research attention, is linking teaching actions with their outcomes on student learning; such links have been termed hypotheses. We developed an assessment task to investigate PTs' ability to create such hypotheses, prior to instruction. PTs (N = 16) each read a mathematics lesson transcript and then responded to four question prompts. The four prompts were designed to vary along research-based criteria to examine whether different contexts in_ uenced PTs' enactment of their hypothesizing skills. Results suggest that the assessment did capture PTs' hypothesizing ability and that there is room for teacher educators to help PTs develop better hypothesis skills. Additional analysis of the assessment task showed that the type of question prompt used had only minimal effect on PTs' responses.


Asynchronous Partial Overlay (APO) is a search algorithm that uses cooperative mediation to solve Distributed Constraint Satisfaction Problems (DisCSPs). The algorithm partitions the search into different subproblems of the DisCSP. The original proof of completeness of the APO algorithm is based on the growth of the size of the subproblems. The present paper demonstrates that this expected growth of subproblems does not occur in some situations, leading to a termination problem of the algorithm. The problematic parts in the APO algorithm that interfere with its completeness are identified and necessary modifications to the algorithm that fix these problematic parts are given. The resulting version of the algorithm, Complete Asynchronous Partial Overlay (CompAPO), ensures its completeness. Formal proofs for the soundness and completeness of CompAPO are given. A detailed performance evaluation of CompAPO comparing it to other DisCSP algorithms is presented, along with an extensive experimental evaluation of the algorithm's unique behavior. Additionally, an optimization version of the algorithm, CompOptAPO, is presented, discussed, and evaluated.


Robots today serve in many roles, from entertainer to educator to executioner. As robotics technology advances, ethical concerns become more pressing: Should robots be programmed to follow a code of ethics, if this is even possible? Are there risks in forming emotional bonds with robots? How might society--and ethics--change with robotics? This volume is the first book to bring together prominent scholars and experts from both science and the humanities to explore these and other questions in this emerging field. Starting with an overview of the issues and relevant ethical theories, the topics flow naturally from the possibility of programming robot ethics to the ethical use of military robots in war to legal and policy questions, including liability and privacy concerns. The contributors then turn to human-robot emotional relationships, examining the ethical implications of robots as sexual partners, caregivers, and servants. Finally, they explore the possibility that robots, whether biological-computational hybrids or pure machines, should be given rights or moral consideration. Ethics is often slow to catch up with technological developments. This authoritative and accessible volume fills a gap in both scholarly literature and policy discussion, offering an impressive collection of expert analyses of the most crucial topics in this increasingly important field.


The right-quantum algebra was introduced recently by Garoufalidis, Le and Zeilberger in their quantum generalization of the MacMahon master theorem. A bijective proof of this identity due to Konvalinka and Pak, and also the recent proof of the right-quantum Sylvester's determinant identity, make heavy use of a bijection related to the first fundamental transformation on words introduced by Foata. This paper makes explicit the connection between this transformation and right-quantum linear algebra identities; we give a new, bijective proof of the right-quantum matrix inverse theorem, we show that similar techniques prove the right-quantum Jacobi ratio theorem, and we use the matrix inverse formula to find a generalization of the (right-quantum) MacMahon master theorem.


Everything you need for class assemblies in one ready-to-use pack. Four assemblies specially tailored for Year 3, with accompanying songs and music, as well as ideas for dances, costumes and sets, with supporting teaching notes. Four complete class assemblies for Year 3, carefully designed to take the stress out of whole-class performances. Each assembly is based on a story which links to literacy topics, as well as cross-curricular themes. The stories are scripted, allowing the class to join in with lines, actions and choral speech. Supporting teaching notes provide ideas for sets, costumes and dances, as well as advice for preparing the performance, and for linking the assembly to classroom work and SEAL themes. The accompanying audio CD provides music for entering and exiting the assembly, performance and backing tracks for the songs and music for optional dances. No music reading required.


A Strategic Variance Analysis (SVA) is a management tool used to establish reasons for differences in a firm's operating income between two time periods – reasons that may not always be apparent from the financial statements. SVA allows management to determine, in the form of performance variances, changes in operating income resulting from changes in sales volume, sales prices, unit costs per unit of activity, productivity and capacity utilization. An SVA of American Airlines' 2009 results, as compared to its 2008 results, reveals improvements in operating income of $891 million. Specifically, the results reveal that American Airlines reduced its sales volume, reduced its ticket prices, reduced its unit costs per unit of activity, improved its productivity and reduced its level of capacity underutilization. While this is important information for American Airlines' management to evaluate the impact of its strategic initiatives and gauge progress in meeting performance goals, it lacks a competitive perspective.

Relative Strategy Variance Analysis (RSVA) provides such a competitive perspective. It allows firms to examine how the specific performance variances determined in an SVA compare with those of its industry by allowing firms to identify whether these performance variances are driven by industry effects or firm-specific effects. RSVA is most useful in situations where firms are altering their competitive strategy positions (launching new products or services, changing pricing, reducing input costs, altering production to improve efficiency) in an environment where competitors are making similar strategic changes. Individual competitors can use RSVA to understand how their performance improvements compare with those of the general industry.

An RSVA of American Airlines reveals that the 2009 improvement of $891 million actually represents a favorable industry effect of $1.2 billion, i.e., American Airlines' 2009 improvement would have been $1.2 billion if it had matched industry performance. Its firm-specific effect was an unfavorable $296 million, i.e., American Airlines 2009 operating income, after considering industry effects, actually declined by $296 million. More specifically, the RSVA reveals that, American Airlines, as compared to its industry, reduced its sales volume more, reduced its ticket prices less, reduced its unit costs per unit of activity less, increased its productivity less and reduced its level of capacity underutilization less. Hence, American Airlines' RSVA provides an almost diametrically opposite picture from the one provided by its SVA, one that is important in managing its strategy for the future.


How do the United States Courts of Appeals decide environmental cases? More specifically, how do courts evaluate decisions of statutory interpretation made by government agencies that deal in environmental law? While research on judicial decisionmaking in environmental law has primarily focused on the D.C. Circuit, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the influence of ideology, only recently have legal scholars begun to consider the role of legal factors in judicial decisionmaking in environmental law. Yet, too little is known about environmental jurisprudence outside the District of Columbia, the other environmental agencies, and the influence of legal interpretive approaches and legal doctrine - as opposed to ideology - in environmental law cases. With special attention paid to how courts implement the Chevron doctrine, this Article empirically and doctrinally analyzes environmental law cases decided in the U.S. Courts of Appeals over a three-year period (2003-2005) to investigate what factors, including ideological, legal and institutional variables, impact judicial review of administrative agency interpretations of environmental statutes. Relying on empirical analysis and descriptive data, this Article finds that environmental cases of statutory interpretation, usually litigated in the D.C., Second and Ninth Circuits, are dominated by EPA involvement and interpretation of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. This Article's findings confirm earlier research that judges vote in their perceived ideological direction and show the Chevron doctrine, when employed in environmental cases, works as expected - courts find most statutory provisions ambiguous and then affirm agency action. There is limited evidence that judges strategically use Chevron step one to achieve desired policy preferences - at the ideological extremes, conservatives deferred to Bush Administration agencies under Chevron step two, while liberals were more likely to reverse the agency by finding the statute unambiguous under step one. Legal preferences, however, do play some role in judicial decisionmaking, and not necessarily to achieve an individual judge's policy preferences. Invoking legislative history mildly corresponds to a liberal vote, yet ideology does not predict its invocation - suggesting a judicial philosophy toward legislative history actually impacts voting outcomes and lends support for the legal model of judicial decisionmaking. This Article also makes a number of qualitative findings. Doctrinally, there remains much confusion and conflation in the circuits over how to apply the Chevron doctrine, manifested through poor opinion organization, befuddlement over the application of Chevron step zero, and multiple understandings of the difference between arbitrary and capricious review and the two Chevron steps. The circuits have shown, however, a strong willingness to defer, under any doctrine or framework, to agency action when environmental scientific expertise is required. Ultimately, this Article supports a more nuanced notion of judging in environmental cases that depends upon policy preferences, interpretive philosophies, standards of review, and scientific complexity.


