DevOps for Developers delivers a practical, thorough introduction to approaches, processes and tools to foster collaboration between software development and operations. Efforts of Agile software development often end at the transition phase from development to operations. This book covers the delivery of software, this means the last mile, with lean practices for shipping the software to production and making it available to the end users, together with the integration of operations with earlier project phases (elaboration, construction, transition). DevOps for Developers describes how to streamline the software delivery process and improve the cycle time (that is the time from inception to delivery). It will enable you to deliver software faster, in better quality and more aligned with individual requirements and basic conditions. And above all, work that is aligned with the DevOps approach makes even more fun! Provides patterns and toolchains to integrate software development and operations Delivers an one-stop shop for kick-starting with DevOps Provides guidance how to streamline the software delivery process What youll learn Know what DevOps is and how it can result in better and faster delivered software Apply patterns to improve collaboration between development and operations Introduce unified processes and incentives to support shared goals Start with or extend a tool infrastructure that spans projects roles and phases Address pain points in your individual environment with appropriate recipes Break down existing walls that make up an unnecessarily sluggish delivery process Who this book is for DevOps for Developers is for motivated software engineers, particularly programmers, testers, QA, system admins, database admins, both beginners and experts, who want to improve their software delivery process. Its the perfect choice for engineers who want to go the next step by integrating their approaches for development and delivery of software. This book is for engineers who want to shape their processes and decide on and integrate open source tools and seek for guidance how to integrate standard tools in advanced real world use cases. Table of Contents Beginning DevOps for Developers Introducing DevOps Building Blocks of DevOps Quality and Testing Introduce Shared Incentives Gain Fast Feedback Unified and Holistic Approach Automatic Releasing Infrastructure as Code Specification by Example


Though environmental inequality research has gained extensive interest in the United States, it has received far less attention in Europe and Germany. The main objective of this book is to extend the research on environmental inequality in Germany. This book aims to shed more light on the question of whether minorities in Germany are affected by a disproportionately high burden of environmental pollution, and to increase the general knowledge about the causal mechanisms, which contribute to the unequal distribution of environmental hazards across the population.
To improve our knowledge about environmental inequality in Germany, this book extends previous research in several ways. First, to evaluate the extent of environmental inequality, this book relies on two different data sources. On the on hand, it uses household-level survey data and self-reports about the impairment through air pollution. On the other hand, it combines aggregated census data and objective register-based measures of industrial air pollution by using geographic information systems (GIS). Consequently, this book offers the first analysis of environmental inequality on the national level that uses objective measures of air pollution in Germany. Second, to evaluate the causes of environmental inequality, this book applies a panel data analysis on the household level, thereby offering the first longitudinal analysis of selective migration processes outside the United States. Third, it compares the level of environmental inequality between German metropolitan areas and evaluates to which extent the theoretical arguments of environmental inequality can explain differing levels of environmental inequality across the country. By doing so, this book not only investigates the impact of indicators derived by the standard strand of theoretical reasoning but also includes structural characteristics of the urban space.
All studies presented in this book confirm the disproportionate exposure of minorities to environmental pollution. Minorities live in more polluted areas in Germany but also in more polluted parts of the communities, and this disadvantage is most severe in metropolitan regions. Though this book finds evidence for selective migration processes contributing to the disproportionate exposure of minorities to environmental pollution, it also stresses the importance of urban conditions. Especially cities with centrally located industrial facilities yield a high level of environmental inequality. This poses the question of whether environmental inequality might be the result of two independent processes: 1) urban infrastructure confines residential choices of minorities to the urban core, and 2) urban infrastructure facilitates centrally located industries. In combination, both processes lead to a disproportionate burden of minority households.


The Omani government attaches great importance to English in the education of Omani youth and their preparation for a multicultural world of employment. It has therefore poured large resources into English language teaching in the nation's schools, colleges and universities. Unfortunately, these efforts have not yielded gains proportionate to this investment. Students continue to graduate from schools with inadequate English language proficiency and the majority therefore require remedial or intensive courses in a "foundation" program before beginning tertiary level study. Based on a student perspective, this study investigated the above problem. Using data from focus groups and personal reports (based on a qualitative questionnaire) from 100 tertiary education students, it found that the major factors involved were as follows: ineffective teachers, inadequate curricula, uninterested students, limited exposure to English outside the classroom, unsupportive parents, a poor school system, and peer-group discouragement. Participants suggested a number of solutions and especially encouraging students to learn English by showing them its international status and its importance for their future education and employment.


Described by Pope Pius XII as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas, the Swiss pastor and theologian, Karl Barth, continues to be a major influence on students, scholars and preachers today.Barth's theology found its expression mainly through his closely reasoned fourteen-part magnum opus, Die Kirchliche Dogmatik. Having taken over 30 years to write, the Church Dogmatics is regarded as one of the most important theological works of all time, and represents the pinnacle of Barth's achievement as a theologian.


To add processing power under power constraints, emerging heterogeneous processors include fast and slow cores on the same chip. This paper demonstrates that this heterogeneity is well suited to interactive data center workloads (e.g., web search, online gaming, and financial trading) by observing and exploiting two workload properties. (1) These workloads may trade response quality for responsiveness. (2) The request service demand is unknown and varies widely with both short and long requests. Subject to per-server power constraints, traditional homogeneous processors either include a few high-power fast cores that deliver high quality responses or many low-power slow cores that deliver high throughput, but not both. This paper shows heterogeneous processors deliver both high quality and throughput by executing short requests on slow cores and long requests on fast cores with Fast Old and First (FOF), a new scheduling algorithm. FOF schedules new requests with unknown service demands on the fastest idle core and migrates requests from slower to faster cores. We simulate and implement FOF. In simulations modeling Microsoft's Bing index search, FOF on heterogeneous processors improves response quality and increases throughput by up to 50% compared to homogeneous processors. We confirm simulation improvements with an implementation of an interactive finance server using Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT), configured as a dynamic heterogeneous processor. Both simulation and experimental results indicate processor heterogeneity offers a lot of potential for interactive workloads.


Abstract : The Army Strategic Software Improvement Program (ASSIP) is a multiyear effort targeted at improving the way in which the Army acquires software-intensive systems. The ASSIP has funded a number of programs, in conjunction with the Carnegie Mellon (R) Software Engineering Institute (SEI), to conduct software architecture evaluations using the Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method(R) (ATAM(R)). Additionally, in cases when a system's architecture did not exist or was not ready to evaluate, the ASSIP sponsored Quality Attribute Workshops (QAWs). During the period of this effort, several other programs funded their own ATAM evaluations and QAWs. The goal of this study was to determine the benefits associated with using the ATAM and QAW. This special report describes the results of a study of the impact that the ATAM evaluations and QAWs had on Army programs. All 12 programs that used the ATAM and/or QAW responded to a questionnaire whose objective was to determine the impact of the experience in terms of the quality of the system, the practices of the involved program office, stakeholders, and suppliers, and the overall value of the engagement. The data gathered confirms that the use of ATAM-based architecture evaluations and QAWs are generally beneficial to system acquisitions and suggests that maximal benefit is achievable only if architecture-centric practices are built into the acquisition process.


Abstract We previously reported that trait aggression, proposed as an endophenotype for suicidal behavior, is positively associated with Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) seropositivity in females, but not in males. Additionally, older males seropositive for T. gondii had lower scores on measures of trait aggression, including self-aggression. Trait aggression may be influenced by dopaminergic signaling, which is known to be moderated by gender and age, and potentially enhanced in T. gondii positives through the intrinsic production of dopamine by the microorganism. Therefore, we investigated associations between trait aggression and interactions between T. gondii enzyme-linked immunoabsorbant assay (ELISA) IgG titer-determined seropositivity and high-performance liquid chromatography- (HPLC-) measured blood levels of dopamine precursors phenylalanine (Phe), tyrosine (Tyr), and their ratio in a sample of 1000 psychiatrically healthy participants. Aggressive traits were assessed using the questionnaire for measuring factors of aggression (FAF), the German version of the Buss-Durkee hostility questionnaire. We found that 1) the decrease in trait aggression scores in T. gondii-positive older males was only present in individuals with a low Phe:Tyr ratio, and 2) that there was a positive correlation between Phe:Tyr ratio and total aggression and selected subscales of aggression in T. gondii-positive males, but not in T. gondii-negative males. These findings point toward a gender-specific reciprocal moderation by Phe:Tyr ratio and T. gondii seropositivity of their associations with aggression scores, and lead to experimental interventions geared to manipulating levels of dopamine precursors in selected T. gondii positive individuals with increased propensity for aggression.


