This work study a monolayer of branched poly(ethyleneimine (PEI) adsorbed onto oppositely charged surfaces with iron chelates or iron ions in the absorption solution. The conformation of adsorbed PEI is explored in the dependence of the composition of the adsorption solution by measuring the surface forces using atomic force microscopy (AFM) with the colloidal probe (CP) at different ionic strengths (INaCl) in surrounding aqueous solution. The surface coverage of these layers is investigated using X-ray reflectivity.
PEI solutions show different pH values with iron chelates (pH = 3), iron ions (pH = 4.67) or pure water (pH = 9.3) at room temperature. Low surface coverage of PEI at pH = 3 adjusted by monovalent ions was also observed. However, adsorbing PEI with iron ions or iron chelates and washing with pure water shifts the pH, leading to an adsorbed PEI layer with high coverage. In our observation, the influence of iron ions and iron chelates on the surface coverage of PEI film is stronger than the pH effect. PEI adsorbed from a pure water solution shows flat conformation. Surface force measurements with CP show that PEI adsorbed from solutions containing iron chelates or iron ions cause almost identical steric forces. The thickness of the brush L is determined as a function of the ionic INaCl in the measuring solution. It scales as a polyelectrolyte brush.
The maximum number density of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) adsorbed onto the PEI brushes was identical and larger than on flatly adsorbed PEI. On the PEI layer with the larger surface coverage, the AuNPs aggregate; on the PEI layer with the lower surface coverage they do not aggregate. Taken together, these results contribute to understanding the mechanisms determining surface coverage and conformation of PEI and demonstrate the possibility of controlling surface properties, which is highly desirable for potential future applications.
In this thesis, we also investigate the top layer (PSS and PDADMA) of polyelectrolyte multilayer (PEM) films. PEM films were prepared by sequential adsorption of oppositely charged PEs on solid substrates. PEM films consist of polydiallyldimethylammonium (PDADMA) as polycation and the polystyrene sulfonate (PSS) as polyanion. PDADMA has a smaller linear charge density than PSS. For this system, two different growth regimes are known: parabolic and linear. I studied the top layer (PSS and PDADMA) conformation of PEM films and how the structure of this top layer is affected by increasing the number of PDADMA/PSS layer pairs N and the addition of salt to the surrounding solution.
The INaCl was changed during the force-distance measurements. PSS terminated films always show electrostatic forces at INaCl 0.1 M, a non-electrostatic action occurs and the PSS terminated film reswells in solution.
PDADMA terminated surface consisting of few layers show a flat conformation and the electrostatic forces were measured. For N ≥ 9 and INaCl ≤ 0.1 M, steric forces were measured. The force-distance profiles are well-explained by Alexander and de Gennes theory. PDADMA chains show a maximum L that is around 40-45 % of the contour length. For INaCl ≈ 0.1 M, and N > 9, a flat, neutral or zwitterionic surface is found (λ-1 ≈ 0.3-0.9 nm). For N = 9 and INaCl > 0.1 M, a strong screening of electrostatic interaction and attractive forces are observed. For N > 9 and INaCl > 0.1 M, the ion adsorption into the PE chains leads to an increase in the monomer size and as a result, the L increases and PDADMA brushes reswell again into the solution.
These data show that by varying N and INaCl, different surface forces can be obtained: Electrostatic forces (flat chains) both positive and negative, steric forces (brush), hydration force (flat, neutral or zwitterionic surface), and effects not yet explained (reswelling brush).


The literature on mandatory charging and prosecution policies consistently finds that zero tolerance approaches to woman abuse often harm, rather than help, abused immigrant women. The unexpected removal of abusers triggers detrimental consequences if women are dependent on their partners for immigration status, financial assistance and linguistic support. The violence that immigrant women experience at the hands of the police and courts has led to repeated calls to shift the responsibility of women abuse from the criminal justice system to the community. However, accessing community supports may not be so straightforward either. For a variety of reasons, many abused immigrant women find silence less risky than disclosing abuse. These dilemmas highlight the importance of acquiring more insight into the mediating role that community organizations perform between the criminal justice system and immigrant communities. Accordingly, the following exploratory study offers a glimpse into the anti-violence work of immigrant community organizations in Toronto, Ontario.


In this presidential address published in 1902, Edwin Cannan affirms political economy as a vital cultural project. The central lessons to be imparted to society at large concern the principles upon which millions cooperate in creating wealth. He touches on international trade, housing, urban form, labor, distribution, justice, and national jealousy.


In 1945, American judges decided the first court cases involving assisted conception. The challenges posed by assisted reproductive technologies to law and society made national news then, and have continued to do so into the twenty-first century. This article considers the first technique of assisted conception, artificial insemination, from the late nineteenth century to 1945, the period in which doctors and their patients worked to transform it from a curiosity into an accepted medical technique, a transformation that also changed a largely clandestine medical practice into one of the most pressing medicolegal problems of the mid-twentieth century. Doctors and lawyers alike worried whether insemination using donor sperm was adultery by doctor, producing illegitimate offspring. Drawing upon the legal and scientific literatures, case law, popular sources and medical archives, I argue that insemination became identified in medicine and law as a pressing problem at mid-century after decades of quiet use because of the increasing success of the technique, increasing patient demand, and increasing use -- three interrelated trends that led to increasing numbers of babies whose origins were "in the test tube." In examining the history of a medical procedure becoming a legal problem, I also trace the development of a medical practice in the face of legal uncertainty and the shifting control of the medical profession over assisted conception. I argue that doctors modified the way they treated patients in response to perceived social and legal condemnation of artificial insemination, keeping tight control over all aspects of the procedure, but that doctors' persistence in meeting patient demand for fertility treatments despite such condemnation helped make artificial insemination into a medicolegal problem. Once it became identified as a medicolegal problem, artificial insemination became the subject of a broad social discussion, in which medical voices did not receive automatic deference, and medical control was challenged.


The importance of the business development and licensing (BD&L) function in the global biopharmaceutical industry has grown significantly over the past 20 years as pharmaceutical companies have sought to supplement their internal R&D with innovative products and technologies sourced from biotechnology and drug delivery companies. This has required companies to employ BD&L executives to search, evaluate, negotiate and alliance manage deals ranging from small biotechnology companies to the largest of the Big Pharma companies. Nowadays all the large companies have BD&L teams, sometimes in excess of 100 people. To inform new BD&L entrants and to improve the professionalism of the experienced BD&L executives, various training courses are offered by not-for-profit associations and commercial organisations. The leading not-for-profit association in Europe for biopharmaceutical executives is the Pharmaceutical Licensing Group and in the US it is the Licensing Executive Society. Both organisations offer basic training courses but as far as is known, the only university accredited Master's degree qualification in BD&L is the distance learning MSc offered by the University of Manchester. The dissemination of specialist knowledge and best practice is through the journals and conferences of the professional associations. The need for well-qualified BD&L executives in the biopharmaceutical industry is demonstrated by the fact that 25% or more of Big Pharma sales come from third party products and the cost of licensing deals alone is over $200m on average.


Abstract Objective To estimate the proportion of school age children with a persistent cough who have evidence of a recent Bordetella pertussis infection. Design Prospective cohort study (October 2001 to March 2005). Setting General practices in Oxfordshire, England. Participants 172 children aged 5-16 years who presented to their general practitioner with a cough lasting 14 days or more who consented to have a blood test. Main outcome measures Serological evidence of a recent Bordetella pertussis infection; symptoms at presentation; duration and severity of cough; sleep disturbance (parents and child). Results 64 (37.2%, 95% confidence interval 30.0% to 44.4%) children had serological evidence of a recent Bordetella pertussis infection; 55 (85.9%) of these children had been fully immunised. At presentation, children with whooping cough were more likely than others to have whooping (odds ratio 2.85, 95% confidence interval 1.39 to 5.82), vomiting (4.35, 2.04 to 9.25), and sputum production (2.39, 1.14 to 5.02). Children with whooping cough were also more likely to still be coughing two months after the start of their illness (85% v 48%; P = 0.001), continue to have more than five coughing episodes a day (P = 0.049), and cause sleep disturbance for their parents (P = 0.003). Conclusions For school age children presenting to primary care with a cough lasting two weeks or more, a diagnosis of whooping cough should be considered even if the child has been immunised. Making a secure diagnosis of whooping cough may prevent inappropriate investigations and treatment.


The federal government has expressed fear that immigrants abuse the appellate process to delay their deportations by filing meritless petitions for review with the federal courts. Some courts have responded to these concerns by imposing stricter standards for issuing stays of removal, so that the government can more easily deport petitioners even while their appeals remain pending. The risk with this approach is that immigrants who ultimately prevail may be erroneously deported. What is often overlooked is that the potential for abuse is really a function of time, with longer appeals posing a greater threat to immigration enforcement. This study presents new empirical evidence showing that most circuit courts actually decide immigration appeals faster than previously assumed. Moreover, in many circuits the appeals most likely to be frivolous are resolved especially quickly. These results undermine the concerns that lead the government to oppose stays of removal and illustrate the importance of efficient case management systems to the administration of justice.