We give combinatorial proofs of three identities, each of which generalizes Weyl's denominator formula for two of the three root systems $B_n$, $C_n$, $D_n$. Two of the three identities are due to S. Okada; the third appears in the author's doctoral thesis, upon which this work is based. Each of the identities we prove has a "sum side" and a "product side"; both sides are polynomials in several commuting indeterminates. We use weighted digraphs to represent the terms on each side; the set of such digraphs that corresponds to the sum side is a proper subset of the set corresponding to the product side.


The Department of Water Affairs (DWA) has embarked on a nationwide programme to develop water-reconciliation strategies for all towns across the country. Reconciliation strategies for the major metropolitan areas and systems (e.g. Johannesburg/Pretoria, East London, Cape Town and Durban) were developed next. The implementation of these strategies is monitored by strategy steering committees. The approach has now been extended to all other metropolitan areas as well as all towns and villages or clusters of villages. In order to prepare the actual strategies, regardless of the size of the town, thorough documentation, research and analysis of the available information was required, as well as evaluation of projected growth scenarios to assess water requirements over the next 25 years and identification of potential additional sources to meet this growing requirement. It has emerged that the poor operation and maintenance of water supply, treatment and reticulation infrastructure are resulting in significant losses, which, if corrected, can reverse the current water shortages being experienced. Similarly, the generally poor management of effluent remains a threat to surface water and groundwater quality downstream. It appears that many municipalities perceive groundwater as an unreliable resource; however, in general, the issue of staff and skills shortages to manage the resource effectively is the actual problem. This is an operational issue rather than a groundwater-resource-specific issue. This aspect requires special attention for existing groundwater schemes and proposed groundwater development. In most instances water conservation and water-demand management and the development of local surface and groundwater resources are the most feasible options to meet any current or projected future water-supply shortfalls. Any intervention must be combined with a skills-development programme at the operational level to ensure the sustainability of the proposed supply options. This paper is based on the experience gained in the development of reconciliation strategies for the towns and villages in the DWA Southern Planning Region (i.e. surface water drainage areas in the Eastern Cape and Western Cape Provinces), which was carried out by Umvoto Africa in association with engineering consulting practice Aurecon.


Minimum capital requirements are a central tool of banking regulation. Setting them balances a number of factors, including any effects on the cost of capital and in turn the rates available to borrowers. Standard theory predicts that, in perfect and efficient capital markets, reducing banks' leverage reduces the risk and cost of equity but leaves the overall weighted average cost of capital unchanged. We test these two predictions using U.S. data. We confirm that the equity of better-capitalized banks has lower systematic risk (beta) and lower idiosyncratic risk. However, over the last 40 years, lower risk banks have higher stock returns on a risk-adjusted or even a raw basis, consistent with a stock market anomaly previously documented in other samples. The size of the low risk anomaly within banks suggests that the cost of capital effects of capital requirements may be considerable. Assuming competitive lending markets, banks' low asset betas implied an average risk premium of only 40 basis points above Treasury yields in our sample period; a calibration suggests that a ten percentage-point increase in Tier 1 capital to risk-weighted assets may have increased this to between 100 and 130 basis points per year. In summary, the low risk anomaly in the stock market produces a potentially significant cost of capital requirements.


Despite the crucial role of concerted action to collusion among rival firms, few elements are more perplexing than the design of evidentiary standards to determine whether parallel conduct stems from collective or from unilateral decision making. Courts allow a collusive agreement to be established by circumstantial evidence, but the evidence must show additional evidence — "plus factors" — beyond parallel movement in price. Chief plus factors identified by courts have included actions contrary to each defendant's self-interest unless pursued as part of a collective plan, phenomena that can be explained rationally only as a result of concerted action, evidence that defendants created the opportunity for regulation communication, industry performance data that suggests successful coordination, and the absence of a plausible legitimate business rational for suspicious conduct. The frailties of the existing analytical tests for assessing plus factors impede the economically sensible resolution of many high-stakes antitrust cases where decisions made on the issue of conspiracy are decisive and such inadequacies may be magnified in the future. No cases have offered useful operational means for determining when the defendants have engaged in something more than consciously parallel conduct. It is possible to improve on existing approaches by focusing more precisely on the forms of behavior that firms use to communicate their intentions and to execute the tasks needed to achieve coordination on pricing, output, and other dimensions of effective collusion. Case law addressing plus factors has not established a methodology for ranking plus factors according to their probative value. The authors believe that the actions of an explicit cartel, and the outcomes of those actions, should illuminate the path to identifying plus factors and that any of those actions that surely do not result from unilateral conduct should be given special attention. Further, courts and enforcement agencies cannot address the agreement in question without awareness of remedial issues that stand in the background. Courts are left with a conundrum because they cannot meaningfully instruct firms not to react to their rivals' pricing. When firms in an industry are players in a repeated game with substantially incomplete and asymmetric information, courts can examine buyer actions to attempt to distinguish between conduct that is an agreement in violation of the Sherman Act and conduct that is not.This Article offers a way to increase understanding of plus factors and to improve the manner in which enforcement agencies and courts interpret them in individual cases by advocating the use of basic probability theory to rank plus factors in terms of their probative value. It proposes a formal definition of plus factors, a taxonomy of plus factors, and a coherent methodology for ranking them in terms of their probative values. It also proposes that plus factors should be considered in constellations whenever such groups are present because the probative value of the group can be far greater than the individual plus factors in the group.


I start from the view that small-value consumer claims are a primary reason that class actions exist, and that without class actions many - if not most - of the wrongs perpetrated upon small-claims consumers would not be capable of redress. It would then seem to follow that the class action device should be readily available in small-claims consumer cases. And yet, over the past decade, federal district courts have repeatedly declined to certify class actions on grounds that are specific to small-claims consumer cases. Foremost among those grounds is the notion that the federal class action rule carries within it an implicit requirement of "ascertainability." More specifically, courts have held that in order to certify a class, the identity of class members must be sufficiently ascertainable to ensure the efficacy of a subsequent distribution of damages. In practice, what this shadow standard of ascertainability has come to mean is that no matter how clear the evidence of wrongdoing, plaintiffs have no redress in the typical consumer case involving small retail transactions. This article examines the ascertainability doctrine as it is developing in the courts, and shows that the traditional goals of class actions - deterrence and compensation - cannot plausibly be said to animate this new certification requirement. Indeed, the ascertainability requirement readily sacrifices both deterrence and compensation in favor of an alternative value, namely, ensuring that compensation does not flow to uninjured parties. I end with a first-round effort to understand what really may be animating the ascertainability doctrine, suggesting that the explanation lies in a conception of class actions that is based on a private law model - i.e., a conception that demands unity among the injured parties, the prosecutors of civil actions, and the beneficiaries of remedies. Future work will seek to tease out the normative underpinnings of this private law model.


A two-book set for web designers and front-end developersThis two-book set combines the titles HTML & CSS: Designing and Building Web Sites and JavaScript & jQuery: Interactive Front-End Development. Together these two books form an ideal platform for anyone who wants to master HTML and CSS before stepping up to JavaScript and jQuery.HTML & CSS covers structure, text, links, images, tables, forms, useful options, adding style with CSS, fonts, colors, thinking in boxes, styling lists and tables, layouts, grids, and even SEO, Google analytics, ftp, and HTML5. JavaScript & jQuery offers an excellent combined introduction to these two technologies using a clear and simple visual approach using diagrams, infographics, and photographs.A handy two-book set that uniquely combines related technologiesHighly visual format and accessible language makes these books highly effective learning toolsPerfect for beginning web designers and front-end developers


Abstract The rise of state-mandated standards in public education have allowed legislators to answer the question of what constitutes a proper civic education, a debate that has existed in the United States since the turn of the twentieth century. Through the content they employ in their standards, states may indirectly influence the type of citizenship education students receive in the classroom. The present study focuses on the Virginia Standards of Learning for two courses, civics and economics and U.S. and Virginia government, which are commonly taught to eighth graders and high school seniors, respectively. A content analysis of the essential knowledge found in the standards for these courses categorizes instructional content into seven forms of citizenship: civic republicanism, character education, deliberative, social justice, participatory, transnational, and cosmopolitan. Although the results are specific to the Virginia Standards of Learning, the nature of how citizenship is portrayed within the standards may transfer to other states with similar forms of standards-based education within their social studies curricula.


