Ever since Jacques Delors's famous speech in front of the European Parliament in July 1988, the myth of an 80%-influence of Europe on the legislatures of the member states was born. For Germany, two empirical studies reveal a much lower impact of Europeanisation on German legislation, but it remains an open question on how Europe affects the democratic principles of the German legislative process. Following Moravcsik (1997), the executive can exploit Europeanisation and increase governmental agenda-setting power which should raise the adoption rate of governmental proposals. This prompts the question on the reaction of parliament which may feel threatened by increased governmental power. Recent parliamentary research points to an inherent principal agent-problem of coalition government, according to which coalition partners share the common interest in forming government and often agree on a common program, but must delegate portfolio powers to ministers in order to implement their programmatic goals. But when ministers are tempted to pursue their own interests at the expense of the common goals, legislative review becomes a key resource for the coalition partner to scrutinize governmental proposals in the event of ministerial drift (Martin and Vanberg 2005). Hence, when Europe increases governmental agenda-setting power, the question is whether the risk of ministerial drift will also increase and whether parliament will accordingly increase scrutinizing activities and amend more governmental proposals to solve principal agent-problems. In order to answer this question this article explores the effects of European impulses for the adoption rate of (governmental) bills and the level of parliamentary amendment activities in German legislation in the period from 1978 to 2005. Our findings reveal that government cannot profit from Europeanisation in terms of a higher adoption rate. Rather, because the governmental adoption rate is already very high in German legislation, the indication of a European impulse only increases the likelihood for success of other legislative agenda setters. Moreover, parliament is obviously more aware of hostile proposals when a European impulse is mentioned. We find more parliamentary amendments and longer duration, both indicating more parliamentary scrutiny in the event of proposals with European impulse independent of the type of initiator.


The paper dwells on the research questions as to whether abortion takes a human life and when human life begins? Thomas Aquinas's answers on the question will be provided in this paper. But the research aims to interrogate his answers and will critically reflect on them. In doing so, the paper's methodology opted for an exploratory study using primary and secondary data on which the author draws. The data so required will enable the research to furnish an impressionistic account of the ideas produced by the works of Aquinas, Aristotle and Plato on the one hand, and the works of contemporary philosophers and writers on the other hand. In other words, this data is going to be complemented by documentary analysis and the author's critical insight, so as to warrant the article as to presenting new knowledge. The findings of this research will prove to have larger import beyond the specific case or instance under investigation. It reopens the issue of a revival of the implementation of the dignity of human life. The Church opposes every threat to human life from the moment of conception. The threat to human life is most intense at the point where life begins – at that stage where it is at its most defenseless. It is at this moment (pre-natal stage) when human beings are totally dependent on the goodwill and care of others. Humankind is obliged to respect life. It expresses the human persons's relationship to other persons: and it is valid from the first moment of conception through to adulthood. The fetus also is a fellow human being and his or her rights should be respected just as the case would with every other human being. These methodological observations present an innovative, thorough and systematic attempt to address the research questions mentioned above.


This paper seeks to illuminate and quantify a feature of natural evolution that correlates to our sense of its intuitive greatness: Natural evolution evolves impressive artifacts. Within artificial life, abstractions aiming to capture what makes natural evolution so powerful often focus on the idea of openendedness, which relates to boundless diversity, complexity, or adaptation. However, creative systems that have passed tests of open-endedness raise the possibility that openendedness does not always correlate to impressiveness in artificial life simulations. In other words, while natural evolution is both open-ended and demonstrates a drive towards evolving impressive artifacts, it may be a mistake to assume the two properties are always linked. Thus to begin to investigate impressiveness independently in artificial systems, a novel definition is proposed: Impressive artifacts readily exhibit significant design effort. That is, the difficulty of creating them is easy to recognize. Two heuristics, rarity and re-creation effort, are derived from this definition and applied to the products of an open-ended image evolution system. An important result is that that the heuristics intuitively separate different reward schemes and provide evidence for why each evolved picture is or is not impressive. The conclusion is that impressiveness may help to distinguish open-ended systems and their products, and potentially untangles an aspect of natural evolution's mystique that is masked by its co-occurrence with open-endedness.


As countless love songs, movies, and self-help books attest, men and women have long sought different things. The result? Seemingly inevitable conflict. Yet we belong to the most cooperative species on the planet. Isn't there a way we can use this capacity to achieve greater harmony and equality between the sexes? In The War of the Sexes, Paul Seabright argues that there is--but first we must understand how the tension between conflict and cooperation developed in our remote evolutionary past, how it shaped the modern world, and how it still holds us back, both at home and at work. Drawing on biology, sociology, anthropology, and economics, Seabright shows that conflict between the sexes is, paradoxically, the product of cooperation. The evolutionary niche--the long dependent childhood--carved out by our ancestors requires the highest level of cooperative talent. But it also gives couples more to fight about. Men and women became experts at influencing one another to achieve their cooperative ends, but also became trapped in strategies of manipulation and deception in pursuit of sex and partnership. In early societies, economic conditions moved the balance of power in favor of men, as they cornered scarce resources for use in the sexual bargain. Today, conditions have changed beyond recognition, yet inequalities between men and women persist, as the brains, talents, and preferences we inherited from our ancestors struggle to deal with the unpredictable forces unleashed by the modern information economy. Men and women today have an unprecedented opportunity to achieve equal power and respect. But we need to understand the mixed inheritance of conflict and cooperation left to us by our primate ancestors if we are finally to escape their legacy.


Many people think of Linux as a computer operating system, running on users' desktops and powering servers. But Linux can also be found inside many consumer electronics devices. Whether they're the brains of a cell phone, cable box, or exercise bike, embedded Linux systems blur the distinction between computer and device. Many makers love microcontroller platforms such as Arduino, but as the complexity increases in their projects, they need more power for applications, such as computer vision. The BeagleBone is an embedded Linux board for makers. It's got built-in networking, many inputs and outputs, and a fast processor to handle demanding tasks. This book introduces you to both the original BeagleBone and the new BeagleBone Black and gets you started with projects that take advantage of the board's processing power and its ability to interface with the outside world.


This is the story of a city that shouldn't exist. In the seventeenth century, what is now America's most beguiling metropolis was nothing more than a swamp: prone to flooding, infested with snakes, battered by hurricanes. But through the intense imperial rivalries of Spain, France, and England, and the ambitious, entrepreneurial merchants and settlers from four continents who risked their lives to succeed in colonial America, this unpromising site became a crossroads for the whole Atlantic world. Lawrence N. Powell, a decades-long resident and observer of New Orleans, gives us the full sweep of the city's history from its founding through Louisiana statehood in 1812. We see the Crescent City evolve from a French village, to an African market town, to a Spanish fortress, and finally to an Anglo-American center of trade and commerce. We hear and feel the mix of people, religions, and languages from four continents that make the place electric--and always on the verge of unraveling. The "Accidental City" is the story of land-jobbing schemes, stock market crashes, and nonstop squabbles over status, power, and position, with enough rogues, smugglers, and self-fashioners to fill a picaresque novel. Powell's tale underscores the fluidity and contingency of the past, revealing a place where people made their own history. This is a city, and a history, marked by challenges and perpetual shifts in shape and direction, like the sinuous river on which it is perched.


This study investigates the factors that predisposed secondary school teachers to examination malpractice in Edo State and how they rate these factors. The study participants were 988 teachers selected from 9885 teachers in public and private secondary schools in the State. The descriptive (survey) design was used in the study because it is a self-report research that would enable the researchers to collect data from teachers in order to determine their predisposition to examination malpractice. A questionnaire developed by the researchers was used to collect the needed data. The data collected was analyzed using percentages, mean and standard deviation. The findings of the study revealed that anomie was a major significant variable that predisposed teachers to examination malpractice. Other variables, though not significant, were societal/parental factor, teaching/learning environment, teacher factor and student factor. Based on the findings, the researchers recommended, among others, that teacher training programmes should be re-designed with more emphasis on civic and value education and that government should improve on its funding in the education sector.


Revised and Expanded Edition

Wait—what's wrong with rights ? It is usually assumed that trans and gender nonconforming people should follow the civil rights and "equality" strategies of lesbian and gay rights organizations by agitating for legal reforms that would ostensibly guarantee nondiscrimination and equal protection under the law. This approach assumes that the best way to address the poverty and criminalization that plague trans populations is to gain legal recognition and inclusion in the state's institutions. But is this strategy effective?

In Normal Life Dean Spade presents revelatory critiques of the legal equality framework for social change, and points to examples of transformative grassroots trans activism that is raising demands that go beyond traditional civil rights reforms. Spade explodes assumptions about what legal rights can do for marginalized populations, and describes transformative resistance processes and formations that address the root causes of harm and violence.

In the new afterword to this revised and expanded edition, Spade notes the rapid mainstreaming of trans politics and finds that his predictions that gaining legal recognition will fail to benefit trans populations are coming to fruition. Spade examines recent efforts by the Obama administration and trans equality advocates to "pinkwash" state violence by articulating the US military and prison systems as sites for trans inclusion reforms. In the context of recent increased mainstream visibility of trans people and trans politics, Spade continues to advocate for the dismantling of systems of state violence that shorten the lives of trans people. Now more than ever, Normal Life is an urgent call for justice and trans liberation, and the radical transformations it will require.