Abstract This paper considers the empirical assessment of the relationship between prices and number of firms in local markets in geographic or, more generally, characteristic space and its use as evidence in merger cases. It outlines a structural, semi-nonparametric econometric model of competition in such markets, examines its testable implications in terms of price-concentration relationships, and demonstrates that the model is non-parametrically identified. This general approach to price-concentration analysis in differentiated product markets is illustrated in a small-scale application to cinemas in the UK. The application highlights the main decision points faced by an authority when assessing the weight that can be attached to this type of analysis as evidence.


The purpose of this research is to develop a morphologically determined scale—the Tomography Dementia Rating scale (TDR) to diagnose AD stages, based on the measurement of the severity of voluminal atrophic changes of the temporal lobes of the brain detected among patients during CT and MRI at various stages of the disease. The research included 140 patients aged 28 - 79. Test Group comprised 81 patients aged 34 - 79 suffering from various AD stages. Control Group consisted of 59 patients aged 28 - 78 who had various types of brain lesions with manifestations of dementia and cognitive impairment but who did not suffer from AD. CT and MRI data obtained has made it possible to create a scale that allows determining the severity of atrophic changes in the temporal lobes at each stage of AD development: 1) Pre-clinical AD stage—TDR-0: temporal lobes atrophy with a 4% - 8% decrease in tissue mass (corresponds to 26 - 28 MMSE points); 2) Early AD Stage—mild dementia—TDR-1: temporal lobes atrophy with a 9% - 18% decrease in tissue mass (corresponds to CDR-1 and to 20 - 25 MMSE points); 3) Middle AD stage—moderate dementia—TDR-2: temporal lobes atrophy with a 19% - 32% decrease in tissue mass (corresponds to CDR-2 and to 12 - 19 MMSE points); 4) Late AD stage—heavy dementia—TDR-3: temporal lobes atrophy with a 33% - 62% decrease in tissue mass (corresponds to CDR-3 and to 7 - 11 MMSE points). Thereby, the developed Tomography Dementia Rating scale (TDR) complements the Clinical Dementia Rating scale (CDR) and allows a correct and objective determination of AD stages as well as an easy differentiation of existing lesions with neurodegenerative changes characteristic for other diseases accompanied by dementia and cognitive impairment.


Java applets are developed to assist in the learning of basic structural analysis concepts. In order for these programs to be easily available over the Internet, they are written in the object-oriented Java programming language. The Java programs known as applets are embedded in HTML documents. The HTML documents, part of a series of instructional units, present the topics demonstrated by the applets. The applets include truss and frame determinacy applets; a three-hinged arch bridge applet; determinate and indeterminate truss analysis applets; determinate and indeterminate frame analysis applets and an influence line analysis applet. These programs are available to any student or instructor with Internet access. The applets provide good examples of the application of objectoriented programming and the development of software for a graphical user interface. They also serve as excellent tools that facilitate the understanding of structural engineering concepts utilizing a medium that allows independent learning at an individual pace.


This paper describes how a generalization of the wavelet transform -- the multiresolution Fourier transform (MFT) -- can be used in model-based coding, in which image features including boundary contours and textures can be extracted directly from the transform coefficients. As such, it has the potential to extend transform coding to very low bit rate, feature-based compression. Results of the work are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the methods.


MPI and Charm++ embody two distinct perspectives for writing parallel programs. While MPI provides a processor-centric, user-driven model for developing parallel codes, Charm++ supports work-centric, overdecompositionbased, system-driven parallel programming. One or the other can be the best or most natural fit for distinct modules that constitute a parallel application. In this paper, we present a framework that enables hybrid parallel programming with MPI and Charm++, and allows programmers to develop different modules of a parallel application in these two languages while facilitating smooth interoperation. We describe the challenges in enabling interoperation between MPI and Charm++, and present techniques for managing the control flow and resource sharing in such scenarios. Finally, we demonstrate the benefits of interoperation between MPI and Charm++ through several case studies that use production applications and libraries, including CHARM/Chombo, EpiSimdemics, NAMD, FFTW, MPI-IO and ParMETIS.


The distribution and abundance of Ixodes scapularis were studied in Wisconsin, northern Illinois, and portions of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan by inspecting small mammals for ticks and by collecting questing ticks at 138 locations in state parks and natural areas. Environmental data were gathered at a local level (i.e., micro and meso levels), and a geographic information system (GIS) was used with several digitized coverages of environmental data to create a habitat profile for each site and a grid map for Wisconsin and Illinois. Results showed that the presence and abundance of I. scapularis varied, even when the host population was adequate. Tick presence was positively associated with deciduous, dry to mesic forests and alfisol-type soils of sandy or loam-sand textures overlying sedimentary rock. Tick absence was associated with grasslands, conifer forests, wet to wet/mesic forests, acidic soils of low fertility and a clay soil texture, and Precambrian bedrock. We performed a discriminant analysis to determine environmental differences between positive and negative tick sites and a regression equation to examine the probability of I. scapularis presence per grid. Both analyses indicated that soil order and land cover were the dominant contributors to tick presence. We then constructed a risk map indicating suitable habitats within areas where I. scapularis is already established. The risk map also shows areas of high probability the tick will become established if introduced. Thus, this risk analysis has both explanatory power and predictive capability.


Before the 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the United States Supreme Court's exercise of judicial review did not support the notion that constitutional litigation could be an effective instrument of social reform. The Court's principled rejection of racially segregated public education, however, gave new legitimacy to the concept of judicial review, transforming it from an obstacle into a principal means of achieving social progress. Since then, federal courts have impacted public policy in many areas - from housing, welfare, and transportation to mental health institutions, prisons, and juvenile courts. Yet, there are inherent structural challenges to effecting institutional change through litigation: courts are themselves passive institutions that respond slowly to new information; they are oriented toward past events and circumstances rather than the possibilities implicit in future ones; and they graft qualifications onto preexisting law rather than engaging in a fresh consideration of the issues. In his major work, The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change?, Professor Gerald Rosenberg persuasively argued that in order to overcome these constraints in a particular case or controversy, certain key elements must be present: incentives for the institution to change; costs to the institution for not changing; the existence of parallel institutions to help implement the change; and the use of court orders to leverage additional resources to bring about the change or to serve as a cover for administrators who are willing to act but fear political repercussions. For more than sixty years after the founding of the first juvenile court in 1899, its philosophy and guiding principle were based on the rehabilitative ideal. This model rejected the traditional adversary system found in criminal court proceedings in favor of informal procedures, indeterminate sanctions, judicial discretion, and individualization. The 1967 Supreme Court case of In re Gault struck at the core assumptions of this paradigm with its emphasis on the functional similarity between juvenile and adult criminal court and extension of key due process protections to youth charged in delinquency court, including the right to counsel and the privilege against self-incrimination. As revolutionary as the Gault decision was, however, its holding failed to translate into long-term sustainable reform - the result, at least in part, of the absence of the requisite factors articulated by Professor Rosenberg. Whether the recent Supreme Court cases of Roper v. Simmons, Graham v. Florida, J.D.B. v. North Carolina, and their progeny will facilitate such reform remains an open question. This Article, written for a symposium at Brooklyn Law School on "Adolescents in Society: Their Evolving Legal Status," explores the potential for twenty-first century Supreme Court decisions implicating juveniles' constitutional rights to transform the way in which the courts process and punish young offenders. It discusses the method and means by which institutional reform litigation brings about change and the structural challenges that arise when courts attempt to transform complex institutions. It provides a brief review of Supreme Court decisions prior to Brown that served to prevent rather than enable social change in the areas of slavery, racial segregation, and workers' rights; it contrasts these cases with the decision and impact of Brown. It argues that although In re Gault was a foundational legal holding, it did not translate into effective policy due in part to local officials' failure to implement the decision as expected and lawmakers' inability to enact legislation that was true to the spirit of Gault. The Article argues that based on the analysis developed by Professor Rosenberg and other scholars, recent Supreme Court decisions ending the juvenile death penalty and juvenile life without parole sentences for non-homicides, and holding that a child's age properly informs the Miranda custody analysis, could lead to significant change in both the juvenile and criminal justice systems for young offenders. It acknowledges the limitations to this theory and the challenges that are likely to arise, and concludes that although courts can reform complex institutions, constitutional litigation is an unreliable path to social change.


"This paper discusses the factors that enabled and constrained the scaling up of a multisectoral poverty alleviation program called Kudumbashree, initiated by the government of Kerala (GOK), India, in 1998 to eradicate poverty by 2008. It also discusses some potential threats to and trade-offs of scaling up Kudumbashree. This report draws primarily upon the available literature and qualitative data collected during a five-day visit to Kudumbashree in March 2003....Our findings show that an enabling environment, especially decentralization and the concurrent devolution of finances to the local government bodies (LGBs), was critical in scaling up Kudumbashree. The CDS structures are now considered as a further step to decentralization. As the CDS structures are affiliated to the LGBs, their financial sustainability is ensured through various modalities, e.g., convergence, women's component plan, and earmarked assistance to women's self-help groups (SHG). The unique context of Kerala, coupled with leadership of a few motivated and innovative officials, was key in both the decentralization and scaling-up process." Authors' Abstract


Editor's Introduction | Amber, the fossilized resin of ancient trees, is remarkable for its ability to preserve prehistoric, organic material. These inclusions, and the successful analysis of their preserved DNA fragments, could provide scientists with incredible insights into the past. Is it now possible to extract dinosaur DNA from insects and re-create today these creatures from ancient history? Andrew Ross and Jeremy Austin discuss this controversial debate in the light of their recent research findings.