"This dissertation examines fiction writers who include themselves as characters within their fictional constructions. I look at the cultural emphasis on simulation in contemporary society which creates a context for these figures, hybrids of truth and fiction, to exist within a fictional landscape. In this way, by problematizing classification and rejecting fixed definitions of fiction, the authors included in this study use a poststructural paradigm to undermine conventional thinking about gender, the modern role of the writer, the function of the memoir, and life writing as a means of explaining a life. By creating a pseudo-biographical life within the fictional text, these authors have found a way to critique our culturally constructed ideas about truth, fiction, and identity. I begin by looking at authors who investigate the imperative of locating authority in the writer and the failure of postmodern writers to live up to this expectation. Following this metafictional look at authors who find themselves unable to complete their own texts, I include an examination of contemporary rewriting of the trauma narratives associated with the Holocaust. In a world filled with simulations, telling the truth about this event, the responsibility of all those who write about the holocaust, is an impossibility and these authors all find an alternate mode of writing about this event. Next, I focus on authors who use themselves as characters to challenge conventional thinking about gender and identity, love and sexuality. These writers all incorporate themselves into their work to critique how simulations (family stories, fictional texts, academic commentaries) have dictated contemporary thinking about gender and sexuality. Finally, I use Mark Leyner to point towards a new conception of the author figure, one that moves out of postmodernism into another literary movement, avant-pop. Leyner's view of "Mark Leyner," is all simulation--a writer who is not an outside observer but the center of society--and points to another use of this author figure, one who celebrates the impossibility of making distinctions between truth and fiction in life writing and revels in the simulated life he has created for himself."--Abstract from author supplied metadata.


An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change-Richard R. Nelson 1985-10-15 This book contains the most sustained and serious attack on mainstream, neoclassical economics in more than forty years. Nelson and Winter focus their critique on the basic question of how firms and industries change overtime. They marshal significant objections to the fundamental neoclassical assumptions of profit maximization and market equilibrium, which they find ineffective in the analysis of technological innovation and the dynamics of competition among firms. To replace these assumptions, they borrow from biology the concept of natural selection to construct a precise and detailed evolutionary theory of business behavior. They grant that films are motivated by profit and engage in search for ways of improving profits, but they do not consider them to be profit maximizing. Likewise, they emphasize the tendency for the more profitable firms to drive the less profitable ones out of business, but they do not focus their analysis on hypothetical states of industry equilibrium. The results of their new paradigm and analytical framework are impressive. Not only have they been able to develop more coherent and powerful models of competitive firm dynamics under conditions of growth and technological change, but their approach is compatible with findings in psychology and other social sciences. Finally, their work has important implications for welfare economics and for government policy toward industry.


Abstract. We examine the climate effects of the emissions of near-term climate forcers (NTCFs) from 4 continental regions (East Asia, Europe, North America and South Asia) using results from the Task Force on Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution Source-Receptor global chemical transport model simulations. We address 3 aerosol species (sulphate, particulate organic matter and black carbon) and 4 ozone precursors (methane, reactive nitrogen oxides (NOx), volatile organic compounds and carbon monoxide). We calculate the global climate metrics: global warming potentials (GWPs) and global temperature change potentials (GTPs). For the aerosols these metrics are simply time-dependent scalings of the equilibrium radiative forcings. The GTPs decrease more rapidly with time than the GWPs. The aerosol forcings and hence climate metrics have only a modest dependence on emission region. The metrics for ozone precursors include the effects on the methane lifetime. The impacts via methane are particularly important for the 20 yr GTPs. Emissions of NOx and VOCs from South Asia have GWPs and GTPs of higher magnitude than from the other Northern Hemisphere regions. The analysis is further extended by examining the temperature-change impacts in 4 latitude bands, and calculating absolute regional temperature-change potentials (ARTPs). The latitudinal pattern of the temperature response does not directly follow the pattern of the diagnosed radiative forcing. We find that temperatures in the Arctic latitudes appear to be particularly sensitive to BC emissions from South Asia. The northern mid-latitude temperature response to northern mid-latitude emissions is approximately twice as large as the global average response for aerosol emission, and about 20–30% larger than the global average for methane, VOC and CO emissions.


A review of:

Willingham, Patricia, Linda Carder, and Christopher Millson-Martula. "Does a Border Make a Difference? Library Instruction in the United States and Canada." Journal of Academic Librarianship 32.1 (Jan. 2006): 23-34.

Objective – The primary intent of this study was to identify differences among library instruction conference attendees and their institutions between the United States and Canada. The overall hypothesis was that there would be areas of measurable distinction between the two countries. The authors tested nine hypotheses: #1, that the largest number of survey respondents would be employed at large institutions; #2, that statistically, the majority of well-developed instructional programs are found at universities rather than colleges; #3, that beginning programs are more often found at four-year institutions; #4, that program development and technological issues predominate among instructional foci in the early twenty-first century; #5, that more experienced librarians are more likely to attend library instruction conferences; #6, that LOEX (originally an acronym for Library Orientation Exchange) is perceived as the most valuable conference in library instruction; #7, that the impact of conference attendance upon library program development is only moderate; #8, that conference theme and reputation are the two greatest factors contributing to attendance; and #9, that the majority of conference attendees are from the United States.

Design – Historical research, and an e-mailed survey.

Setting – Libraries and library instruction conferences in the United States and Canada.

Subjects – One hundred thirty-two librarians who were attendees at one of three library user instruction conferences: LOEX, LOEX of the West, and WILU (Workshop on Instruction in Library Use).

Methods – First, a brief historical review was conducted on the influence of social, economic, and political events on the development of library user instruction, the creation of conferences focused on library instruction in from the United States and Canada, and national surveys looking at institutional support for instructional development. Next, a survey instrument consisting of fifteen demographic and attitudinal questions was sent via e-mail to all 508 attendees of major library instruction conferences (LOEX and WILU for 2001, and LOEX of the West for 2000) in the United States and Canada. Responses from the 132 returned surveys were tabulated and used to evaluate their linked hypotheses.

Main results – Of the nine initial hypotheses, five were supported, and the remaining four were either partially supported or rejected. Supported hypotheses included: #1, that most participants in the top library instructional conferences came from institutions with >5,000 student populations; #2, that the majority of fully developed instructional programs were in universities; #5, that librarians with greater seniority were more likely to attend instructional conferences; #7, that conference attendance has only a medium impact on program development at participants' home institutions; and #9, that most conference attendees come from the United States. Partially supported hypotheses were: #4, that factors most highly rated by participants were program development and technology, and #8, that conference theme and reputation are ranked higher in terms of influence in attendees' decision to participate in the conferences. Rejected hypotheses included: #3, that "beginning programs are typically found at four-year institutions," #4, that "program development and technology rank as the two most important instruction-related issues" (note that hypothesis #4 is both rejected and partially supported), and #6, that "LOEX is considered the most valuable conference."

Conclusion – The authors confirmed their overall hypothesis that significant differences exist between the United States and Canada regarding library instructional programs. Although the two countries developed at very different rates prior to the 1960s, technology and cross-border sharing has meant that they are now developing along parallel paths. The authors suggest several avenues for further study including the need to consider attendees over a greater time span, the differences in responses between younger and more senior participants, and questions about the real differences between library instructional programs in Canada and the United States.


MOTIVATION: Traits are increasingly being used to quantify global biodiversity patterns, with trait databases growing in size and number, across diverse taxa. Despite growing interest in a trait‐based approach to the biodiversity of the deep sea, where the impacts of human activities (including seabed mining) accelerate, there is no single repository for species traits for deep‐sea chemosynthesis‐based ecosystems, including hydrothermal vents. Using an international, collaborative approach, we have compiled the first global‐scale trait database for deep‐sea hydrothermal‐vent fauna – sFDvent (sDiv‐funded trait database for the Functional Diversity of vents). We formed a funded working group to select traits appropriate to: (a) capture the performance of vent species and their influence on ecosystem processes, and (b) compare trait‐based diversity in different ecosystems. Forty contributors, representing expertise across most known hydrothermal‐vent systems and taxa, scored species traits using online collaborative tools and shared workspaces. Here, we characterise the sFDvent database, describe our approach, and evaluate its scope. Finally, we compare the sFDvent database to similar databases from shallow‐marine and terrestrial ecosystems to highlight how the sFDvent database can inform cross‐ecosystem comparisons. We also make the sFDvent database publicly available online by assigning a persistent, unique DOI. MAIN TYPES OF VARIABLE CONTAINED: Six hundred and forty‐six vent species names, associated location information (33 regions), and scores for 13 traits (in categories: community structure, generalist/specialist, geographic distribution, habitat use, life history, mobility, species associations, symbiont, and trophic structure). Contributor IDs, certainty scores, and references are also provided. SPATIAL LOCATION AND GRAIN: Global coverage (grain size: ocean basin), spanning eight ocean basins, including vents on 12 mid‐ocean ridges and 6 back‐arc spreading centres. TIME PERIOD AND GRAIN: sFDvent includes information on deep‐sea vent species, and associated taxonomic updates, since they were first discovered in 1977. Time is not recorded. The database will be updated every 5 years. MAJOR TAXA AND LEVEL OF MEASUREMENT: Deep‐sea hydrothermal‐vent fauna with species‐level identification present or in progress. SOFTWARE FORMAT: .csv and MS Excel (.xlsx).