Fast After 50 is for every endurance athlete who wants to stay fast for years to come. For runners, cyclists, triathletes, swimmers, and cross-country skiers, getting older doesn't have to mean getting slower. Drawing from the most current research on aging and sports performance, Joe Friel America's leading endurance sports coach shows how athletes can race strong and stay healthy well past age 50. In his groundbreaking book Fast After 50, Friel offers a smart approach for athletes to ward off the effects of age. Friel shows athletes how to extend their racing careers for decades and race to win. Fast After 50 presents guidelines for high-intensity workouts, focused strength training, recovery, crosstraining, and nutrition for high performance: How the body's response to training changes with age, how to adapt your training plan, and how to avoid overtraining. How to shed body fat and regain muscle density? How to create a progressive plan for training, rest, recovery, and competition workout guidelines, field tests, and intensity measurement. In Fast After 50, Joe Friel shows athletes that age is just a number and race results are the only numbers that count. With contributions from: Mark Allen, Gale Bernhardt, Amby Burfoot, Dr. Larry Creswell, John Howard, Dr. Tim Noakes, Ned Overend, Dr. John Post, Dr. Andrew Pruitt, and Lisa Rainsberger."


CF-graphs form a class of multigraphs that contains all simple graphs. We prove a lower bound for the average genus of a CF-graph which is a linear function of its Betti number. A lower bound for average genus in terms of the maximum genus and some structure theorems for graphs with a given average genus are also provided.


Robert Lucas is one of the outstanding monetary theorists of the past hundred years. Along with Knut Wicksell, Irving Fisher, John Maynard Keynes, James Tobin, and Milton Friedman (his teacher), Lucas revolutionized our understanding of how money interacts with the real economy of production, consumption, and exchange. Lucas's contributions are both methodological and substantive. Methodologically, he developed dynamic, stochastic, general equilibrium models to analyze economic decision-makers operating through time in a complex, probabilistic environment. Substantively, he incorporated the quantity theory of money into these models and derived its implications for money growth, inflation, and interest rates in the long run. He also showed the different effects of anticipated and unanticipated changes in the stock of money on economic fluctuations, and helped to demonstrate that there was not a long-run trade-off between unemployment and inflation (the Phillips curve) that policy-makers could exploit. The twenty-one papers collected in this volume fall primarily into three categories: core monetary theory and public finance, asset pricing, and the real effects of monetary instability. Published between 1972 and 2007, they will inspire students and researchers who want to study the work of a master of economic modeling and to advance economics as a pure and applied science.


There is virtually universal agreement that it is necessary to upgrade the electric grid to increase overall system efficiency and reliability. Much of the technology currently in use by the grid is outdated and in many cases unreliable. There have been three major blackouts in the past ten years. The reliance on old technology leads to inefficient systems, costing unnecessary money to the utilities, consumers, and taxpayers. To upgrade the grid, and to operate an improved grid, will require significant dependence on distributed intelligence and broadband communication capabilities. The access and communications capabilities require the latest in proven security technology for extremely large, wide-area communications networks. This paper discusses key security technologies for a smart grid system, including public key infrastructures and trusted computing.


Abstract The following critiques express the opinions of the individual evaluators regarding the strengths, weaknesses, and value of the books they review. As such, the appraisals are subjective assessments and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or any official policy of the American Ornithologists' Union.


We consider the problem of learning heuristics for controlling forward state-space beam search in AI planning domains. We draw on a recent framework for "structured output classification" (e.g. syntactic parsing) known as learning as search optimization (LaSO). The LaSO approach uses discriminative learning to optimize heuristic functions for search-based computation of structured outputs and has shown promising results in a number of domains. However, the search problems that arise in AI planning tend to be qualitatively very different from those considered in structured classification, which raises a number of potential difficulties in directly applying LaSO to planning. In this paper, we discuss these issues and describe a LaSO-based approach for discriminative learning of beam-search heuristics in AI planning domains. We give convergence results for this approach and present experiments in several benchmark domains. The results show that the discriminatively trained heuristic can outperform the one used by the planner FF and another recent non-discriminative learning approach.


Numerous studies have found a positive relationship between wealth and entering entrepreneurship, and interpret this as evidence of the existence of liquidity constraints. However, recent research has shown that the relationship between wealth and entering entrepreneurship may be non-linear and only significant for high-wealth households; this result cannot be interpreted as evidence of liquidity constraints. Using data from the SCF, we construct a proxy for wealth based on the household's home equity wealth at the time of the entrepreneurial decision. The results provide further evidence that the relationship between wealth and entering entrepreneurship is only significant for high-wealth households and that liquidity constraints do not appear to bind for the majority of new entrepreneurs. Possible explanations for the relationship between wealth and becoming an entrepreneur include lower risk aversion and differences in the types of businesses started by high-wealth households.


We show that loanword adaptation can be understood entirely in terms of phonological and phonetic comprehension and production mechanisms in the first language. We provide explicit accounts of several loanword adaptation phenomena (in Korean) in terms of an Optimality-Theoretic grammar model with the same three levels of representation that are needed to describe L1 phonology: the underlying form, the phonological surface form, and the auditory-phonetic form. The model is bidirectional, i.e. the same constraints and rankings are used by the listener and by the speaker. These constraints and rankings are the same for L1 processing and loanword adaptation.


This study deals with the numerical solution of a meshfree coupled model of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Population Balance Equation (PBE) for liquid-liquid extraction columns. In modeling the coupled hydrodynamics and mass transfer in liquid extraction columns one encounters multidimensional population balance equation that could not be fully resolved numerically within a reasonable time necessary for steady state or dynamic simulations. For this reason, there is an obvious need for a new liquid extraction model that captures all the essential physical phenomena and still tractable from computational point of view. This thesis discusses a new model which focuses on discretization of the external (spatial) and internal coordinates such that the computational time is drastically reduced. For the internal coordinates, the concept of the multi-primary particle method; as a special case of the Sectional Quadrature Method of Moments (SQMOM) is used to represent the droplet internal properties. This model is capable of conserving the most important integral properties of the distribution; namely: the total number, solute and volume concentrations and reduces the computational time when compared to the classical finite difference methods, which require many grid points to conserve the desired physical quantities. On the other hand, due to the discrete nature of the dispersed phase, a meshfree Lagrangian particle method is used to discretize the spatial domain (extraction column height) using the Finite Pointset Method (FPM). This method avoids the extremely difficult convective term discretization using the classical finite volume methods, which require a lot of grid points to capture the moving fronts propagating along column height.


The author conducted a qualitative study of multimodal digital response to children's historical fiction that his 23 pre-service graduate students read in book clubs. Grounded in sociocultural and multimodal theories of literacy, the study addresses the following two research questions: What influence did sociocultural and multimodal engagements with text have on students' meaning-making? What influence did these engagements have on their conceptions of texts, readers, and response? Findings show how social negotiation of meaning and robustness of design work expanded participants' understandings of texts, readers, and response that challenge current autonomous, verbocentric conceptions of literacy that predominate in schools.


This paper tackles an intellectual property theory that many scholars regard as fundamental to future policy debates over the scope of trademark protection: the trademark use theory. We argue that trademark use theory is flawed and should be rejected. The adoption of trademark use theory has immediate practical implications for disputes about the use of trademarks in online advertising, merchandising, and product design, and has long-term consequences for other trademark generally. We critique the theory both descriptively and prescriptively. We argue that trademark use theory over-extends the search costs rationale for the trademark system, and that it unhelpfully elevates formalism over contextual analysis in trademark law rulemaking. The theory seeks determinate trademark rules in order to encourage a climate of certainty for innovators, but the concepts on which it is founded are likely to degenerate. We show that trademark use theorists ignores the multivalence of trademark law, and that adopting trademark use doctrines would result in less transparent trademark decisionmaking. Instead, we propose that trademark law retain its traditional preference for contextual analysis. We show in particular how a contextual analysis would offer an approach to trademark disputes involving online advertising that better captures the potential of trademark law to police new information markets. Our analysis contemplates individualized assessments according to common law standards, but opens up policy space for the development of limited statutory safe harbors for intermediaries such as search engines.


The Look of Silence is Joshua Oppenheimer's powerful companion piece to the Oscar®-nominated The Act of Killing. Through Oppenheimer's footage of perpetrators of the 1965 Indonesian genocide, a family of survivors discovers how their son was murdered, as well as the identities of the killers. The documentary focuses on the youngest son, an optometrist named Adi, who decides to break the suffocating spell of submission and terror by doing something unimaginable in a society where the murderers remain in power: he confronts the men who killed his brother and, while testing their eyesight, asks them to accept responsibility for their actions. This unprecedented film initiates and bears witness to the collapse of fifty years of silence.