As a corollary to the proposition that all institutions must be subordinated to the law of equal freedom, we cannot choose but admit the right of the citizen to adopt a condition of voluntary outlawry. If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection with the state — to relinquish its protection, and to refuse paying toward its support. It is self-evident that in so behaving he in no way trenches upon the liberty of others; for his position is a passive one; and whilst passive he cannot become an aggressor. It is equally self-evident that he cannot be compelled to continue one of a political corporation, without a breach of the moral law, seeing that citizenship involves payment of taxes; and the taking away of a man's property against his will, is an infringement of his rights. Government being simply an agent employed in common by a number of individuals to secure to them certain advantages, the very nature of the connection implies that it is for each to say whether he will employ such an agent or not. If any one of them determines to ignore this mutual-safety confederation, nothing can be said except that he loses all claim to its good offices, and exposes himself to the danger of maltreatment — a thing he is quite at liberty to do if he likes. He cannot be coerced into political combination without a breach of the law of equal freedom; he can withdraw from it without committing any such breach; and he has therefore a right so to withdraw.


Cal Newport's clearly-written manifesto flies in the face of conventional wisdom by suggesting that it should be a person's talent and skill -- and not necessarily their passion -- that determines their career path. Newport, who graduated from Dartmouth College (Phi Beta Kappa) and recently earned a PhD. from MIT, contends that trying to find what drives us, instead of focusing on areas in which we naturally excel, is ultimately harmful and frustrating to job seekers. The title is a direct quote from comedian Steve Martin who, when once asked why he was successful in his career, immediately replied: "Be so good they can't ignore you" and that's the main basis for Newport's book. Skill and ability trump passion. Inspired by former Apple CEO Steve Jobs' famous Stanford University commencement speech in which Jobs urges idealistic grads to chase their dreams, Newport takes issue with that advice, claiming that not only is thsi advice Pollyannish, but that Jobs himself never followed his own advice. From there, Newport presents compelling scientific and contemporary case study evidence that the key to one's career success is to find out what you do well, where you have built up your "career capital," and then to put all of your efforts into that direction.


The financial collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2008 led to one of the most sweeping government interventions in private financial markets in history. The bailout has already cost American taxpayers close to $150 billion, and substantially more will be needed. The U.S. economy--and by extension, the global financial system--has a lot riding on Fannie and Freddie. They cannot fail, yet that is precisely what these mortgage giants are guaranteed to do. How can we limit the damage to our economy, and avoid making the same mistakes in the future? Guaranteed to Fail explains how poorly designed government guarantees for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac led to the debacle of mortgage finance in the United States, weighs different reform proposals, and provides sensible, practical recommendations. Despite repeated calls for tougher action, Washington has expanded the scope of its guarantees to Fannie and Freddie, fueling more and more housing and mortgages all across the economy--and putting all of us at risk. This book unravels the dizzyingly immense, highly interconnected businesses of Fannie and Freddie. It proposes a unique model of reform that emphasizes public-private partnership, one that can serve as a blueprint for better organizing and managing government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In doing so, Guaranteed to Fail strikes a cautionary note about excessive government intervention in markets.


As a major force in the world of affordable, advanced web site deployment, Joomla! has become the most important noncommercial Content Management System (CMS) in the world. The number of Joomla! downloads and add-ons continues to grow at lightning pace, spurring the need for a resource that explores the diverse needs of professional Joomla! developers. This book fills that void by covering the two main areas of the Joomla! field--development and deployment--with a focus on the new Joomla! version 1.5 and all the features it provides. Seasoned author Dan Rahmel walks you through the process of creating all three types of Joomla! extensions (modules, components, and plug-ins), explains how best to use Ajax technology, and shows you how to adopt design patterns and incorporate source code control. You'll examine the underlying technologies (PHP, Apache, etc.) that can be tuned to offer the best system performance, and you'll explore interfacing with outside content, Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) setup, and much more. You'll even delve into the internal structure of the Joomla! framework, and obtain a unique behind-the-scenes education so that you can modify and extend Joomla! to meet the needs of you and your customers. What you will learn from this book * How each server of a Joomla! system can be installed and configured for maximum performance * The process of creating a module from scratch * Ways to use Ajax to add dynamic data retrieval to Joomla! * Techniques for using design patterns to solve common programming problems * How to create and retain a virtual community * Procedures for tuning a Joomla! site for both Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Management (SEM) Who this book is for This book is for web developers, hobbyists, web designers, bloggers, corporate content creators, and support specialists who are looking to build a more robust web site. Basic skills in the area of PHP programming are necessary. Wrox Professional guides are planned and written by working programmers to meet the real-world needs of programmers, developers, and IT professionals. Focused and relevant, they address the issues technology professionals face every day. They provide examples, practical solutions, and expert education in new technologies, all designed to help programmers do a better job.


South African born Elon Musk is the renowned entrepreneur and innovator behind PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity. Musk wants to save our planet; he wants to send citizens into space, to form a colony on Mars; he wants to make money while doing these things; and he wants us all to know about it. He is the real-life inspiration for the Iron Man series of films starring Robert Downey Junior. The personal tale of Musk's life comes with all the trappings one associates with a great, drama-filled story. He was a freakishly bright kid who was bullied brutally at school, and abused by his father. In the midst of these rough conditions, and the violence of apartheid South Africa, Musk still thrived academically and attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he paid his own way through school by turning his house into a club and throwing massive parties. He started a pair of huge dot-com successes, including PayPal, which eBay acquired for $1.5 billion in 2002. Musk was forced out as CEO and so began his lost years in which he decided to go it alone and baffled friends by investing his fortune in rockets and electric cars. Meanwhile Musk's marriage disintegrated as his technological obsessions took over his life...Elon Musk is the Steve Jobs of the present and the future, and for the past twelve months, he has been shadowed by tech reporter, Ashlee Vance. Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of Spacex and Tesla is Shaping our Future is an important, exciting and intelligent account of the real-life Iron Man.


We show that the intersection local times \(\mu_p\) on the intersection of \(p\) independent planar Brownian paths have an average density of order three with respect to the gauge function \(r^2\pi\cdot (log(1/r)/\pi)^p\), more precisely, almost surely, \[ \lim\limits_{\varepsilon\downarrow 0} \frac{1}{log |log\ \varepsilon|} \int_\varepsilon^{1/e} \frac{\mu_p(B(x,r))}{r^2\pi\cdot (log(1/r)/\pi)^p} \frac{dr}{r\ log (1/r)} = 2^p \mbox{ at $\mu_p$-almost every $x$.} \] We also show that the lacunarity distributions of \(\mu_p\), at \(\mu_p\)-almost every point, is given as the distribution of the product of \(p\) independent gamma(2)-distributed random variables. The main tools of the proof are a Palm distribution associated with the intersection local time and an approximation theorem of Le Gall.


Procedure Appropriateness Category Relative Radiation Level MRI head without IV contrast Usually Appropriate O CT head without IV contrast Usually Appropriate ☢☢☢ Amyloid PET/CT brain May Be Appropriate ☢☢☢ FDG-PET/CT brain May Be Appropriate ☢☢☢ MRI head without and with IV contrast Usually Not Appropriate O HMPAO SPECT or SPECT/CT brain Usually Not Appropriate ☢☢☢☢ MR spectroscopy head without IV contrast Usually Not Appropriate O MRI functional (fMRI) head without IV contrast Usually Not Appropriate O CT head with IV contrast Usually Not Appropriate ☢☢☢ CT head without and with IV contrast Usually Not Appropriate ☢☢☢


U.S. regulation of public investment companies (such as mutual funds) is based on a notion that, from a governance perspective, investment companies are simply another type of business enterprise, not substantially different from companies that produce goods or provide (non-investment) services. In other words, investment company regulation is founded on what this Article calls a "corporate governance paradigm," in that it provides a significant regulatory role for boards of directors, as the traditional governance mechanism in business enterprises, and is "entity-centric," focusing on intra-entity relationships to the exclusion of super-entity ones. This Article argues that corporate governance norms, which came to dominate U.S. investment company regulation as a result of the unique history of U.S. investment companies, are poorly-suited to achieve the goals of investment company regulation. In particular, the corporate governance paradigm has given rise to a number of regulatory weaknesses, which stem from investment advisers' effective control over investment company boards of directors and courts' deference to state corporate law doctrine in addressing investors' grievances. Accordingly, investment company regulation should acknowledge that investment companies are not merely another type of business enterprise with the same challenges and tensions arising from the separation of ownership and control that appear in the traditional corporate context. Toward that end, this Article contends that policymakers should view, and regulate, investment companies as an avenue through which investment advisers provide financial services (investment advisory services, in particular) to investors — and should view investment company shareholders more as advisory customers than as equity owners of a firm. This "financial services" model of regulation moves past the entity-focus of corporate governance norms and, therefore, permits dispensing with governance by an "independent" body such as the board of directors. More importantly, if adopted, this model would remedy some of the more significant problems plaguing U.S. investment company regulation.


