In this paper we investigate the use of the sharp function known from functional analysis in image processing. The sharp function gives a measure of the variations of a function and can be used as an edge detector. We extend the classical notion of the sharp function for measuring anisotropic behaviour and give a fast anisotropic edge detection variant inspired by the sharp function. We show that these edge detection results are useful to steer isotropic and anisotropic nonlinear diffusion filters for image enhancement.


This Handbook provides an overview of neuroscience-driven research methodologies and how those methodologies might be applied to theory-based research in the nascent field of neuroentrepreneurship. It presents the current thinking and examples of pioneering work, serves as a reference for those wishing to incorporate these methods into their own research, and provides several helpful discussions on the nature of an answerable question using neuroscience techniques. It includes concrete examples of new ways to conduct research that can shed light onto such areas as decision-making and opportunity recognition, allowing us to ask different, perhaps better, questions than ever before.


A historical time rich with change, the turn of the twentieth century was not without its hardships as well as its accomplishments. Musically speaking, it was a celebrated and popular time of diversified and large orchestrated symphonies and operas. Yet, as classical music was at a zenith of popularity, it was an uneasy and confusing era. Closing in on the accepted, supported and successful romantic style of music was a social revolution that affected all art forms and worldwide attitudes. World War I was looming and the Second Industrial Revolution was about to explode initiating change and fears throughout civilization. Art forms have always reflected the times of which they exist, and this critical time of 1880-1933, like any other era, mirrors a highly diversified time of enormous change and renaissance. This study is an examination of what the cabaret genre consisted of during this fifty year period. I explain the beginning, the peak and the slow but constant changes which occurred through the onset years in France, Germany and eventually America. I introduce and detail the idea that there are really two forms of cabaret that eventually amalgamate into one idea. I present the effects of world history and events that utilized the Cabaret as a tool of expression for a generation and will surmise those effects have indeed provided a bridge to many of the musical styles and entertainment venues that we hold in present day society. In the recital portion of my dissertation, I perform a selection of cabaret songs which show specifically different styles and languages that depict the essence of the Cabaret genre style as it has evolved from its inception in 1881. These works, garnered by research of Cabaret history, provide tangible evidence of the musical stylistic changes which occurred through Cabaret`s roots in France, to its height of popularity in Germany and how it was perceived and developed in Britain and America.


This thesis is devoted to deal with the stochastic optimization problems in various situations with the aid of the Martingale method. Chapter 2 discusses the Martingale method and its applications to the basic optimization problems, which are well addressed in the literature (for example, [15], [23] and [24]). In Chapter 3, we study the problem of maximizing expected utility of real terminal wealth in the presence of an index bond. Chapter 4, which is a modification of the original research paper joint with Korn and Ewald [39], investigates an optimization problem faced by a DC pension fund manager under inflationary risk. Although the problem is addressed in the context of a pension fund, it presents a way of how to deal with the optimization problem, in the case there is a (positive) endowment. In Chapter 5, we turn to a situation where the additional income, other than the income from returns on investment, is gained by supplying labor. Chapter 6 concerns a situation where the market considered is incomplete. A trick of completing an incomplete market is presented there. The general theory which supports the discussion followed is summarized in the first chapter.


This article is squarely opposed to views advanced by Eric Posner, Adrian Vermeule, and others that transitional justice is just a special case of "Ordinary Justice.�? Paying special attention to debates about reparations, this article argues that transitional justice is extraordinary, reflecting the source and nature of atrocities perpetrated under an abusive regime, and focused on the challenges and goals that define transitions to democracy. In particular, this Article argues that transitional justice is not profane, preservative, and retrospective, but, rather, Janus-faced, liminal, and transformative. The literature on reparations in transitions is divided between critics who regard reparations as quasi-tort awards that violate basic commitments to individual fairness and those who appeal to collective responsibility, atonement, or reconciliation as special transitional justice theories. These debates have not reached a persuasive resolution because both camps fail to recognize and take full normative account of the extraordinary conditions in abusive regimes. What distinguishes pre-transitional abuses from ordinary crime is the role played by an abusive paradigm. An abusive paradigm is a combination of social norms, law, and institutional practice that utilizes a bi-polar logic to justify targeted violence. Abusive paradigms gain authority after the collapse of dynamic stability – the overlapping network of associations and oppositions that restricts violence and violent impulses in stable regimes. Once dominant, abusive paradigms rationalize and enforce a pathological status inequality that excludes those in an oppressed group from cross-secting identities, allowing abusers to regard them as appropriate targets for exclusion and abuse. The primary task in transition is to seize the liminal moment between an abusive past and a future committed to human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in order to achieve some level of parity between victims and abusers, in part by creating or reconstituting the network of overlapping identities reflective of a dynamically stable society. Reparations and other transitional justice tools, liberated from the constraints of ordinary justice models, have a role to play in this extraordinary endeavor as sites for what Rosa Ehrenreich Brooks has called "effective norm change.�? For example, symbolic reparations can provide official recognition of victims. Material reparations can provide former victims with meaningful access to spheres of public and private life once denied to them as a consequence of their status. Treating reparations as part of the extraordinary endeavor of social transformation also provides ready responses to common objections, including those prominent in debates about historical reparations.


The adjustment and acculturation process of single Liberian mothers resettled as refugees in the United States was examined in this qualitative study. Liberian experiences largely have been left out of refugee studies, a field that recently has taken a turn away from a problem-focused, policy-oriented approach to a more culturally aware constructivist approach. The refugees' post-immigration experiences, attitudes, and behaviors were the focus of the research. Ten Liberian single mothers who resettled in the US between the years of 2004
and 2006 were interviewed using a semi-structured protocol. Transcripts were created from these interviews that were analyzed by a four person reflecting team. A phenomenological approach was used to structure the transcripts, breaking them down into experiences, behaviors, and attitudes. The structured data was used to create a rich
description of Liberian women's acculturation in the US. The reflecting team used the description and the original transcripts to identify five dominant themes (opportunity/progress, responsibility, family reunification, relationships as resources, spirituality) and two variant themes (conflict and cultural maintenance). Understanding the acculturation process of Liberian women will help counselors
create culturally appropriate services for a group "triply-marginalized" (Goodkind & Deacon, 2004) by their ethnic, economic, and gender statuses.


Background Glioblastoma is the most frequent and most malignant primary brain tumor with a poor prognosis. The translation of therapeutic strategies for glioblastoma from the experimental phase into the clinic has been limited by insufficient animal models, which lack important features of human tumors. Lentiviral gene therapy is an attractive therapeutic option for human glioblastoma, which we validated in a clinically relevant animal model. Methodology/Principal Findings We used a rodent xenograft model that recapitulates the invasive and angiogenic features of human glioblastoma to analyze the transduction pattern and therapeutic efficacy of lentiviral pseudotyped vectors. Both, lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus glycoprotein (LCMV-GP) and vesicular stomatitis virus glycoprotein (VSV-G) pseudotyped lentiviral vectors very efficiently transduced human glioblastoma cells in vitro and in vivo. In contrast, pseudotyped gammaretroviral vectors, similar to those evaluated for clinical therapy of glioblastoma, showed inefficient gene transfer in vitro and in vivo. Both pseudotyped lentiviral vectors transduced cancer stem-like cells characterized by their CD133-, nestin- and SOX2-expression, the ability to form spheroids in neural stem cell medium and to express astrocytic and neuronal differentiation markers under serum conditions. In a therapeutic approach using the suicide gene herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase (HSV-1-tk) fused to eGFP, both lentiviral vectors mediated a complete remission of solid tumors as seen on MRI resulting in a highly significant survival benefit (p<0.001) compared to control groups. In all recurrent tumors, surviving eGFP-positive tumor cells were found, advocating prodrug application for several cycles to even enhance and prolong the therapeutic effect. Conclusions/Significance In conclusion, lentiviral pseudotyped vectors are promising candidates for gene therapy of glioma in patients. The inefficient gene delivery by gammaretroviral vectors is in line with the results obtained in clinical therapy for GBM and thus confirms the high reproducibility of the invasive glioma animal model for translational research.


Innovation and design need not be about the search for a killer app. Innovation and design can start in people's everyday activities. They can encompass local services, cultural production, arenas for public discourse, or technological platforms. The approach is participatory, collaborative, and engaging, with users and consumers acting as producers and creators. It is concerned less with making new things than with making a socially sustainable future. This book describes experiments in innovation, design, and democracy, undertaken largely by grassroots organizations, non-governmental organizations, and multi-ethnic working-class neighborhoods. These stories challenge the dominant perception of what constitutes successful innovations. They recount efforts at social innovation, opening the production process, challenging the creative class, and expanding the public sphere. The wide range of cases considered include a collective of immigrant women who perform collaborative services, the development of an open-hardware movement, grassroots journalism, and hip-hop performances on city buses. They point to the possibility of democratized innovation that goes beyond solo entrepreneurship and crowdsourcing in the service of corporations to include multiple futures imagined and made locally by often-marginalized publics. ContributorsMns Adler, Erling Bjrgvinsson, Karin Book, David Cuartielles, Pelle Ehn, Anders Emilson, Per-Anders Hillgren, Mads Hobye, Michael Krona, Per Linde, Kristina Lindstrm, Sanna Marttila, Elisabet M. Nilsson, Anna Seravalli, Pernilla Severson, sa Sthl, Lucy Suchman, Richard Topgaard, Laura Watts


This study presents a chemical ionization mass spectrometer (CIMS) for fast response, in-situ measurements of gas phase ammonia (NH 3). The NH3 background level detected with the CIMS ranged between 0.3–1 ppbv, with an uncertainty of 30 pptv under optimized conditions. The instrument sensitivity varied from 4–25 Hz/pptv for >1 MHz of reagent ion signals (protonated ethanol ions), with a 30% uncertainty estimated based on variability in calibration signals. The CIMS detection limit for NH 3 was∼60 pptv at a 1 min integration time (3 sigma). The CIMS time response was<30 s. This new NH3-CIMS has been used for ambient measurements in Kent, Ohio, for several weeks throughout three seasons. The measured NH 3 mixing ratios were usually at the sub-ppbv level and higher in spring (200 ±120 pptv) than in winter (60±75 pptv) and fall (150±80 pptv). High emissions of SO2 from power plants in this region, and thus possible high acidity of aerosol particles, may explain these low NH3 mixing ratios in general.