Adjusted analysis: when groups differ on baseline characteristics (eg, age), analyses of outcome data are statistically modified to account for these differences. Blinding (masking): in an experimental study, refers to whether patients, clinicians providing an intervention, people assessing outcomes, and/or statisticians were aware or unaware of the group to which patients were assigned. In the design section of Evidence-Based Nursing abstracts of treatment studies, the study is identified as blinded, with specification of who was blinded; unblinded, if all parties were aware of patients' group assignments; or blinded (unclear) if the authors did not report or provide us with an indication of who was aware or unaware of patients' group assignments. Concealment of randomisation: concealment of randomisation is specified in the design section of Evidence-Based Nursing abstracts of treatment studies as follows: allocation concealed (deemed to have taken adequate measures to conceal allocation to study group assignments from those responsible for assessing patients for entry in the trial [ie, central randomisation; numbered, opaque, sealed envelopes; sealed envelopes from a closed bag; numbered or coded bottles or containers; drugs prepared by the pharmacy; or other descriptions that contain elements convincing of concealment]); allocation not concealed (deemed to have not taken adequate measures to conceal allocation to study group assignments from those responsible for assessing patients for entry in the trial [ie, no concealment procedure was undertaken, sealed envelopes that were not opaque, or other descriptions that contained elements not convincing of concealment]); unclear allocation concealment (the authors did not report or provide a description of an allocation concealment approach that allowed for the classification as concealed or not concealed). 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. Constant comparison: a procedure used in qualitative research wherein newly collected data are compared in an ongoing fashion with data obtained earlier, to refine theoretically relevant categories. Data saturation (saturation, redundancy): process of collecting data in a qualitative research study to the point where no new themes are generated. Effect size: a measure of effect that is typically used for continuous data when different scales are used to measure an outcome and is usually defined as the difference in means between the intervention and control groups divided by the standard deviation of the control or both groups; it can be used for combining results across studies in a meta-analysis. Ethnography (ethnographic study): an approach to inquiry that focuses on the culture or subculture of a group of people, with an effort to understand the world view of those under study. Grounded theory: an approach to collecting and analysing qualitative data with the aim of developing theories grounded in real world observations. 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. Interactionist analysis: a qualitative method that aims to bring out subjective and personal experience through the development of thick description, which illuminates context, meanings, and interpretation instead of just reporting facts. Log rank test: a statistical method for comparing 2 survival curves when censored observations exist. 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. 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 (or to promote 1 additional positive event); this is calculated as 1/absolute risk reduction (rounded to the next whole number), accompanied by the 95% confidence interval. Phenomenology: an approach to inquiry that emphasises the complexity of human experience and the need to understand that experience holistically as it is actually lived. 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 risk increase (RRI): the proportional increase in bad outcomes between experimental and control participants; it is reported as a percentage (%). Relative risk reduction (RRR): the proportional reduction in outcome rates of bad events between experimental and control participants; it is reported as a percentage (%). Stratified randomisation: used in trials to ensure that equal numbers of participants with a particular characteristic (eg, age) are allocated to each comparison group. Trend: approaches a predefined level of statistical significance. Wald test: used to evaluate the significance of individual predictors in a logistic regression equation.


Contemporary accounts of corporate legal evolution view lawmakers as highly responsive to the economic interests of both pressure groups and markets. Through this lens law is understood to be the product of pressures exerted by managers, investors, institutional shareholders and the Federal Government, and the incentives of state lawmakers to accommodate the interests of these pressure groups. This lens dominates our current understanding of corporate legal evolution in the United States and is becoming highly influential in comparative accounts of corporate legal variation. This article sounds a note of objection. The article argues that the disciplinary pendulum has swung too far toward external accounts of legal evolution and too far away from internal accounts of legal change which view the path of law, at least in part, as the product of the internally generated constraints of the legal system – the relative autonomy of the law. To make this argument, the article considers the internal constraint of the conception of the corporation in 19th century US and UK corporate law and the evolution of self-dealing law in these two jurisdictions. It shows how two jurisdictions that started from the same legal proposition about self-dealing diverged rapidly as a result of the interaction of this proposition with profoundly different conceptions of the corporation. Contrary to the dominant account of the evolution of self-dealing law in the United States, the contemporary self-dealing rule is not the legally unexplained product of external market pressures but the logical and consistent product of the path of fiduciary law trodden through the corporate conception. The article shows that for contemporary corporate law a significant dose of inevitability was administered at the inception of general incorporation.


OBJECTIVES
To confirm that neutralizing antibodies (NAb) to interferon beta can persist after therapy withdrawal and to evaluate whether persisting NAb are associated with a worse clinical disease course in multiple sclerosis (MS).

DESIGN
Retrospective study.

SETTING
Tertiary referral center in The Netherlands.

PATIENTS
A total of 71 patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis treated with interferon beta in the past.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Persisting NAb after therapy withdrawal were tested using the cytopathic effect assay. Patients with and without persisting NAb were compared on several outcomes: the change in annualized relapse rate from prior to interferon beta treatment initiation to after cessation of treatment, time to sustained disability on the Kurtzke Expanded Disability Status Scale, and the use of disease-modifying treatments after cessation of treatment with interferon beta.

RESULTS
Seventeen of 71 patients (24%) tested NAb positive after a median interval of 25 months (interquartile range, 10-51 months) after interferon beta treatment cessation. Eleven of these 17 patients (15%) were high-titer NAb positive (>150 10-fold reduction units per mL). Persisting NAb were associated with an increase in the annualized relapse rate (P = .04) and a reduction in time to reach a sustained Expanded Disability Status Scale score of 6.0, ie, the need for unilateral assistance to walk 100 m (P = .02). Moreover, NAb-positive patients were treated with second-line therapy significantly more often, especially mitoxantrone (P = .006).

CONCLUSION
Anti-interferon beta NAb can persist after interferon beta treatment withdrawal and are associated with overt clinical disease activity. This is made apparent by an increase in relapse rate and faster disability progression and is supported by the observed need for more aggressive therapy after interferon beta treatment cessation. Prospective studies are warranted to confirm these results.


Abstract. The global commercial aircraft fleet in 2006 flew 31.26 million flights, burned 188.20 million metric tons of fuel, and covered 38.68 billion kilometers. This activity emitted substantial amounts of fossil-fuel combustion products within the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere that affect atmospheric composition and climate. The emissions products, such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, sulfur compounds, and particulate matter, are not emitted uniformly over the Earth, so understanding the temporal and spatial distributions is important for modeling aviation's climate impacts. Global commercial aircraft emission data for 2004 and 2006, provided by the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, were computed using the Federal Aviation Administration's Aviation Environmental Design Tool (AEDT). Continuous improvement in methodologies, including changes in AEDT's horizontal track methodologies, and an increase in availability of data make some differences between the 2004 and 2006 inventories incomparable. Furthermore, the 2004 inventory contained a significant over-count due to an imperfect data merge and daylight savings error. As a result, the 2006 emissions inventory is considered more representative of actual flight activity. Here, we analyze both 2004 and 2006 emissions, focusing on the latter, and provide corrected totals for 2004. Analysis of 2006 flight data shows that 92.5% of fuel was burned in the Northern Hemisphere, 69.0% between 30N and 60N latitudes, and 74.6% was burned above 7 km. This activity led to 162.25 Tg of carbon from CO2 emitted globally in 2006, more than half over three regions: the United States (25.5%), Europe (14.6), and East Asia (11.1). Despite receiving less than one percent of global emissions, the Arctic receives a uniformly dispersed concentration of emissions with 95.2% released at altitude where they have longer residence time than surface emissions. Finally, 85.2% of all flights by number in 2006 were short-haul missions, yet those flights were responsible for only 39.7% of total carbon from CO2. The following is a summary of these data which illustrates the global and regional aviation emissions footprints for 2004 and 2006, and provides temporal and spatial distribution statistics.


The interest of the exploration of new hydrocarbon fields as well as deep geothermal reservoirs is permanently growing. The analysis of seismic data specific for such exploration projects is very complex and requires the deep knowledge in geology, geophysics, petrology, etc from interpreters, as well as the ability of advanced tools that are able to recover some particular properties. There again the existing wavelet techniques have a huge success in signal processing, data compression, noise reduction, etc. They enable to break complicate functions into many simple pieces at different scales and positions that makes detection and interpretation of local events significantly easier.

In this thesis mathematical methods and tools are presented which are applicable to the seismic data postprocessing in regions with non-smooth boundaries. We provide wavelet techniques that relate to the solutions of the Helmholtz equation. As application we are interested in seismic data analysis. A similar idea to construct wavelet functions from the limit and jump relations of the layer potentials was first suggested by Freeden and his Geomathematics Group.
The particular difficulty in such approaches is the formulation of limit and
jump relations for surfaces used in seismic data processing, i.e., non-smooth
surfaces in various topologies (for example, uniform and
quadratic). The essential idea is to replace the concept of parallel surfaces known for a smooth regular surface by certain appropriate substitutes for non-smooth surfaces.

By using the jump and limit relations formulated for regular surfaces, Helmholtz wavelets can be introduced that recursively approximate functions on surfaces with edges and corners. The exceptional point is that the construction of wavelets allows the efficient implementation in form of
a tree algorithm for the fast numerical computation of functions on the boundary.