Dream recall is often considered to be poor, although it is rarely systematically compared to the retrieval of waking event memories. A diary paradigm was implemented to explore the memory profile of recalled dreams over time, in comparison to recalled waking experiences. Twenty-five participants completed a dream and waking-event diary over two weeks. Titles of reports were re-presented in a surprise recall task. Subsequently, extracts of the reports were re-presented for recognition. No significant differences were found between dream and waking event memories in terms of either recall or recognition although some differences were found in terms of recollective experience, with waking-events being "remembered" as episodic memories more than dreams. Diary dream memories that are recalled, reported and to some extent rehearsed are therefore accessible and detailed in a similar manner to waking experiences, providing that they are adequately encoded close to their time of occurrence. The continuity of retrieval processes over sleep and wake is outlined.


Written by internationally renowned experts, this exceptional and most comprehensive atlas provides readers with a didactic exposure to the principles of ultrasound and its application in the diagnosis and treatment of clinical conditions of the head and neck. It specifically evaluates the possibilities of modern high-resolution B-scan and color Doppler ultrasound. Features:* The atlas style and systematically structured content allow readers to quickly locate imaging findings and access required information* The authors not only cover the main ultrasound examination techniques and findings in the head and neck area but also convey approaches to more complex clinical issues, including complicated interdisciplinary topics such as the thyroid gland and blood vessels* The diagnostic limitations of ultrasound, pitfalls, and tips and tricks are highlighted throughout the text to help beginners recognize the essential aspects of the findings and assist experienced users in complicated situations* An extensive selection of video clips, illustrating the advantages of ultrasound as a dynamic procedure, is available online For all otolaryngologists, head and neck surgeons, maxillofacial surgeons, radiologists, internists, and other specialists who utilize this dynamic imaging tool, Atlas of Head and Neck Ultrasound is an essential reference for use in daily practice.


Background: Birth cohorts are essential for developing evidence-based policies and advancing knowledge on different aspects of the concept of developmental origins of health and diseases (DOHaD). The Prospective Epidemiological Research Studies in IrAN (PERSIAN) is a multicentre
 cohort in Iran. It is one of the pioneers of DOHaD research in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This profile provides a brief overview of this birth cohort, focusing on the objectives and design of the study. The main objective of this birth cohort is to evaluate the associations
 of socio-economic characteristics, lifestyle, diet, environmental exposures and epigenetic factors with outcomes of: pregnancy; mother and child mental and physical health and well-being; child neurodevelopment; and the establishment of chronic disease risk factors.Methods: The
 enrolment of PERSIAN Birth Cohort participants is currently ongoing in five Iranian cities (Isfahan, Yazd, Semnan, Sari and Rafsanjan). We plan to recruit 15,000 mother–offspring pairs, and to follow them for at least ten years. Data collection consists of three consecutive phases: (1)
 periconception until birth; (2) infancy (0–2 years); and (3) childhood (3–11 years). We are collecting data on both 'determinants of health' and 'health outcomes'. In addition to questionnaires and physical examination, various biological samples, including
 blood, urine, hair, nail, cord blood and breastmilk are being collected. Growth and neurodevelopment of children will be monitored. Appropriate data analysis schemes will be employed to assess the role of early life factors in health and disease that would facilitate international comparisons.


From the Publisher:
Genetic algorithms are playing an increasingly important role in studies of complex adaptive systems, ranging from adaptive agents in economic theory to the use of machine learning techniques in the design of complex devices such as aircraft turbines and integrated circuits. Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems is the book that initiated this field of study, presenting the theoretical foundations and exploring applications.
In its most familiar form, adaptation is a biological process, whereby organisms evolve by rearranging genetic material to survive in environments confronting them. In this now classic work, Holland presents a mathematical model that allows for the nonlinearity of such complex interactions. He demonstrates the model's universality by applying it to economics, physiological psychology, game theory, and artificial intelligence and then outlines the way in which this approach modifies the traditional views of mathematical genetics.
Initially applying his concepts to simply defined artificial systems with limited numbers of parameters, Holland goes on to explore their use in the study of a wide range of complex, naturally occuring processes, concentrating on systems having multiple factors that interact in nonlinear ways. Along the way he accounts for major effects of coadaptation and coevolution: the emergence of building blocks, or schemata, that are recombined and passed on to succeeding generations to provide, innovations and improvements.
John H. Holland is Professor of Psychology and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan. He is also Maxwell Professor at the Santa Fe Institute and isDirector of the University of Michigan/Santa Fe Institute Advanced Research Program.


In this article, the author describes the experience of interviewing a crusader participant where audio recording of the interview was not consented to, although she was allowed to take handwritten notes. A crusader participant is someone who is committed to the social justice aims of the research and wants to bring about change by his or her contribution to it. The author provides the lessons learned from this interview as tips for fellow researchers.


This booklet sketches out the options and the processes that have started to transform urban energy systems. The document promotes carbon neutrality for communities and cities and argues that even the largest cities can make this transition, drawing on renewable energy supplies from within their boundaries, as well as from farther away. In addition to assuring urban energy security, these developments can also stimulate the growth of a very large new green economy sector.


This paper examines the nature of University Continuing Education (UCE) part-time instructors and their needs with respect to professional development and renewal activities. It also casts light on the kinds of experiences that can shape positive professional development and renewal activities. Survey and focus group methodologies were used to collect data for this study. Analysis of that data indicated that professional development and renewal activities must be understood within the context of practice and the nature of part-time instructors; that these activities may be supported by the principle of "mattering," a critical first step in the provision of a nurturing and supportive work environment for part-time instructors; and that part-time instructors' ownership, articulation, and identification of needs are important in the provision of high quality programs and professional development and renewal activities.


This thesis addresses the automated identification and localization of a time-varying number of objects in a stream of sensor data. The problem is challenging due to its combinatorial nature: If the number of objects is unknown, the number of possible object trajectories grows exponentially with the number of observations. Random finite sets are a relatively new theory that has been developed to derive at principled and efficient approximations. It is based around set-valued random variables that contain an unknown number of elements which appear in arbitrary order and are themselves random. While extensively studied in theory, random finite sets have not yet become a leading paradigm in practical computer vision and robotics applications. This thesis explores random finite sets in visual tracking applications. The first method developed in this thesis combines set-valued recursive filtering with global optimization. The problem is approached in a min-cost flow network formulation, which has become a standard inference framework for multiple object tracking due to its efficiency and optimality. A main limitation of this formulation is a restriction to unary and pairwise cost terms. This circumstance makes integration of higher-order motion models challenging. The method developed in this thesis approaches this limitation by application of a Probability Hypothesis Density filter. The Probability Hypothesis Density filter was the first practically implemented state estimator based on random finite sets. It circumvents the combinatorial nature of data association itself by propagation of an object density measure that can be computed efficiently, without maintaining explicit trajectory hypotheses. In this work, the filter recursion is used to augment measurements with an additional hidden kinematic state to be used for construction of more informed flow network cost terms, e.g., based on linear motion models. The method is evaluated on public benchmarks where a considerate improvement is achieved compared to network flow formulations that are based on static features alone, such as distance between detections and appearance similarity. A second part of this thesis focuses on the related task of detecting and tracking a single robot operator in crowded environments. Different from the conventional multiple object tracking scenario, the tracked individual can leave the scene and later reappear after a longer period of absence. Therefore, a re-identification component is required that picks up the track on reentrance. Based on random finite sets, the Bernoulli filter is an optimal Bayes filter that provides a natural representation for this type of problem. In this work, it is shown how the Bernoulli filter can be combined with a Probability Hypothesis Density filter to track operator and non-operators simultaneously. The method is evaluated on a publicly available multiple object tracking dataset as well as on custom sequences that are specific to the targeted application. Experiments show reliable tracking in crowded scenes and robust re-identification after long term occlusion. Finally, a third part of this thesis focuses on appearance modeling as an essential aspect of any method that is applied to visual object tracking scenarios. Therefore, a feature representation that is robust to pose variations and changing lighting conditions is learned offline, before the actual tracking application. This thesis proposes a joint classification and metric learning objective where a deep convolutional neural network is trained to identify the individuals in the training set. At test time, the final classification layer can be stripped from the network and appearance similarity can be queried using cosine distance in representation space. This framework represents an alternative to direct metric learning objectives that have required sophisticated pair or triplet sampling strategies in the past. The method is evaluated on two large scale person re-identification datasets where competitive results are achieved overall. In particular, the proposed method better generalizes to the test set compared to a network trained with the well-established triplet loss.


Spurred by civil rights investigations, police departments across the nation, including in Washington State, are engaging in structural reform bargaining and collaborative design of institutional reforms. Often before any complaint is filed in court or a judge makes any findings of unconstitutionality, police — and the groups threatening to sue the police — are cooperating to fashion remedies for the biggest concerns that have shadowed the law of criminal procedure, such as excessive force and the disproportionate targeting of people of color. Prominent scholars have expressed concern over settlement of civil rights suits outside the arena of the courtroom and without legal clarification. This Article argues, however, that bargaining in the shadow of law and outside the courthouse may yield smarter and farther-reaching reforms and remedies based on data-driven surveillance than could be achieved through litigation and judicial decision.This Article argues that the remedies being fashioned "off the books" — that is, outside the doctrine in the case law reporters — offer important insights for the future of police governance and reform. The primary engine of police regulation — the exclusionary rule, which deters rights violations through the remedy of exclusion of improperly obtained evidence — is increasingly eroding and becoming the last resort rather than first instinct. The question becomes: what regulatory and remedial model should arise to fill the vacuum? The Article contends that a promising paradigm being refined by structural reform bargaining is regulation by data-driven surveillance — what this Article dubs "panopticism for police." Panopticism is efficient internalized regulation by surveillance. The term comes from the metaphor of Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, in which prisoners in a state of perfect visibility positioned around an opaque watch tower self-regulate because at any time the guard may be watching. The goal of police panopticism is leveraging data-driven surveillance from multiple institutional vantages. The state of "conscious and permanent visibility" reduces monitoring and remedial costs and triggers self-regulation and institutional culture change.