Legal scholarship tends to conflate privacy and security. However, security and privacy can, and should, be treated as distinct concerns. Privacy discourse involves difficult normative decisions about competing claims to legitimate access to, use of, and alteration of information. It is about selecting among different philosophies, and choosing how various rights and entitlements ought to be ordered. Security implements those choices – it intermediates between information and privacy selections. This Article argues separating privacy from security has important practical consequences. Security failings should be penalized more readily, and more heavily, than privacy ones, because there are no competing moral claims to resolve, and because security flaws make all parties worse off. Currently, security flaws are penalized too rarely, and privacy ones too readily. The Article closes with a set of policy questions highlighted by the privacy versus security distinction that deserve further research.


Today it is taken for granted that Congress's power "to regulate . . . Commerce among the several States" includes the power to shut interstate markets down. That is why, for example, Congress is understood to have the power to ban the possession and use of marijuana, even though twenty states have expressed contrary preferences, either for the medicinal or recreational use of the drug. This Article argues that as a matter of constitutional history and theory both, this familiar assumption about congressional power is wrong. First, the Article demonstrates that the original understanding, which prevailed for over one hundred years, did not grant Congress the power to ban markets. Congress could pass "helper" statutes to facilitate state choices, and it could even ban particular goods (such as diseased cattle) "in service" of the interstate market; but it could not simply prohibit all commerce in products of which it disapproved. Second, the Article demonstrates that although this understanding changed following the 1903 Supreme Court decision in Champion v. Ames, none of the reasons supporting the change justify Congress possessing the power today. Finally, this Article examines theoretical justifications for congressional power grounded in law and economics and constitutional theory to suggest that the power "to regulate" interstate commerce should not be understood to include the power to prohibit it. The argument has implications for national bans on articles and activities such as interstate gambling, drugs, raw milk products and assault weapons.


It is well established that animus can never constitute a legitimate state interest for purposes of equal protection analysis. But neither precedent nor scholarship has stated conclusively how animus is properly defined, what counts as evidence of animus in any given case, or the precise doctrinal significance of a finding of animus. The U.S. Supreme Court has explicitly addressed the question of animus only a handful of times, and these cases do not appear to be particularly congruent with one another, at least on the surface. Further, while a number of scholars have discussed animus in terms of moral philosophy, no one has attempted to articulate a unified theory of animus as a matter of doctrine—particularly in the post-Lawrence era. This Article systematically examines Supreme Court precedent to distill a coherent standard for identifying the presence of animus in various forms of state action. What emerges is that the animus analysis the Court actually employs provides a more vigorous alternative to the thoroughly criticized " tiers-of-scrutiny " framework, which has defined and limited the scope of contemporary equal protection jurisprudence. In short, the doctrine of unconstitutional animus gives life to the strong anti-caste mandate of the federal Equal Protection Clause. The time is ripe to understand the nature of unconstitutional animus, as animus may well play a critical role in the Court's decisions on the constitutionality of different forms of prohibitions against same-sex marriage.


Adjusted analysis: when groups differ on baseline characteristics (eg, age), analyses of outcome data are statistically modified to account for these differences. Before-after design: data are collected from the same participants both before and after the introduction of an intervention. Cohort study: a group of people with a common characteristic or set of characteristics are followed up for a specified period of time to determine the incidence of some outcome; there is no comparison group. Confidence interval (CI): quantifies the uncertainty in measurement; usually reported as 95% CI, which is the range of values within which we can be 95% sure that the true value for the whole population lies. Confounder: a variable that affects the observed relation between 2 other variables (eg, alcohol is related to lung cancer, but does not cause the disease; instead, both alcohol and lung cancer are related to smoking, and it is the smoking that causes lung cancer). Crossover trial: a method of comparing 2 interventions in which patients are switched to the alternate intervention after a specified period of time. Discounted: an economic adjustment based on the assumption that people place greater value on something they have today than something they will have in the future. Fixed effects model: gives a summary estimate of the magnitude of effect in meta-analysis. It takes into account withinstudy variation but not between-study variation and hence is usually not used if there is significant heterogeneity. Hermeneutic phenomenology: the study of the methodological principles of interpretation by using narrative texts to explain a phenomenon. Heterogeneity: the degree to which the effect estimates of individual studies in a meta-analysis differ significantly. Intention to treat analysis (ITT): all patients are analysed in the groups to which they were randomised, even if they failed to complete the intervention or received the wrong intervention. Interrupted time series: involves multiple observations over time on the same units (eg, particular individuals) or on different, but similar, individuals (eg, same community or worksite); requires knowing when an intervention took place in order to compare before and after treatment. Markov Monte Carlo simulation model: a decision analysis that tries to more accurately represent the complex processes involved in transitions in and out of various states of health. Meta-analysis: a method for combining the results of several independent studies that measure the same outcomes so that an overall summary statistic can be calculated. Multivariate analysis: analysis involving multiple independent or dependent variables. Naturalistic inquiry: The goal of this research is to understand how individuals construct reality within their own natural setting and context. Number needed to harm (NNH): number of patients who, if they received the experimental treatment, would lead to 1 additional person being harmed compared with patients who receive the control treatment; this is calculated as 1/absolute risk increase (rounded to the next whole number), accompanied by the 95% confidence interval. Number needed to treat (NNT): number of patients who need to be treated to prevent 1 additional negative event; this is calculated as 1/absolute risk reduction (rounded to the next whole number), accompanied by the 95% confidence interval. Quality adjusted life years gained: difference (in years) in life expectancy with an intervention versus without an intervention, taking into account not only the additional years but also the quality of life during the period of extended life. Quasi-experimental: studies that do not use random assignment to create the comparison groups; designs include cohort analytic, interrupted time series, and correlational designs. Quasi-randomised study: participants are not randomly allocated to groups, but some other form of allocation is used (eg, day of the week, month of birth). Random effects model: gives a summary estimate of the magnitude of effect in meta-analysis. It takes into account both within-study and between-study variance and gives a wider confidence interval to the estimate than a fixed effects model if there is significant between-study variation. Relative benefit increase (RBI): the proportional increase in the rates of good events between experimental and control participants; it is reported as a percentage (%). Relative benefit reduction (RBR): the proportional decrease in rates of good events between experimental and control participants; it is reported as a percentage (%). Relative risk (RR): risk of adverse effects with a treatment relative to risk for those who do not receive treatment. Relative risk increase (RRI): the proportional increase in the rates of bad events between experimental and control participants; it is reported as a percentage (%). Relative risk reduction (RRR): the proportional reduction in the rates of bad events between experimental and control participants; it is reported as a percentage (%). Sensitivity analysis: tests the robustness of the observed results relative to sensible modifications in important variables. Stratified randomisation: used in trials to ensure that equal numbers of participants with a particular characteristic (eg, age) are allocated to each comparison group. Weighted: statistical analysis accounts for differences in certain important variables.


Bound to be widely read and much discussed, The Elm and the Expert, written in Jerry Fodor's usual highly readable, irreverent style, provides a lively discussion of semantic issues about mental representation, with special attention to issues raised by Frege's problem, Twin cases, and the putative indeterminacy of reference. The book extends and revises a view of the relation between mind and meaning that the author has been developing since his 1975 book, The Language of Thought. There is a general consensus among philosophers that a referential semantics for mental representation cannot support a robust account of intentional explanation. Fodor has himself espoused this view in previous publications, and it is widespread (if tacit) throughout the cognitive science community. This book is largely a reconsideration of the arguments that are supposed to ground this consensus. Fodor concludes that these considerations are far less decisive than has been supposed. He offers a theory sketch in which psychological explanation is intentional, psychological processes are computational, and the semantic properties of mental representations are referential. Connections with the problem of "naturalizing" intentionality are also explored. The four lectures in The Elm and the Expert were originally delivered in Paris in the spring of 1993 to inaugurate the Jean Nicod Lecture series. The Jean Nicod Lectures are delivered annually by a leading philosopher of mind or philosophically oriented cognitive scientist. The 1993 lectures marked the centenary of the birth of the French philosopher and logician Jean Nicod (1893-1931). The lectures are sponsored by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) as part of its effort to develop the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science in France. Jean Nicod series


The geometric shapes and natural forms, captured with exceptional precision in Ernst Haeckel's prints, still influence artists and designers to this day. This volume highlights the research and findings of this natural scientist. Powerful modern microscopes have confirmed the accuracy of Haeckel's prints, which even in their day, became world famous. Haeckel's portfolio, first published between 1899 and 1904 in separate installments, is described in the opening essays. The plates illustrate Haeckel's fundamental monistic notion of the "unity of all living things" and the wide variety of forms are executed with utmost delicacy. Incipient microscopic organisms are juxtaposed with highly developed plants and animals. The pages, ordered according to geometric and "constructive" aspects, document the oness of the world in its most diversified forms. This collection of plates was not only well-received by scientists, but by artists and architects as well. Rene Binet, a pioneer of glass and iron constructions, Emile Galle, a renowned Art Nouveau designer, and the photographer Karl Blossfeld all make explicit reference to Haeckel in their work.