In order to demonstrate the
applicability of the Helmholtz FWT, we study a seismic image obtained by the reverse time migration which is based on a finite-difference implementation. In fact, regarding the requirements of such migration algorithms in filtering and denoising the wavelet decomposition is successfully applied to this image for the attenuation of low-frequency
artifacts and noise. Essential feature is the space localization property of
Helmholtz wavelets which numerically enables to discuss the velocity field in
pointwise dependence. Moreover, the multiscale analysis leads us to reveal additional geological information from optical features.


This book is the first major academic study of the Ulster Plantation in over 25 years. The pivotal importance of the Plantation to the shared histories of Ireland and Britain would be difficult to overstate. It helped secure the English conquest of Ireland, and dramatically transformed Ireland's physical, political, religious and cultural landscapes. The legacies of the Plantation are still contested to this day, but as the Peace Process evolves and the violence of the previous forty years begins to recede into memory, vital space has been created for a timely reappraisal of the plantation process and its role in identity formation within Ulster, Ireland and beyond. This collection of essays by leading scholars in the field offers an important redress in terms of the previous coverage of the plantations, moving away from an exclusive colonial perspective, to include the native Catholic experience, and in so doing will hopefully stimulate further research into this crucial episode in Irish and British history.


Visuals are generally considered to be rich in information, but also to be open to many different interpretations. As a consequence, many argumentation scholars doubt that visuals can constitute argumentation (e.g. Fleming, 1996; Johnson, 2003, 2010; Patterson, 2010). In this paper, we argue that the rhetorical and argumentative potential of visuals and multimodal texts is strengthened if they belong to recognizable genres, genres being governed by discourse-internal factors as well as situational/pragmatic understanding. The genre of traffic signs can draw on specific genre conventions thanks to these signs' highly coded nature. As a consequence, traffic signs constitute an exemplary category to make the point that visuals and multimodal texts can function rhetorically or even argumentatively. We support our claim by first analysing a number of unusual instances of the genre and then discussing a few visual and multimodal signs whose argumentative potential no longer depends on specific traffic-related circumstances but crucially depends on the pretence that they are traffic signs.


From flying squirrels to grizzly bears, and from torpid turtles to insects with antifreeze, the animal kingdom relies on some staggering evolutionary innovations to survive winter. Unlike their human counterparts, who must alter the environment to accommodate physical limitations, animals are adaptable to an amazing range of conditions.Examining everything from food sources in the extremely barren winter land-scape to the chemical composition that allows certain creatures to survive, Heinrich's Winter World awakens the largely undiscovered mysteries by which nature sustains herself through winter's harsh, cruel exigencies.


The People's Republic of China has an authoritarian political system controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Since 2007, Chinese authorities have tightened official controls over the media and civil society, and backtracked on legal reforms they enacted in the 1990s and early 2000s. Following the 1949 revolution, party leaders led by Mao Zedong attempted to remold China. They imposed communist ideology, a state-run economy, and absolute party-state control over citizens' lives. Such policies led to mass famine (the Great Leap Forward, 1958–60) and severe political turmoil (the Cultural Revolution, 1966–76). In the late 1970s, the Chinese leadership under Deng Xiaoping launched the modern reform period. They relaxed economic and ideological controls, fueling an unprecedented 30-year long economic boom. China has experienced a ten-fold expansion in GDP, replaced Japan as the second-largest economy in the world, and emerged as a world power. These reforms are transforming the country. Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty. Urbanization is proceeding rapidly, with some 140 million migrants traveling annually between their rural hometowns to China's booming cities in search of work. The freedom enjoyed by ordinary Chinese citizens with regard to core personal decisions such as where to live and work has greatly expanded. Commercialized media and new technologies have given rise to a cadre of activist journalists and bloggers who push against the boundaries of state censorship, often exposing corrupt or illegal behavior on the part of local officials. Central government leaders, however, remain adamantly opposed to fundamental political reform. They reject free speech and representative democracy. They repress peaceful protests with brutal force, as with the Tiananmen student demonstrations in 1989 and the Falun Gong spiritual movement after 1999. Moderate calls for political reform are met with lengthy prison terms. For example, 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo is currently serving an 11-year sentence for his role in organizing Charter 08, a petition signed by thousands of Chinese citizens and intellectuals calling for greater political and civil rights. Despite opposition to significant political change that might threaten their control, central government authorities have pursued a range of limited reforms to fight corruption and abuse of power in local government. Since the 1980s, Chinese authorities have adopted electoral reforms that allow a restricted level of citizen participation in the selection of local officials. Starting in the 1990s, Chinese authorities took steps towards professionalizing the judiciary and allowing citizens a degree of legal redress for grievances against officials. Some officials have called for deeper reforms. In a series of speeches given in 2010, Premier Wen Jiabao criticized the excessive centralization of political power, warning that "without the safeguard of political reform, the fruits of economic reform will be lost and the goal of modernization will not materialize." Other authorities, however, have blocked these calls. Propaganda officials censored some of Premier Wen's remarks, while state-run media outlets parroted the official line regarding the need to avoid "Western" political reforms. Positive reform efforts have been undercut when they appear to be on the verge of generating substantial change. For example, authorities moved to exert tighter control over village elections in 1999, after local activists and officials attempted to extend such competitive polls up to township governments. In the last several years, central party authorities have made similar, increasingly concerted efforts to curtail the legal and judicial reforms of the prior decade. As in the past, Chinese authorities have tightened their grip on dissent in advance of high-profile events, or in the wake of overseas developments. Officials engaged in widespread detentions of activists and petitioners prior to both the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. Following the 2011 Arab Spring, Chinese authorities commenced one of the most sustained and widespread crackdowns in decades. Authorities launched extrajudicial detentions of public interest activists and lawyers, increased harassment of journalists, and began interfering with virtual private network (VPN) services used by many citizens to evade extensive state internet controls. However, tougher Chinese policies with regard to the media, civil society, and legal institutions are not simply the result of transitory state concerns with regard to specific, one-time events. Rather, they represent a more general effort, extending back several years, to curtail some of the limited reforms undertaken in recent decades. China's future remains uncertain. Central Chinese authorities have chosen to prioritize party control at the expense of building autonomous legal and political institutions. This carries real risks for social stability. Rapid economic development is generating increased demands by citizens to participate in the decisions that affect their lives, and for authorities to more fairly respond to their grievances. In the absence of gradual and substantive steps toward political reform, this pressure is instead being channeled into mass citizen petitions and protests, populist official rhetoric, and nationalistic internet forums — unruly and imperfect release valves that erupt periodically (and with increasing intensity), but that fail to address the roots of building social discontent.


: Successful managers focus their attention on factors that are critical in establishing and maintaining an organisation's competitive edge. The knowledge and skill of employees is one of those factors and it requires proactive management attention. Conceptually, this is achieved through Knowledge Management, a term that has existed in the mainstream of business lexicon for quite some time. Despite this, there is the conspicuous absence of a common understanding of the term that frustrates many managers. Studies have clearly established that there are three interdependent and complementary pillars that support the concept of Knowledge Management. These are Organisational Learning Management (OLM), Organisational Knowledge Management (OKM) and Intellectual Capital Management (ICM). OLM, which has so far dominated both academic and practitioner debate, concerns itself with the problem of capturing, organising and retrieving explicit knowledge, or information, and has led to the simplistic misconception that Knowledge Management only involves the capture, or downloading, of the content of employees' minds. ICM is dominated by those particularly interested in defining key performance indicators that will measure the impact and the benefits of applying knowledge management practices. If management requires measurement this is an essential task but it can only be undertaken once an organisation has clearly established the strategy-structure-process parameters to ensure it accesses, creates and embeds the knowledge that it needs...the OKM pillar of knowledge management. This paper looks more deeply at this pillar and in particular the lack of a general integrative approach to enhancing organisational performance in this key strategic area. It considers to what extent such an approach may help an organisation more effectively manage its most relevant source of competitive advantage. With a greater awareness of the various factors allied to the managing and leveraging of human oriented and system oriented knowledge assets, some proposals are put forward to assist in developing or redefining an organisation's intellectual capital reporting models in search of a planning, control and performance measurement system that accounts for the management of an organisation's intellectual assets.


Objective Our study investigated body image representations in female patients with anorexia nervosa and healthy controls using a size estimation with pictures of their own body. We also explored a method to reduce body image distortions through right hemispheric activation. Method Pictures of participants' own bodies were shown on the left or right visual fields for 130 ms after presentation of neutral, positive, or negative word primes, which could be self-relevant or not, with the task of classifying the picture as "thinner than", "equal to", or "fatter than" one's own body. Subsequently, activation of the left- or right hemispheric through right- or left-hand muscle contractions for 3 min., respectively. Finally, participants completed the size estimation task again. Results The distorted "fatter than" body image was found only in patients and only when a picture of their own body appeared on the right visual field (left hemisphere) and was preceded by negative self-relevant words. This distorted perception of the patients' body image was reduced after left-hand muscle contractions (right hemispheric activation). Discussion To reduce body image distortions it is advisable to find methods that help anorexia nervosa patients to increase their self-esteem. The body image distortions were ameliorated after right hemispheric activation. A related method to prevent distorted body-image representations in these patients may be Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy.