A matrix formulation for an adaptive genetic algorithm is developed using mutation matrix and crossover matrix. Selection, mutation, and crossover are all parameter-free in the sense that the problem at a particular stage of evolution will choose the parameters automatically. This time dependent selection process was first developed in MOGA (mutation only genetic algorithm) [Szeto and Zhang, 2005] and now is extended to include crossover. The remaining parameters needed are population size and chromosome length. The adaptive behavior is based on locus statistics and fitness ranking of chromosomes. In crossover, two methods are introduced: Long Hamming Distance Crossover (LHDC) and Short Hamming Distance Crossover (SHDC). LHDC emphasizes exploration of solution space. SHDC emphasizes exploitation of local search process. The one-dimensional random coupling Ising Spin Glass problem, which is similar to a knapsack problem, is used as a benchmark test for the comparison of various realizations of the adaptive genetic algorithms. Our results show that LHDC is better than SHDC, but both are superior to MOGA, which has been shown to be better than many traditional methods.


Storage elasticity on IaaS clouds is an important feature for data-intensive workloads: storage requirements can vary greatly during application runtime, making worst-case over-provisioning a poor choice that leads to unnecessarily tied-up storage and extra costs for the user. While the ability to adapt dynamically to storage requirements is thus attractive, how to implement it is not well understood. Current approaches simply rely on users to attach and detach virtual disks to the virtual machine (VM) instances and then manage them manually, thus greatly increasing application complexity while reducing cost efficiency. Unlike such approaches, this paper aims to provide a transparent solution that presents a unified storage space to the VM in the form of a regular POSIX file system that hides the details of attaching and detaching virtual disks by handling those actions transparently based on dynamic application requirements. The main difficulty in this context is to understand the intent of the application and regulate the available storage in order to avoid running out of space while minimizing the performance overhead of doing so. To this end, we propose a storage space prediction scheme that analyzes multiple system parameters and dynamically adapts monitoring based on the intensity of the I/O in order to get as close as possible to the real usage. We show the value of our proposal over static worst-case over-provisioning and simpler elastic schemes that rely on a reactive model to attach and detach virtual disks, using both synthetic benchmarks and real-life data-intensive applications. Our experiments demonstrate that we can reduce storage waste/cost by 30-40% with only 2-5% performance overhead.


The present paper is divided into two parts. In the first, all Campanian, Maastrichtian and Danian ophiuroids known to date from the extended type area of the Maastrichtian Stage, are described and illustrated. The geographic and stratigraphic distribution of this diverse echinoderm group are documented. A total of twenty-one genera (one of them new) and thirty-seven species (seven of them new) are recorded from the Campanian-Danian of Liege-Limburg and the Aachen area (Germany). The following taxa are new: Ophiocten? yvonnae sp. nov., Stegophiura? trispinosa sp. nov., Deckersamphiura inusitata gen. et sp. nov., Ophiarachna? martinblomi sp. nov., Ophiolepis? falsa sp. nov., Ophiomusium lux sp. nov., and Mesophiomusium decipiens gen. et sp. nov. Additional species, recorded here in open nomenclature, may prove to be new as well, but limited material precludes their formal naming. Many ophiuroid species from Liege-Limburg are also known from the Lower Maastrichtian of Rugen and Mon (Denmark). In general, material from those localities is much better preserved, which is why type specimens of additional new taxa have been selected from samples collected there. In the second part of the present paper a total of twenty-four new species and one new genus are described: Ophiosmilax? alternatus sp. nov., Asteronyx? spinulosa sp. nov., Ophiomyxa? curvata sp. nov., Ophiomyxa? rhipidata sp. nov., Ophioscolex? clivulus sp. nov., Ophioscolex? cretaceus sp. nov., Ophiacantha? punctata sp. nov., Ophiacantha? rugosa sp. nov., Ophiacantha? striata sp. nov., Sinosura jasmundensis sp. nov., Hemieuryale? parva sp. nov., Amphiura? plana sp. nov., Ophiothrix? bongaertsi sp. nov., Ophiothrix? cristata sp. nov., Ophiothela? semirotunda sp. nov., Ophiactis? sulcata sp. nov., Ophiocoma? ishidai sp. nov., Ophioderma? radiatum sp. nov., Ophiolepis? granulata sp. nov., Ophiolepis? linea sp. nov., Ophiomusium biconcavum sp. nov., Ophiomusium sentum sp. nov., Ophiomusium sinuatum sp. nov., and Mesophiomusium moenense gen. et sp. nov. Four additional species (Trichaster? sp., Ophiacantha? sp., Sinosura sp., and S. aff. schneideri Kutscher, 1987) are left in open nomenclature; these may prove to be new as well, but not enough material is currently available to erect new species upon. Previously described ophiuroid species, some of which are here reassigned to other genera, in all of these faunas include: Asteronyx? simplex A.H. Muller, 1950, Trichaster? ornatus (Rasmussen, 1950), Ophiomyxa? jekerica (Berry, 1938), Ophiacantha? danica Rasmussen, 1952, Stegophiura? hagenowi (Rasmussen, 1950), Felderophiura vanderhami Jagt, 1991, Ophioplinthaca? fuerstenbergii (J. Muller, 1847), Ophiocoma? senonensis (Valette, 1915), Ophiocoma? rasmusseni Hess, 1960b, Ophioderma? substriatum (Rasmussen, 1950), Ophiotitanos serrata (Roemer, 1840), and Ophiomusium granulosum (Roemer, 1840). Ophiomusium subcylindricum (von Hagenow, 1840) and O. danicum Brunnich Nielsen, 1926 are considered to be junior synonyms of O. granulosum. With very few exceptions, species assignment to extant genera is fraught with difficulties, even in those cases where more or less complete discs with arms attached are available. Most of our taxa are based on dissociated ossicles, or portions of arms at best, which are preferentially placed in the nomipp nal genera of the various ophiuroid families. Despite this present paper demonstrates that Late Cretaceous-Early exceeds previous estimates, and that the white chalk facies benthic inhabitation than assumed by earlier authors.


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"Res is a journal of anthropology and comparative aesthetics dedicated to the study of the object, in particular cult and belief objects and objects of art. The journal presents contributions by philosophers, art historians, archaeologists, critics, linguists, architects, artists, and others. Its field of inquiry is open to all cultures, regions, and historical periods. "Res also publishes iconographic and textual documents important to the history and theory of the arts. "Res appears twice yearly, in the spring and autumn. The journal is edited by Francesco Pellizzi. More information about Res is available at www.res-journal.org.


A clear and focused guide to creating useful user experience documentationAs web sites and applications become richer and more complex, the user experience (UX) becomes critical to their success. This indispensible and full-color book provides practical guidance on this growing field and shares valuable UX advice that you can put into practice immediately on your own projects. The authors examine why UX is gaining so much interest from web designers, graduates, and career changers and looks at the new UX tools and ideas that can help you do your job better. In addition, you'll benefit from the unique insight the authors provide from their experiences of working with some of the world's best-known companies, learning how to take ideas from business requirements, user research, and documentation to create and develop your UX vision.Explains how to create documentation that clearly communicates the vision for the UX design and the blueprint for how it's going to be developedProvides practical guidance that you can put to work right away on their own projectsLooks at the new UX tools and ideas that are born every day, aimed at helping you do your job better and more efficientlyCovers a variety of topics including user journeys, task models, funnel diagrams, content audits, sitemaps, wireframes, interactive prototypes, and moreCommunicating the User Experience is an ideal resource for getting started with creating UX documentation.


Objective: To provide an update to "Surviving Sepsis Campaign Guidelines for Management of Sepsis and Septic Shock: 2012." Design: A consensus committee of 55 international experts representing 25 international organizations was convened. Nominal groups were assembled at key international meetings (for those committee members attending the conference). A formal conflict-of-interest (COI) policy was developed at the onset of the process and enforced throughout. A stand-alone meeting was held for all panel members in December 2015. Teleconferences and electronic-based discussion among subgroups and among the entire committee served as an integral part of the development. Methods: The panel consisted of five sections: hemodynamics, infection, adjunctive therapies, metabolic, and ventilation. Population, intervention, comparison, and outcomes (PICO) questions were reviewed and updated as needed, and evidence profiles were generated. Each subgroup generated a list of questions, searched for best available evidence, and then followed the principles of the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) system to assess the quality of evidence from high to very low, and to formulate recommendations as strong or weak, or best practice statement when applicable. Results: The Surviving Sepsis Guideline panel provided 93 statements on early management and resuscitation of patients with sepsis or septic shock. Overall, 32 were strong recommendations, 39 were weak recommendations, and 18 were best-practice statements. No recommendation was provided for four questions. Conclusions: Substantial agreement exists among a large cohort of international experts regarding many strong recommendations for the best care of patients with sepsis. Although a significant number of aspects of care have relatively weak support, evidence-based recommendations regarding the acute management of sepsis and septic shock are the foundation of improved outcomes for these critically ill patients with high mortality.