This monograph comprehensively examines water law regulations and reform in the present decade, going beyond a simple analysis of existing water law and regulations to encompass environmental, social, economic, and human rights aspects of water as a natural resource. Using the specific case of India and on the related international law and policy framework that directly influences water regulatory developments in India, this book offers what will be the first and only analysis of water law reforms taking place at the national level in many developing countries in their domestic and international context. On the one hand, international freshwater law remains under-developed and existing legal instruments such as the 1997 UN Convention only address a limited set of relevant issues. Yet, the international law and policy framework concerning freshwater is increasingly important in shaping up law reforms taking place at the national level, in particular in developing countries. Indeed, non-binding resolutions such as the Dublin Statement on Water and Sustainable Development (1992) have had an immense influence on water law reforms in most developing countries. This book seeks to conceive of and analyse freshwater regulation in a broader context, and go beyond a literature that either lauds or criticises ongoing water sector reforms to provide an analytical basis for the reforms which all countries will have to adopt in the near or medium-term future.


Scribble is a system for writing library documentation, user guides, and tutorials. It builds on PLT Scheme's technology for language extension, and at its heart is a new approach to connecting prose references with library bindings. Besides the base system, we have built Scribble libraries for JavaDoc-style API documentation, literate programming, and conference papers. We have used Scribble to produce thousands of pages of documentation for PLT Scheme; the new documentation is more complete, more accessible, and better organized, thanks in large part to Scribble's flexibility and the ease with which we cross-reference information across levels. This paper reports on the use of Scribble and on its design as both an extension and an extensible part of PLT Scheme.


After Hungary was asked according to the Territorial Agenda (TA), agreed in the informal ministerial meeting under the German Presidency in May 2007, it undertook the responsibility to evaluate and review the TA and update the closely related Territorial States and Perspectives of the European Union (TSP). The TA has a key importance due to the fact that it had been the first document which identified joint action oriented framework of spatial (territorial) policy on the EU level. The TSP (as basic evidence of the TA) in its more synthetic chapters attempted to identify more integrated territorial structures of the European territory including main geographic dimensions such as northsouth and east-west dichotomies, polycentricity and urban-rural patterns. Due to the changes in the driving forces and the new conditions of an enlarged EU, the content and also the function should be revised. The paper is aiming to introduce some of the main findings of the TSP/ TA revision process with special reference to the new aspects and trends related to the territorial structures of the Union and the spatial structure of Europe. Finally, some solutions will be introduced which could help to enhance the currently not enough strong territorial approach within TSP and TA.


This bibliography is intended to provide as complete coverage as possible of newly available material useful in the study of any aspect of Canadian history. In keeping with the diverse backgrounds and interests of our readers, both scholarly and well-researched popular sources are regularly listed. It should be noted that items of a purely contemporary or speculative nature and lacking appreciable historical content are normally excluded. Furthermore, accessibility considerations logically dictate that materials cited have appeared in published form, theses traditionally being the sole exception. Suggestions for possible inclusion in Recent Publications are welcomed and should be forwarded with the necessary technical information to the compiler at the Canadian Historical Review offices. See also Canadiana, a monthly list of Canadian publications prepared by the National Library, Ottawa; International Perspectives; journal of the Parliaments of the Commonwealth, issued quarterly by the General Council of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association; and in the University of Toronto Quarterly, 'Letters in Canada,' published in the November issue. Regionally oriented bibliographies are included in each issue of Acadiensis, BC Studies, and Revue d'histoire de l'Amt!riquefran~aise. Any MA and PHD theses listed in the current bibliography were reported as recently completed in a range of sources, including America: History and Life and Dissertation Abstracts International. Users of this bibliography should bear in mind that all titles are listed only once. Because of subject overlap, alternative categories should be consulted.


The Price of Our Freedom by George Lakoff "Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom? -- Barack Obama, Newtown Address, December 16, 2012 That sentence, uttered by President Obama in his Newtown Address, may turn out to be a turning point in American history. The president, in one sentence, turned the beautiful faces of the 20 first-grade children murdered brutally by assault weapons into the moral measure of our nation. Conservatives have argued that guns = freedom, and that there should be no limit on such freedom. The president trumped their argument: The price of not protecting the nations' children is too high. Permitting the mass murder of our children is not freedom. It comes as a shock at a certain point where you realize no matter how much you love these kids, you can't do it by yourself. That this job of keeping our children safe and teaching them well is something we can only do together, with the help of friends and neighbors, the help of a community, and the help of a nation. And in that way we come to realize that we bear responsibility for every child, because we're counting on everybody else to help look after ours; that we're all parents; that they are all our children. This is our first task, caring for our children. It's our first job. If we don't get that right, we don't get anything right. That's how, as a society, we will be judged. Democracy, as the president has said, begins with the people taking care of one another responsibly, importantly through government as an instrument of freedom. That how we get our public schools, our roads, our sewers, our patent office, our scientific research, our energy, communication and transportation systems, our food safety, our protectors, and all the rest that we need to be free in our private lives. It is a truth: the private depends on the public. We, all together, constitute the public. Unless we take care of one another and one another's children, we can't get democracy -- and freedom -- right. The gun lobby rests on conservative ideology: Democracy supposedly gives each of us individually the liberty to seek our own self-interests with no responsibility for the interests or well-being of anyone else. After and Obama's Newtown Address, the whole idea of such liberty makes no sense.


Mahathiriskonomism is a thought concept in an effort to save the economy under crisis and has proven successful. This model was a manifestation of idea and an action plan used by Malaysia during the economic crisis, which was an initiative of Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad during his reign as Malaysia's Prime Minister. With experience in handling two great economic crises, in 1982 and 1997, the birth of an economic management under stress by Tun Dr Mahathir can clearly be called as Mahathiriskonomism. Therefore, the thought perspective and idea with the actions that were used in 1997 was perceived as an important effective experiment in handling the economic crisis which has defied western believes, applied by the International Money Fund (IMF) and also the World Bank under the Washington Consensus. The global economic crisis 2008 made Malaysia an important subject as alternative management in economy under stress. In this ever challenging world, no country in this world can escape from menaces and threats. The threats that emerge can come in various forms. One of the threats and menaces that can manifest is in terms of economy and national development. Currently, in this globalised era, international institutions are also used as instruments to threaten and menace a country's sovereignty. The westerner's are supposed to use international institutions as agents, design to shake the stability and present an impact to the government of a country. Consequently the countries being threaten are compelled to accept the injection from the International Money Fund (IMF) which is perceived by some leaders and the public as a proxy to United State and westerners. The IMF had succeeded in confusing the local financial and political system. In the quest to defend the integrity and sovereignty of Malaysia, under the leadership of former Prime Minister, Y.Bhg Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad had successfully minimized the impact of threats and maintained economic management and national politic towards stability. Hence, this approach which can also be referred as 'Mahathiriskonomisme' is identified as a successful approach that amazed the world, furthermore it is observed and studied not only by economy and political researchers in Malaysia, but also international researchers.


Event-based dynamic vision sensors (DVSs) asynchronously report log intensity changes. Their high dynamic range, sub-ms latency and sparse output make them useful in applications such as robotics and real-time tracking. However they discard absolute intensity information which is useful for object recognition and classification. This paper presents a dynamic and active pixel vision sensor (DAVIS) which addresses this deficiency by outputting asynchronous DVS events and synchronous global shutter frames concurrently. The active pixel sensor (APS) circuits and the DVS circuits within a pixel share a single photodiode. Measurements from a 240×180 sensor array of 18.5 μm 2 pixels fabricated in a 0.18 μm 6M1P CMOS image sensor (CIS) technology show a dynamic range of 130 dB with 11% contrast detection threshold, minimum 3 μs latency, and 3.5% contrast matching for the DVS pathway; and a 51 dB dynamic range with 0.5% FPN for the APS readout.


Discover the native side of Android and inject the power of C/C++ in your applications Create high performance applications with C/C++ and integrate with Java Exploit advanced Android features such as graphics, sound, input and sensing Port and reuse your own or third-party libraries from the prolific C/C++ ecosystem In Detail Android NDK is all about injecting high performance into your apps. Exploit the maximum power of these mobile devices using high-performance and portable code. This book will show you how to create C/C++ enabled applications and integrate them with Java. You will learn how to access native API and port libraries used in some of the most successful Android applications. Using this practical step-by-step tutorial, highlighted with comments and tricks, discover how to run C/C++ code embedded in a Java application or in a standalone application. You will create a real native application starting from project creation through to full implementation of native API and the porting of existing third-party libraries. You will discover OpenGL ES and OpenSL ES, which are becoming the new standard in mobility. You will also understand how to access keyboard and input peripherals and how to read accelerometer or orientation sensors. Finally, you will dive into more advanced topics such as debugging and ARM assembler instructions. By the end of the book, you should know the key elements to enable you to start exploiting the power and portability of native code. What you will learn from this book Jump in the starting block and create your first Android native projec Communicate with Java through Java Native Interfaces Display 2D and 3D graphics with OpenGL ES Play sound and music with OpenSL ES Manage Android input and sensors Debug applications and discover advanced ARM instructions Port existing C/C++ code to Android Combine graphics, sound, input, sensors and physics in your application Approach This beginner's guide focuses on getting you through all the major learning points in a smooth, logical order. You'll also see how to avoid some common pitfalls. Who this book is written for Are you an Android Java programmer who needs more performance? Are you a C/C++ developer who doesn't want to bother with Java stuff and its out-of-control garbage collector? Do you want to create fast intensive multimedia applications or games? Answer yes to any of the above and this book is for you. With some general knowledge of C/C++ development, you will be able to dive head first into native Android development.