This is a letter from the Charles B. Moore Collection. It is written by Charles B. Moore and is addressed to Mary Ann Moore. In this letter, Charles informs Mary Ann of the goings-on in Advalorem, TX while she is in Gallatin, TN visiting kin. The news includes: updates on daily chores and agricultural chores, community news, updates about renting Linnet's land and the south field, and gossip from Linnet and friends. In his next letter dated, January 16, 1900, Moore details abut his morning routine and gives a weather update before he closes the letter. The envelope is included with the letter.


Stokely Carmichael, the charismatic and controversial black activist, stepped onto the pages of history when he called for "Black Power" during a speech one Mississippi night in 1966. A firebrand who straddled both the American civil rights and Black Power movements, Carmichael would stand for the rest of his life at the center of the storm he had unleashed that night. In Stokely, preeminent civil rights scholar Peniel E. Joseph presents a groundbreaking biography of Carmichael, using his life as a prism through which to view the transformative African American freedom struggles of the twentieth century. During the heroic early years of the civil rights movement, Carmichael and other civil rights activists advocated nonviolent measures, leading sit-ins, demonstrations, and voter registration efforts in the South that culminated with the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Still, Carmichael chafed at the slow progress of the civil rights movement and responded with Black Power, a movement that urged blacks to turn the rhetoric of freedom into a reality through whatever means necessary. Marked by the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., a wave of urban race riots, and the rise of the anti-war movement, the late 1960s heralded a dramatic shift in the tone of civil rights. Carmichael became the revolutionary icon for this new racial and political landscape, helping to organize the original Black Panther Party in Alabama and joining the iconic Black Panther Party for Self Defense that would galvanize frustrated African Americans and ignite a backlash among white Americans and the mainstream media. Yet at the age of twenty-seven, Carmichael made the abrupt decision to leave the United States, embracing a pan-African ideology and adopting the name of Kwame Ture, a move that baffled his supporters and made him something of an enigma until his death in 1998. A nuanced and authoritative portrait, Stokely captures the life of the man whose uncompromising vision defined political radicalism and provoked a national reckoning on race and democracy.


Many commentators credit the Supreme Court's decision in Basic, Inc. v. Levinson, which allowed courts to presume reliance rather than requiring individualized proof, with spawning a vast industry of private securities fraud litigation. Today, the validity of Basic's holding has come under attack as scholars have raised questions about the extent to which the capital markets are efficient. In truth, both these views are overstated. Basic's adoption of the Fraud on the Market presumption reflected a retreat from prevailing lower court recognition that the application of a reliance requirement was inappropriate in the context of impersonal public market transactions. And, contrary to arguments currently being made to the Supreme Court in the Amgen case, FOTM does not require a strong degree of market efficiency – merely that market prices respond to information. The Basic decision had another less widely recognized effect, however; it began shifting the nature of private securities fraud claims from transaction-based claims to market-based claims, a shift that was completed by the Court's later decision in Dura. The consequence of this shift was to convert the nature of the plaintiff's harm from a corruption of the investment decision to one of transacting at a distorted price. The legal significance of price distortion was at the heart of the Halliburton decision. The lower court confused two temporally distinct concepts: ex ante price distortion, which is part of the reliance inquiry and ex post price distortion, which is a component of loss causation. The Supreme Court limited its holding in Halliburton to identifying this confusion, leaving examination of the appropriate role of price distortion for future cases. In Amgen, the Court may be forced to tackle this question. This Article argues that Amgen highlights the incongruity of considering price distortion at the class certification stage and provides an opportunity for the Court to reconsider and reject Basic's insistence on retaining a reliance requirement.


The origin of the Antarctic continental extant fauna is a highly debated topic, complicated by the paucity of organisms for which we have clear biogeographic distributions and understanding of their evolutionary timescale. To shed new light on this topic, we coupled molecular clock analyses with biogeographic studies on the heterotardigrade genus Mopsechiniscus. This taxon includes species with endemic distributions in Antarctica and other regions of the southern hemisphere. Molecular dating using different models and calibration priors retrieved similar divergence time for the split between the Antarctic and South American Mopsechiniscus lineages (32–48 Mya) and the estimated age of the Drake Passage opening that led to the separation of Antarctica and South America. Our divergence estimates are congruent with other independent studies in dating Gondwanan geological events. Although different analyses retrieved similar results for the internal relationships within the Heterotardigrada, our results indicated that the molecular dating of tardigrades using genes coding for ribosomal RNA (18S and 28S rDNA) is a complex task, revealed by a very wide range of posterior density and a relative difficulty in discriminating between competing models. Overall, our study indicates that Mopsechiniscus is an ancient genus with a clear Gondwanan distribution, in which speciation was probably directed by a co-occurrence of vicariance and glacial events.


In the years following her role as the lead author of the international bestseller, Limits to Growth--the first book to show the consequences of unchecked growth on a finite planet-- Donella Meadows remained a pioneer of environmental and social analysis until her untimely death in 2001. Thinking in Systems, is a concise and crucial book offering insight for problem solving on scales ranging from the personal to the global. Edited by the Sustainability Institute's Diana Wright, this essential primer brings systems thinking out of the realm of computers and equations and into the tangible world, showing readers how to develop the systems-thinking skills that thought leaders across the globe consider critical for 21st-century life. Some of the biggest problems facing the world--war, hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation--are essentially system failures. They cannot be solved by fixing one piece in isolation from the others, because even seemingly minor details have enormous power to undermine the best efforts of too-narrow thinking. While readers will learn the conceptual tools and methods of systems thinking, the heart of the book is grander than methodology. Donella Meadows was known as much for nurturing positive outcomes as she was for delving into the science behind global dilemmas. She reminds readers to pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable, to stay humble, and to stay a learner. In a world growing ever more complicated, crowded, and interdependent, Thinking in Systems helps readers avoid confusion and helplessness, the first step toward finding proactive and effective solutions.


This paper analyzes jury findings from nearly one thousand negligence suits to determine whether juries in modified comparative negligence jurisdictions apportion percentages of negligence differently than juries in pure comparative negligence jurisdictions. We find that juries in modified comparative negligence jurisdictions are substantially less likely to find that a plaintiff was more than 50% negligent. This evidence of jury manipulation strengthens the case for pure comparative negligence, which we argue is already superior on theoretical and policy grounds.


"The primary purpose of this study was to edit and publish a performance edition of Thirty Instructive and Melodic Exercises for French Horn by Vincenz Ranieri. Corrections were made of typographical note errors and rhythms, unification of parallel stylistic markings, and modernization in the appearance and notation of the etude book. Each etude was compared to a list of inconsistencies found throughout the etude book and corrected to unify compositional style. Range of the rudimental exercises preceding each etude was corrected to encompass the corresponding etude range. Phrases markings, slurs, articulation markings, dynamic markings, and ornamentations were standardized. Typographical errors including notes, rhythms, and stylistic markings were corrected. Aesthetic changes and additions were made to note beaming, courtesy accidentals, excessive articulation markings, and overall layout and format. The secondary purpose was to discover biographical information about the composer and historical information about the etude book. Biographical information about the composer and history about the etude book was researched through general literature survey and inquiries made to horn historians, performers, and teachers. Specific information about Vincenz Ranieri including birth and death dates, life, and profession were sought, as well as purpose, inspiration, and date of composition for his etude book. The outcome of this project is to publish the performance edition in the United States in hopes that the etude book will become an accessible, reputable, and valuable addition to horn literature."--Abstract from author supplied metadata.


British literature is rich in stories crafted around the problem of incest. Incest has long been seen as a universal, or near-universal, taboo, yet dynasties have been founded upon it--and have fallen because of it. This dissertation explores usage of the incest theme in the medieval and early modern literary periods, and into the mid-eighteenth century, a time which saw the emergence of a new form of literature named by one of its creators as Gothic. While incest remains firmly taboo across this long period of time, writers and storytellers appropriate it to reflect some of the anxieties attendant upon their times. To understand the usefulness of incest in mirroring societal disarray across centuries, it is necessary to first understand the historical background of consanguineous relationships, a history which is full of ambiguities and contradictions. Thus incest seems a natural choice for John Gower, who relies on incest in his Confessio Amantis, and in Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur, where it is used to allegorize the misdeeds of tyrannical kings who fail to rule wisely, and lead themselves and their people to misery. Given the popularity of drama in the early modern period, it is through this genre that the usage of incest best reveals the anxieties of this age, anxieties which include not only tyrannical kings but also the risks of increasing female autonomy. Incest in Shakespeare's Pericles, Beaumont and Fletcher's A King, and No King and John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi works to showcase the dangers of uncertainty when it comes to matters of inheritance, especially when the inheritance involves the throne. Added to this is the fear that rising female agency might eventually succeed in completely undermining the patriarchal and monarchical social structures that were still believed by many to be divinely ordained. By the mid-eighteenth century, changes in economic and political systems appeared to threaten the institution of the family, and incest proved to be a useful metaphor for expressing these anxieties. I conclude that reading incest across four centuries of literary works reveals that while societal threats change over time, a common desire to preserve, uphold, and defend patriarchy remains.