Resilience in relation to flood risk management (FRM) is not a new concept, yet parts of the FRM community are still struggling to apply it. The main challenge this study addresses is the question as to whether parts of the FRM community should still adopt, or rather "leap‐frog," resilience. The main purpose is to evaluate whether resilience is a still on‐going trend or, already subsiding. Research suggests that resilience is an on‐going trend that connects research and policy and has gained international recognition as expressed by international guidelines and bodies promoting its research but also its operationalization. Academic literature in the area of FRM also shows a significant continuing development. Resilience enables to analyze dynamics and transformations of riverine areas, or coastal zones in connection to an integrated social‐environmental system approach with more emphasis and conceptual basis than previous concepts. Resilience is more than a short‐lived notion and it appears that FRM researchers cannot avoid addressing it. Resilience often is a convergence of ideas and mainstreaming of efforts, which in many venues is absolutely necessary and can help, for example, to decrease silo‐thinking. But as academics, we have a mandate to remain skeptical and remain on the look‐out for novel ideas, too.


Crowd condition monitoring concerns the crowd safety and concerns business performance metrics. The research problem to be solved is a crowd condition estimation approach to enable and support the supervision of mass events by first-responders and marketing experts, but is also targeted towards supporting social scientists, journalists, historians, public relations experts, community leaders, and political researchers. Real-time insights of the crowd condition is desired for quick reactions and historic crowd conditions measurements are desired for profound post-event crowd condition analysis.
This thesis aims to provide a systematic understanding of different approaches for crowd condition estimation by relying on 2.4 GHz signals and its variation in crowds of people, proposes and categorizes possible sensing approaches, applies supervised machine learning algorithms, and demonstrates experimental evaluation results. I categorize four sensing approaches. Firstly, stationary sensors which are sensing crowd centric signals sources. Secondly, stationary sensors which are sensing other stationary signals sources (either opportunistic or special purpose signal sources). Thirdly, a few volunteers within the crowd equipped with sensors which are sensing other surrounding crowd centric device signals (either individually, in a single group or collaboratively) within a small region. Fourthly, a small subset of participants within the crowd equipped with sensors and roaming throughout a whole city to sense wireless crowd centric signals.
I present and evaluate an approach with meshed stationary sensors which were sensing crowd centric devices. This was demonstrated and empirically evaluated within an industrial project during three of the world-wide largest automotive exhibitions. With over 30 meshed stationary sensors in an optimized setup across 6400m2 I achieved a mean absolute error of the crowd density of just 0.0115
people per square meter which equals to an average of below 6% mean relative error from the ground truth. I validate the contextual crowd condition anomaly detection method during the visit of chancellor Mrs. Merkel and during a large press conference during the exhibition. I present the approach of opportunistically sensing stationary based wireless signal variations and validate this during the Hannover CeBIT exhibition with 80 opportunistic sources with a crowd condition estimation relative error of below 12% relying only on surrounding signals in influenced by humans. Pursuing this approach I present an approach with dedicated signal sources and sensors to estimate the condition of shared office environments. I demonstrate methods being viable to even detect low density static crowds, such as people sitting at their desks, and evaluate this on an eight person office scenario. I present the approach of mobile crowd density estimation by a group of sensors detecting other crowd centric devices in the proximity with a classification accuracy of the crowd density of 66 % (improvement of over 22% over a individual sensor) during the crowded Oktoberfest event. I propose a collaborative mobile sensing approach which makes the system more robust against variations that may result from the background of the people rather than the crowd condition with differential features taking information about the link structure between actively scanning devices, the ratio between values observed by different devices, ratio of discovered crowd devices over time, team-wise diversity of discovered devices, number of semi- continuous device visibility periods, and device visibility durations into account. I validate the approach on multiple experiments including the Kaiserslautern European soccer championship public viewing event and evaluated the collaborative mobile sensing approach with a crowd condition estimation accuracy of 77 % while outperforming previous methods by 21%. I present the feasibility of deploying the wireless crowd condition sensing approach to a citywide scale during an event in Zurich with 971 actively sensing participants and outperformed the reference method by 24% in average.


What we call "judicial review" was not established in Marbury v. Madison, or by American courts. It had existed in English and then American law for centuries, not as some kind of peculiar power but rather as a corollary of the judicial duty to decide cases according to the law of the land. While that duty sometimes required judicial courage in the face of political threats, this was not its most difficult or pervasive demand. The real challenge was the requirement that judges purge their decision-making of the influence of their own wills, which required them to set aside their own views about natural law, God's will, sound policy, and even justice itself.Phillip Hamburger's Law and Judicial Duty advances and defends these claims with subtlety and detailed evidence. He carries his historical study up through the end of the eighteenth century, and thus has little to say about subsequent changes in the understanding of judicial review and judicial duty. But there are obvious implications for our contemporary debates about the proper role of judges and about the distinction between law and politics. This review touches on those debates, and suggests that a broadened political role for the federal judiciary may have been more clearly foreseeable than the leading proponents of our Constitution thought it wise to acknowledge during the ratification debates.


This software processes the flyby spectra of the Chirp Transform Spectrometer (CTS) of the Microwave Instrument for Rosetta Orbiter (MIRO). The tool corrects the effect of Doppler shift and local-oscillator (LO) frequency shift during the flyby mode of MIRO operations. The frequency correction for CTS flyby spectra is performed and is integrated with multiple spectra into a high signal-to-noise averaged spectrum at the rest-frame RF frequency. This innovation also generates the 8 molecular line spectra by dividing continuous 4,096-channel CTS spectra. The 8 line spectra can then be readily used for scientific investigations. A spectral line that is at its rest frequency in the frame of the Earth or an asteroid will be observed with a time-varying Doppler shift as seen by MIRO. The frequency shift is toward the higher RF frequencies on approach, and toward lower RF frequencies on departure. The magnitude of the shift depends on the flyby velocity. The result of time-varying Doppler shift is that of an observed spectral line will be seen to move from channel to channel in the CTS spectrometer. The direction (higher or lower frequency) in the spectrometer depends on the spectral line frequency under consideration. In order to analyze the flyby spectra, two steps are required. First, individual spectra must be corrected for the Doppler shift so that individual spectra can be superimposed at the same rest frequency for integration purposes. Second, a correction needs to be applied to the CTS spectra to account for the LO frequency shifts that are applied to asteroid mode.


Be inspired and empowered by Carry on, Warrior by Glennon Melton. Here's my hunch: nobody's secure, and nobody feels like she completely belongs. Those insecurities are just job hazards of being human. But some people dance anyway, and those people have more fun. On my deathbed, I'm not gong to wish I had danced like JLo; I'm just going to wish I had danced more. On Mother's Day, 2002, Glennon Melton was unmarried, addicted to drugs, booze, food and bad love. Her criminal record had grown steadily more muddied in her desperate quest for escapism. But by a strange twist of fate, it was on this day that she discovered she was pregnant. After twenty years of wilful self-destruction, how could Glennon rise to the challenge of looking after the helpless, innocent child growing within her, when she couldn't even look after herself? This is the inspiring story of Glennon Melton, the mother who, for the love of her child, was determined to change her life forever. Carry on, Warrior is a true woman's book, which touches on the universal themes of friendship, marriage and family in a way that is unique and enlightening. Glennon Melton lives in the US with her husband Craig, her three beautiful children Chase, Tish and Amma and their two dogs. She has an enormous following for her blog and online community momastery.com, and as a recovering alcoholic and bulimic she views writing as a form of healing. Her charity Monkee See - Monkee Do is dedicated to helping struggling parents to provide a better life for themselves and their children.