This paper presents a method for the evolution of SHI ABoxes which is based on a compilation technique of the knowledge base. For this the ABox is regarded as an interpretation of the TBox which is close to a model. It is shown, that the ABox can be used for a semantically guided transformation resulting in an equisatisfiable knowledge base. We use the result of this transformation to efficiently delete assertions from the ABox. Furthermore, insertion of assertions as well as repair of inconsistent ABoxes is addressed. For the computation of the necessary actions for deletion, insertion and repair, the E-KRHyper theorem prover is used.


The documentation set for this product strives to use bias-free language. For purposes of this documentation set, bias-free is defined as language that does not imply discrimination based on age, disability, gender, racial identity, ethnic identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and intersectionality. Exceptions may be present in the documentation due to language that is hardcoded in the user interfaces of the product software, language used based on RFP documentation, or language that is used by a referenced third-party product. Note


Copyright 2000, Turner White Communications, Inc., 125 Strafford Avenue, Suite 220, Wayne, PA 19087-3391, www.turner-white.com. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Turner White Communications, Inc. The editors are solely responsible for selecting content. Although the editors take great care to ensure accuracy, Turner White Communications, Inc., will not be liable for any errors of omission or inaccuracies in this publication. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Turner White Communications, Inc. NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER: This publication has been developed without involvement of or review by the American Board of Internal Medicine. Anemia of Chronic Renal Failure


This paper reports a study of VanPatten's processing instruction (PI) and Ray's TPRS. High school students in a beginning Spanish course were divided into three groups (PI, TPRS, and control) and instructed in forms using the Spanish verb gustar. Treatment included sentence-level and discourse-level input, and tests included interpretation and production measures in a pretest, an immediate posttest, and a delayed posttest given two and a half months following treatment. The PI group made the greatest gains in production measures and in a grammaticality judgment test, and the TPRS group made the greatest gains in written fluency. The PI group's statistical gains in production measures held through the delayed posttest.


Every day, over 200 million Americans consume food products made of wheat. As a result, over 100 million of them experience some form of adverse health effect, ranging from minor rashes and high blood sugar to the unattractive stomach bulges that preventive cardiologist William Davis calls "wheat bellies." According to Davis, that excess fat has nothing to do with gluttony, sloth, or too much butter: It's due to the whole grain wraps we eat for lunch. After witnessing over 2,000 patients regain their health after giving up wheat, Davis reached the disturbing conclusion that wheat is the single largest contributor to the nationwide obesity epidemic - and its elimination is key to dramatic weight loss and optimal health. In "Wheat Belly", Davis exposes the harmful effects of what is actually a product of genetic tinkering and agribusiness being sold to the public as "wheat" - and provides readers with a user-friendly, step-by-step plan to navigate a new, wheat-free lifestyle. Informed by cutting-edge science and nutrition, along with case studies from men and women who have experienced life-changing transformations in their health after waving goodbye to wheat, "Wheat Belly" is an illuminating look at what is truly making people sick and an action plan to clear our plates of this seemingly benign ingredient.


The mysterious disappearance of Michael Rockefeller in New Guinea in 1961 has kept the world and his powerful, influential family guessing for years. Now, Carl Hoffman uncovers startling new evidence that finally tells the full, astonishing story. Despite exhaustive searches, no trace of Rockefeller was ever found. Soon after his disappearance, rumors surfaced that he'd been killed and ceremonially eaten by the local Asmat-a native tribe of warriors whose complex culture was built around sacred, reciprocal violence, head hunting, and ritual cannibalism. The Dutch government and the Rockefeller family denied the story, and Michael's death was officially ruled a drowning. Yet doubts lingered. Sensational rumors and stories circulated, fueling speculation and intrigue for decades. The real story has long waited to be told-until now. Retracing Rockefeller's steps, award-winning journalist Carl Hoffman traveled to the jungles of New Guinea, immersing himself in a world of headhunters and cannibals, secret spirits and customs, and getting to know generations of Asmat. Through exhaustive archival research, he uncovered never-before-seen original documents and located witnesses willing to speak publically after fifty years. In Savage Harvest he finally solves this decades-old mystery and illuminates a culture transformed by years of colonial rule, whose people continue to be shaped by ancient customs and lore. Combining history, art, colonialism, adventure, and ethnography, Savage Harvest is a mesmerizing whodunit, and a fascinating portrait of the clash between two civilizations that resulted in the death of one of America's richest and most powerful scions.


To extract abstract views of the behavior of an object-oriented system for reverse engineering, a body of research exists that analyzes a system's runtime execution. Those approaches primarily analyze the control flow by tracing method execution events. However, they do not capture information flows. We address this problem by proposing a novel dynamic analysis technique named Object Flow Analysis, which complements method execution tracing with an accurate analysis of the runtime flow of objects. To exemplify the usefulness of our analysis we present a visual approach that allows a system engineer to study classes and components in terms of how they exchange objects at runtime. We illustrate and validate our approach on two case studies.


Since at least the 1960s, when Congress enacted civil rights statutes that provided for private enforcement, courts have been hotbeds of public policy. Only recently, however, has this phenomenon been recognized for what it is: courts have become essential actors in the regulatory state. What little scholarship there is on the use of courts to achieve regulatory ends is often heavy on rhetoric, but short on theory. While commentators have been quick to criticize the phenomenon of regulatory litigation, they have done little to determine what it actually is. As a result, the young field of regulatory litigation lacks fundamental theoretical discussions necessary for the fruitful development of the field. This article fills the gaps in the theoretical literature in three ways. First, this article presents the theory that regulatory litigation has developed to address the gaps between socially demanded levels of risk regulation and the amount of risk protection actually provided by the state. Second, this article collects and analyzes the scholarship to date that attempts to find the line that divides regulatory from non-regulatory litigation, and explains how and why previous definitions of regulatory litigation have fallen short. Finally, this article presents a theoretical discussion of the nature of regulatory litigation that distinguishes between top-down regulation through statutory promulgation and bottom-up regulation that occurs through the remedial choices made by litigants and judges.


Pediatric summer camping is a comparatively recent development within the camping industry. These camps are designed to give chronically ill children, who are unlikely to be able to participate in a more traditional camping environment, a chance to experience what many children in American culture experience every summer. Every year a large population of young adults applies to work these seasonal positions, and the year around staff have the daunting task of selecting those young adults best suited for this unique and challenging position. Although many techniques are utilized, there is still a wide variance in the performance of the counselors. It is reasonable to assume that this variance could be accounted for by the personality of the individuals. The Five Factor Model of Personality has been used to explain variance in many different occupations. In the present study the Five Factor Model was compared to the effectiveness scores of counselors as reported by their supervisors.


During the execution of object-oriented applications, several millions of objects are created, used and then collected if they are not referenced. Prob- lems appear when objects are unused but cannot be garbage-collected because they are still referenced from other objects. This is an issue because those ob- jects waste primary memory and applications use more primary memory than they actually need. We claim that relying on the operating system's (OS) virtual memory is not always enough since it cannot take into account the domain and structure of applications. At the same time, applications have no easy way to parametrize nor cooperate with memory management. In this paper, we present Marea, an efficient application-level object graph swapper for object-oriented programming languages. Its main goal is to offer the programmer a novel so- lution to handle application-level memory. Developers can instruct our system to release primary memory by swapping out unused yet referenced objects to secondary memory. Our approach has been qualitatively and quantitatively val- idated. Our experiments and benchmarks on real-world applications show that Marea can reduce the memory footprint between 23% and 36%.


Cooperative distributed problem solving networks are distributed networks of semi-autonomous processing nodes that work together to solve a single problem. The Distributed Vehicle Monitoring Testbed is a flexible and fully-instrumented research tool for empirically evaluating alternative designs for these networks. The testbed simulates a class of a distributed knowledge-based problem solving systems operating on an abstracted version of a vehicle monitoring task. There are two important aspects to the testbed: (1.) it implements a novel generic architecture for distributed problems solving networks that exploits the use of sophisticated local node control and meta-level control to improve global coherence in network problem solving; (2.) it serves as an example of how a testbed can be engineered to permit the empirical exploration of design issues in knowledge AI systems. The testbed is capable of simulating different degrees of sophistication in problem solving knowledge and focus-of attention mechanisms, for varying the distribution and characteristics of error in its (simulated) input data, and for measuring the progress of problem solving. Node configuration and communication channel characteristics can also be independently varied in the simulated network.


A new computer language for manufacturing is being used to link complex systems of equipment whose components are supplied by multiple vendors. The Cell Management Language (CML) combines computational tools from rule-based data systems, object-oriented languages, and new tools that facilitate language processing. These language tools, combined with rule processing, make it convenient to build new interpreters for interfacing and understanding a range of computer and natural languages ; hence, CML is being used primarily to define other languages in an interpretive environment, that is, as a meta-interpreter. For example, in CML it is quite easy to build an interpreter for machine tool languages that can understand and generate new part programs. Once interpreters for different machine and human languages have been constructed, they can be linked together into a system of interpreters. These interpreters can be used to make intelligent decisions for systemwide action planning and diagnostic error recovery. CML is being used in the factory environment to make turbine blade performs and has proven to greatly simplify the task of building complex control systems.