There are several ways to calculate the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT), such as solving simultaneous linear equations or the correlation method described in Chapter 8. The Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) is another method for calculating the DFT. While it produces the same result as the other approaches, it is incredibly more efficient, often reducing the computation time by hundreds. This is the same improvement as flying in a jet aircraft versus walking! If the FFT were not available, many of the techniques described in this book would not be practical. While the FFT only requires a few dozen lines of code, it is one of the most complicated algorithms in DSP. But don't despair! You can easily use published FFT routines without fully understanding the internal workings.


This Article uses the case of early US citizenship law to illustrate four larger points about the relationship between rights and time in a liberal democracy. First, measured time is integral to establishing the boundaries of a sovereign population and to the extension of citizenship within the boundaries of states. Dates such as those associated with the union of the Scottish and Irish crowns establish sovereign boundaries around a population of subjects, marking only those born in the territory after the moment of establishment as legal subjects. Consent-based democracies such as the United States adapt the citizenship principle to permit critical periods of constitutional reasoning rather than relying on single moments of establishment in which subjecthood is bestowed on persons without their consent.Second, the establishment of pivotal dates and durations of time reflects a set of beliefs and commitments about the moral value of time in politics. Measured time is an important means with which polities can embody, represent, and quantify intangible moral qualities and relationships such as allegiance, consent, civic virtue, and experience. Temporal laws and policies embody a form of commensuration in which intangible personal and political qualities are translated into precise quantities of time. Time provides a way for a state to create and administer uniform rules for transforming non-citizens into citizens particularly in cases of disagreement about whether non-citizens should be included at all. Third, after the qualitative moral traits of a citizen have been expressed in the tangible quantitative terms of measured time, durations of time can be exchanged for rights and political status. In short, time has political exchange value. It is used to create temporal equations in which time (other actions and qualities) = citizenship rights. Fourth, the use of time in the establishment and conferral of citizenship rights helps negotiate tensions between conflicting doctrines of membership. Because time appears to treat all subjects and citizens identically, progressing at the same rate for all, temporal rules offer the appearance of objectivity and even-handedness associated with liberalism. At the same time, people's time can be valued or devalued in subjective ways that reflect situated judgments. Finally, time is a highly efficient means with which bureaucratic states can process complex decisions such as "which criminals have paid their debt to society and/or rehabilitated themselves?" and "who is mature and qualified for full citizenship?" Polities are therefore very likely to turn to temporal laws and policies to facilitate compromise and lawmaking in the context of normative conflict.


If youve been waiting impatiently for the arrival of Windows Server 2008, wait no more! Its here, and so is Windows Server 2008 All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies to help you install it, configure it, network with it, secure it, command it with Windows PowerShell, and more. Services best practices and the cool IIS Web server are covered too. The eight powerful quick-reference manuals in this one-stop guide cover all the information you need to perform common administrative tasks with Windows Server 2008. Youll find sure-handed guidance and considerable detail on everything from installation to figuring out why a user cant gain access to resources on the server. You also see procedures for all common tasks everything from setting up Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) to promoting your server to a domain controller. Discover how to: Use Windows Server virtualization Perform a complete PC restore Configure server roles and features Measure system performance Add network clients and protocols Keep your server operating at peak performance Monitor network interactions with others Work with Active Directory RMS Use best practices for implementing security Implement scripts and cmdlets with PowerShell Uncloak viruses masquerading as services Windows Server 2008 contains so many features that its sometimes hard to know which one to install. No problem! Just flip open Windows Server 2008 All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies and find your answer in a flash!


The International Health Regulations (2005) are legally binding on 196 States Parties, Including all WHO Member States. The IHR aims to keep the world informed about public health risks, through committing all signatories to cooperate together in combating any future "illness or medical condition, irrespective of origin or source, that presents or could present significant harm to humans." Under IHR, countries agreed to strengthen their public health capacities and notify the WHO of any such illness in their populations. The WHO would be the centralized body for all countries facing a health threat, with the power to declare a "public health emergency of international concern," issue recommendations, and work with countries to tackle a crisis. Although, with the sudden and rapid spread of COVID-19 in the world, many countries varied in implementing the WHO guidelines and health recommendations. While some countries followed the WHO guidelines, others imposed travel restrictions against the WHO's recommendations. Some refused to share their data with the organization. Others banned the export of medical equipment, even in the face of global shortages. The UN Compliance Research group will focus during the current cycle on analyzing the compliance of the WHO member states to the organizations guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic.


This paper presents the leakage performance of various stepped labyrinth seals. A stationary seal test rig was set up and the leakage characteristics of three seal configurations with different numbers of steps and teeth were investigated for wide operating ranges in terms of pressure ratio and tip clearance. Both the solid and honeycomb land structures were tested. In the honeycomb case, two different sizes were used. The seal was shaped, typical of labyrinth seals for gas turbine applications. The influences of seal configuration, and clearance and honeycomb sizes on the leakage performance were investigated. The relative performances between different seal configurations were compared and their dependence on the land structure was investigated. The honeycomb structure was found to increase leakage for all test conditions. The leakage ratio (honeycomb/solid) was analyzed in terms of geometric variables.Copyright © 2010 by ASME


It has been observed that there is a crisis of quality leadership in Muslim world for decades. Erosion of moral values among leaders contributes to the instability and poor economic performance for many Muslim countries. This study investigates factors that contribute to the deterioration of quality leadership in Muslim world. The study also investigates the role of quality leadership for unifying the Muslim Ummah. Descriptive and analytical research methods have been applied in this study to analyze the interviews as well as prior studies. The findings indicate that lack of sufficient education, dishonesty, lack of knowledge and dedication for country's development, absence of trustworthiness and responsibility, lack of moral values and avoidance of teaching of Al-Qur'an and As-Sunnah are the main factors that cause the deterioration of quality leadership in Muslim world. The study also concludes that honest and responsible leadership can contribute significantly to the economic development, political stability, peace and harmony of the Muslim world. This study recommends possible initiatives in order to produce quality leadership skills in society, government and NGOs citizens.


Rabindranath Tagore is often referred to as a 'nationalist poet' or a 'nationalist leader'. This presents problems both historical and historiographical, since by the end of the first decade of the twentieth century Tagore had explicitly rejected nationalism. At the same time, Tagore's legacy is further complicated by certain trends in Indian postcolonial historiography. Work emerging from the Subaltern Studies Collective has often put forward a more complex historical analysis, moving beyond a straightforward dichotomy between nationalism and anti-nationalism. In this version of Tagore's place in India's past, he is simultaneously both inside and outside: a Bengali intellectual deeply marked by his 'cosmopolitanism', 'modernism' and other derivative tropes of western bourgeois intellectual and cultural life. But in this mode of analysis, Tagore too often suffers from simplistic application of various Western classifications, for example as a 'romantic modernist' or 'liberal humanist'. In fact Tagore, like Hegel, Tagore saw World History as the steady unfolding of an idea. The marked distinction was that, unlike Hegel, he placed India at the centre of that process. In this regard, Tagore developed an alternative conception of modernity which saw the ideas, politics and technology of the West as only one aspect of a developing historical process, rather than its core movement. This not only challenges the spatial dimensions of modernity but also challenges us to think more critically about 'modernities' and the kinds of categories we deploy to make sense of the 'modern' and 'counter-modern'. In this respect, the Tagore-Gandhi debates become a crucial historical and textual source for an interpretation of Tagore's thinking on nationalism. These debates centred on the freedom struggle and India's stance towards the West; and towards Britain as the colonial power. They point towards a complicated engagement with the West, its position in the world, its relationship to India and the political and intellectual influences that it had in India.


This review presents several types of metabolites produced by the most common fungal pathogens and their roles in fungal pathogenesis. Toxic metabolites from toxigenic fungi include compounds such as aflatoxins, trichothecenes, ochratoxins, fumonisins, zearalenone and ergot alkaloids, which display hepatotoxicity, nephrotoxicity, neurotoxicity and genotoxicity. The ability of fungi to produce and elaborate hydrolytic enzymes is associated with virulence of several pathogenic fungi. The biogenesis of siderophores is investigated as it is a mechanism of iron acquisition. In particular, these metabolites act as iron chelators and storage compounds to support pathogenic fungi to survive in mammalian hosts whose iron homeostasis is strictly regulated and prevent the formation of free radicals which are formed by free iron. Melanins clearly promote infectivity in a number of species of fungal pathogens. They interfere with oxidative metabolism of phagocytosis making the fungus relatively resistant to phagocyte attack. Several metabolies such as pullulan, mannitol, β-(1,3)-glucan, hem-binding proteins, estrogen-binding proteins, farnesol, agglutinin-like sequence proteins, glucuronoxylomannan and others also have advantages in fungal pathogenicity. The identification of fungal metabolites involved in pathogenesis, and recognition of mechanisms of pathogenesis may lead to development of new efficient anti-fungal therapies.