These two volumes bring together a set of important essays that represent a "new Keynesian" perspective in economics today. This recent work shows how the Keynesian approach to economic fluctuations can be supported by rigorous microeconomic models of economic behavior. The essays are grouped in seven parts that cover costly price adjustment, staggering of wages and prices, imperfect competition, coordination failures, and the markets for labor, credit, and goods. An overall introduction, brief introductions to each of the parts, and a bibliography of additional papers in the field round out this valuable collection.Volume 1 focuses on how friction in price setting at the microeconomic level leads to nominal rigidity at the macroeconomic level, and on the macroeconomic consequences of imperfect competition, including aggregate demand externalities and multipliers. Volume 2 addresses recent research on non-Walrasian features of the labor, credit, and goods markets.N. Gregory Mankiw is Professor of Economics at Harvard University. David Romer is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley.Contributors: George A Akerlof. Costas Azariadis. Laurence Ball. Ben S. Bernanke. Mark Bits. Olivier J. Blanchard. Alan S. Blinder. John Bryant. Andrew S. Caplin. Dennis W. Carlton. Stephen G. Cecchetti. Russell Cooper. Peter A. Diamond. Gary Fethke. Stanley Fischer. Robert E. Hall. Oliver Hart. Andrew John. Nobuhiro Kiyotaki. Alan B. Krueger. David M. Lilien. Ian M. McDonald. N. David Mankiw. Arthur M. Okun. Andres Policano. David Romer. Julio J. Rotemberg. Garth Saloner. Carl Shapiro. Andrei Shleifer. Robert M. Solow. Daniel F. Spulber. Joseph E. Stiglitz. Lawrence H. Summers. John Taylor. Andrew Weiss. Michael Woodford. Janet L. Yellen.


This article describes the development and validation of the Motivation Beliefs Inventory (MBI), a new instrument for measuring leaders' motivation beliefs. For decades, organizational scholars and a small number of motivation researchers have urged leaders to examine their beliefs related to employee motivation. Answering this challenge was difficult, however, given the lack of instruments designed to measure motivation beliefs at all, much less beliefs from a range of prevalent theories. Using principal components and parallel analyses, the 20-item Motivation Beliefs Inventory (MBI) was created to measure motivation beliefs along four theoretical lines: reinforcement theory; expectancy-valence theory; achievement motivation theory; and self-determination theory. The instrument was validated in two studies involving large samples of businesspeople (n=1322 and 712). Validity and reliability analyses revealed the instrument demonstrates acceptable psychometric properties. Four subscales, each representing a single theory, were confirmed and demonstrated alpha coefficients as follows: reinforcement theory, .77; expectancy-valence theory, .71; achievement motivation theory, .82; self-determination theory, .77. The entire Motivation Beliefs Inventory produced a strong alpha coefficient of .77. The creation of a new instrument like the MBI opens fresh possibilities for both practitioners and scholars. While workplace practitioners now have the ability to measure a leader's beliefs about motivation, researchers can use the instrument to test for differences in these beliefs among leaders in different occupations, companies, industries, and countries. Given the link between leader beliefs and behavior, the article concludes with a discussion about belief strength, and the challenges and opportunities of empirically investigating leaders' beliefs about what motivates employees.


Applications of the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) to Earth Sciences are
numerous. The International GNSS Service (IGS), a voluntary federation of government
agencies, universities and research institutions, combines GNSS resources and expertise
to provide the highest–quality GNSS data, products, and services in order to support
high–precision applications for GNSS–related research and engineering activities.
This IGS Technical Report 2015 includes contributions from the IGS Governing Board,
the Central Bureau, Analysis Centers, Data Centers, station and network operators,
working groups, pilot projects, and others highlighting status and important activities,
changes and results that took place and were achieved during 2015.


We present results on Hanbury Brown-Twiss (HBT) radii extracted from the Ultra-relativistic Molec- ular Dynamics (UrQMD) approach to relativistic heavy ion collisions. The present investigation provides a com- parison of results from pure hadronic transport calculations to a Boltzmann + Hydrodynamic hybrid approach with an intermediate hydrodynamic phase. For the hydrodynamic phase different Equations of State (EoS) have been employed, i.e. bag model, hadron resonance gas and a chiral EoS. The influence of various freeze-out sce- narios has been investigated and shown to be negligible if hadronic rescatterings after the hydrodynamic evolution are included. Furthermore, first results of the source tilt from azimuthal sensitive HBT and the direct extraction from the transport model are presented and exhibit a very good agreement with E895 data at AGS.


Source: The Huffington Post BEIJING -A labor rights group Monday accused a Chinese company that makes iPhones for Apple Inc. of abuses including withholding employees' pay and excessive working hours. China Labor Watch said it found violations of the law and of Apple's pledges about working conditions at factories operated by Pegatron Corp., a Taiwanese company. Conditions in Chinese factories that produce iPhones and other popular Apple products have been under scrutiny following complaints about labor and environmental violations by a different supplier, Taiwan's Foxconn, a unit of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Apple said in a statement it was "committed to providing safe and fair working conditions" and would investigate the claims about Pegatron. The Taiwanese company's chief executive, in a separate statement, also promised to investigate. China Labor Watch said its investigation covered two factories in Shanghai and one in Suzhou, a nearby city, that employ a total of 70,000 people. It found violations including discrimination against ethnic minorities and women, excessive work hours, poor living conditions, health and safety problems and pollution. Pegatron assembles products including the iPhone 4, iPhone 4s and iPhone 5 for Apple, according to the report. Apple said it confirmed one accusation by China Labor Watch – that identity cards of some workers were being held by management – and told Pegatron to stop. Apple has published a code of conduct for its suppliers and joined the Fair Labor Association, a worker rights monitoring group. The association inspected Foxconn factories early last year and said in August that improvements it recommended were being carried out ahead of schedule. Conditions in factories in China are a sensitive issue for foreign companies that outsource production of shoes, consumer electronics and other goods to local contractors. In its report Monday, China Labor Watch said the majority of Pegatron production employees worked 66 to 69 hours a week, far above China's legal limit of 49 hours. It said pregnant women sometimes were required to work 11-hour days, more than the eight-hour legal limit, and employees were pressured to falsify time cards to conceal the violations. The group accused Pegatron of "discriminatory hiring practices" including refusing to hire those older than 35 or members of China's Hui, Tibetan, or Uighur ethnic minorities. The group said production line workers sometimes dump water laced with hazardous chemicals from cutting tools into sewers. Apple, based in Cupertino, California, said it would send auditors to three Pegatron facilities this week to investigate the report's claims. The company said it has conducted 15 comprehensive audits of Pegatron facilities since 2007, including surprise audits in the past 18 months. It said the audits covered more than 130,000 employees. "Apple is committed to providing safe and fair working conditions throughout our supply chain," the company statement said. "If our audits find that workers have been underpaid or denied compensation for any time they've worked, we will require that Pegatron reimburse them in full." The company said its own audit found Pegatron employees making Apple products worked 46 hours per week on average. Pegatron, founded in 2008, also manufactures desktop and notebook personal computers, LCD televisions, broadband and wireless systems and other products. Apple Supplier Accused Of Labor Abuses By China Watchdog (VIDEO) http://www.chinalaborwatch.org/newscast/372


Ordinary differential equations (ODEs) provide a classical framework to model the dynamics of biological systems, given temporal experimental data. Qualitative analysis of the ODE model can lead to further biological insight and deeper understanding compared to traditional experiments alone. Simulation of the model under various perturbations can generate novel hypotheses and motivate the design of new experiments. This short paper will provide an overview of the ODE modeling framework, and present examples of how ODEs can be used to address problems in cancer biology.