Attempts to investigate non-disclosure are hampered by the very aspect being examined, namely an unwillingness to disclose non-disclosure. Although qualitative interviews may be considered to be an appropriate method for in-depth exploration of personal experiences, a lack of anonymity and the desire to conform to what is perceived to be socially acceptable limit its application in sensitive research. The current study, using a qualitative approach, addresses non-disclosure in the context of non-suicidal self-injury. Twenty-five young adults from diverse cultural backgrounds were interviewed in depth about their perceptions of self-injury, without the researchers asking directly whether the participants had ever self-harmed. Two techniques were used to enhance discussion within the qualitative interview: participants were invited to (a) discuss three hypothetical scenarios and (b) explore alternative interpretations of statistical data on patterns of self-harm. Key themes emerged regarding disclosure, gender issues, and culturally shaped concerns about the consequences of disclosure. The contributions of each element of the interview to understanding participants' perceptions are highlighted and alternative methodological approaches for examining disclosure are discussed.


Today, for the first time in the history of Humankind urban dwellers outnumber rural residents. Urban places, towns and cities, are of fundamental importance - for the distribution of population within countries; in the organisation of economic production, distribution and exchange; in the structuring of social reproduction and cultural life; and in the allocation and exercise of power. Furthermore, in the course of the present century the number of urban dwellers and level of global urbanisation are destined to increase. Even those living beyond the administrative or functional boundaries of a town or city will have their lifestyle influenced to some degree by a nearby, or even distant, city. The analysis of towns and cities is a central element of all social sciences including geography, which offers a particular perspective on and insight into the urban condition. The principal goal of this third edition of the book remains that of providing instructors and students of the contemporary city with a comprehensive introduction to the expanding field of urban studies. The structure of the first two editions is maintained, with minor amendments. Each of the thirty chapters has been revised to incorporate recent developments in the field. All of the popular study aids are retained; the glossary has been expanded; and chapter references and notes updated to reflect the latest research. This third edition also provides new and expanded discussion of key themes and debates including detailed consideration of metacities, boomburgs, public space, urban sprawl, balanced communities, urban economic restructuring, poverty and financial exclusion, the right to the city, urban policy, reverse migration , and traffic and transport problems. The book is divided into six main parts. Part one outlines the field of urban geography and explains the importance of a global perspective. Part two explores the growth of cities from the earliest times to the present day and examines the urban geography of the major world regions. Part three considers the dynamics of urban structure and land use change in Western cities. Part four focuses on economy, society and politics in the Western city. In part five attention turns to the urban geography of the Third World, where many of the countries experiencing highest rates or urban growth are least well equipped to respond to the economic, social, political and environmental challenge. Finally part six affords a prospective on the future of cities and cities of the future. New to this edition are: further readings based on the latest research; updated data and statistics; an expanded glossary; new key concepts; additional study questions; and a listing of useful websites. The book provides a comprehensive interpretation of the urban geography of the contemporary world. Written in a clear and readable style, lavishly illustrated with more than 80 photographs, 180 figures, 100 tables and over 200 boxed studies and with a plethora of study aids Urban Geography: A Global Perspective represents the ultimate resource for students of urban geography.


In this paper I use a critical lens to examine the introduction and adaptation of computer and information and communication technologies in Pakistan's educational system. This examination is based on two broad contentions: a) the introduction of technology in Pakistan's educational system is not conducive to the creation of a locally relevant knowledge system; instead the motivation is to create a market for foreign technology (hardware and software) and technological ideas; b) such an uncritical introduction of technology suits the needs of the undemocratic governments and hierarchical societies in the developing world and the neo-liberal economic forces abroad. I argue that such introduction of technology in education suits the former because, unlike critical education, the market model of education does not prepare students to question unjust and inequitable social and political practices around them. It rather suits the latter because education based on a market model produces a global pool of semi-trained laborers that can process technological and scientific raw material without gaining the expertise required to produce knowledge that is socially relevant and of benefit to them. I conclude that in this way technology becomes a source of hegemony and yet another tool of oppression rather than a vehicle for liberation and a just society.


Voted one of the Top 10 books in 2000 by the Vermont Book Publishers Association. A collective endeavor by United Plant Savers, featuring America's most respected and well-known herbalists. Contributors include Don Babineau, Tim Blakley, Mark Blumenthal, Jane Bothwell, Stephen Harrod Buhner, David Bunting, Richo Cech, Tane Datta, Shatoiya and Rick de la Tour, Ryan Drum, Doug Elliott, Steven Foster, Cascade Anderson Geller, Kate Gilday, Rosemary Gladstar, James Green, Pamela Hirsch, Christopher Hobbs, Sara Katz, Kathi Keville, Robyn Klein, Richard Liebmann, Brigitte Mars, Pam Montgomery, Nancy and Michael Phillips, Janice J. Schofield, Joanne Marie Snow, Deb Soule, Paul Strauss, Gregory L. Tilford, Krista Thie, Susun S. Weed, David Winston, Martin Wall, Matthew Wood. While the renaissance in the U.S. botanical market is positive in many respects, medicinal plant populations are suffering from loss of habitat and overharvesting, and many bestselling herbs are now at risk including echinacea, American ginseng, goldenseal, Hawaiian wild kava, and wild yam. The authors share their extensive experience with using and growing thirty-three of these popular herbs and include suggestions for creating your own private herbal sanctuary--whether a city balcony, suburban backyard, or rural retreat. Full-color photographs will inspire experienced and novice herb users alike to protect and cultivate these remarkable healing plants. Readers will also find out how to use herbal analogues for at-risk plants--other medicinal herbs that provide the same benefits and exist in plentiful amounts--and learn ways to make their herbal purchases a vote for sustainability. "Planting the Future" shows us how we can participate in the land stewardship, habitat protection, and eco-friendly consumption that will ensure an abundant, renewable supply of medicinal plants for future generations. All author royalties will be used for replanting native medicinal herbs on a 370-acre botanical sanctuary in Ohio.


How do ducks stay dry? What is sheep's hair called? Why do peacocks have long feathers? read and discover the facts in Macmillan Factual Readers, a six-level series which allows young English language learners to explore a variety of fascinating real-world topics. Each reader has been carefully graded to reinforce the main structures and vocabulary covered in most major language courses. All readers include a glossary with explanations of key vocabulary. Beautifully designed in full colour with striking images, the Macmillan Factual Readers help learners build confidence and fluency in their reading ability as well as enhancing their knowledge of other subjects. Free Teaching Notes, audio and exercises are available to download.


In addition to a taxonomic review of the whole order Thermosbaenacea, the general morphology and chaetotaxy are discussed in detail. Due to the results of cuticular staining, and through the study of specimens with SEM techniques also, corrections to earlier interpretations could be made. A chaetotaxic classification, modified after the one of Watling (1989), is presented. In the taxonomic part 34 species are recognized, belonging to seven genera (one new), four families (one new). The examination of adult material of the type species of Monodella, i.e., Monodella stygicola Ruffo, 1949, warranted the creation of Tethysbaena gen. nov., to comprise all other taxa previously included in Monodella. Transferred to Tethysbaena are: M. argentarii Stella, 1951; M. halophila S.L. Karaman, 1953; M. relicta Por, 1962; M. sanctaecrucis Stock, 1976; M. somala Chelazzi & Messana, 1982; M. atlantomaroccana Boutin & Cals, 1985; and M. scabra Pretus, 1991. Additionally 15 new species of Tethysbaena are described: Tethysbaena juriaani spec. nov. (type species of the genus); T. gaweini spec. nov.; T. haitiensis spec. nov.; T. juglandis spec. nov.; T. lazarei spec. nov.; T. tinima spec. nov.; T. coqui spec. nov.; T. colubrae spec. nov.; T. scitula spec. nov.; T. calsi spec. nov.; T. stocki spec. nov.; T. tarsiensis spec. nov.; T. vinabayesi spec. nov.; T. aiakos spec. nov.; and T. siracusae spec. nov. The genus Tethysbaena can be divided into six species-groups. One new family, Tulumellidae, was erected for the species of the genus Tulumella Bowman & Iliffe, 1988. A second species of Limnosbaena Stock, 1976 (Halosbaenidae) is reported, but remains undescribed due to the severe damage of the single specimen available. A lectotype is designated for Theosbaena cambodjiana Cals & Boutin, 1985 (Halosbaenidae). All species are discussed with full reference to former publications, distribution, and habitat. Via a stepwise approach a hypothesized comprehensive phylogenetic tree is constructed with the PAUP computer program. In the biogeographic part, it is suggested that the actual distributions of the various thermosbaenacean species are the result of vicariance. The distributions are used in reconstructing origins of old tectonic plate fragments of the Tethys Sea belt, in particular those in the northern Caribbean region.


Letter from Diana Maray to John Patterson Osterhout discussing daily life in Athens, Pennsylvania. Letters had been received from other family members and her children were doing well in school. In the state of Pennsylvania, the temperance movement was working to get a prohibitive liquor law passed. She closed her letter by writing about what she felt made a real friend and hoped she would meet John in this life or the next. She included two locks of hair, one from each of her sons. Included is an envelope addressed to "John P. Osterhout."