We estimate the elasticity of charitable giving with respect to its price and after-tax income using a panel of over 550,000 disproportionately high-income tax returns spanning the years 1979 through 2005. Improvements relative to the previous literature include: using state tax variation to help identify our model while controlling for both individual- and time-specific unobserved heterogeneity; carefully dealing with expectations; allowing people at different income levels to have different degrees responsiveness to taxation and different time paths of unobservable influences on giving; and using a measure of charitable giving that more closely approximates current donations. To address the omitted variable bias that would otherwise arise from failing to control for unobservable expectations of future prices and future incomes, we use predictable changes in future federal and state marginal tax rates and tax liabilities, arising from their pre-announced and phased-in nature, as instruments for future changes in prices and income. Our estimate of the elasticity of giving with respect to a persistent price change for the full sample is about -0.7; this elasticity is generally larger when the sample is limited to high-income people and we control for time-varying unobservable influences on charity in a flexible fashion. We find some evidence, particularly among very high-income people, of re-timing giving in response to expected future changes in price, but this finding is sensitive to the source of identification for the price effects. Our estimates are broadly consistent the permanent income hypothesis. Expenditures on charitable giving are estimated to respond more strongly to persistent changes in income than to transitory fluctuations in income. Moreover, we find evidence in some specifications that people will increase their charitable giving now in response to a predictable reduction in future tax liability arising from tax reform.


Background. Several factors, including gestational age (GA), gender, race and geographical/regional area, contribute to variations in the size of the anterior fontanelle (AF). While the impact of GA and gender are clearly established, the influences of region and ethnicity vary in the published literature. Objectives. To assess AF sizes in normal newborn Igbo babies in south-eastern Nigeria, establish baseline values for our population, and evaluate the relationship of our findings to some factors reported to affect AF size. Methods. AF size was measured in 269 healthy term newborn babies using the method proposed by Popich and Smith and modified by Faix. Measurements were taken 24 - 48 hours after birth. Results. The mean AF size was 2.97 cm (± standard deviation (SD) 0.71, range 2.0 - 4.8). Female babies had slightly larger anterior fontanelles than males (2.98±0.75 cm v. 2.97±0.67 cm, respectively), although this was not statistically significant ( p >0.05). Size of the AF had no significant correlation with head circumference (Pearson correlation coefficient r =-0.01; p =0.89), birth weight ( r =-0.05; p =0.39) or length ( r =-0.00; p =0.99) of these term babies. Neither GA nor mode of delivery influenced AF size ( p >0.05). The mean anteroposterior dimension of the AF (3.22±0.82 cm) was significantly longer than the mean transverse dimension (2.71±0.65 cm) ( p <0.01). Conclusions. At term, AF size has no relationship to GA or such growth parameters as head circumference, birth weight and length. The mean AF size of 2.97±0.71 cm obtained in this study is recommended for use in assessing term Igbo newborns.


The study involved 14 volunteer facilitators, four UBC staff members, and the researcher as participant; the data collected were observation notes, questionnaires, results from focus groups, and interviews. The study revealed that the key strengths of the training workshop lay in its
 approach to training, its focus on confidence and capacity building, the appreciation and contribution of volunteers' assets, and the support of the sponsoring university. The article concludes with a consideration of the implications for strategic planning for university-community engagement and replication of the program in other educational contexts.


The world first publication of a previously unknown work of fantasy by J.R.R. Tolkien, which tells the powerful story of a doomed young man who is sold into slavery and who swears revenge on the magician who killed his father. Kullervo son of Kalervo is perhaps the darkest and most tragic of all J.R.R. Tolkien's characters. 'Hapless Kullervo', as Tolkien called him, is a luckless orphan boy with supernatural powers and a tragic destiny. Brought up in the homestead of the dark magician Untamo, who killed his father, kidnapped his mother, and who tries three times to kill him when still a boy, Kullervo is alone save for the love of his twin sister, Wanona, and guarded by the magical powers of the black dog, Musti. When Kullervo is sold into slavery he swears revenge on the magician, but he will learn that even at the point of vengeance there is no escape from the cruellest of fates. Tolkien wrote that The Story of Kullervo was 'the germ of my attempt to write legends of my own', and was 'a major matter in the legends of the First Age'; his Kullervo was the ancestor of Turin Turambar, tragic incestuous hero of The Silmarillion. In addition to being a powerful story in its own right, The Story of Kullervo - published here for the first time with the author's drafts, notes and lecture-essays on its source-work, The Kalevala, is a foundation stone in the structure of Tolkien's invented world.


From 1964, when it was first granted by the Tanzanian government to OAU recognized liberation movements, Kongwa camp has been a key site in southern Africa's exile history. First SWAPO and FRELIMO, and later the ANC, MPLA and ZAPU, inhabited neighbouring sites near the town of Kongwa in central Tanzania, where they trained their respective members in guerrilla tactics and prepared to infiltrate their countries of origin. Despite the importance of Kongwa for any history of southern Africa's liberation struggles, few secondary sources draw attention to Kongwa as a lived space, and none consider it beyond the historiography of a particular national movement. In contrast, this essay highlights the experiences of Namibians living in an international community at Kongwa during the 1960s. Drawing on taped interviews, published memoirs, the ANC's Morogoro Papers, and Tanzanian historiography and ethnography, it argues that Kongwa shaped a social hierarchy among exiled Namibians determined by their differing abilities to form relationships with non-Namibians around the camp. The essay traces the formation of this hierarchy through histories of how Kongwa camp formed; of how Namibians related to Tanzanian officials, other liberation movement members, and local farmers there; and of how such relationships shaped the form and resolution of conflicts within SWAPO. I emphasize that these histories are obscured by southern Africa's national historiographies and that they demand a regional approach to exile which attends to the particular sites and kinds of spaces in which exiles lived.1


Diverse political, cultural and biological needs epitomise the contrasting demands impacting on the mandate of the South African National Parks (SANParks) to maintain biological diversity. Systems-based approaches and strategic adaptive management (learn by doing) enable SANParks to accommodate these demands. However, such a management strategy creates new information needs, which require an appropriate analytical approach. We use conceptual links between objectives, indicators, mechanisms and modulators to identify key concerns in the context of and related to management objectives. Although our suggested monitoring designs are based mostly on defined or predicted underlying mechanisms of a concern, SANParks requires inventory monitoring to evaluate its key mandate. We therefore propose a predictive inventory approach based on species assemblages related to habitat preferences. Inventories alone may not always adequately serve unpacking of mechanisms: in some cases population size needs to be estimated to meet the information needs of management strategies, but actual population sizes may indirectly affect how the species impact on other values. In addition, ecosystem objectives require multivariate assessments of key communities, which can be used in trend analysis. SANParks therefore needs to know how to detect and define trends efficiently, which, in turn, requires precision of measures of variables. Conservation implications: Current research needs with regard to monitoring should focus on defining designs to yield optimal precision whilst taking methodology, survey trade-offs and analytical approaches into account. Use of these directives and research will guide monitoring during evaluation of SANParks objectives at various scales.


This old adage is familiar to all golfers but is especially resonant with Dr. Bob Rotella, the bestselling author of "Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect" and one of the foremost golf authorities today. In "Putting Out of Your Mind, " Rotella offers entertaining and instructive insight into the key element of a winning game great putting. He here reveals the unique mental approach that great putting requires and helps golfers of all levels master this essential skill. Much like "Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect" and "Golf Is a Game of Confidence, Putting Out of Your Mind" is an informative and valuable guide to achieving a better golf game. While most golfers spend their time trying to perfect their swing so they can drive the ball farther, Rotella encourages them to concentrate on their putting the most crucial yet often overlooked aspect of the game. Great players are not only aware of the importance of putting, they go out of their way to master it, and mastery can only begin with the understanding of the attitude needed to be a better putter. Rotella's mental rules have helped some of the greatest golfers in the world become champion putters and, for the first time, are now available to golfers everywhere. With everything from true-to-life stories of such greats as Davis Love III, David Duval, and Brad Faxon to dozens of game-changing practice drills, "Putting Out of Your Mind" is the new bible of putting for amateurs and pros alike."