Traditional motion planning focuses on the problem of safely navigating a robot through an obstacle-ridden environment. In this thesis, we address the question of how to perform robot motion planning in complex domains, with goals that go beyond collision-free navigation. Specifically, we are interested in problems that impose challenging constraints on the intermediate states of a plan, and problems that require the purposeful manipulation of non-actuated bodies, in environments that contain multiple, physically interacting bodies with varying degrees of controllability and predictability. Examples of such domains include physical games, such as robot soccer, where the controlled robot has to deliver the ball into the opponent's goal. For these domains, navigation only constitutes a small part of the overall planning problem. Additional planning challenges include accurately modeling and exploiting the dynamic interactions with other non-actuated bodies (e.g., dribbling a ball), and the problem of predicting and avoiding foreign-controlled bodies (e.g., opponent robots).
To plan in such domains, this thesis introduces physics-based planning methods, relying on rich models that aim to reflect the detailed dynamics of the real physical world. We introduce non-deterministic Skills and Tactics as an intelligent action sampling model for effectively reducing the size of the searchable action space. We contribute two efficient Tactics-driven planning algorithms, BK-RRT and BK-BGT, and we evaluate their performance across several challenging domains. We contribute a physics model parameter optimization method for increasing the planner's physical prediction accuracy, resulting in significantly improved real-world execution success rates. Additionally, we contribute Variable Level-Of-Detail (VLOD) planning, a method for reducing overall planning time in uncertain multi-body execution environments.
Besides relying on an extensive simulated testbed, we apply and evaluate our planning approaches in two challenging real-world robot domains. We contribute the robot minigolf domain, where a robot uses physics-based planning methods to solve freely configurable minigolf-like courses, e.g., by purposefully bouncing a ball off from obstacles. We furthermore contribute a robot soccer attacker behavior that uses physics-based planning to out-dribble opponents, which has been successfully tested as part of the "CMDragons" robot soccer Small Size League team at the BoboCup world cup in 2009.


We find that traditional password advice given to users is somewhat dated. Strong passwords do nothing to protect online users from password stealing attacks such as phishing and keylogging, and yet they place considerable burden on users. Passwords that are too weak of course invite brute-force attacks. However, we find that relatively weak passwords, about 20 bits or so, are sufficient to make brute-force attacks on a single account unrealistic so long as a "three strikes" type rule is in place. Above that minimum it appears that increasing password strength does little to address any real threat. If a larger credential space is needed it appears better to increase the strength of the userID's rather than the passwords. For large institutions this is just as effective in deterring bulk guessing attacks and is a great deal better for users. For small institutions there appears little reason to require strong passwords for online accounts.


The European research co-operation Lotus is presented. The main objectives of the project were i) to show the potential for a urea-based SCR system to comply with the EU standard of years 2005 and 2008 for heavy-duty Diesel engines for different driving conditions with optimal fuel consumption, ii) to reach 95 % conversion of NOx at steady state at full load on a Euro III. engine, iii) to reach 75 % NOx reduction for exhaust temperatures between 200-300°C, and 85 % average NOx reduction between 200-500°C. The energy content of the consumed urea should not exceed 1.0 %, calculated as specific fuel consumption. These targets were met in May 2003 and the Lotus SCR system fulfilled the Euro V NOx legislative objectives for year 2008. Copyright © 2004 SAE International.


"This is that rarity, a useful book."--Warren Buffett

 Howard Marks, the chairman and cofounder of Oaktree Capital Management, is renowned for his insightful assessments of market opportunity and risk. After four decades spent ascending to the top of the investment management profession, he is today sought out by the world's leading value investors, and his client memos brim with insightful commentary and a time-tested, fundamental philosophy. Now for the first time, all readers can benefit from Marks's wisdom, concentrated into a single volume that speaks to both the amateur and seasoned investor.

 Informed by a lifetime of experience and study, The Most Important Thing explains the keys to successful investment and the pitfalls that can destroy capital or ruin a career. Utilizing passages from his memos to illustrate his ideas, Marks teaches by example, detailing the development of an investment philosophy that fully acknowledges the complexities of investing and the perils of the financial world. Brilliantly applying insight to today's volatile markets, Marks offers a volume that is part memoir, part creed, with a number of broad takeaways.

 Marks expounds on such concepts as "second-level thinking," the price/value relationship, patient opportunism, and defensive investing. Frankly and honestly assessing his own decisions--and occasional missteps--he provides valuable lessons for critical thinking, risk assessment, and investment strategy. Encouraging investors to be "contrarian," Marks wisely judges market cycles and achieves returns through aggressive yet measured action. Which element is the most essential? Successful investing requires thoughtful attention to many separate aspects, and each of Marks's subjects proves to be the most important thing.


The aim of this study was to compare the media-ideal and athletic internalization of gymnasts to track and field sprinters. Eighty-three female track and field sprinters and 50 female gymnasts participated. The subscales of the Sociocultural Attitudes Toward Appearance Questionnaire-3 were used to evaluate the influence of the media on body image. The Body Shape Questionnaire was used to assess body dissatisfaction. The results showed no difference between the groups in media-ideal internalization (p > .05); however, the results indicated differences in athletic internalization (p < .05) and body dissatisfaction (p < .05). We concluded that although media-ideal internalization was similar, gymnasts showed greater athletic internalization.


The notion of a golden age set in an earthly paradise has long kindled the human imagination. Virgil envisioned such a place of bucolic pleasures-erotic and unsullied, sometimes shadowed by blunted desires and doubts-in his Eclogues, set in the valley of Arcadia in ancient Greece. His poems defined for Western art and literature a theme that continues to this day. Their resonance as a foundation for European painters around 1900 is the subject of this beautifully illustrated catalogue, which focuses on three monumental paintings-Paul Gauguin's Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (1897-98), Paul Cezanne's The Large Bathers (1906), and Henri Matisse's Bathers by a River (1909-10, 1913, and 1916-17). Other masterpieces by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Nicolas Poussin, and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes establish the high value given to Arcadia in the history of French painting. These are joined by major works by Henri Edmond Cross, Robert Delaunay, Andre Derain, Pablo Picasso, Henri Rousseau, and Paul Signac, as well as paintings by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Franz Marc, and Natalia Goncharova to suggest the vitality of this subject outside the canonical French definitions. Distinguished scholars place these artists within the larger context of this inventive period in art history.


The conventional wisdom states that prosecuting corporations can subject them to terrible collateral consequences that risk putting them out of business and causing massive social and economic harm. Under this viewpoint, which has come to dominate the literature following the demise of Arthur Andersen after that firm's prosecution in the wake of the Enron scandal, even a criminal indictment can be a "corporate death penalty." The Department of Justice ("DOJ") has implicitly accepted this view by declining to prosecute many large companies in favor of using criminal settlements called deferred prosecution agreements, or "DPAs." Yet, there is no evidence to support the existence of the "Andersen Effect" and the much-hyped corporate death penalty. Indeed, no one has ever empirically studied what happens to companies after conviction. In this Article, I do just that. Using the database of organizational convictions made publicly available by Professor Brandon Garrett, I find that no publicly traded company failed because of a conviction in the years 2001-2010. Moreover, many convictions included plea agreements imposing compliance programs that advocates have pointed to as a key justification for using DPAs. Because corporate convictions do not have the terrible consequences they were assumed to have, and because they can be used to obtain compliance programs just as DPAs can, the DOJ should prosecute more lawbreaking companies and reserve DPAs for extraordinary circumstances. In the absence of some other justification for using DPAs, the DOJ should exploit the stronger deterrent value of corporate prosecution to its full capacity.


UML models and OWL ontologies constitute modeling ap- proaches with different strength and weaknesses that make them ap- propriate for use of specifying different aspects of software systems. In particular, OWL ontologies are well suited to specify classes using an expressive logical language with highly flexible, dynamic and polymor- phic class membership, while UML diagrams are much more suitable for specifying not only static models including classes and associations, but also dynamic behavior. Though MOF based metamodels and UML pro- files for OWL have been proposed in the past, an integrated use of both modeling approaches in a coherent framework has been lacking so far. We present such a framework, TwoUse, for developing integrated models, comprising the benefits of UML models and OWL ontologies.