The online activities of new English language learners can reveal rich and varied literary behaviors, which are almost invisible in the middle grade classroom. While these non-native English speakers may experience cultural and linguistic apartness and struggle to express their identities at school, many develop online identities using their literacy skills in a highly productive, engaged, and anonymous fashion. When viewed through a New Literacies (Gee, 2000; Street, 1995) and Multiliteracies (Cope & Kalantzis, 2000) perspective, closer analysis of the predispositions, social attitudes, and activities of these students reveals significant educational advantages that may go largely undetected by educators in the traditional classroom. This article presents a qualitative case study, involving two English language learners, who actively sought out and engaged in online spaces where they could establish identities, practice multimodal literacies, and seek out affinity groups in keeping with their personal interests and abilities. This research is of significance to educators as it demonstrates the manner in which digital technologies can provide equitable access to literate practices for English Language Learners in the classroom.


IP Telephony is a demanding interactive real-time service that already supplements the traditional telephony system to a considerable extent. It is expected to become a genuine alternative with a variety of new attractive services in the future. The recent situation and developments in the IP Telephony area are characterized by a variety of different usage environments, signaling approaches, protocols, devices and applications. We show that this situation, that is typically referred to as heterogeneity, has a number of inherent reasons and is not going to vanish within the near future. In many cases the different telephony components are not directly interoperable or their interaction is restricted to just a subset of the full capabilities. These circumstances make gateways that provide adequate interworking significant. Our central tenet is that gateways are appropriate and powerful means for dealing with heterogeneity. They are not restricted to the connection of legacy systems but play a significant constructive role for future setups as well. Their efficient design and realization is a challenging task. It is typically solved in a process that incorporates multiple steps. We investigate abstraction mechanisms that support this process. This investigation results in a model that facilitates the identification of general gateway structures and mechanisms that are appropriate for specific interworking requirements and scenarios. Our model fits between very high-level gateway descriptions and existing, but isolated best practice methods for particular gateway design problems. Our approach holistically covers multiple individual gateway aspects and tasks in the analysis and design process. We have chosen the interworking between the IP Telephony protocol suites H.323 and SIP for practical application of our methodology. Our efforts target large-scale IP Telephony deployment in real-world scenarios and the comprehensive and protocol-independent provisioning of supplementary services. The successful design and implementation of scalable interworking functionality for these services is the resulting practical contribution of this thesis. Our work combines the investigation of a novel signaling gateway and infrastructure components for its integration with the design and realization of end-system with unique functionality. Further, we categorize different types of media gateways and practically implement and investigate examples in this context. This activity and its outcome demonstrate the universality and power of our design and realization methodology. Additionally, we show that the combined and coordinated usage ofsignaling and media gateways is a powerful mechanism for future system designs. A practical example that uses this approach integrates low-resource decomposed wireless end-systems within our heterogeneous H.323 and SIP scenario. In the context of the presentation of general signaling gateways we show our contribution in the area of IP Telephony security. This includes the discussion of an IP Telephony enabled firewall that makes services usable in typical protected environments. The internal structure and the mechanisms of such a firewall are closely related to those of the investigated gateways. A practical IP Telephony vulnerability case study raises security problem awareness and motivates future activities with their implications on signaling gateways in this domain. Our contribution is practical as well as methodical. We have designed and realized new gateways and end-systems. These provide a novel quality for interworking in heterogeneous IP Telephony environments. It is not restricted to just basic call functionality but covers the very important and steadily extending range of supplementary services. Our gateway model and the problem analysis, design and realization methodology are general. The proof of concept implementations supplement it with instantiated templates for particular tasks. Model and templates together represent a framework that is applicable to solve various comparable interworking problems for IP-based communication systems efficiently.


In this article, we consider the problem of planning inspections and other tasks within a software development (SD) project with respect to the objectives quality (no. of defects), project duration, and costs. Based on a discrete-event simulation model of SD processes comprising the phases coding, inspection, test, and rework, we present a simplified formulation of the problem as a multiobjective optimization problem. For solving the problem (i.e. finding an approximation of the efficient set) we develop a multiobjective evolutionary algorithm. Details of the algorithm are discussed as well as results of its application to sample problems.


Since the 1980s, there have been numerous presidential resignations in different countries in Latin America. With respect to this phenomenon, this article puts forward two questions: What circumstances are most favorable for provoking presidents to resign and what is the impact on the presidential system. To address these questions, a case study is used, that of the presidency of de la Rua in Argentina (1999-2001) with the aim of constructing a hypothesis that should be tested by additional research. This analysis contends that Argentine presidential resignations took two forms in accordance with the distribution of party power in Congress: a) a parliamentary response to the crisis and b) a presidential response to the crisis. The first occurred in a multiparty context that facilitated the formation of alternative parliamentary majorities. Within this framework, Congress deprived the president of support, precipitating his departure. The second seems to be characteristic of contexts that are bipartisan or in which there is a predominant party. In this case, it is the departing president who, within a crisis situation, manages to oversee an orderly succession. As for the impact of presidential resignations on the functioning of presidential regimes, the article puts forward the importance of redefining the place of the fixed term as a characteristic of presidentialism. In light of the numerous presidential resignations, the fixed presidential mandate does not seem to be a necessary component of the definition of presidentialism as it is, in contrast, for legislators. From this another question arises: when analyzing the political dynamic of presidentialism, it is necessary to incorporate presidential resignation as a possible factor.


Photograph, taken in 2000, of the "bimah" or altar in the main sanctuary at Beth-El Congregation, 207 W. Broadway, Fort Worth. The building was constructed in 1920, rebuilt in 1948 after a fire gutted the interior, and remodeled in 1981. The 1948 rebuilding and redesign were by the Hungarian-American interior designer Erno Fabry. His design ideas include the stone wall behind the altar, built with reddish Colorado travertine, the ark (which contained the Torahs) framed with gray-veined cremo-Italian marble, as well as the gate with its Art Deco design, and the copper-colored menorahs flanking the ark. In 1981, architect-designer John Mike Cohen of St. Louis oversaw a major remodeling of the sanctuary with peach carpet, chairs, and fiberglass lights resembling a flock of dove.


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Purpose: Understanding the needs of at-risk students is thought to be an essential element for educators when they formulate and design alternative educational settings. Yet, it may be difficult for educators to distinguish between responding to the needs of an at-risk student and providing educational equity. The researcher applied equity principles and policy implementation literature to explore how alternative school teachers of at-risk students define, interpret and enact equity. Research Methods: This research was designed as a qualitative cross-case study focusing on five alternative schools in California and Texas. A qualitative thematic analysis was first applied to interviews from fifteen alternative school teachers, followed by a critical discourse analysis of government artifacts, and discursive and social practices. Findings: Teachers' enactment of equity equated to opportunity; at-risk students were afforded equity by virtue of enrollment in the schools. Implicitly, teachers acted as gate keepers to their classroom and as such only certain students were entitled to attend. Equity arguments emerged when external forces were perceived as creating inequities. Implicit equity arguments emerged by how teachers defined success. Implications: Innovative design and practices used in alternative schools are insufficient for ensuring equity. Enactment of equity through pedagogical choices is reduced by policy procedures. Research is needed in areas: a) that will help teachers reflect on their values and priorities for at-risk students and b) of how efficacy is measured for the alternative school.


Fifty-eight years ago, Harberger (1954) estimated that the costs of monopoly, which resulted from misallocation of resources across industries, were trivial. Others showed the same was true for tariffs. This research soon led to the consensus that monopoly costs are of little significance—a consensus that persists to this day. ; This paper reports on a new literature that takes a different approach to the costs of monopoly. It examines the costs of monopoly and tariffs within industries. In particular, it examines the histories of industries in which a monopoly is destroyed (or tariffs greatly reduced) and the industry transitions quickly from monopoly to competition. If there are costs to monopoly and high tariffs within industries, we should be able to see these costs whittled away as the monopoly is destroyed. ; In contrast to the prevailing consensus, this new research has identified significant costs of monopoly. Monopoly (and high tariffs) is shown to significantly lower productivity within establishments. It also leads to misallocation within industry: resources are transferred from high to low productivity establishments. ; From these histories a common theme (or theory) emerges as to why monopoly is costly. When a monopoly is created, "rents" are created. Conflict emerges among shareholders, managers, and employees of the monopoly as they negotiate how to divide these rents. Mechanisms are set up to split the rents. These mechanisms are often means to reduce competition among members of the monopoly. Although the mechanisms divide rents, they also destroy them (by leading to low productivity and misallocation).