Sibelco Nordic's mine on Stjernøya, North Norway, disposes mine tailings into the fjord Stjernsundet. The tailings, discharged at the shoreline in the bay of Lillebukt, comprise c. 85% fine silt to medium-grained sand (0.01–0.5 mm). Upon discharge of the mine tailings into the fjord, they are redistributed by slides and density currents along major channels with pronounced levees. Multibeam echosounder data show sand waves in the channels, while seabed samples and cores document sand ripples and layers of mud between the sand layers. Mud accumulates outside of the channels on the seabed in Lillebukt and as a thin veneer along the shores to the east and west. The bathymetry data show partly buried slide escarpments and slide deposits, while smaller slide scars are evident in the levees. Three slide events in the tailings are documented of which the most recent occurred 9th October 2017. Comparison of bathymetry data collected in 2016 and 2018 show changes in bathymetry in the channels of ± 3 m. Slides are partly initiated along fine-grained layers and caused by hypersedimentation. From 60 m depth, one single channel continues down to 100 m, where the sediment transport is along a gully in the steep (45°) bedrock slope down to c. 400 m depth. A sand-dominated submarine fan has accumulated at the foot of the slope, extending to c. 463 m depth. Bathymetric data, seismic data and core analysis show that the fan has a radius of up to 1500 m and covers an area of c. 1.5 km2. Comparison of bathymetry data collected in 1998 and 2016 shows that a large part of the tailings disposed of in that 18-year period (4 million tons) have accumulated on the submarine fan.


Derived from the renowned multi-volume International Encyclopaedia of Laws, this practical analysis of the law of contracts in Sweden covers every aspect of the subject – definition and classification of contracts, contractual liability, relation to the law of property, good faith, burden of proof, defects, penalty clauses, arbitration clauses, remedies in case of non-performance, damages, power of attorney, and much more. Lawyers who handle transnational contracts will appreciate the explanation of fundamental differences in terminology, application, and procedure from one legal system to another, as well as the international aspects of contract law. Throughout the book, the treatment emphasizes drafting considerations. An introduction in which contracts are defined and contrasted to torts, quasi-contracts, and property is followed by a discussion of the concepts of 'consideration' or 'cause' and other underlying principles of the formation of contract. Subsequent chapters cover the doctrines of 'relative effect', termination of contract, and remedies for non-performance. The second part of the book, recognizing the need to categorize an agreement as a specific contract in order to determine the rules which apply to it, describes the nature of agency, sale, lease, building contracts, and other types of contract. Facts are presented in such a way that readers who are unfamiliar with specific terms and concepts in varying contexts will fully grasp their meaning and significance. Its succinct yet scholarly nature, as well as the practical quality of the information it provides, make this book a valuable time-saving tool for business and legal professionals alike. Lawyers representing parties with interests in Sweden will welcome this very useful guide, and academics and researchers will appreciate its value in the study of comparative contract law. (Less)


The purpose of this cross-sectional, correlational study was to explore the use of traditional, complementary, and alternative (TCA) self-care expressions, patterns, and practices of Latinos/Hispanics for the management of type 2 diabetes. The target population was adult men and women living in a nonborder, emerging Latino/Hispanic area. Specifically, this study explored the use of herbal remedies, faith-based interventions, consulting traditional healers, and self-medication/self-prescription practices and assessed their association to glycemic control. Leininger's culture care diversity and universality theory and sunrise enabler were used as the conceptual framework. A total of 75 Latino/Hispanic immigrants living in central and western North Carolina were enrolled. Approximately 67% of participants were female and the mean age was 47 years. High levels of hypertension, overweight/obesity, and diabetes-related comorbidities were reported. Glycemic control was poor, as measured by A1C. Limited financial resources and low acculturation levels were reported by the men and women. Sixty-nine percent of the sample reported using herbal/plant products on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis for diabetes self-care. Forty-nine different products were used. The most frequently used herbal remedies were prickly pear cactus (nopale), aloe vera (salvia or sabila), celery (apio), vegetable pear (chayote), cinnamon (canela), cat's claw (una de gato), Herbalife, beets (betabel), bitter gourd/melon (cundeamor or yerba mora), nin, horsetail (la cola de caballo), and oats (aveno). Forty-one percent of the sample reported using faith-based interventions, such as personal prayer or going to mass/church. Eight percent of the sample consulted with traditional healers, and approximately 15% used self-medication/self-prescription to manage diabetes. Participants reported not communicating the use of TCA modalities with their health care provider. Persons identified reasons for not disclosing this information as: beliefs that American healthcare providers do not believe in or lack knowledge of Latino/Hispanic natural medicine; "it's not relevant"; a translator was required to explain TCA practices; and prior experiences with healthcare providers "being in a hurry" and "not asking questions" of patients. Multiple linear regression analyses were used to examine the association of individual characteristics, cultural and social structure dimensions, and environmental context factors with the use of TCA modalities and with glycemic control (A1C level). The effect of herbal remedies, faith-based interventions, consulting traditional healers, and self-medication/self-prescription on A1C level was examined. Predictors of TCA usage and glycemic control were not found. New knowledge of the emic practices of Latinos/Hispanics for the management of type 2 diabetes was developed. Understanding self-care practices of Latinos/Hispanics and improving provider cultural competency are critical for alleviating diabetes-related health disparities of this population. Study findings inform implications in the areas of practice, education, healthcare systems and policy, and future research to alleviate disparities in access, care, and health outcomes for Latinos/Hispanics with diabetes.


Malaysia has come to a point where second and third languages become part of the requirements to be employed especially in the multinational and international companies. After gaining its Independence, English becomes the second language in Malaysia, and Bahasa Melayu is recognised as the official language of the country. This move has greatly impacted the education sector in Malaysia, and one of the challenges is that younger generation lacks English language competency. This can be supported by some recent surveys about employability of Malaysian graduates, in that one of the issues which hinders graduates to secure jobs is the inability to converse in English (see Mohamed Khaled Nordin, 2009; Noor Azina Ismail, 2011). Therefore, this article aims to examine the teaching and learning strategies and assessments for an oral communication course at the Defence University in Malaysia. At the same time, this article attempts to provide a basis for Continual Quality Improvement (CQI) for the course.The findings of this article are a series of reflective practices, observed and experienced by the author. These reflective practices can be used for further improvements and future references of the course.


The optical scattering and absorption of gold nanorods (GNRs) depends on its size, shape, and surroundings. This dependence is due to both intrinsic and extrinsic effects. A good understanding of this dependence is needed for applications of GNRs in photo-thermal therapy, optical and optoacoustic imaging, biosensing, and other photonic areas. Extrinsic effects are caused by the production of localized and surface plasmons and are well understood through Mie theory for spherical particles and Maxwell's equations for arbitrary objects. Intrinsic effects become prominent at the nano-scale, when the cluster size becomes comparable or smaller than the bulk mean free path of electrons between collisions and additional scattering of the conduction electrons from the cluster surface occur. The addition of this scattering will shorten the mean free path between collisions and increase the damping constant. The increased damping is due to radiative losses in the case of gold nanoparticles larger than 20 nm in diameter and surface scattering in the case of smaller nanoparticles. The surface scattering effect is quantified using a surface scattering parameter, A [1] and Leff=4V/S (V is the volume and S is the surface of the object) [2]. Surface scattering parameter A affects full width at half maximum of the surface plasmon resonance and usually used as a fitting parameter between theory and experiment. The surface scattering parameter for silica coated GNRs is not known. We will report on its measurement for silica coated GNRs using a combination of spatial modulation spectroscopy (SMS) [3], transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and numerical modeling using the finite element method (FEM). Individual silica coated gold GNRs were deposited on a TEM grid (made of silica) (Figure 1a) and SMS (Figure 1b,c) was used to quantitatively determine the absorption cross-section of three individual GNRs. TEM was used to image dimensions of the three GNRs (Figure 1d). The numerical model was built using COMSOL Multiphysics 3.5a to solve for the total electric field and to simulate the experimental setup of SMS technique (Figure 2). The incident electric field, Einc, propagated in the downward direction (Figure 2b) with a polarization in the left/right direction (along longitudinal axis of the nanorod). In order to obtain a stable solution, at least 10 linear elements per wavelength were used during meshing of the geometries with further refinement inside of the nanorod (Figure 3a). The theoretical calculations of the absorption cross-section of the three GNRs were made using the modified bulk dielectric function of gold with inclusion of the electron surface scattering effect [2]. The experimental data and numerical calculations were used to determine A for each GNR (Figure 4). The three values obtained were A1= 0.47, A2= 0.46 and A3 = 0.55, suggesting a universal value of A = 0.5 for silica coated GNRs. The dependence of the dielectric function of gold nanoparticles on size/shape can be quantitatively determined by combining SMS and correlated TEM of measurements of size/shape with numerical modeling, assuming Leff is quantitatively known.