Many of the approaches that analyze software evolution consider a static perspective of a system. Static analysis approaches focus on the evolution of static software entities such as packages, classes and methods. Without knowledge of the roles software entities play in system features, it is difficult to interpret the motivation behind changes and extensions in the code. To tackle this problem, we propose an approach to software evolution analysis that exploits the relationships between features and software entities. Our definition of a feature is a unit of observable behavior of a software system. We define history measurements that summarize the evolution of software entities from a feature perspective. We show how we use our feature perspective of software evolution to interpret modifications and extensions to the code. We apply our approach on two case studies and discuss our findings.


DISCLAIMER: This information is not presented by a medical practitioner and is for educational and informational purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read. Since natural and/or dietary supplements are not FDA approved they must be accompanied by a two-part disclaimer on the product label: that the statement has not been evaluated by FDA and that the product is not intended to "diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.


[About the book]

Some people have always had to find ways of living with long term conditions such as diabetes or coeliac disease, but as people live longer, increasing numbers of us now experience long-term poor health. While some conditions that previously limited the length of life are manageable a growing number of people live with long-term conditions. Against this backdrop, Long Term Conditions explores the complex issues surrounding the experience of long-term illness and the enormous pressure this puts on individuals, their families and carers and on health and social care services. The perspectives of each of these groups are voiced within this book, with chapters written by people who use health and social care services, carers, policy-makers and practitioners.

Using a variety of research methods to get to the heart of the matter, the book probes assumptions about the experience of long-term poor health and what constitutes good care. Its aim is to challenge readers to think critically about existing policy and provision and to inspire change based on sound evidence and a drive towards greater multi-professional working.

Long Term Conditions provides academics, practitioners and students with a thorough grounding in the complex issues surrounding the experience and management of long-term illness. It is an ideal text for courses on policy, management and practice in health and social care.


We presently lack a good theory for when we should permit parties to litigate using a pseudonym, and American and European legal systems differ sharply on the question. This essay attempts to leverage one of the developments associated with the information age to make progress towards a satisfying answer. The relevant development is the newfound ease with which one can air a grievance pseudonymously or anonymously via online feedback sites, rating sites, and similar forums. Given the availability of these sometimes attractive alternatives to litigation, the legal system should answer the question of whether to permit a party to litigate as a "John Doe" by determining whether a particular grievance is optimally resolved via legal dispute resolution mechanisms or the self-help alternatives that have arisen online and elsewhere. These alternative mechanisms are markedly inferior to litigation at addressing certain types of disputes and markedly superior at addressing other sorts of controversies. Many of the factors most relevant to determining whether a dispute is best addressed in a court or in a less costly forum – such as the existence of legal issues of first impression, the public relations sophistication and reputational stakes of the parties, the existence of material factual disputes, the degree to which the parties' conduct violates existing social norms, and the magnitude of the harms suffered – are not easily discerned at the outset of litigation. It therefore may be optimal to permit a party to litigate to final judgment using a pseudonym and to consider revealing the litigant's identity at the conclusion of proceedings. Such determinations could be based on either a balancing test that weighs the relevant aforementioned factors or a less precise bright-line rule, such as "prevailing party pseudonymity." The essay examines how such approaches would have played out in Doe v. Smith, a Seventh Circuit invasion of privacy case that expressed misgivings about permitting pseudonymous litigation despite quite sympathetic facts.


This paper analyses the enabling conditions, barriers and future prospects of decentralised experimentation with renewable energy sources (RES) in the German energy transition, with a specific focus on the multi-level governance framework. It investigates why, and under which conditions, decentralised experiments have served as a major driving force in the development of RES in Germany, highlighting the instrumental role local governments and the national support scheme for RES have played in supporting and protecting decentralised RES initiatives. Looking at the impact of decentralised experimentation, this paper argues that the scope of decentralised renewable energy development is now such that there is an obvious need for multi-level governance coordination to address the emerging challenges of temporal and spatial disparities between power generation and demand, as well as distributional and land-use conflicts. The authors observe that many local and regional governments have not yet sufficiently considered the coordination required to make their own efforts compatible with overall energy system transition needs. They may lose their function as important facilitators for RES experimentation if they do not start engaging in new approaches to stakeholder participation, coordinated regional energy flows and system integration of RES. Moreover, bottom-up experimentation with decentralised energy system structures is also threatened by recent changes in the political framework conditions at the European and national level which have led to a reform of the German support scheme for RES, including, amongst others, a phase-out of the feed-in tariff scheme and its replacement by an auction scheme. Against the backdrop of these adverse political framework conditions, the paper concludes by discussing strategies to preserve the dynamics of decentralised experimentation as a vigorous driver of the German energy transition.


The purpose of this research is to assess spatio-temporal variability of water quality determinands of the Tuul River in surrounding area of Ulaanbaatar city, Mongolia using an extensive dataset between 1998 and 2008. It presents the spatio-temporal assessment and seasonal pattern of 14 hydro-chemical determinants at 15 monitoring sites in the study area. According to the Mongolian water quality classification system, all sections of the Tuul River and its tributaries in the surrounding area of Ulaanbaatar city belong to moderately and heavily polluted waters due to high concentration of ammonium. In accordance with European Union water quality standard, the downstream section of the Tuul River fails. In order to change this situation, operation enhancement of wastewater treatment plants and artificial increment of dissolved oxygen concentration become crucial to improve the water quality significantly. Perhaps a new wastewatertreatment plant is needed for Ulaanbaatar city.


Close to three quarters of U.S. households buy orange juice. Its popularity crosses class, cultural, racial, and regional divides. Why do so many of us drink orange juice? How did it turn from a luxury into a staple in just a few years? More important, how is it that we don't know the real reasons behind OJ's popularity or understand the processes by which the juice is produced?In this enlightening book, Alissa Hamilton explores the hidden history of orange juice. She looks at the early forces that propelled orange juice to prominence, including a surplus of oranges that plagued Florida during most of the twentieth century and the army's need to provide vitamin C to troops overseas during World War II. She tells the stories of the FDA's decision in the early 1960s to standardize orange juice, and the juice equivalent of the cola wars that followed between Coca-Cola (which owns Minute Maid) and Pepsi (which owns Tropicana). Of particular interest to OJ drinkers will be the revelation that most orange juice comes from Brazil, not Florida, and that even 'not from concentrate' orange juice is heated, stripped of flavour, stored for up to a year, and then reflavoured before it is packaged and sold. The book concludes with a thought-provoking discussion of why consumers have the right to know how their food is produced.


It is generally assumed that the temperature increase associated with global climate change will lead to increased thunderstorm intensity and associated heavy precipitation events. In the present study it is investigated whether the frequency of thunderstorm occurrences will inor decrease and how the spatial distribution will change for the A1B scenario. The region of interest is Central Europe with a special focus on the Saar-Lor-Lux region (Saarland, Lorraine, Luxembourg) and Rhineland-Palatinate. Daily model data of the COSMO-CLM with a horizontal resolution of 4.5 km is used. The simulations were carried out for two different time slices: 1971–2000 (C20), and 2071–2100 (A1B). Thunderstorm indices are applied to detect thunderstorm-prone conditions and differences in their frequency of occurrence in the two thirty years timespans. The indices used are CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy), SLI (Surface Lifted Index), and TSP (Thunderstorm Severity Potential). The investigation of the present and future thunderstorm conducive conditions show a significant increase of non-thunderstorm conditions. The regional averaged thunderstorm frequencies will decrease in general, but only in the Alps a potential increase in thunderstorm occurrences and intensity is found. The comparison between time slices of 10 and 30 years length show that the number of gridpoints with significant signals increases only slightly. In order to get a robust signal for severe thunderstorm, an extension to more than 75 years would be necessary.


This book gives an overview of the twelve Blackland Counties of Texas in alphabetical order. For each county, a brief description of the geographic and agricultural characteristics is given as well as statistics on population and county income. Additionally, a geological description of the Black Prairie Region gives more specific aspects of the area and the soil compositions and a final chapter discusses the property market of the area.


Reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD) is a set of symptoms that can develop in the legs, arms, feet, and hands after fractures and other injuries. Also called complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), its symptoms include changes in skin temperature and color over the affected area, accompanied by burning pain, sensitivity to touch, sweating, and limitation of range of motion. The cause of RSD is unknown, and it is very difficult to treat. Two studies performed by a single research group suggest that RSD might be preventable by timely use of vitamin C following a fracture. The most recent of these compared placebo against three different dosages of vitamin C in 416 people with wrist fractures. For a period of 50 days, participants received either placebo or vitamin C at a dose of 200 mg, 500 mg, or 1500 mg daily. They were then followed to see how many developed RSD. The results indicated that approximately 10% of those given placebo developed RSD, while less than 2% of those given vitamin C in the 500 mg or the 1500 mg daily dose did so. (To add a technical note: this difference was statistically significant .) The 200 mg dose of vitamin C did appear to offer some protection as well, but not as much. Based on these findings, the researchers concluded that people who have suffered an injury placing them at risk for RSD should take vitamin C at a dose of 500 mg daily. However, it should be noted that confirmation by an independent research group is still lacking. REFERENCES:


The global epidemic of type 2 diabetes is largely secondary to insulin resistance induced by obesity and sedentary lifestyles. Most insulin-resistant subjects are able to increase β-cell secretion to meet the increased insulin demand and do not develop diabetes. However, when β-cell compensation fails, type 2 diabetes develops (1,2). Understanding the mechanisms of this compensatory response is of fundamental importance to elucidate the pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes and has implications for the treatment of the disease.