The present thesis deals with a novel approach to increase the resource usage in digital communications. In digital communication systems, each information bearing data symbol is associated to a waveform which is transmitted over a physical medium. The time or frequency separations among the waveforms associated to the information data have always been chosen to avoid or limit the interference among them. By doing so, n the presence of a distortionless ideal channel, a single receive waveform is affected as little as possible by the presence of the other waveforms. The conditions necessary to meet the absence of any interference among the waveforms are well known and consist of a relationship between the minimum time separation among the waveforms and their bandwidth occupation or, equivalently, the minimum frequency separation and their time occupation. These conditions are referred to as Nyquist assumptions. The key idea of this work is to relax the Nyquist assumptions and to transmit with a time and/or frequency separation between the waveforms smaller than the minimum required to avoid interference. The reduction of the time and/or frequency separation generates not only an increment of the resource usage, but also a degradation in the quality of the received data. Therefore, to maintain a certain quality in the received signal, we have to increase the amount of transmitted power. We investigate the trade-off between the increment of the resource usage and the correspondent performance degradation in three different cases. The first case is the single carrier case in which all waveforms have the same spectrum, but have different temporal locations. The second one is the multi carrier case in which each waveform has its distinct spectrum and occupies all the available time. Finally, the hybrid case when each waveform has its unique time and frequency location. These different cases are framed within the general system modelling developed in the thesis so that they can be easily compared. We evaluate the potential of the key idea of the thesis by choosing a set of four possible waveforms with different characteristics. By doing so, we study the influence of the waveform characteristics in the three system configurations. We propose an interpretation of the results by modifying the well-known Shannon capacity formula and by explicitly expressing its dependency on the increment of resource usage and on the performance degradation. The results are very promising. We show that both in the case of a single carrier system with a time limited waveform and in the case of a multi-carrier system with a frequency limited waveform, the reduction of the time or frequency separation, respectively, has a positive effect on the channel capacity. The latter, depending on the actual SNR, can double or increase even more significantly.


In this study the potential of molecular RT-PCR based methods for diagnostic or
epidemiological investigations concerning negative-sense RNA viruses should be
demonstrated exemplary for orthobunyaviruses (segmented genome) and lyssaviruses (non
segmented genome). The recent discovery of a novel orthobunyavirus from the Simbu
serogroup, Schmallenberg virus (SBV), via next generation sequencing and metagenome
analysis led to the development of novel molecular detection methods. Due to the potential emergence of further orthobunya-viruses from the Simbu serogroup, a generic pan-Simbu real-time RT-PCR system was developed. This system was able to detect all tested Simbu serogroup viruses. As additional feature a species classification via sequencing is possible. Moreover, the novel pan-Simbu real-time RT-PCR system seems to offer a broad detection spectrum for orthobunyaviruses in general. Hence, this protocol allows a broad screening of
samples predominantly for Simbu serogroup virus genomes but also might allow the
identification of some related orthobunya-viruses in mammalian or insect samples. A
comparison of the pan-Simbu real-time RT-PCR system with diagnostic real-time RT-PCRs
revealed an overall higher sensitivity of the diagnostic assays for SBV detection. The
diagnostic SBV-S3 assay convinced with the highest sensitivity and reliability for SBV
detection. Additionally, the SBV-M1 assay turned out as highly specific for SBV and therefore is a valuable tool for a precise diagnosis in geographical regions where multiple orthobunyaviruses are endemic. Furthermore, the SBV genome diversity in Germany was investigated using a molecular epidemiological approach. Genome variability was extremely high in the N-terminal region of the putative envelope glycoprotein Gc which might have an impact on immunogenicity or host-cell infection. Phylogenetic analyses indicated that sequence variation is independent of host species and geographical distribution. In contrast to SBV as a novel pathogen, rabies encephalitis (caused by the prototype lyssavirus Rabies virus) is known for more than 4000 years. Thus numerous molecular techniques have been developed for lyssavirus detection, considering the diversity of this
genus they all have certain limitations as regards their diagnostic range. Results of a
lyssavirus ring trial among European laboratories indicate that RT-PCR could be a highly reliable diagnostic tool if at least two independent tests with broad diagnostic range are applied. Another approach suggested that a change from two-step to one-step PCR strategy or a variation of the RT-chemistry may have a remarkable influence on assay performance. However, no ultimate approach or strategy has been found yet, that would facilitate rabies routine diagnosis or epidemiological surveys on molecular grounds. Thus, there is a need for a potent, reliable and practical system for lyssavirus diagnosis and characterization,
suitable as a second diagnostic line next to classical techniques like the fluorescent antibody test. For this purpose a diagnostic two level cascade protocol was developed with emphasis on the most relevant European lyssaviruses. On a first level two independent generic panlyssavirus screening assays, targeting different genomic regions, were applied. On a second level two probe-based species-specific multiplex PCR systems for the rapid classification of European lyssaviruses were used. All applied assays displayed an overall highly sensitive
and specific detection with an excellent reproducibility and repeatability. Moreover, the diagnostic cascade protocol combines all known advantages of the real-time PCR
technology including speed and reduced risk of cross-contamination with improved safety of molecular testing based on a double-check strategy for the screening as well as the
confirmatory assays. In the frame of the second Bokeloh bat lyssavirus case in a German bat, the capability of real-time PCR for the quantification of viral loads was demonstrated. Another convenient example for the potential of molecular RT-PCR based methods is the epidemiological investigation of the rabies epizootic in Namibian kudu antelopes. Phylogenetic analyses of a 602 bp fragment of the nucleoprotein gene indicated a separate grouping of the Rabies virus (RABV) isolates from kudu apart from RABV isolates from jackals. Full genome sequencing revealed unique mutations in the glycoprotein gene of RABV isolates from kudu, suggesting an independent rabies cycle in Namibian kudu antelopes.
All given examples were used to illustrate the application spectrum of molecular RT-PCR
based methods for diagnostic or epidemiological purposes. The advantages of molecular techniques were emphasized and in particular real-time RT-PCR systems proved their fitness for purpose and appear to represent standard techniques for the next decade.


Cash income offers an incomplete picture of the resources available to finance household consumption. Most American families are covered by an insurance plan that pays for some or all of the health care they consume. Only a comparatively small percentage of families pay for the full cost of this insurance out of their cash incomes. As health care has claimed a growing share of consumption, the percentage of care that is financed out of household incomes has declined. Because health care consumption is more important for some groups in the population than others, the growth in spending and changes in the payment system for medical care have reduced the value of standard income measures for assessing relative incomes across age groups and across the income distribution. More than a seventh of total personal consumption now consists of health care that is purchased with government insurance and employer contributions to employee health plans. In this paper we combine health care spending and insurance reimbursement data in the Medical Expenditure Panel Study with cash and non-cash income data in the Current Population Survey to assess the impact of health insurance on the distribution of income and, in particular, on the age profile of income. Our estimates imply that gross money income and disposable cash and near-cash income significantly understate the resources available to finance household purchases. The estimates imply that a more complete measure of resources would show less inequality than the income measures that are currently used. The addition of estimates of the value of health insurance to countable incomes reduces measured inequality in the population and the income gap between young and old. Standard income measures imply that households with an aged household head have significantly lower average and median incomes than households with a head who is less than 55. In contrast, an income definition that includes the value of health insurance implies that aged households have higher incomes than households with a non-aged head.


This book engages the reader with its story-telling style as it illustrates the principles of Buddhism with concrete examples. Paying special attention to the rise of Buddhist practice in the West, Habito introduces the novice to Buddhist experience in its historical unity and the variety of traditions that reflect its essence. Integrated into Habitos text are five personal accounts by practicing Buddhists: on being a Therevada Buddhist by the Venerable Dhammananda, Dr. Chatsumarn Kabilsing; on being a Zen Buddhist by Jan Chozen Bays; on being a Tibetan Buddhist by Judith Simmer Brown; on being a Pure Land Buddhist by Kenneth Tanaka; and on living the Lotus by Virginia Straus.