Expert Solutions and State-of-the-Art Code ExamplesSOA Using Java™ Web Services is a hands-on guide to implementing Web services and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) with today's Java EE 5 and Java SE 6 platforms. Author Mark Hansen presents in explicit detail the information that enterprise developers and architects need to succeed, from best-practice design techniques to state-of-the-art code samples.Hansen covers creating, deploying, and invoking Web services that can be composed into loosely coupled SOA applications. He begins by reviewing the "big picture," including the challenges of Java-based SOA development and the limitations of traditional approaches. Next, he systematically introduces the latest Java Web Services (JWS) APIs and walks through creating Web services that integrate into a comprehensive SOA solution. Finally, he shows how application frameworks based on JWS can streamline the entire SOA development process and introduces one such framework: SOA-J.The book Introduces practical techniques for managing the complexity of Web services and SOA, including best-practice design examples Offers hard-won insights into building effective SOA applications with Java Web Services Illuminates recent major JWS improvementsi??including two full chapters on JAX-WS 2.0 Thoroughly explains SOA integration using WSDL, SOAP, Java/XML mapping, and JAXB 2.0 data binding Walks step by step through packaging and deploying Web services components on Java EE 5 with JSR-181 (WS-Metadata 2.0) and JSR-109 Includes specific code solutions for many development issues, from publishing REST endpoints to consuming SOAP services with WSDL Presents a complete case study using the JWS APIs, together with an Ajax front end, to build a SOA application integrating Amazon, Yahoo Shopping, and eBay Contains hundreds of code samplesi??all tested with the GlassFish Java EE 5 reference implementationi??that are downloadable from the companion Web site, http://soabook.com.Foreword Prefacei? Acknowledgments About the Author Chapter 1: Service-Oriented Architecture with Java Web Services Chapter 2: An Overview of Java Web Services Chapter 3: Basic SOA Using REST Chapter 4: The Role of WSDL, SOAP, and Java/XML Mapping in SOA Chapter 5: The JAXB 2.0 Data Binding Chapter 6: JAX-WSi??Client-Side Development Chapter 7: JAX-WS 2.0i??Server-Side Development Chapter 8: Packaging and Deployment of SOA Components (JSR-181 and JSR-109) Chapter 9: SOAShopper: Integrating eBay, Amazon, and Yahoo! Shopping Chapter 10: Ajax and Java Web Services Chapter 11: WSDL-Centric Java Web Services with SOA-J Appendix A: Java, XML, and Web Services Standards Used in This Book Appendix B: Software Configuration Guide Appendix C: Namespace Prefixes Glossary References Index


Are you serious about network security? Then check out SSH, the Secure Shell, which provides key-based authentication and transparent encryption for your network connections. It's reliable, robust, and reasonably easy to use, and both free and commercial implementations are widely available for most operating systems. While it doesn't solve every privacy and security problem, SSH eliminates several of them very effectively. Everything you want to know about SSH is in our second edition of SSH, The Secure Shell: The Definitive Guide. This updated book thoroughly covers the latest SSH-2 protocol for system administrators and end users interested in using this increasingly popular TCP/IP-based solution. How does it work? Whenever data is sent to the network, SSH automatically encrypts it. When data reaches its intended recipient, SSH decrypts it. The result is "transparent" encryption-users can work normally, unaware that their communications are already encrypted. SSH supports secure file transfer between computers, secure remote logins, and a unique "tunneling" capability that adds encryption to otherwise insecure network applications. With SSH, users can freely navigate the Internet, and system administrators can secure their networks or perform remote administration. Written for a wide, technical audience, SSH, The Secure Shell: The Definitive Guide covers several implementations of SSH for different operating systems and computing environments. Whether you're an individual running Linux machines at home, a corporate network administrator with thousands of users, or a PC/Mac owner who just wants a secure way to telnet or transfer files between machines, our indispensable guide has you covered. It starts with simple installation and use of SSH, and works its way to in-depth case studies on large, sensitive computer networks. No matter where or how you're shipping information, SSH, The Secure Shell: The Definitive Guide will show you how to do it securely.


Background and Purpose— Premature death after transient ischemic attack or stroke is more often because of heart disease or cancer than stroke. Previous studies found blood biomarkers not usefully predictive of nonfatal stroke but possibly of all-cause death. This association might be explained by potentially treatable occult cardiac disease or cancer. We therefore aimed to validate the association of a panel of biomarkers with all-cause death, particularly cardiac death and cancer death, despite the absence of associations with risk of nonfatal vascular events. Methods— Fifteen biomarkers were measured in 929 consecutive patients in a population-based study (Oxford Vascular Study), recruited from 2002 and followed up to 2013. Associations were determined by Cox regression. Model discrimination was assessed by c-statistic and the integrated discrimination improvement. Results— During 5560 patient-years of follow-up, none of the biomarkers predicted risk of nonfatal vascular events. However, soluble tumor necrosis factor &agr; receptor-1, von Willebrand factor, heart-type fatty-acid-binding protein, and N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide were independently predictive of all-cause death (n=361; adjusted hazard ratio per SD, 95% confidence interval: heart-type fatty-acid-binding protein: 1.31, 1.12–1.56, P=0.002; N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide: 1.34, 1.11–1.62, P=0.002; soluble tumor necrosis factor &agr; receptor-1: 1.45, 1.26–1.66, P=0.02; von Willebrand factor: 1.19, 1.04–1.36, P=0.01). The independent contribution of the four biomarkers taken together added prognostic information and improved model discrimination (integrated discrimination improvement=0.028, P=0.0001). N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide was most predictive of vascular death (adjusted hazard ratio=1.80, 95% confidence interval, 1.34–2.41, P<0.0001), whereas heart-type fatty-acid-binding protein predicted cancer deaths (1.64, 1.26–2.12, P=0.0002). Associations were strongest in patients without known prior cardiac disease or cancer. Conclusions— Several biomarkers predicted death of any cause after transient ischemic attack and minor stroke. N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide and heart-type fatty-acid-binding protein might improve patient selection for additional screening for occult cardiac disease or cancer, respectively. However, our results require validation in future studies.


The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of a strength training program on anxiety, affect, and mood in a group of older adults (≥ 65 years). Twenty men and women participated in a 12-week strength training program. Participants were randomized to an intervention and a waiting list control group. Results showed a significant improvement in the intervention group's strength scores. Trait anxiety showed a decline in both groups. When mood profiles of participants were analyzed across the initial 12-week of the study, a dimension of mood called VigorActivity significantly decreased in the control group while the intervention group's scores did not change. The affect data showed that negative affect decreased significantly in the intervention group following the training protocol. This study indicates that 12 weeks of strength training results in significant muscle strength increases and moderate improvements of the overall psychological profile.


For an informed management regime to ensure sustainability of the marine
fisheries, it is essential not only to have reliable information on the status of marine
fish resources along with fishing effort expended but also the number of fishing villages,
landing centres, fisherfolk population, their occupation status, fishing crafts, fishing
gears and other related parameters. With this objective, the Central Marine Fisheries
Research Institute (CMFRI), Cochin has been conducting frame surveys at periodic
intervals. Marine fisheries census on an all India basis was last conducted by CMFRI
during May-July, 1980. Since the last census, the marine fisheries in India have
witnessed both qualitative and quantitative changes. Post 1980 has also been a period
where a number of management/policy interventions were made by the Government
of India and the maritime states for ensuring sustainability, conservation of resources
and to protect the interests of artisanal fishermen.


Health care provision is undergoing major reforms in Europe as a reaction to rapidly increasing expenditure and lowered political acceptance to commit public finance to cover the deficits. The Dutch government will decide in 2007 if the current budget system will be replaced by a more competitive mechanism, based on the yardstick regulation principle by Shleifer (1985). One of the proposed systems for the reform can be compared to a revenue-cap implementation of a multi-product cost-yardstick mechanism. The redistribution of the sector's relevant cost is made in proportion to the individual hospitals share of total weighted output. No regulation is made of the multi-lateral contractual relations between users, insurers and hospitals. The scaling weights are updated periodically for new services and as a function of observed excess demand (waiting lists). The mechanism is shown to provide cost-reducing (effort-inducing) incentives for profit-maximizing rational agents in a single-period bargaining game. The game also shows that the regulation acts as a countervailing power for the insurers to reinforce bargaining power. The local distortion of the output profile induced by the regulation is a function of demand elasticity and cost function convexity. In case the revenue target is not binding, no welfare loss is incurred. The regime also provides incentives for cost-reducing investments in the short and the long run. These incentives manifest themselves in local reallocations of output to more efficient producers. The analysis shows that care should be taken in the updating of the weights as to provide incentives for service innovation, as well as to guarantee convergence of the price system. Although this requires econometric analyses, the alternative with a cost-based yardstick is considered superior to a revenue-based ditto for this application.


In this paper, we investigate the efficient simulation of deformable linear objects. Based on the state of the art, we extend the principle of minimizing the potential energy by considering plastic deformation and describe a novel approach for treating workpiece dynamics. The major influence factors on precision and computation time are identified and investigated experimentally. Finally, we discuss the usage of parallel processing in order to reduce the computation time.