The capacity of β-cell mass to increase in response to insulin resistance is well established in rodents, where it has been able to prevent diabetes even in extreme conditions (3). In humans, β-cell mass expansion has been shown in normal physiological growth (4) and in insulin-resistant conditions such as pregnancy (5) and obesity (6–10). However, β-cell mass increment is more modest in obese humans than in rodents, has not been confirmed in all ethnic backgrounds (11), and shows a large variability among subjects (10,12). Current imaging techniques are not sensitive enough to accurately measure β-cell mass in vivo, and ethical considerations preclude obtaining pancreatic samples from living subjects. Thus, human β-cell mass has been determined in autopsied pancreata. The cross-sectional nature of the studies, the potential interference of pre- and postmortem processes, and the absence of …


Migration, both within and beyond borders, has become an increasingly prominent theme in domestic and international debates, and is the topic of the 2009 Human Development Report (HDR09). The starting point is that the global distribution of capabilities is extraordinarily unequal, and that this is a major driver for movement of people. Migration can expand their choices — in terms of incomes, accessing services and participation, for example — but the opportunities open to people vary from those who are best endowed to those with limited skills and assets. These underlying inequalities, which can be compounded by policy distortions, is a theme of the report.The report investigates migration in the context of demographic changes and trends in both growth and inequality. It also presents more detailed and nuanced individual, family and village experiences, and explores less visible movements typically pursued by disadvantaged groups such as short term and seasonal migration.There is a range of evidence about the positive impacts of migration on human development, through such avenues as increased household incomes and improved access to education and health services. There is further evidence that migration can empower traditionally disadvantaged groups, in particular women. At the same time, risks to human development are also present where migration is a reaction to threats and denial of choice, and where regular opportunities for movement are constrained.National and local policies play a critical role in enabling better human development outcomes for both those who choose to move in order to improve their circumstances, and those forced to relocate due to conflict, environmental degradation, or other reasons. Host country restrictions can raise both the costs and the risks of migration. Similarly, negative outcomes can arise at the country levels where basic civic rights, like voting, schooling and health care are denied to those who have moved across provincial lines to work and live. HDR09 shows how a human development approach can be a means to redress some of the underlying issues that erode the potential benefits of mobility and/or force migration.


Abstract Decisions to invest, withdraw, or transfer capital in different foreign markets have become a fixed part of management pragmatics in contemporary companies. The results of the 2017 Global Corporate Divestment Study show that multinational enterprises (MNEs) from particular parts of the world tend to see the main reasons behind their decisions on FDI (foreign direct investment) and FD (foreign direct divestment) in a slightly different manner. Insofar as internationalization processes and FDI have been relatively thoroughly studied and discussed in world and Polish literature, the concept of de-internationalization pursued through the prism of divestment still requires further analysis and consideration. The article aims to present the general framework of the process involving FDI, FD, and the major factors behind it in Poland and Latvia. Theoretical considerations are supplemented with the analysis of statistical data coming from the UNCTAD database as well as the database of Poland's and Latvia's central banks, illustrating foreign investment flows. The article uses the method of critical analysis of world and Polish literature, analysis of reports on relevant issues, and desk research analysis.


A presentation of the varied solutions to the many unique challenges faced in macro and close-up photography, this work discusses issues such as selecting a specially designed lenses and positioning flashes in order to avoid casting shadows. While tackling the main issues that this advanced application presents, such as correct focus, maximum depth of field, and optimal lighting, this guide walks through numerous indoor and outdoor shoots and includes step-by-step sequences and techniques for single- and multiple-light setups. Advanced amateurs and professional photographers will learn how the pros conceptualize and carry out their lighting strategies to ensure expertly lit small and close-up photography from this indispensable guide.


"Remember, boys, nothing on God's earth must stop the United States mail!" said John Butterfield to his drivers. Short as the life of the Southern Overland Mail turned out to be (1858 to 1861), the saga of the Butterfield Trail remains a high point in the westward movement. A. C. Greene offers a history and guide to retrace that historic and romantic Trail, which stretches 2800 miles from the Mississippi River to the Pacific coast. "A fine mix of past and present to appeal to scholar and lay reader alike."—Robert M. Utley, author of The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull


The main task which I pose for myself is to indicate the philosophical roots of the dialogical concept of law. First and foremost, I would like to present dialogue in the context of ancient Greek philosophy and in the context of the classicists of the philosophy of dialogue. Furthermore, I seek phenomenological bases for constructing the dialogical concept of law. The phenomenological method, starting with its classical Husserlian form, has undergone many changes. Thanks to the indication of new horizons of phenomenology by Emmanuel Levinas, discovering dialogical consciousness and the subject constituted in being with the Other are possible. The reference point of reflections on the concept of law is the relationship with the Other as an ethical relationship. Philosophy of dialogue is a certain possible prism of thinking about the social, public, and institutional space. It is thinking through the prism of dialogue (speaking), but also through the third who contributes discourse relevant to what is said. Law as the third, as the mediating element, is a co-constituting element of the entire legal world.


It is easy to visually distinguish a ceramic knife from one made of steel, a leather jacket from one made of denim, and a plush toy from one made of plastic. Most studies of material appearance have focused on the estimation of specific material properties such as albedo or surface gloss, and as a consequence, almost nothing is known about how we recognize material categories like leather or plastic. We have studied judgments of high-level material categories with a diverse set of real-world photographs, and we have shown (Sharan, 2009) that observers can categorize materials reliably and quickly. Performance on our tasks cannot be explained by simple differences in color, surface shape, or texture. Nor can the results be explained by observers merely performing shape-based object recognition. Rather, we argue that fast and accurate material categorization is a distinct, basic ability of the visual system.


Millions of children in North America are diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and treated with psychostimulants such as methylphenidate, dextroamphetamine, and methamphetamine. These drugs produce a continuum of central nervous system toxicity that begins with increased energy, hyperalertness, and overfocusing on rote activities. It progresses toward obsessive/compulsive or perseverative activities, insomnia, agitation, hypomania, mania, and sometimes seizures. They also commonly result in apathy, social withdrawal, emotional depression, and docility. Psychostimulants also cause physical withdrawal, including rebound and dependence. They inhibit growth, and produce various cerebral dysfunctions, some of which can become irreversible. The "therapeutic" effects of stimulants are a direct expression of their toxicity. Animal and human research indicates that these drugs often suppress spontaneous and social behaviors while promoting obsessive/compulsive behaviors. These adverse drug effects make the psychostimulants seemingly useful for controlling the behavior of children, especially in highly structured environments that do not attend to their genuine needs.


In January 2010, JISC CETIS organised a working meeting to bring together participants across a range of standards
organisations and communities to look at the future of interoperability standards in the education sector. This paper
summarises the views expressed by delegates at the meeting and presents relevant background information on present
and future models for collaboration between open and informal communities and the formal standardisation system with
particular reference to the current issues and barriers in specification and standard development and adoption
processes. This summary also presents a series of suggestions on the possible directions of future interoperability
standards in education.