We build upon recent literature to do several exercises to assess benefits and costs of the brain drain to Africa. Contrary to a lot of the worries expressed in the media and in aid agencies, the brain drain is probably a net benefit to the source countries. We make several arguments: (1) the African brain drain is not large enough to have much effect on Africa's skill gap relative to the rest of the world. Since other regions had a larger brain drain, the skill gap between Africa and the rest would actually be larger in a counterfactual world of NO brain drain with the same amount of skill creation. (2) The gains to the migrants themselves and their families who receive indirect utility and remittances more than offset the losses of the brain drain. According to one of our calculations, the present value of remittances more than covers the cost of educating a brain drainer in the source country. (3) Brain drain has a positive effect on skill accumulation that appears to offset one for one the loss of skills to the brain drain. Hence it is not surprising that we fail to identify any negative growth effect of the brain drain. Although some of our exercises are reliant on special assumptions and shaky data that require further investigation, we conclude based on what we can know in this paper that the brain drain is on balance good for Africa.


The thesis is concerned with the modelling of ionospheric current systems and induced magnetic fields in a multiscale framework. Scaling functions and wavelets are used to realize a multiscale analysis of the function spaces under consideration and to establish a multiscale regularization procedure for the inversion of the considered operator equation. First of all a general multiscale concept for vectorial operator equations between two separable Hilbert spaces is developed in terms of vector kernel functions. The equivalence to the canonical tensorial ansatz is proven and the theory is transferred to the case of multiscale regularization of vectorial inverse problems. As a first application, a special multiresolution analysis of the space of square-integrable vector fields on the sphere, e.g. the Earth's magnetic field measured on a spherical satellite's orbit, is presented. By this, a multiscale separation of spherical vector-valued functions with respect to their sources can be established. The vector field is split up into a part induced by sources inside the sphere, a part which is due to sources outside the sphere and a part which is generated by sources on the sphere, i.e. currents crossing the sphere. The multiscale technqiue is tested on a magnetic field data set of the satellite CHAMP and it is shown that crustal field determination can be improved by previously applying our method. In order to reconstruct ionspheric current systems from magnetic field data, an inversion of the Biot-Savart's law in terms of multiscale regularization is defined. The corresponding operator is formulated and the singular values are calculated. Based on the konwledge of the singular system a regularzation technique in terms of certain product kernels and correponding convolutions can be formed. The method is tested on different simulations and on real magnetic field data of the satellite CHAMP and the proposed satellite mission SWARM.


The performance analysis of multiserver systems is notoriously hard, especially when the system involves resource sharing or prioritization. We provide two new analytical tools for the performance analysis of multiserver systems: moment matching algorithms and dimensionality reduction of Markov chains (DR).
Moment matching algorithms allow us to approximate a general distribution with a phase type (PH) distribution. Our moment matching algorithms improve upon existing ones with respect to the computational efficiency (we provide closed form solutions) as well as the quality and generality of the solution (the first three moments of almost any nonnegative distribution are matched). Approximating job size and interarrival time distributions by PH distributions enables modeling a multiserver system by a Markov chain, so that the performance of the system is given by analyzing the Markov chain. However, when the multiserver system involves resource sharing or prioritization, the Markov chain often has a multidimensionally infinite state space, which makes the analysis computationally hard.
DR allows us to closely approximate a multidimensionally infinite Markov chain with a Markov chain on a one-dimensionally infinite state space, which can be analyzed efficiently. We validate the accuracy of DR against simulation. Further, we formally define two classes of multidimensionally infinite Markov chains, called recursive foreground-background processes and generalized foreground-background processes (RFB/GFB processes), and analyze the RFB/GFB process via DR. The definition of the RFB/GFB process enables one to easily identify whether a given multiserver system can be analyzed via DR, and our analysis of the RFB/GFB process enables the immediate analysis of a multiserver system by simply modeling it as an RFB/GFB process.
These new analytical tools enable us to analyze the performance of many multiserver systems with resource sharing or prioritization for the first time. For example, we study the benefit and penalty of cycle stealing, the effectiveness of prioritization and threshold-based resource allocation policies for multiserver systems, and the impact of job size variability and irregularity of arrival processes on the response time in multiserver systems. Our analysis results in lessons on the design of good resource allocation policies for multiserver systems.


In this paper we deal with dierent statistical modeling of real world accident data in order to quantify the eectiveness of a safety function or a safety conguration (meaning a specic combination of safety functions) in vehicles. It is shown that the eectiveness can be estimated along the so-called relative risk, even if the eectiveness does depend on a confounding variable which may be categorical or continuous. For doing so a concrete statistical modeling is not necessary, that is the resulting estimate is of nonparametric nature. In a second step the quite usual and from a statistical point of view classical logistic regression modeling is investigated. Main emphasis has been laid on the understanding of the model and the interpretation of the occurring parameters. It is shown that the eectiveness of the safety function also can be detected via such a logistic approach and that relevant confounding variables can and should be taken into account. The interpretation of the parameters related to the confounder and the quantication of the in uence of the confounder is shown to be rather problematic. All the theoretical results are illuminated by numerical data examples.


Local government (LG) is ideally placed to influence the determinants of public health (PH) and reduce inequalities, but opportunities are routinely missed.

The aim of the Local Authority Champions of Research (LACoR) study was to explore ways to embed a culture of evidence use in LG.

Five linked work packages were undertaken using mixed methods. In this paper, we report data from semi-structured interviews with UK local authority (LA) staff (n=14).

Findings show a changing culture of LG: embedded researchers can enhance connectivity and interaction, build linkages, use levers of influence, and learn alongside LG navigators. Understanding the diverse microcultures of evidence use in LG is critical. Research champions can help to navigate the social, financial, political and regulatory context of LG and academia, influencing change dynamically as opportunities emerge.

Changing organisational subcultures is ambitious and unpredictable given the complexities of, and variability in, local contexts. Cumulative changes appear possible by recognising existing assets, using relational approaches to respond to LG priorities. In-house capacity remains underestimated and underutilised in efforts to embed evidence use in LG decision making. Co-located embedded researchers can use contextually specific knowledge and relationships to enhance evidence use in LG in collaboration with system navigators.

There is a need for academics to adapt their approach, to take account of the context of LG to achieve meaningful health and social impacts with LG and test the contribution of embedded approaches to wider system change.


In order to have a clear understanding of the differences between tuition-free students and non-tuition-free students in the strategies they employ and to prepare for the conduction of the Language Learning Strategy Course to the two groups of students, the author decided to conduct a survey as to the students' current use of language learning strategies. The instrument used in this study is a questionnaire designed by Wenden (1991). Besides the questionnaire, students' scores in the college entrance examination and the end-term exams are also collected for the sake of comparing their progress with the non-tuition-free students and with their performance before entering the university. Through analyzing the questionnaire and test results, the author has got the following findings: 1) In most courses, students in both classes have performed equally well. Only in listening, there exist some differences, which may indicate that tuition-free students are more capable of adjusting to college study and they are more able to deal with the new course of listening. 2) As to the strategy use of the two groups, there are some similarities between them due to the enduring influence of middle school teaching and examination system in China as they both pay more attention to language knowledge and skills. Their difference lies in the perception of their learning style and the ability to regulate their emotions.


The American Declaration of Independence proclaims: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."


Orientation: The researchers conducted a literature review to analyse the assumptions of systems psychodynamics, the Tavistock model of group relations, object relations theory and the most relevant constructs in the systems psychodynamic perspective. They then described the assumptions and most relevant constructs in the positive psychology perspective in order to analyse theoretically the psychological effect of large-scale sports events on a community or country. The objective of the empirical study was to investigate some of the unconscious emotions, fears, anxieties and conflicts (dynamics) that prevailed in South Africa before the 2010 Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup and some of the positive emotional experiences associated with it. Research purpose: The objective of this study was to analyse and describe the psychological experiences of South Africans before the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Research design, approach and method: The researchers conducted the study from the systems psychodynamic and positive psychology perspectives. The study comprised a qualitative, explorative and social phenomenological study. The researchers conducted interviews with a wide range of their colleagues and clients. Main findings: The results seemed to indicate that South Africans had had a number of positive and negative experiences before the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Practical/managerial implications: The researchers presented the findings as a number of systems psychodynamic and positive psychology themes. Contribution/value-add: This study presents original research that contributes valuable new knowledge to the positive psychology and systems psychodynamic perspectives.