"The relationship of school environment and counselor coping resources to school counselor burnout was investigated in this dissertation study by testing a hypothesized path model among a sample of school counselors certified in North Carolina and currently working in the state's public middle schools. The model, created by the researcher based on an in-depth study of the burnout literature, posited that factors within the school environment (counselor perceptions of school climate, role conflict, role ambiguity) have a direct effect on school counselor burnout and an indirect effect on burnout mediated by counselor coping resources. The role of counselor coping resources (self-efficacy, social support , and behavioral problem-solving) was examined for indications of mediating or moderating effects. Burnout was measured as a three-dimensional construct comprised of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and lack of personal accomplishment. 414 school counselors completed a mailed, 95-item, self-report booklet. 131 of the participants worked in rural schools, whereas 283 had positions within a non-rural context. Statistical analyses, including structural equation modeling, revealed that the counselors' perception of the school environment (climate of support, role conflict, and role ambiguity) predicted two dimensions of counselor burnout: emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. Self-efficacy was positively correlated to emotional exhaustion, indicating that very high expectations of oneself may contribute to burnout. Support was not found for the hypothesis that counselor coping resources (self-efficacy, social support, and behavioral problem-solving) played a significant role in the relationship between school environment and burnout. However, a number of statistically significant differences were found between rural and non-rural school counselors. Behavioral problem solving was positively correlated with depersonalization for rural participants. Role ambiguity and role conflict were significantly and positively correlated to emotional exhaustion for non-rural participants, but not for their rural counterparts. Differences in the results of analyses for the two groups are elaborated in detail. The implications for school counselors, policymakers, and counselor educators are discussed, and recommendations for future research are provided. "--Abstract from author supplied metadata.


Mutations in a number of genes have been linked to inherited dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). However, such mutations account for only a small proportion of the clinical cases emphasising the need for alternative discovery approaches to uncovering novel pathogenic mutations in hitherto unidentified pathways. Accordingly, as part of a large-scale N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea mutagenesis screen, we identified a mouse mutant, Python, which develops DCM. We demonstrate that the Python phenotype is attributable to a dominant fully penetrant mutation in the dynamin-1-like (Dnm1l) gene, which has been shown to be critical for mitochondrial fission. The C452F mutation is in a highly conserved region of the M domain of Dnm1l that alters protein interactions in a yeast two-hybrid system, suggesting that the mutation might alter intramolecular interactions within the Dnm1l monomer. Heterozygous Python fibroblasts exhibit abnormal mitochondria and peroxisomes. Homozygosity for the mutation results in the death of embryos midway though gestation. Heterozygous Python hearts show reduced levels of mitochondria enzyme complexes and suffer from cardiac ATP depletion. The resulting energy deficiency may contribute to cardiomyopathy. This is the first demonstration that a defect in a gene involved in mitochondrial remodelling can result in cardiomyopathy, showing that the function of this gene is needed for the maintenance of normal cellular function in a relatively tissue-specific manner. This disease model attests to the importance of mitochondrial remodelling in the heart; similar defects might underlie human heart muscle disease.


Abstract. In the present study a
non-motion-stabilized scanning Doppler lidar was operated on board of
RV Polarstern in the Arctic (June 2014) and Antarctic (December
2015–January 2016). This is the first time that such a system measured on an
icebreaker in the Antarctic. A method for a motion correction of the data in
the post-processing is presented. The wind calculation is based on vertical
azimuth display (VAD) scans with eight directions that pass a quality
control. Additionally a method for an empirical signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)
threshold is presented, which can be calculated for individual measurement
set-ups. Lidar wind profiles are compared to total of about 120 radiosonde
profiles and also to wind measurements of the ship. The performance of the lidar measurements in comparison with radio soundings
generally shows small root mean square deviation (bias) for wind speed of
around 1 m s−1 (0.1 m s−1) and for wind direction of around
10∘ (1∘). The post-processing of the non-motion-stabilized
data shows a comparably high quality to studies with motion-stabilized
systems. Two case studies show that a flexible change in SNR threshold can be
beneficial for special situations. Further the studies reveal that
short-lived low-level jets in the atmospheric boundary layer can be captured
by lidar measurements with a high temporal resolution in contrast to routine
radio soundings. The present study shows that a non-motion-stabilized Doppler
lidar can be operated successfully on an icebreaker. It presents a processing
chain including quality control tests and error quantification, which is
useful for further measurement campaigns.


The auto-components industry has improved its performance significantly in South Africa during the second half of the 1990's. However, it has not yet reached the level of the international competitors. The present paper suggests that a focus on the firms' internal conditions is a way to identify obstacles preventing further improvement of performance and competitiveness. Organisational behaviour has increasingly become important internationally in the understanding of firm development and learning in the recent years. This paper argues that it is crucial to take into account the behaviour of the organisation in the perception of the problems connected to the development of technology and capabilities in South African SMEs. The paper builds on the immediate findings of a qualitative case study on technological learning in two autocomponents enterprises in Greater Durban, where the organisational behaviour in different ways hinders internal learning. These findings are contrasted with a third firm within the metal sector, which has a very different learning environment. The paper emphasises the importance of including the informal organisational behaviour in the understanding of how to develop the technological resources. The study investigates the physical resources, and the human and organisational resources, and relates these to the routines in the organisational behaviour, including formal and informal work practices and social relations at the shop floor in the understanding of what influence technological learning in these firms.


The work presented in this book is an invitation to undertake an urgent architectural and political thought experiment: to rethink today's struggles for justice and equality not only from the historical perspective of revolution, but also from that of a continued struggle for decolonization; consequently, to rethink the problem of political subjectivity not from the point of view of a Western conception of a liberal citizen but rather from that of the displaced and extraterritorial refugee. You will not find here descriptions of popular uprising, armed resistance, or political negotiations, despite these of course forming an integral and necessary part of any radical political transformation. Instead, the authors present a series of provocative projects that try to imagine "the morning after revolution."

Located on the edge of the desert in the town of Beit Sahour in Palestine, the architectural collective Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency (DAAR) has since 2007 combined discourse, spatial intervention, collective learning, public meetings, and legal challenges to open an arena for speculating about the seemingly impossible: the actual transformation of Israel's physical structures of domination. Against an architectural history of decolonization that sought to reuse colonial architecture for the same purpose for which it was originally built, DAAR sees opportunities in a set of playful propositions for the subversion, reuse, profanation, and recycling of these structures of domination and the legal infrastructures that sustain them.

DAAR's projects should be understood as a series of architectural fables set in different locations: an abandoned military base near Beit Sahour, the refugee camp of Dheisheh in Bethlehem, the remnants of three houses on the Jaffa beach, the uncompleted Palestinian Parliament building, the historical village of Battir, the village of Miska destroyed during the Nakba, and the red-roofed West Bank colony of Jabel Tawil (P'sagot) next to Ramallah-El Bireh.

Design by Surface


McNamara, Amy.  Lovely, Dark and Deep . New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2012. Print. Lovely, Dark and Deep is Brooklyn-based poet and photographer Amy McNamara's debut novel.  The title, well-chosen and from the last stanza of Robert Frost's poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening – The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. captures the main character's mindset perfectly as she distances herself, both physically and emotionally, from her friends and family after a tragic car accident. Wren Wells, whom her mom still calls by her original name, Mamie, has moved in with her sculptor father, to an isolated house by the sea in rural Maine.  Dealing with immense guilt and grief after surviving the crash that claimed the life of her high school boyfriend Patrick, Wren spends her days yearning to be left alone.  Her father, a famous artist out of touch with his daughter's life, is at a loss for how to help, and her well-meaning and understandably worried mother asks frequently about when Wren will go to college.  Wren's friends from her seemingly previous life struggle to understand the changes she is going through and in the process feel alienated. To pass the never-ending days, Wren runs - a lot. She runs to get away and be alone with her thoughts. And during this time, Wren meets Cal, who is hiding away from his own troubles. The chemistry between them, and the glimpses of joy she feels while with Cal is unnerving to Wren, who believes that she should feel guilty forever about Patrick, who was not given a second chance. Wren needs to make a choice – move on and try again or be lost forever. The character of Wren is not endearing to the reader; she is self-absorbed and manic, and selfish to the point of frustration. Her actions and of those around her often seem unauthentic. The plot line is slow, yet McNamara's beautiful prose makes it bearable. Wren is, however, a young, depressed girl coping with deep grief and the story may resonate with young women who have experienced similar situations. Recommended with reservations: 2 stars out of 4 Reviewer: Debbie Feisst Debbie is a Public Services Librarian at the H.T. Coutts Education Library at the University of Alberta.  When not renovating, she enjoys travel, fitness and young adult fiction.


A Bayesian optimization algorithm for the nurse scheduling problem is presented, which involves choosing a suitable scheduling rule from a set for each nurse's assignment. Unlike our previous work that used GAs to implement implicit learning, the learning in the proposed algorithm is explicit, i.e. eventually, we will be able to identify and mix building blocks directly. The Bayesian optimization algorithm is applied to implement such explicit learning by building a Bayesian network of the joint distribution of solutions. The conditional probability of each variable in the network is computed according to an initial set of promising solutions. Subsequently, each new instance for each variable is generated by using the corresponding conditional probabilities, until all variables have been generated, i.e. in our case, a new rule string has been obtained. Another set of rule strings will be generated in this way, some of which will replace previous strings based on fitness selection. If stopping conditions are not met, the conditional probabilities for all nodes in the Bayesian network are updated again using the current set of promising rule strings. Computational results from 52 real data instances demonstrate the success of this approach. It is also suggested that the learning mechanism in the proposed approach might be suitable for other scheduling problems.