Nowadays piezoelectric and ferroelectric materials are becoming more and more an interesting part of smart materials in scientific and engineering applications. Precision machining in manufacturing, micropositioning in metrology, common rail systems with piezo fuel injection control in automobile industry, and ferroelectric random access memories (FRAM) in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) besides commercial piezo actuators and sensors can be very good examples for the application of piezoceramic and ferroelectric materials. In spite of having good characteristics, piezoelectric and ferroelectric materials have significant nonlinearities, which limit the applications in high performance usage. Domain switching (ferroelastic or ferroelectric) is the main reason for the nonlinearity of ferroelectric materials. External excessive electromechanical loads (mechanical stress and electric field) are driving forces for domain switching. In literature, various important experiments related to the non-linear properties of piezoelectric and ferroelectric materials are reported. Simulations of nonlinear properties of piezoelectric and ferroelectric materials based on physical insights of the material have been performed during the last two decades by using micromechanical and phenomenological models. The most significant experiments and models are deeply discussed in the literature survey. In this thesis the nonlinear behaviour of tetragonal perovskite type piezoceramic materials is simulated theoretically using two and three dimensional micromechanical models which are based on physical insights of the material. In the simulations a bulk piezoceramic material which has numerous grains is considered. Each grain has random orientation in properties of polarization and strain. Randomness of orientations is given by Euler angles equally distributed between \(0\) and \(2\pi\). Each element in the micromechanical model has been assumed to have the same properties of the real piezoelectric grain. In the first part of the simulations, quasi-static characteristics of piezoelectric materials are investigated by applying cyclic, rate independent, bipolar, uni-axial and external electrical loading with an amplitude of 2 kV/mm gradually starting from zero value in virgin state. Moreover, the simulations are undertaken for these materials which are subjected to quasi-static, uni-polar, uni-axial mechanical stress, namely compressive stress. The calculations are performed at each element based on linear constitutive equations, nonlinear domain switching and a probability theory for domain switching. In order to fit the simulations to the experimental data, some parameters such as spontaneous polarization, spontaneous strain, piezoelectric and dielectric constants are chosen from literature. The domain switching of each grain is determined by an electromechanical energy criterion. Depending on the actual energy related to a critical energy a certain probability is introduced for domain switching of the polarization direction. Same energy levels are assumed in the electromechanical energy relation for different types of domain switching like 90o and 180o for perovskite type tetragonal or 70.5o and 109.5o for rhombohedral microstructures. It is assumed that intergranular effects between grains can be modelled by such probability functions phenomenologically. The macroscopic response of the material to the applied electromechanical loading is calculated by using Euler transformations and averaging the individual grains. Properties of piezoelectric materials under fixed mechanical stresses are also investigated by applying constant compressive stress in addition to cyclic electrical loading in the simulations. Compressive stress is applied and kept constant before cyclic bipolar electrical loading is implemented. In the following chapters, a three-dimensional micromechanical model is extended for the simulation of the rate dependent properties of certain perovskite type tetragonal piezoelectric materials. The frequency dependent micromechanical model is now not only based on linear constitutive and nonlinear domain switching but also linear kinetics theories. The material is loaded both electrically and mechanically in separate manner with an alternating electrical voltage and mechanical stress values of various moderate frequencies, which are in the order of 0.01 Hz to 1 Hz. Electromechanical energy equation in combination with a probability function is again used to determine the onset of the domain switching inside the grains. The propagation of the domain wall during the domain switching process in grains is modelled by means of linear kinetics relations after a new domain nucleates. Electric displacement versus electric field hysteresis loops, mechanical strain versus mechanical stress and electric displacement versus mechanical stress for different frequencies and amplitudes of the alternating electric fields and compressive stresses are simulated and presented. A simple micromechanical model without using probabilistic approach is compared with the one that takes it into account. Both models give important insights into the rate dependency of piezoelectric materials, which was observed in some experiments reported in the literature. Intergranular effects are other significant factors for nonlinearities of polycrystalline ferroelectric materials. Even piezoelectric actuators and sensors show nonlinearities when they are operated with electrical loading, which is much lower than the coercive electric field level. Intergranular effects are the main cause of such small hysteresis loops. In the corresponding chapter, two basic field effects which are electrical and mechanical are taken into account for the consideration of intergranular effects micromechanically in the simulations of the two dimensional model. Therefore, a new electromechanical energy equation for the threshold of domain switching is introduced to explain nonlinearities stemming from both domain switching and intergranular effects. The material parameters like coercive electric field and critical spontaneous polarization or strain quantities are not implemented in the electromechanical energy relation. But, this relation contains new parameters which consider both mechanical and electrical field characteristics of neighbouring elements. By using this new model, mechanical strain versus electric field butterfly curves under small electrical loading conditions are also simulated. Hence, a rate dependent concept is applied in butterfly curves by means of linear kinetics model. As a result, the simulations have better matching with corresponding experiments in literature. In the next step, the model can be extended in three dimensional case and the parameters of electromechanical energy relation can be improved in order to get better simulations of nonlinear properties of polycrystalline piezoelectric materials.


The European Convention on Human Rights and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights are of increasing importance in the area of social security. This book provides a practical guide to the social security issues which have been considered by the Court of Human Rights and to give an overview of how these have been analysed by the Court. In addition, some examples are given as to how the provisions of the Convention have been interpreted by a range of national courts. Issues examined include


While the conduct that underlies traditional core offenses like murder and rape is viewed by the public as unambiguously wrong, there is less certainty about the behavior that underlies many newer white collar crimes. A previous study by the same authors examined public views of bribery, perjury, and fraud, and found an often blurry line between what subjects thought should be criminalized and what should not. The current set of studies focused on public perceptions of insider trading. Across three studies, lay participants were found to view the core case of insider trading, in which the trader obtained inside information by breaching a duty of loyalty to an employer or client, as highly blameworthy and worthy of criminalization. But when the same information was obtained by luck, trading was not viewed as blameworthy, despite the arguably unfair information advantage held. In this, lay views were consistent with current law in the U.S. Lay views also tracked current law and practice with respect to several narrower issues. Subjects agreed with current practice that only insider trading resulting in a large amount of ill-gotten gains should result in criminal sanctions, while those trades resulting in comparatively small gains should be treated civilly. Lay subjects also agreed with current law that a tipper who gave inside information to a tippee should be prosecuted criminally only where his motives were selfish, and not when they were altruistic.Perhaps most strikingly, the study found that, though lay subjects had strong intuitions that insider trading was in some general sense morally wrong, they had real difficulty saying exactly what wrongs it entails and what harms it causes.


In an aggregate settlement, usually of a mass tort claim, a defendant agrees to pay a specific dollar amount to be divided up by the lawyer among her multiple clients which may number in the hundreds and even thousands. Each client, therefore, is in competition with all of the lawyer's other clients suing the same defendant for a share of the fixed sum. Rule 1.8(g) of the ABA Rules of Professional Conduct requires that each client give their informed consent to their allocation. To facilitate the settlement and the often quite substantial contingency fees to be earned, lawyers may mislead clients into believing that the amounts allocated to them were the result of individual bargains between their counsel and the defendant. Indeed, notorious examples of lawyers' failures to abide by the rule abound in the literature. At a recent conference to consider the ALI's proposal to effectively amend Rule 1.8(g) and allow use of advance client waivers in non-class aggregative litigation (ALI, Principles of the Law of Aggregative Litigation, §3.17 (2010), the underlying assumption of most participants was that the problems being addressed were structural. The issue posed was whether, as proposed by the ALI, advance waivers allowing a supermajority of clients to bind the entire group, should get an ethical imprimatur. While most of the commentators focused on efficiency, efficacy and autonomy, in this essay, I have set out on a different path. I reject the view that the defects in the ethical rule governing aggregate litigation are structural. For example, contrary to one panelist's view, I do not agree that the all-or-nothing aggregate settlement -- which can empower hold-out clients to extract higher awards -- is the devil driving lawyers to violate Rule 1.8(g) with regard to securing aggregated clients' informed consent to their allocated share. In my view, the issue posed is more fundamental. I contend that what drives lawyers to fail to comply with Rule 1.8(g) is the lucrative nature of this area of practice. Given the lack of enforcement of ethics rules that purport to limit lawyers' fees to "reasonable" amounts, contingency fees in many mass tort litigation have standardized at the 40% level. It strikes me as mind-boggling that commentators on non-class mass tort litigations ignore the 40% contingency fee that lawyers are increasingly charging in these litigations. If there are substantial economies of scale being realized by mass tort lawyers -- as I believe is the case -- they are being entirely claimed by the lawyers and not even partially being passed on to their clients except as mandated by a handful of judges. Moreover, while the use of Federal Rule 23 in mass tort litigation has been at least circumscribed by the U.S. Supreme Court, few, if any, commentators have noted that another reason why lawyers do not seek certification of certain mass tort litigations is that they can charge their clients fees that are 50% to 100% higher than what they would be awarded in class actions. In my essay, I advance the view that lawyer adherence to ethical rules appears inversely related to the financial stakes for the lawyer. This is so, I argue, because fees of the magnitude obtained in non-class aggregate settlements simply overwhelm any proclivity of lawyers to adhere to ethical rules. To put meat on the bones of my argument, I present a detailed examination of the aggregate settlement in the Phillips Petroleum explosion that occurred in October 1989 -- an aggregate settlement that ultimately resulted in the 1999 Texas Supreme Court decision in Burrow v. Arce, 997 S.W. 2d 229 (Tex.1999). The duplicitous actions by the attorneys for the 126 clients illustrate the powerful influence that a $65 million dollar fee offered in return for signed releases, had on a quintet of very wealthy lawyers and possibly the presiding judge. The implicit question posed -- whether their actions would have been any different if the ALI Principles were in force -- remains an open question.


In standard bootstrap percolation, a subset $A$ of the grid $[n]^2$ is initially infected . A new site is then infected if at least two of its neighbours are infected, and an infected site stays infected forever. The set $A$ is said to percolate if eventually the entire grid is infected. A percolating set is said to be minimal if none of its subsets percolate. Answering a question of Bollobas, we show that there exists a minimal percolating set of size $4n^2/33 + o(n^2)$, but there does not exist one larger than $(n + 2)^2/6$.


A lack of representative European accident data to aid the development of safety policy, regulation and technological advancement is a major obstacle in the European Union. Data are needed to assess the performance of road and vehicle safety and is also needed to support the development of further actions by stakeholders. This short-paper describes the process of developing a data collection and analysis system designed to partly fill these gaps. A project team with members from 7 countries was set up to devise appropriate variable lists to collect fatal crash data under the following topic levels: accident, road environment, vehicle, and road user, using retrospective detailed police reports (n=1,300). The typical level of detail recorded was a minimum of 150 variables for each accident. The project will enable multidisciplinary information on the circumstances of fatal crashes to be interpreted to provide information on a range of causal factors and events surrounding the collisions.


The historical narrative around Metis political leader Louis Riel has undergone a extraordinary change since the 1960s—once reviled by Anglo-Canadians, Riel is now paradoxically celebrated as a Canadian hero, and this "Riel-as-Canadian" narrative has become a common trope in contemporary Canadian political culture. Emanating from the Canadianization of Louis Riel is a parallel colonial discourse that distances itself from past attempts to assimilate Indigenous people into Canada, arguing instead for the assimilation of Canadians into a pan-Indigenous political identity. Central to this dialogue is a discourse on "metissage" and "Canadian metisness" that is heralded as the founding myth of Canada. This paper deconstructs this logic, as put forward by Jennifer Reid in Louis Riel and the Creation of Modern Canada and John Ralston Saul in A Fair Country . Both works uncritically assume that Canada's colonial problem is largely a failure of non-Indigenous people to embrace their underlying Indigenous political identity and acclimate themselves to this continent as a people of mixed political descent. This claim, however, is simply an inversion of colonization, a re-hashing of age-old colonial fantasies of unity, and an attempt to unite all the Indigenous and non-Indigenous polities in Canadian territory under a single sovereign entity—Canada.