Abstract. The Air Ion Spectrometer (AIS) measures mobility and size distributions of atmospheric ions. The Neutral cluster and Air Ion Spectrometer (NAIS) can additionally measure neutral particles. The number of the (N)AIS instruments in the world is only 11. Nevertheless, they are already widely used in atmospheric ion studies, particularly related to the initial steps of new particle formation. There is no standard method applicable for calibrating the ion spectrometers in the sub-3 nm ion range. However, recent development of high resolution DMAs has enabled the size separation of small ions with good mobility resolution. For the first time, the ion spectrometers were intercompared and calibrated in a workshop, held in January–February 2008 in Helsinki, Finland. The overall goal was to experimentally determine the (N)AIS transfer functions. Monomobile mobility standards, 241-Am charger ions and silver particles were generated and used as calibration aerosols. High resolution DMAs were used to size-separate the smaller (1–10 nm) ions, while at bigger diameters (4–40 nm) the size was selected with a HAUKE-type DMA. Negative ion mobilities were detected by (N)AISs with slightly better accuracy than positive, nonetheless, both were somewhat overestimated. A linear fit of slope of one to the whole dataset of mobilities suggested that (N)AISs measured the negative mobilities 1.36±0.16 times larger compared with the reference instruments. Similarly, positive mobilities were measured 1.39±0.15 times larger compared with the reference instruments. The completely monomobile mobility standards were measured with the best accuracy. The (N)AIS concentrations were compared with an aerosol electrometer (AE) and a condensation particle counter (CPC). At sizes below 1.5 nm (positive) and 3 nm (negative) the ion spectrometers detected higher concentrations while at bigger sizes they showed similar concentrations as the reference instruments. The total particle concentrations measured by the NAISs were within ±50% of the reference CPC concentration at 4–40 nm sizes. The lowest cut-off size of the NAIS in neutral particle measurements was determined to be between 1.5 and 3 nm, depending on the measurement conditions and the polarity.


Around 1785, a woman was taken from her home in Senegambia and sent to Saint-Domingue in the Caribbean. Those who enslaved her there named her Rosalie. Her later efforts to escape slavery were the beginning of a family's quest, across five generations and three continents, for lives of dignity and equality. "Freedom Papers" sets the saga of Rosalie and her descendants against the background of three great antiracist struggles of the nineteenth century: the Haitian Revolution, the French Revolution of 1848, and the Civil War and Reconstruction in the United States. Freed during the Haitian Revolution, Rosalie and her daughter Elisabeth fled to Cuba in 1803. A few years later, Elisabeth departed for New Orleans, where she married a carpenter, Jacques Tinchant. In the 1830s, with tension rising against free persons of color, they left for France. Subsequent generations of Tinchants fought in the Union Army, argued for equal rights at Louisiana's state constitutional convention, and created a transatlantic tobacco network that turned their Creole past into a commercial asset. Yet the fragility of freedom and security became clear when, a century later, Rosalie's great-great-granddaughter Marie-Jose was arrested by Nazi forces occupying Belgium. "Freedom Papers" follows the Tinchants as each generation tries to use the power and legitimacy of documents to help secure freedom and respect. The strategies they used to overcome the constraints of slavery, war, and colonialism suggest the contours of the lives of people of color across the Atlantic world during this turbulent epoch.


Network devices for the home such as remotely controllable locks, lights, thermostats, cameras, and motion sensors are now readily available and inexpensive. In theory, this enables scenarios like remotely monitoring cameras from a smartphone or customizing climate control based on occupancy patterns. However, in practice today, such smarthome scenarios are limited to expert hobbyists and the rich because of the high overhead of managing and extending current technology.

We present HomeOS, a platform that bridges this gap by presenting users and developers with a PC-like abstraction for technology in the home. It presents network devices as peripherals with abstract interfaces, enables cross-device tasks via applications written against these interfaces, and gives users a management interface designed for the home environment. HomeOS already has tens of applications and supports a wide range of devices. It has been running in 12 real homes for 4-8 months, and 42 students have built new applications and added support for additional devices independent of our efforts.


[1] Using NASA's A-Train satellite measurements, we evaluate the accuracy of cloud water content (CWC) and water vapor mixing ratio (H2O) outputs from 19 climate models submitted to the Phase 5 of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5), and assess improvements relative to their counterparts for the earlier CMIP3. We find more than half of the models show improvements from CMIP3 to CMIP5 in simulating column-integrated cloud amount, while changes in water vapor simulation are insignificant. For the 19 CMIP5 models, the model spreads and their differences from the observations are larger in the upper troposphere (UT) than in the lower or middle troposphere (L/MT). The modeled mean CWCs over tropical oceans range from ~3% to ~15× of the observations in the UT and 40% to 2× of the observations in the L/MT. For modeled H2Os, the mean values over tropical oceans range from ~1% to 2× of the observations in the UT and within 10% of the observations in the L/MT. The spatial distributions of clouds at 215 hPa are relatively well-correlated with observations, noticeably better than those for the L/MT clouds. Although both water vapor and clouds are better simulated in the L/MT than in the UT, there is no apparent correlation between the model biases in clouds and water vapor. Numerical scores are used to compare different model performances in regards to spatial mean, variance and distribution of CWC and H2O over tropical oceans. Model performances at each pressure level are ranked according to the average of all the relevant scores for that level. © 2012. American Geophysical Union.


Enterprise liability is a term associated with the tort lawmaking of the liberal "Traynor era" California Supreme Court of the 1960s and 1970s. Legal pragmatism, in turn, is associated with the conservative jurist Richard Posner. This manuscript examines the evolution of each of these theoretical movements from Holmes's great 1897 essay, "The Path of the Law," to the present day. Its focus is on the great judges and scholars whose views have shaped our own: Holmes, Cardozo, the Legal Realists Leon Green and Karl Llewellyn, Traynor, and Posner. Stated simply, the shared jurisprudential view of these great judges and scholars is that in our system judges are legislators as well as adjudicators — and policy plays a role in their lawmaking. In the common law subjects, in fact, judges are the primacy lawmakers. In constitutional adjudication they are also lawmakers but lawmakers aware of the general need for deference to other branches. No fancy formulas such as "neutral principle "or "original meaning" can capture this role. Indeed, the leading academic theorists of the past century — and today — have been out of touch with the reality of judicial lawmaking as it has been expressly articulated by these great judge. We also see in the works of these judges and scholars the origins of the enterprise liability doctrines that the pragmatic Traynor era court of the 1960s and 1970s, would adopt, including the doctrine of strict products liability and expansive developments within the negligence system.


This Article describes the anomaly of executions in the context of the U.S. Supreme Court's Eighth Amendment jurisprudence. While the Supreme Court routinely reads the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause to protect prisoners from harm, the Court simultaneously interprets the Eighth Amendment to allow inmates to be executed. Corporal punishments short of death have long been abandoned in America's penal system, yet executions — at least in a few locales, heavily concentrated in the South — persist. This Article, which seeks a principled and much more consistent interpretation of the Eighth Amendment, argues that executions should be declared unconstitutional as "cruel and unusual punishments." In so doing, the Article explores the history of the "cruel and unusual" catchphrase in English and American law and critiques the Supreme Court's "evolving standards of decency" test. The Article also describes the abandonment of corporal punishments as penal sanctions and discusses existing Eighth Amendment jurisprudence on that topic. The Article explains how executions are cruel — and were thought to be so even by some of America's founders — and have, over time, become unusual. The Article further highlights how the U.S. Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment fundamentally transformed the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause calculus, making modern-day executions unusual in the extreme because of the arbitrary and discriminatory way in which they are carried out.


The prominent effects of computer code have made it difficult to ignore the fact that code can be used to produce regulatory effects similar to laws. Hence, the popularity of the idea that (for computer users at least) "code is law." But the idea remains extremely vague. Most problematically, none of these understandings of code and law explains the central issue of compliance. Specifically, they do not explain the shifting patterns of legal compliance in the 2000s. Explosions of non-compliance in areas such as copyright, pornography, financial fraud, and prescription drugs fuel the sense of a legal breakdown, yet the vast majority of laws remains unaffected. This Article proposes a new and concrete way to understand the relationship between code and compliance with law. I propose to study the design of code as an aspect of interest group behavior as simply one of several mechanisms that groups use to minimize legal costs. Code design, in other words, can be usefully studied as an alternative to lobbying campaigns, tax avoidance, or any other approach that a group might use to seek legal advantage. The important case of peer-to-peer ("P2P") filesharing, explored in depth in this Article, illustrates the possibility of using code design as an alternative mechanism of interest group behavior. The approach aims to separate two different aspects of code's relationship with law. The first is Lessig's concept of a regulatory mechanism that computer code can substitute for law or other forms of regulation. The second aspect is as an anti-regulatory mechanism tool to minimize the costs of law that certain groups will use to their advantage.


Recent scholarship in international law – for example, recent books by Mary Ellen O'Connell and Michael Scharf – relies on the idea of a "Grotian tradition" or of "Grotian moments" to provide normative foundations for significant parts of the contemporary international legal system. Despite the significant value of this scholarship, the underlying claim of a Grotian tradition is deeply flawed. The Grotian tradition itself was invented by mid-twentieth century scholars such as Hersch Lauterpacht to serve the goals of post-war liberal internationalism. There is no reason to believe that there is any more longstanding and normatively attractive tradition of engagement with the ideas of Hugo Grotius in international law and/or international relations. Indeed, many of the foundational ideas of Grotius's own system of international law are deeply at odds with liberal or progressive approaches to contemporary international law. "What Is the Grotian Tradition in International Law?" examines the claims made by and on behalf of the Grotian tradition and exposes the ways in which it fails to match up with the actual life and writings of Hugo Grotius. The article historicizes Grotius to demonstrate that much of his work – as propagandist, government official, attorney for the Dutch East India Company, and author of The Law of Prizes, The Free Sea, and The Rights of War and Peace – functioned to legitimate a violent and imperial conception of international law that served the interests of a simultaneously vulnerable and expansionist Dutch Republic. The result is not simply that the Grotian tradition is a fraud, or that Grotius is an inapt figure for any desirable conception of international law. Even more, a behind the scenes account of the Grotian tradition serves as a cautionary tale: international legal argument and international legal theory should reject the effort to claim deep historical foundations for the goals associated with liberal and progressive approaches to international law. A more self-conscious and critical stance holds out far better prospects of advancing those goals.