[Abstract]:
Mekong River runs from Hengduan Mountains in central-west China to Vietnam covering 805,604 sq km of land by its basin. The Lower Mekong Basin (LMB), the region mapped in this study, covers nearly 3/4 of the entire basin. About 90% of the population and agricultural activities of the Mekong River basin is located in this fertile LMB which faces disastrous floods almost annually. Mapping LMB at moderate resolution gives number of advantages for studies of flood mitigation and land utilization. However, compiling a cloud free mosaic and collecting ground truth data for training samples and map validation make map production process a challenging task. This study utilized MODIS 250m image data of the region obtained in 2005 February. Dry weather in Jan-Apr makes the sky relatively free of clouds and 2005 February also had fewer disturbances coming from smoke of biomass burning. The methodology of the study substantially relied on high resolution images in Google Earth for collection of training sample for supervised classification and accuracy assessment. Arc GIS generated KMZ file of unclassified and classified maps used to overlay image and map on Google Earth for identifying training site and field information extraction for accuracy assessment. Also ground information collected by a different research projects in 2008 were combined with information gathers from Google Earth images. The classified map showed 29.2% of the LMB under forest, 36.5% under Scrubland, when combined its Highland and Lowland subcategories. Three subcategories of paddy cultivated area covered 27.9% of LMB. Accuracy assessment conducted with randomly selected 200 points against high resolution images gave an overall accuracy of 80.7% in major four land cover classes. According to the 250m resolution, urban features have not clearly separated though large urban areas like Phnom Penh and Can Tao have accurately classified. The methodology of this study produced a noteworthy success in classifying land cover of large areas like LMB, without expensive data sources and difficult and costly field investigations.


226Ra (half-life 1600 years) has been used as a tracer for ocean circulation and is rated a bio-intermediate element due to its participation in the biogeochemical cycle. Based on the similarity of vertical water column profiles of 226Ra and Si, it has been hypothezised that siliceous tests act as a main carrier phase for 226Ra (e.g. Ku et al. 1970). However, direct evidence for incorporation of 226Ra by silicate-forming plankton is very scanty. Measurements on different plankton species as well as controlled tank experiments yield ambiguous results.Here we present a high-resolution N-S-transect for 226Ra and Si in surface waters of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) and the Weddell Gyre (WG) at 20° E. Both elements show a general increase from north to south with the highest values in the region where upwelling Circumpolar Deep Water enters the WG. 226Ra approximately doubles from 8 dpm/100kg to 17 dpm/100kg. Si concentrations reach maximum values of 70 µmol/l south of the Polar Front (PF). The relationship between both parameters is rather weak. The high resolution sampling shows that local variations in the Si concentrations are not mirrored by changes in the 226Ra activity. Particulate uptake of 226Ra continues north of the PF after the near depletion of Si, indicating a decoupling between diatom productivity and the 226Ra distribution in the Southern Ocean.We propose that acantharians, SrSO4-forming radiolarians, might act as a major carrier phase for radium in the upper ocean. They have recently been attributed an important role in the biogeochemistry of Ba (Bernstein et al. 1998). Based on the above observations and the geochemical similarities of Ra and Ba, it seems likely that the biogeochemistry of radium in the upper ocean is equally affected by acantharians as Ba is. For the open ACC, acantharian abundances can reach 30 000 individuals per m3. The continuing depletion of 226Ra after the exhaustion of Si north of the PF could indeed be linked to the increasing importance acantharians gain in the marine productivity cycle in subantarcic and subtropical waters.Bernstein, R.E., Byrne, R.H. and Schijf, J. (1998): Acantharians: a missing link in the oceanic biogeochemistry of barium. Deep-Sea Research I, 45, 491-505.Ku, T.-L., Li, Y.H., Mathieu, G.G. and Wong, H.K. (1970): Radium in the Indian-Antarctic Ocean south of Australia. Journal of Geophysical Research, 75, 5286-5292.


In cities around the country, huge swaths of property in desirable locations house only empty warehouses, barely-used shipping facilities, and heavily subsidized industrial-age factories, often right across the street from high-end condos and office buildings. The reason is a widely-used, but poorly understood form of local industrial policy known as non-cumulative zoning. In contrast with traditional Euclidean zoning, in which manufacturing uses were prohibited in residential areas but not vice versa, areas that are zoned non-cumulatively allow only manufacturing uses and bar any residential (and sometimes even commercial uses) of property. The arguments for non-cumulative zoning are always the same: Cities seek to (a) reduce the degree to which urban manufacturers are held responsible for nuisance and (b) subsidize urban manufacturing by reducing the competition for land and hence reducing the price.In this essay, we argue that non-cumulative zoning is an idea whose time has passed, if there ever was a convincing case for it at all. The two major justifications for non-cumulative zoning are flawed, and alternative means could achieve the same ends with fewer costs. The large number of nuisance claims engendered by urban manufacturing could be addressed by creating a "right to stink" in certain zones, allowing residential and commercial users to move into these zones but prohibiting them from suing manufacturers who are not violating regulatory laws. As for the second manufacturer-subsidizing justification, subsidies cannot be justified in terms of a subsidizing city's own welfare unless the external "agglomeration" benefits of manufacturing exceed the cost of the subsidy to the city. Moreover, the broader social perspective also requires that some cities are better able to capture those agglomeration benefits than others, meaning that competition between jurisdictions could result in total increases in wealth. However, non-cumulative zoning is unlikely to achieve either local or broader social efficiency. Its scope is not closely tied to any theory of external benefit; it encourages the inefficient use of land and the substitution of land for other inputs; and it hides the true cost of urban manufacturing subsidies from the public. If urban manufacturing must be subsidized, a direct cash subsidy system would be preferable, particularly if it could be funded directly from taxes on the increased value of land caused by the removal of a non-cumulative zoning designation.


Concentrating solar power with thermal energy storage (CSP-TES) can provide multiple benefits to the grid, including low marginal cost energy and the ability to levelize load, provide operating reserves, and provide firm capacity. It is challenging to properly value the integration of CSP because of the complicated nature of this technology. Unlike completely dispatchable fossil sources, CSP is a limited energy resource, depending on the hourly and daily supply of solar energy. To optimize the use of this limited energy, CSP-TES must be implemented in a production cost model with multiple decision variables for the operation of the CSP-TES plant. We develop and implement a CSP-TES plant in a production cost model that accurately characterizes the three main components of the plant: solar field, storage tank, and power block. We show the effect of various modelling simplifications on the value of CSP, including: scheduled versus optimized dispatch from the storage tank and energy-only operation versus co-optimization with ancillary services.


Acquaintance rape is a major problem in today's society. Approximately one quarter
of women have been or will be victims of rape or attempted rape during their lifetimes.
Many people still believe that women cannot be raped by someone that they know, or that
if they are raped while on a date then it is somehow the victim's fault. Rape myths, such
as the belief that a woman who is raped was somehow asking for it, are erroneous beliefs
held by the general public about rape and perpetuate negative attitudes held toward rape
victims. These negative attitudes held towards rape victims, especially victims of
acquaintance rape, make cases difficult to prosecute and make victims feel like they have
to prove their case to not only a jury, but also to their own family and friends. There is a
large body of empirical literature that exists surrounding rape myths and attitudes held
towards the victims, especially when the use of alcohol by either the perpetrator or the
victim is present and if the victim's consent to sex is called into question. The body of
literature is scarce when it comes to rape myths and public attitudes regarding
homosexual victims, particularly gay men. The present study was conducted to extend
what is known about attitudes held by the public regarding heterosexual acquaintance
rape to acquaintance rape among gay males. One hundred and twenty three introductory
psychology students read vignettes and answered questionnaires that aimed to measure
their attitudes about what happened in the vignette. Results indicated that participants
thought that the victim who was drinking, regardless of sexual orientation, engaged in
more ambiguous sexual communication, namely token resistance, and was more
receptive to the sexual assault than the victim who remained sober. Participants also
indicated that they thought that the homosexual victim in the vignette was more receptive to and more responsible for the sexual assault than the heterosexual victim, regardless of
whether the victim had been drinking. Results from the present study showed that
negative attitudes held against heterosexual victims also extended to homosexual victims
of sexual assault.


I review a class of nonlocally modified gravity models which were proposed to explain the current phase of cosmic acceleration without dark energy. Among the topics considered are deriving causal and conserved field equations, adjusting the model to make it support a given expansion history, why these models do not require an elaborate screening mechanism to evade solar system tests, degrees of freedom and kinetic stability, and the negative verdict of structure formation. Although these simple models are not consistent with data on the growth of cosmic structures many of their features are likely to carry over to more complicated models which are in better agreement with the data.