Enteroviruses, including coxsackieviruses and Echovirus, are well known pathogens responsible for the development of thyroiditis. We describe the case of a 49-year-old woman with no personal or family history of thyroid disease who presented to the emergency room with a two-week history of daily fevers up to 39°C, a sore throat, occasional palpitations and diaphoresis, decreased appetite and an unintentional 10 kg weight loss over the same time course Physical examination revealed mild tachycardia, an intention tremor and a normal-sized, nontender thyroid gland without palpable nodules. The remainder of the physical examination was unremarkable and without stigmata of Graves' disease. Her initial blood tests revealed overt thyrotoxicosis, elevated liver enzymes, an elevated C-reactive protein, a negative monospot and a positive CMV IgM antibody. Thyroid sonography revealed areas of hypoechogenicity and relatively low vascularity. Fine-needle biopsy showed a lymphocytic infiltrate. The patient was treated symptomatically with propranolol. On follow-up, the patient became euthyroid, and her liver enzymes normalised. Previous cases of CMV-induced thyroiditis occurred in immunosuppressed patients. This is the first reported case of a CMV-mononucleosis-induced thyroiditis in an immunocompetent adult patient and serves as a reminder that viral illnesses are a common cause of thyroiditis with abnormal liver enzymes. Learning points: The differential diagnosis of thyrotoxicosis with abnormal liver enzymes includes severe hyperthyroidism and thyroid storm caused by Graves' disease as well as the thyrotoxic phase of a thyroiditis, usually caused by a virus such as coxsackievirus or, in this case, cytomegalovirus. Cytomegalovirus appears to be a recently recognized causal agent for thyroiditis, both in immunosuppressed and immunocompetent patients. Careful follow-up of thyroid function tests in patients with thyroiditis allows clinicians to determine if patients' thyroid hormone secretion normalizes or if they remain hypothyroid.


For many years, most distributed real-time systems employed data communication systems specially tailored to address the specific requirements of individual domains: for instance, Controlled Area Network (CAN) and Flexray in the automotive domain, ARINC 429 [FW10] and TTP [Kop95] in the aerospace domain. Some of these solutions were expensive, and eventually not well understood.
Mostly driven by the ever decreasing costs, the application of such distributed real-time system have drastically increased in the last years in different domains. Consequently, cross-domain communication systems are advantageous. Not only the number of distributed real-time systems have been increasing but also the number of nodes per system, have drastically increased, which in turn increases their network bandwidth requirements. Further, the system architectures have been changing, allowing for applications to spread computations among different computer nodes. For example, modern avionics systems moved from federated to integrated modular architecture, also increasing the network bandwidth requirements.
Ethernet (IEEE 802.3) [iee12] is a well established network standard. Further, it is fast, easy to install, and the interface ICs are cheap [Dec05]. However, Ethernet does not offer any temporal guarantee. Research groups from academia and industry have presented a number of protocols merging the benefits of Ethernet and the temporal guarantees required by distributed real-time systems. Two of these protocols are: Avionics Full-Duplex Switched Ethernet (AFDX) [AFD09] and Time-Triggered Ethernet (TTEthernet) [tim16]. In this dissertation, we propose solutions for two problems faced during the design of AFDX and TTEthernet networks: avoiding data loss due to buffer overflow in AFDX networks with multiple priority traffic, and scheduling of TTEthernet networks.
AFDX guarantees bandwidth separation and bounded transmission latency for each communication channel. Communication channels in AFDX networks are not synchronized, and therefore frames might compete for the same output port, requiring buffering to avoid data loss. To avoid buffer overflow and the resulting data loss, the network designer must reserve a safe, but not too pessimistic amount of memory of each buffer. The current AFDX standard allows for the classification of the network traffic with two priorities. Nevertheless, some commercial solutions provide multiple priorities, increasing the complexity of the buffer backlog analysis. The state-of-the-art AFDX buffer backlog analysis does not provide a method to compute deterministic upper bounds
iiifor buffer backlog of AFDX networks with multiple priority traffic. Therefore, in this dissertation we propose a method to address this open problem. Our method is based on the analysis of the largest busy period encountered by frames stored in a buffer. We identify the ingress (and respective egress) order of frames in the largest busy period that leads to the largest buffer backlog, and then compute the respective buffer backlog upper bound. We present experiments to measure the computational costs of our method.
In TTEthernet, nodes are synchronized, allowing for message transmission at well defined points in time, computed off-line and stored in a conflict-free scheduling table. The computation of such scheduling tables is a NP-complete problem [Kor92], which should be solved in reasonable time for industrial size networks. We propose an approach to efficiently compute a schedule for the TT communication channels in TTEthernet networks, in which we model the scheduling problem as a search tree. As the scheduler traverses the search tree, it schedules the communication channels on a physical link. We presented two approaches to traverse the search tree while progressively creating the vertices of the search tree. A valid schedule is found once the scheduler reaches a valid leaf. If on the contrary, it reaches an invalid leaf, the scheduler backtracks searching for a path to a valid leaf. We present a set of experiments to demonstrate the impact of the input parameters on the time taken to compute a feasible schedule or to deem the set of virtual links infeasible.


Abstract In this paper the authors develop an innovative 21 sector computable general equilibrium model of Armenia to assess the impact on Armenia of a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) with the EU, as well as further regional or multilateral trade policy commitments. They find that a DCFTA with the EU will likely result in substantial gains to Armenia, but they show that the gains derive from the deep aspects of the agreement. In order of importance, the sources of the gains are: (i) trade facilitation and reduction in border costs; (ii) services liberalization; and (iii) standards harmonization. A shallow agreement with the EU that focuses only on preferential tariff liberalization in goods will likely lead to small losses to Armenia primarily due to a loss of productivity from lost varieties of technologies from the Rest of the World region in manufactured products. Additional gains can be expected in the long run from an improvement in the investment climate. The authors estimate only small gains from a services agreement with the CIS countries, but significant gains from expanding services liberalization multilaterally.


A collection of subgroups whose union is equal to the whole group is known as a group cover. Various types of group covers have been explored in recent years. In this work, we define a new type of cover, an equal L-intersection cover, which is specified by the size and pairwise intersection of the subgroups involved. We demonstrate that this cover is in fact distinct from previous classes of group covers. Further, we give tests to determine whether or not a finite group has this type of cover. These tests are implemented in the computational algebra program GAP to find new instances of equal L-intersection covers. These examples lead to interesting questions and conjectures.


This work deals with designing simple behaviors to allow quadruped robots to play soccer. The robots are fully autonomous; they cannot exchange messages between each other. They are equipped with a charge-coupled-device camera that allows them to detect objects in the scene. In addition to vision problems such as changing lighting conditions and color confusion, legged robots must cope with "bouncing images" because of successive legs hitting the ground. When defining task-driven strategies, the designer has to take into account the influences of the locomotion and vision systems on the behavior. Locomotion and vision skills should be made as reliable as possible. Because it is not always possible to simulate the problems encountered in real situations, the behavior strategy should anticipate them. In this article, we describe all the behaviors used to play soccer games on a soccer field surrounded with landmarks. Experiments were carried out at the 1999 RoboCup in Stockholm using the Sony quadruped robots (Fujita 2000).


In any given metropolitan region, scores of municipalities are locked in a zero-sum struggle for mobile sources of jobs and tax revenue. This competition appears to benefit small, homogeneous suburbs that can directly enact the uniform will of the electorate over large, diverse cities that are often ensnarled in conflict between competing interest groups. Cities can level the playing field with suburbs, however, by devolving municipal power to smaller, more homogeneous subgroups, such as neighborhoods. Indeed, many commentators have identified one such effort at neighborhood empowerment, the "business improvement district" (BID), as a key factor in the recent revitalization of many cities. The BID and the related "special assessment district" devolve the financing of infrastructure and services to landowners within a territorially designated area. Courts have widely upheld BIDs and special assessment districts against constitutional challenges. Cities remain hamstrung in competing with suburbs, however, because courts prohibit cities from delegating what is perhaps the most coveted power of all to neighborhood groups: zoning. Since an unusual series of Supreme Court cases in the early twentieth century, it has been largely settled that cities may not constitutionally delegate the zoning power to sub-municipal groups, at least where the power is delegated specifically to landowners within a certain distance from a proposed land use change (a scheme I designate a "neighborhood zoning district"). This Article argues that the judicial prohibition on neighborhood zoning districts is inconsistent with the judiciary's permissive attitude toward BIDs and special assessment districts. As I demonstrate, the neighborhood zoning district is conceptually identical to the special assessment district/BID. Both devices are designed to enable large, diverse cities to capture some of the governance advantages of small, homogeneous suburbs by providing landowners with the direct ability to manage local externalities. This Article attempts to make sense of the disparate treatment accorded these devices by examining several grounds upon which they could potentially be, and have been, distinguished. I find, however, that the only meaningful distinction between these mechanisms is that special assessment districts/BIDs actually raise far more troubling public policy concerns than neighborhood zoning districts, thus calling into question why the judiciary has been so much more deferential toward the former than the latter. I conclude that courts should broadly defer to municipal delegations of power to sub-local groups, so that cities can work out their own strategies for surviving in an era of intense interlocal competition.