While window frames typically represent 20-30percent of the overall window area, their impact on the total window heat transfer rates may be much larger. This effect is even greater in low-conductance (highly insulating) windows which incorporate very low conductance glazings. Developing low-conductance window frames requires accurate simulation tools for product research and development. The Passivhaus Institute in Germany states that windows (glazing and frames, combined) should have U-values not exceeding 0.80 W/(m??K). This has created a niche market for highly insulating frames, with frame U-values typically around 0.7-1.0 W/(m2 cdot K). The U-values reported are often based on numerical simulations according to international simulation standards. It is prudent to check the accuracy of these calculation standards, especially for high performance products before more manufacturers begin to use them to improve other product offerings. In this paper the thermal transmittance of five highly insulating window frames (three wooden frames, one aluminum frame and one PVC frame), found from numerical simulations and experiments, are compared. Hot box calorimeter results are compared with numerical simulations according to ISO 10077-2 and ISO 15099. In addition CFD simulations have been carried out, in order to use the most accurate tool available to investigate the convection and radiation effects inside the frame cavities. Our results show that available tools commonly used to evaluate window performance, based on ISO standards, give good overall agreement, but specific areas need improvement.


In this paper I make a reconstruction of Kant?s idea of aesthetic education and show the peculiarity of this idea in comparison with more familiar projects of Schiller and the German Romantics. In the first section I briefly outline those features of Kant?s ethics which are relevant for this problem, namely its universalistic character. In the second section I show how aesthetic experience, according to Kant, could help to make an individual less sensitive to the demands of particular interests and motives. In particular, I discuss the roles of the beautiful and of the sublime. In the conclusion I briefly compare Kant?s idea of aesthetic education with Schiller?s idea of the same.


Introduction: Many leaders in business, civil society and government realize that for the world's economy to fully derive the value inherent in technological innovation, a robust, coordinated system of global cyber resilience is essential to effectively mitigate the risk of cyberattacks. This view is beginning to permeate discussions among senior leaders in the private and public sectors, and across different industries, as concerns related to cyber resilience shift from awareness to action. The critical questions today are: what needs to be done, and how can it be achieved? Risk and Responsibility in a Hyperconnected World, a joint effort between the World Economic Forum and McKinsey & Company, assesses the necessary action areas, and examines the impact of cyberattacks and response readiness. The report sets these against three alternative scenarios in which economic value from technological innovations is realized or lost depending on models of cyber resilience. It draws on knowledge and opinions derived from a series of interviews, workshops and dialogues with global executives and thought leaders to estimate the potential value to be created through 2020 by technological innovations. It examines the value that could be put at risk if the adoption of such innovations is delayed because more frequent, intense cyberattacks are not met with more robust cyber resilience. Finally, the report draws conclusions from the analysis and research, and offers a 14-point roadmap for collaboration.


Millions of people around the world today spend portions of their lives in online virtual worlds. Second Life is one of the largest of these virtual worlds. The residents of Second Life create communities, buy property and build homes, go to concerts, meet in bars, attend weddings and religious services, buy and sell virtual goods and services, find friendship, fall in love--the possibilities are endless, and all encountered through a computer screen. Coming of Age in Second Life is the first book of anthropology to examine this thriving alternate universe. Tom Boellstorff conducted more than two years of fieldwork in Second Life, living among and observing its residents in exactly the same way anthropologists traditionally have done to learn about cultures and social groups in the so-called real world. He conducted his research as the avatar "Tom Bukowski," and applied the rigorous methods of anthropology to study many facets of this new frontier of human life, including issues of gender, race, sex, money, conflict and antisocial behavior, the construction of place and time, and the interplay of self and group. Coming of Age in Second Life shows how virtual worlds can change ideas about identity and society. Bringing anthropology into territory never before studied, this book demonstrates that in some ways humans have always been virtual, and that virtual worlds in all their rich complexity build upon a human capacity for culture that is as old as humanity itself.


A flow duration curve (FDC) provides a valuable planning and management tool since it describes the entire flow regime of a river. Water resource planning in South Africa is often based on monthly river flow data and synthetic FDCs are required for applications in ungauged catchments. The objective of this study was to derive 11 monthly FDC percentile flows and the mean annual flow (MAQ) for catchments in the Cape Floristic Region of South Africa using regression equations with readily measureable catchment variables, including vegetation indices from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) satellite imagery. An 'all-models' approach with 10-fold validation was adopted to identify the 'best' regression models. Predictions of percentile flows above the median flow and MAQ were generally good but poor for low flows. Overall predictive uncertainty had a tendency to be larger in drier catchments. The most important predictive variables were catchment mean annual precipitation, physiography and soils. MODIS vegetation indices were significant predictors in equations for 6 percentile flows and MAQ, and predictive uncertainty increased if the MODIS indices were excluded from model development. The regression approach implemented in this study may be appropriate for other regionalisation studies that are based on a small sample of gauged catchments.


I Am No One You Know contains nineteen startling stories that bear witness to the remarkably varied lives of Americans of our time. In "Fire," a troubled young wife discovers a rare, radiant happiness in an adulterous relationship. In "Curly Red," a girl makes a decision to reveal a family secret, and changes her life irrevocably. In "The Girl with the Blackened Eye," selected for The Best American Mystery Stories 2001, a girl pushed to an even greater extreme of courage and desperation manages to survive her abduction by a serial killer. And in "Three Girls," two adventuresome NYU undergraduates seal their secret love by following, and protecting, Marilyn Monroe in disguise at Strand Used Books on a snowy evening in 1956.These vividly rendered portraits of women, men, and children testify to Oates's compassion for the mysterious and luminous resources of the human spirit.


Lorna Dee Cervantes was born in San Francisco of Chicana and Native American (Chumash) heritage. For many years she taught at University of Colorado and edited the Chicana/o journal MANGO, which was the first to publish Sandra Cisneros, Jimmy Santiago Baca, and Alberto Ríos, all poets included in the present collection. Her work has long evoked the dynamics of race, sex, class, and economics in Latino culture, with a special emphasis on the impact of the dominant culture on the lives of Latina women and on the forms of resistance they have devised.


The land of Terre d'Ange is a place of unsurpassing beauty and grace. It is said that angels found the land and saw it was good...and the ensuing race that rose from the seed of angels and men live by one simple rule: Love as thou wilt. Phedre no Delaunay is a young woman who was born with a scarlet mote in her left eye. Sold into indentured servitude as a child, her bond is purchased by Anafiel Delaunay, a nobleman with very a special mission...and the first one to recognize who and what she is: one pricked by Kushiel's Dart, chosen to forever experience pain and pleasure as one.Phedre is trained equally in the courtly arts and the talents of the bedchamber, but, above all, the ability to observe, remember, and analyze. Almost as talented a spy as she is courtesan, Phedre stumbles upon a plot that threatens the very foundations of her homeland. Treachery sets her on her path; love and honor goad her further. And in the doing, it will take her to the edge of despair...and beyond. Hateful friend, loving enemy, beloved assassin; they can all wear the same glittering mask in this world, and Phedre will get but one chance to save all that she holds dear. Set in a world of cunning poets, deadly courtiers, heroic traitors, and a truly Machiavellian villainess, this is a novel of grandeur, luxuriance, sacrifice, betrayal, and deeply laid conspiracies. Not since Dune has there been an epic on the scale of "Kushiel's Dart"-a massive tale about the violent death of an old age, and the birth of a new."


Since the post-Civil War cases arising out of conflicts over the proper location of the amnesty power, it has generally been thought that pardon and amnesty are synonymous and that the capacity to effect both is vested in the President under Article II. The history of the English version of amnesty – oblivion – within the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the colonial and state oblivions that were legislatively enacted from 1650 through the period of the Second Continental Congress suggest otherwise. Oblivion was distinct from pardoning because it erased the underlying events rather than remitting punishment and often arose as a response to civil unrest. More than pardoning, oblivion served the function of settling property rights and restoring those included to full citizenship. In addition, acts of oblivion were passed by colonial legislatures even in some colonies whose charters explicitly granted the pardon power to the Lord Proprietor. Recovering the lost history of oblivion suggests that the decisions of the Supreme Court in the late nineteenth century were not entirely correct in assimilating pardon with amnesty. Instead, a strong argument can be made that the tradition of oblivion within England and the colonies supports a broad congressional power to grant amnesty. Remembering oblivion can also allow us to revive a different form of pardoning than that dominant today, a form associated with transitional justice and the restoration of a community riven by civil strife. Oblivion presents an alternative model for moving forward, suggesting that certain kinds of conflicts would be better forgotten than remembered for the continued health of the polity.