Abstract. During the TORCH campaign a zero dimensional box model based on the Master Chemical Mechanism was used to model concentrations of OH radicals. The model provided a close overall fit to measured concentrations but with some significant deviations. In this research, an approach was established for applying Generalized Additive Models (GAM) to atmospheric concentration data. Two GAM models were fitted to OH radical concentrations using TORCH data, the first using measured OH data and the second using MCM model results. GAM models with five smooth functions provided a close fit to the data with 78% of the deviance explained for measured OH and 83% for modelled OH. The GAM model for measured OH produced substantially better predictions of OH concentrations than the original MCM model results. The diurnal profile of OH concentration was reproduced and the predicted mean diurnal OH concentration was only 0.2% less than the measured concentration compared to 16.3% over-estimation by the MCM model. Photolysis reactions were identified as most important in explaining concentrations of OH. The GAM models combined both primary and secondary pollutants and also anthropogenic and biogenic species to explain changes in OH concentrations. Differences identified in the dependencies of modelled and measured OH concentrations, particularly for aromatic and biogenic species, may help to understand why the MCM model predictions sometimes disagree with measurements of atmospheric species.


All Dogs Have ADHD takes an inspiring and affectionate look at Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), using images and ideas from the canine world to explore a variety of traits that will be instantly recognisable to those who are familiar with ADHD. Following the style of the award-winning All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome, charming colour photographs of dogs bring to life familiar ADHD characteristics such as being restless and excitable, getting easily distracted, and acting on impulse. This delightful book combines humour with understanding to reflect the difficulties and joys of raising a child with ADHD and celebrates what it means to be considered `different'. This absorbing and enjoyable book takes a refreshing approach to understanding ADHD.


Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate the reasons for and the factors associated with deciding to enter a medical school in our graduate and undergraduate medical students and whether differ between the two groups. Method: This is a cross-sectional study. The survey we developed to investigate demographic and socioeconomic data and possible reasons for deciding to enter a medical school. The responses were scored using Likert scale 4-options. Results: A total of 244 of 275 male students responded (a response rate of 89%). Of the responders, 26% were graduate students and 74% were undergraduates. Thirty nine percent of the students attended private schools. Compared to graduate students, undergraduate students were younger (p=0.0001), more likely to have gone to a private high school (p= 0.001) to have a father who is a doctor (p= 0.001) or a university graduate (p= 0.001), to belong a household with a monthly income exceeding $5,333 (p= 0.001). Significantly more undergraduates than graduates reported d that they were influenced to entre medical school by family (p=0.036), having had high academic achievement at high school (p=0.001), prestige of the profession (p=0.007), guaranteed employment (p=0.013) and desire to help others (p=0.003). Conclusions: The graduate medical students had significantly different demographic factors which were more reflective of in the general population as well as different motivating when compared to the undergraduate medical students.


From David Mitchell, the Booker Prize nominee, award-winning writer and one of the featured authors in 'Granta''s & Best of Young British Novelists 2003& issue, comes his highly anticipated third novel, a work of mind-bending imagination and scope. A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan's California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified & dinery server& on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation -- the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other's echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small. In his captivating third novel, David Mitchell erases the boundaries of language, genre and time to offer a meditation on humanity's dangerous will to power, and where it may lead us.


Many real life problems have multiple spatial scales. In addition to the multiscale nature one has to take uncertainty into account. In this work we consider multiscale problems with stochastic coefficients.
We combine multiscale methods, e.g., mixed multiscale finite elements or homogenization, which are used for deterministic problems with stochastic methods, such as multi-level Monte Carlo or polynomial chaos methods.

The work is divided into three parts.
In the first two parts we study homogenization with different stochastic methods. Therefore we consider elliptic stationary diffusion equations with stochastic coefficients.
The last part is devoted to the study of mixed multiscale finite elements in combination with multi-level Monte Carlo methods. In the third part we consider multi-phase flow and transport equations.


Many older US households have done little or no planning for retirement, and there is a substantial population that seems to undersave for retirement. Of particular concern is the relative position of older women, who are more vulnerable to old-age poverty due to their longer longevity. This paper uses data from a special module we devised on planning and financial literacy in the 2004 Health and Retirement Study. It shows that women display much lower levels of financial literacy than the older population as a whole. In addition, women who are less financially literate are also less likely to plan for retirement and be successful planners. These findings have important implications for policy and for programs aimed at fostering financial security at older ages.


In this article we introduce the Arcade Learning Environment (ALE): both a challenge problem and a platform and methodology for evaluating the development of general, domain-independent AI technology. ALE provides an interface to hundreds of Atari 2600 game environments, each one different, interesting, and designed to be a challenge for human players. ALE presents significant research challenges for reinforcement learning, model learning, model-based planning, imitation learning, transfer learning, and intrinsic motivation. Most importantly, it provides a rigorous testbed for evaluating and comparing approaches to these problems. We illustrate the promise of ALE by developing and benchmarking domain-independent agents designed using well-established AI techniques for both reinforcement learning and planning. In doing so, we also propose an evaluation methodology made possible by ALE, reporting empirical results on over 55 different games. All of the software, including the benchmark agents, is publicly available.


This research aims to model soil temperature (ST) using machine learning models of multilayer perceptron (MLP) algorithm and support vector machine (SVM) in hybrid form with the Firefly optimization algorithm, i.e. MLP-FFA and SVM-FFA. In the current study, measured ST and meteorological parameters of Tabriz and Ahar weather stations in a period of 2013–2015 are used for training and testing of the studied models with one and two days as a delay. To ascertain conclusive results for validation of the proposed hybrid models, the error metrics are benchmarked in an independent testing period. Moreover, Taylor diagrams utilized for that purpose. Obtained results showed that, in a case of one day delay, except in predicting ST at 5 cm below the soil surface (ST5cm) at Tabriz station, MLP-FFA produced superior results compared with MLP, SVM, and SVM-FFA models. However, for two days delay, MLP-FFA indicated increased accuracy in predicting ST5cm and ST 20cm of Tabriz station and ST10cm of Ahar station in comparison with SVM-FFA. Additionally, for all of the prescribed models, the performance of the MLP-FFA and SVM-FFA hybrid models in the testing phase was found to be meaningfully superior to the classical MLP and SVM models.


This qualitative exploratory study of Vietnamese interpreters in Vietnam argues that the progressive dispelling of the interpreters' invisibility myth must be accompanied by an increased importance paid to interpreters' identities during their training. Indeed, the type(s) and extent of interpreters' visibility depends on the type of identity(ies) they assume in interpreted-mediated events. The success of these events affects not only interpersonal relations but also the socio-cultural and economic development of nations, especially when developing countries are concerned.


American society has become anti-male. Men are sensing the backlash and are consciously and unconsciously going "on strike." They are dropping out of college, leaving the workforce and avoiding marriage and fatherhood at alarming rates. The trend is so pronounced that a number of books have been written about this "man-child" phenomenon, concluding that men have taken a vacation from responsibility simply because they can. But why should men participate in a system that seems to be increasingly stacked against them? As Men on Strike demonstrates, men aren't dropping out because they are stuck in arrested development. They are instead acting rationally in response to the lack of incentives society offers them to be responsible fathers, husbands and providers. In addition, men are going on strike, either consciously or unconsciously, because they do not want to be injured by the myriad of laws, attitudes and hostility against them for the crime of happening to be male in the twenty-first century. Men are starting to fight back against the backlash. Men on Strike explains their battle cry.


Summary Type II amiodarone-induced thyrotoxicosis (AIT) is an uncommon cause of thyroid storm. Due to the rarity of the condition, little is known about the role of plasma exchange in the treatment of severe AIT. A 56-year-old male presented with thyroid storm 2months following cessation of amiodarone. Despite conventional treatment, his condition deteriorated. He underwent two cycles of plasma exchange, which successfully controlled the severe hyperthyroidism. The thyroid hormone levels continued to fall up to 10h following plasma exchange. He subsequently underwent emergency total thyroidectomy and the histology of thyroid gland confirmed type II AIT. Management of thyroid storm secondary to type II AIT can be challenging as patients may not respond to conventional treatments, and thyroid storm may be more harmful in AIT patients owing to the underlying cardiac disease. If used appropriately, plasma exchange can effectively reduce circulating hormones, to allow stabilisation of patients in preparation for emergency thyroidectomy. Learning points Type II AIT is an uncommon cause of thyroid storm and may not respond well to conventional thyroid storm treatment. Prompt diagnosis and therapy are important, as patients may deteriorate rapidly. Plasma exchange can be used as an effective bridging therapy to emergency thyroidectomy. This case shows that in type II AIT, each cycle of plasma exchange can potentially lower free triiodothyronine levels for 10h. Important factors to consider when planning plasma exchange as a treatment for thyroid storm include timing of each session, type of exchange fluid to be used and timing of surgery.