In the established tradition of the Clinical Success series, this succinct and easy-to-read book provides practitioners with a solid foundation for daily clinical use of the Invisalign system. The author introduces the reader to essentials of Invisalign treatment, from the basic biomechanics of thermoformed plastic aligners to the the ClinCheck 3D simulation treatment planning software, which allows the clinician to program in advance the velocity and direction of tooth movements; amount and frequency of force; anchorage; and available space necessary for the planned movements. Clinical results of various treatment types are shown using Invisalign system alone and in conjunction with other orthodontic treatments. This book is ideal for any orthodontist who wants to use the Invisalign system to achieve an optimal treatment outcome.


This research report examines the gender dynamics of radicalization to violence in Libya
and efforts to counter and prevent violent extremism. Based on primary research in Libya,
this report analyses new data collected in the field (October 2018 to March 2019), and via a
survey instrument (March-June 2019). The research investigates the gendered motivations
of individuals to join violent extremist and terrorist groups, and how gender inequality and
discrimination within Libyan society interact with other economic, political and religious
factors to spread violent extremism. The report explores how social constructions of
masculinity and femininity are manipulated by violent extremist groups through their
recruitment strategies and tactics of group control. As well as these gender dynamics, the
research investigates Libyan women's responses; how and why they seek to counter and
prevent violent extremism in their communities


Many AI researchers and cognitive scientists have argued that analogy is the core of cognition. The most influential work on computational modeling of analogy-making is Structure Mapping Theory (SMT) and its implementation in the Structure Mapping Engine (SME). A limitation of SME is the requirement for complex hand-coded representations. We introduce the Latent Relation Mapping Engine (LRME), which combines ideas from SME and Latent Relational Analysis (LRA) in order to remove the requirement for hand-coded representations. LRME builds analogical mappings between lists of words, using a large corpus of raw text to automatically discover the semantic relations among the words. We evaluate LRME on a set of twenty analogical mapping problems, ten based on scientific analogies and ten based on common metaphors. LRME achieves human-level performance on the twenty problems. We compare LRME with a variety of alternative approaches and find that they are not able to reach the same level of performance.


Nowadays, cookies are the most prominent mechanism to identify and authenticate users on the Internet. Although protected by the Same Origin Policy, popular browsers include cookies in all requests, even when these are cross-site. Unfortunately, these third-party cookies enable both cross-site attacks and third-party tracking. As a response to these nefarious consequences, various countermeasures have been developed in the form of browser extensions or even protection mechanisms that are built directly into the browser. In this paper, we evaluate the effectiveness of these defense mechanisms by leveraging a framework that automatically evaluates the enforcement of the policies imposed to third-party requests. By applying our framework, which generates a comprehensive set of test cases covering various web mechanisms, we identify several flaws in the policy implementations of the 7 browsers and 46 browser extensions that were evaluated. We find that even built-in protection mechanisms can be circumvented by multiple novel techniques we discover. Based on these results, we argue that our proposed framework is a much-needed tool to detect bypasses and evaluate solutions to the exposed leaks. Finally, we analyze the origin of the identified bypass techniques, and find that these are due to a variety of implementation, configuration and design flaws.


We study differential privacy in a distributed setting where two parties would like to perform analysis of their joint data while preserving privacy for both datasets. Our results imply almost tight lower bounds on the accuracy of such data analyses, both for specific natural functions (such as Hamming distance) and in general. Our bounds expose a sharp contrast between the two-party setting and the simpler client-server setting (where privacy guarantees are one-sided). In addition, those bounds demonstrate a dramatic gap between the accuracy that can be obtained by differentially private data analysis versus the accuracy obtainable when privacy is relaxed to a computational variant of differential privacy. The first proof technique we develop demonstrates a connection between differential privacy and deterministic extraction from Santha-Vazirani sources. A second connection we expose indicates that the ability to approximate a function by a low-error differentially private protocol is strongly related to the ability to approximate it by a low communication protocol. (The connection goes in both directions.)


In Penn Central Transportation Co. v. City of New York the Supreme Court stated that the existence of a regulatory taking would be determined through "essentially ad hoc, factual inquiries," and that one of three factors of "particular significance" was the economic impact of the regulation on the claimant. This article examines the conceptual problem whereby the Fifth Amendment requires compensation for the taking of property and not a fraction of its owner's worth. The fact that economic impact of stringent regulations is greater when parcels are smaller has led to a complex "parcel as a whole" test that conflates impact with another Penn Central test, owner's expectations. Furthermore, application of the impact test to parcels held as investment property might vitiate the temporary taking. The Federal Circuit's recent abandonment of its prior "return on equity" approach is emblematic of this problem. Measuring the economic impact upon owners also is complex where government condemns part of an owner's parcel, leading to difficulties in computing severance damages. Broad assertions that "offsetting benefits" conferred upon property owners by government actions reduce the impact of regulations also requires clarification. The article concludes that unresolved issues and complexities in adjudicating the "economic impact of the regulation on the claimant" test provide an additional reason why the conceptually incoherent Penn Central doctrine must be replaced.


'Sexting' and other teen autopornography are becoming a widespread phenomenon, with perhaps 20% of teenagers admitting to producing nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves and an ever greater proportion, perhaps as many as 50%, having illegally received such pictures from friends and classmates. It is, moreover, beginning to result in criminal prosecutions, and the statutory penalties are severe. Given the reality of changing social practices, mores and technology utilization, today's pornography laws are a trap for unwary teens and operate, in effect, to criminalize a large fraction of America's young people. As such, these laws and prosecutions represent a stark example of the contradictions that can occur when governmental policies and initiatives built on past truths and values collide with new and unanticipated social phenomena. The focus of anti-pornography enforcement in recent years has been the child pornography laws. The landmark cases of New York v. Ferber and Osborne v. Ohio have established and defined a categorical exclusion that denies First Amendment protection to sexually explicit visual depictions of minors. Even though Ferber and Osborne may not strictly speaking require a conclusion that sexting and other autopornography are unprotected speech, at least some lower courts and prosecutors appear to regard them that way. By contrast, the language and reasoning of the more recent case of Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition gives strong reason to believe that the scope of the categorical exclusion for child pornography should be closely aligned with the governmental objectives that Ferber and Osborne relied on - which would mean constitutional protection for teen sexting and autopornography that occur on the teens' own initiative. Ashcroft strongly implies, though does not quite say, that the categorical exclusion should be limited to materials that are produced by means of criminal child abuse and exploitation. Also, current standards of strict scrutiny for content-based regulations, if applied, would probably prevent (on the present state of the studies and research) self-produced teen materials from being subsumed into the Ferber categorical exclusion. How this issue will be decided, however, remains to be seen.


A $\lambda-Triple\ System(v)$, or a $\lambda $–$TS(V,\cal{B})$, is a pair (V, $\cal{B}$) where V is a set and $\cal{B}$ is a subset of the 3-subsets of V so that every pair is in exactly $\lambda$ elements of $\cal{B}$. A $regular\ configuration$ on p points with regularity $\rho$ on $l$ blocks is a pair (P,${\cal L}$) where $\cal{L}$ is a collection of 3-subsets of a (usually small) set P so that every p in P is in exactly $\rho$ elements of ${\cal L}$, and $|{\cal L}|=l$. The Pasch configuration $(\{0,1,2,3,4,5\},\{ 012,035,245,134\})$ has p=6, $l$=4, and $\rho$=2. A $\lambda$–$TS(V,\cal{B})$, is resolvable into a regular configuration ${\Bbb C}$=(P,${\cal L}$), or ${\Bbb C}$–resolvable, if ${\cal B}$ can be partitioned into sets $\Pi_{i}$ so that for each i, (V,$\Pi_{i}$) is isomorphic to a set of vertex disjoint copies of (P,${\cal L}$). If the configuration is a single block on three points this corresponds to ordinary resolvability of a Triple System. In this paper we examine all regular configurations ${\Bbb C}$ on 6 or fewer blocks and construct ${\Bbb C}$–resolvable $\lambda$–Triple Systems of order v for many values of v and $\lambda$. These conditions are also sufficient for each ${\Bbb C}$ having 4 blocks or fewer. For example for the Pasch configuration $\lambda \equiv 0 \pmod{4}$ and $v \equiv 0 \pmod{6}$ are necessary and sufficient.


The New York City Leadership Academy represents a unique experiment by a large urban school district to train and develop its own school leaders. Its 14-month Aspiring Principals Program (APP) selects and prepares aspiring principals to lead low-performing schools. This study provides the first systematic evaluation of achievement in APP-staffed schools after 3 or more years. We examine differences between APP principals and those advancing through other routes, the extent to which APP graduates serve and remain in schools, and their relative performance in mathematics and English language arts. On balance, we find that APP principals performed about as well as other new principals. If anything, they narrowed the gap with comparison schools in English language arts but lagged behind in mathematics.