Few poetic forms have found more uses than the sonnet in English, and none is now more recognizable. It is one of the longest-lived of verse forms, and one of the briefest. A mere fourteen lines, fashioned by intricate rhymes, it is, as Dante Gabriel Rossetti called it, 'a moment's monument'. From the Renaissance to the present, the sonnet has given poets a superb vehicle for private contemplation, introspection, and the expression of passionate feelings and thoughts. "The Art of the Sonnet" collects one hundred exemplary sonnets of the English language (and a few sonnets in translation), representing highlights in the history of the sonnet, accompanied by short commentaries on each of the poems. The commentaries by Stephen Burt and David Mikics offer new perspectives and insights, and, taken together, demonstrate the enduring as well as changing nature of the sonnet. The authors serve as guides to some of the most-celebrated sonnets in English as well as less-well-known gems by nineteenth- and twentieth-century poets. Also included is a general introductory essay, in which the authors examine the sonnet form and its long and fascinating history, from its origin in medieval Sicily to its English appropriation in the sixteenth century to sonnet writing today in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other English-speaking parts of the world.


This study is an effort to contribute to the current urban studies debate on the way to conceptualize the city by advancing a rights-based approach and to suggest that to build such vision one needs to reconceive the city as a commons, which is to say that the city serves as an infrastructure enabling the "pooling" of city inhabitants actions, energies, resources and the cooperation between city inhabitants and other four urban actors thereby embedding a "quintuple helix" or "pentahelix" approach in the governance design of the city. Part I articulates the three most prominent visions or paradigms of the city of the 21st century and the "metaphors" that are currently used to conceptualize the city. From an interdisciplinary perspective, this part then discusses some complications and emerging key points that deserve further reflection. In Part II, the article argues that a rights-based paradigm or vision in the conceptualization of the city is emerging. It does so through the analysis of urban laws and policies adopted in exemplary case studies such as Naples and Barcelona, on one side, and Bologna and Turin, on the other side. Two main rights-based approaches seem to emerge: the rebel city model and the co-city model. In Part III, to better define this fourth urban paradigm and in particular the second approach, a focus on the key concept of commons and a review of the main bodies of literature is provided which are key to carve out the concept of "pooling" as a form of cooperation that encompasses both sharing of congestible resources to avoid scarcity and collaboration around non congestible, constructed resources to generate abundance. Building on the existing literature of a particular subset of studies on infrastructure commons, the concept of pooling is extracted from the observation of how pooling as a demand-side strategy can both expand or leverage the idle "capacity" of an infrastructure to avoid congestion and at the same time generate abundance. Pooling is particularly effective in explaining the main features of one of the rights-based visions of the city, the co-city approach, ultimately envisioning the city as an enabling infrastructure for social and economic pooling. Part IV offers concluding remarks and proposes the idea of the "right to the co-city" to build a body of urban laws and policies advancing "urban rights to pooling" as a key legal tool to structure a commons-oriented interpretation of the fourth vision of the city, the rights-based approach.


Cities in the Global South face rapid urbanization challenges and often suffer an acute lack of infrastructure and governance capacities. Smart Cities Mission, in India, launched in 2015, aims to offer a novel approach for urban renewal of 100 cities following an area-based development approach, where the use of ICT and digital technologies is particularly emphasized. This article presents a critical review of the design and implementation framework of this new urban renewal program across selected case-study cities. The article examines the claims of the so-called "smart cities" against actual urban transformation on-ground and evaluates how "inclusive" and "sustainable" these developments are. We quantify the scale and coverage of the smart city urban renewal projects in the cities to highlight who the program includes and excludes. The article also presents a statistical analysis of the sectoral focus and budgetary allocations of the projects under the Smart Cities Mission to find an inherent bias in these smart city initiatives in terms of which types of development they promote and the ones it ignores. The findings indicate that a predominant emphasis on digital urban renewal of selected precincts and enclaves, branded as "smart cities," leads to deepening social polarization and gentrification. The article offers crucial urban planning lessons for designing ICT-driven urban renewal projects, while addressing critical questions around inclusion and sustainability in smart city ventures.


A full-color reference for getting the most out of your Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1!A vast improvement over the original Galaxy Tab, the 10.1 uses the latest version of the Android operating system and is a 4G LTE mobile device. These upgradesalong with many others, including the better screen quality, better web browsing with Flash, and better multitasking capabilitiesare all covered in this fun and friendly guide to the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. Everything from how-to topics to the most useful features to helpful tricks and techniques, this practical guide shows you how to get the most out of this cutting-edge device.Details how the Galaxy Tab 10.1 goes one step further than the iPad with phone communications plus video chat and conferencingExplains in detail how to find your way around the Galaxy Tab 10.1Covers e-mailing, web browsing, using the digital library, connecting with friends in the galaxy, taking photos with the camera, and enjoying musicHighlights how to customize your Galaxy Tab 10.1 so that it's right for your needsSamsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 For Dummies is must-have reading for anyone who wants to go beyond the basics and explore another galaxy of tablet computing!


Between 1919 and 1928, two Pan-African organisations sent petitions to the League of Nations requesting, inter alia, seats on the Permanent Mandates Commission and, later, control over the mandate of South West Africa. The petitions formed part of the dynamic and complex international discourse of Pan-Africanism, a diasporic movement that constitutes an important antecedent of contemporary Third World engagements with the discipline of international law. This paper argues that similar to other examples or expressions of the Third World tradition in international law, the international discourse of the Pan-African Movement was characterised by a double consciousness, a term that refers to an ambivalent state of mind that desires and strives for seemingly conflicting or contradictory ideals and outcomes. The double consciousness of Pan-Africanism manifested itself in impulses and strategies which alternated between radicalism and conservatism, revolution and reform, rejection and accommodation, autonomy and assimilation, rebellion and conformity, and idealism and pragmatism. On the one hand, Pan-Africanists attempted to change the world through radical and revolutionary means. Alienated, rejected and denied the opportunity to fully integrate into European and American societies, they turned their gaze towards Africa, refuted theories of racial superiority, demanded democracy, equality, cultural validation, and economic justice for people of African descent all over the world, and pursued a nationalistic politics that sought to attain self-government and independence for African colonies. On the other hand, however, Pan-Africanists desired assimilation into the world as it was and sought belonging, acceptance and recognition on the terms of that world. The desire to belong, be the same and, most importantly, be recognised as such was most apparent in the Pan-African Movement's use of the phrase "the civilised Negro". The "civilised Negro" was the basis of a variety of equality and sameness claims, including representation on the Permanent Mandates Commission, and reflected the extent to which Pan-Africanists had internalised the ideology of the civilising mission and desired acceptance as equal partners in the imperial project. To this end, they fought to convince the colonial powers of their qualification to function alongside them as bearers of civilisation. The paper also argues that the discourse of the "civilised Negro" was born out of an ambivalence, which not only characterised the feelings of Pan-Africanists towards Europe and America but also featured in their relationship with Africa and Africans. Pan-Africanists prioritised Africa, idealised it as their spiritual homeland, and viewed it as an opportunity to resolve the internal conflict between their African and Western identities, escape persecution, gain economic opportunity and, most importantly, achieve and prove their capacity for self-government. At the same time, however, they embraced the evangelical civilising impulse of their day and with it many Eurocentric, paternalistic, imperialist attitudes towards colonised peoples. Believing Africa to be backward and themselves to be suitable agents of change, they pursued an alternative (albeit modified or reconfigured) civilisation mission, one that was to be led by civilised members of the African diaspora rather than Europeans.


The first of John McPhee's works in his series on geology and geologists, "Basin and Range "is a book of journeys through ancient terrains, always in juxtaposition with travels in the modern world--a history of vanished landscapes, enhanced by the histories of people who bring them to light. The title refers to the physiographic province of the United States that reaches from eastern Utah to eastern California, a silent world of austere beauty, of hundreds of discrete high mountain ranges that are green with junipers and often white with snow. The terrain becomes the setting for a lyrical evocation of the science of geology, with important digressions into the plate-tectonics revolution and the history of the geologic time scale.


Recent decades have seen a dramatic shift away from social forms of gambling played around roulette wheels and card tables to solitary gambling at electronic terminals. Slot machines, revamped by ever more compelling digital and video technology, have unseated traditional casino games as the gambling industry's revenue mainstay. Addiction by Design takes readers into the intriguing world of machine gambling, an increasingly popular and absorbing form of play that blurs the line between human and machine, compulsion and control, risk and reward. Drawing on fifteen years of field research in Las Vegas, anthropologist Natasha Dow Schll shows how the mechanical rhythm of electronic gambling pulls players into a trancelike state they call the "machine zone," in which daily worries, social demands, and even bodily awareness fade away. Once in the zone, gambling addicts play not to win but simply to keep playing, for as long as possible--even at the cost of physical and economic exhaustion. In continuous machine play, gamblers seek to lose themselves while the gambling industry seeks profit. Schll describes the strategic calculations behind game algorithms and machine ergonomics, casino architecture and "ambience management," player tracking and cash access systems--all designed to meet the market's desire for maximum "time on device." Her account moves from casino floors into gamblers' everyday lives, from gambling industry conventions and Gamblers Anonymous meetings to regulatory debates over whether addiction to gambling machines stems from the consumer, the product, or the interplay between the two. Addiction by Design is a compelling inquiry into the intensifying traffic between people and machines of chance, offering clues to some of the broader anxieties and predicaments of contemporary life. At stake in Schll's account of the intensifying traffic between people and machines of chance is a blurring of the line between design and experience, profit and loss, control and compulsion.