The current study tested whether multiple rhythms could flexibly induce temporal expectations (temporal orienting) and whether these expectations interact with temporal expectations associated with the passage of time (foreperiod effects). A visual stimulus that moved following a regular rhythm was temporarily occluded for a variable duration (occlusion foreperiod). The task involved making a speeded perceptual discrimination about the target stimulus that reappeared after the occlusion. Temporal-orienting effects were measured by comparing performance and event-related potentials on conditions in which the timing for target reappearance was predictable (valid) versus unpredictable (invalid) according to the rhythm. Foreperiod effects were measured by comparing conditions in which the target was occluded for progressively longer periods of time (short, medium, and long foreperiods) and hence were increasingly predictable. The results showed strong interactions between temporal orienting and foreperiod effects during the facilitation of behavior and neural activity associated with late perceptual and response selection processes. Temporal orienting attenuated the N2 amplitude and decreased the P3 latency only at short foreperiods. Temporal preparation related to foreperiod effects abolished temporal orienting effects at medium and long foreperiods. Likewise, foreperiod effects attenuated the N1 and N2 amplitudes and decreased the P3 latency only in the invalid orienting condition as preparation related to temporal orienting abolished foreperiod effects in the valid condition. This high degree of neural overlap between the effects of temporal orienting driven by rhythms and foreperiod effects associated with the passage of time suggests the involvement of a common mechanism for temporal preparation.


The ultimate 'one stop' guide to using this bestselling piece of equipment - not just in the gym but at home too. Practical and easily accessible, The Total Gym Ball Workout is perfect for the fitness enthusiast or fitness professional who wants to lightly improve their knowledge and heavily improve the range of exercises they can use in their training. Tried and tested exercises are accompanied by clear photos and illustrations presented in a modern and logical way. The Total Gym Ball Workout is brimming with ideas for using this popular piece of fitness equipment. Packed with clear and easy to use exercises, this how-to reference book also provides adaptations of basic and advanced exercises making it ideal for anyone who wants to get the most out of their fitness gear. - Each exercise idea is organised by fitness level and includes follow-up and extension ideas. - Written in a jargon-free and concise style, this book is light on the science and background, heavy on practicality.


A standard approach for deducing a variational denoising method is the maximum a posteriori strategy. Here, the denoising result is chosen in such a way that it maximizes the conditional density function of the reconstruction given its observed noisy version. Unfortunately, this approach does not imply that the empirical distribution of the reconstructed noise components follows the statistics of the assumed noise model. In this paper, we propose to overcome this drawback by applying an additional transformation to the random vector modeling the noise. This transformation is then incorporated into the standard denoising approach and leads to a more sophisticated data fidelity term, which forces the removed noise components to have the desired statistical properties. The good properties of our new approach are demonstrated for additive Gaussian noise by numerical examples. Our method shows to be especially well suited for data containing high frequency structures, where other denoising methods which assume a certain smoothness of the signal cannot restore the small structures.


Music is an art form and cultural activity whose medium is sound organized in time. The common elements of music are pitch (which governs melody and harmony), rhythm (and its associated concepts tempo, meter, and articulation), dynamics (loudness and softness), and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture (which are sometimes termed the "color" of a musical sound). Different styles or types of music may emphasize, de-emphasize, or omit some of these elements.[1] Music is performed with a vast range of instruments and vocal techniques ranging from singing to rapping; there are solely instrumental pieces, solely vocal pieces (such as songs without instrumental accompaniment), and pieces that combine singing and instrument.[2]


It is not unusual for auditors to accept employment with audit clients upon leaving the audit firm. For example, Inthoff (1978) found that approximately 20 percent of the auditors in his sample accepted employment with a client firm. However, in recent years, the Independence Standards Board (ISB), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) have expressed concerns about auditors' employment with their audit clients. Such concerns primarily relate to possible impairment of auditor independence. For example, the ISB noted that "a concern with partners or professional staff joining clients is that the remaining audit team members, because of their past relationship with the professional now in a position of importance with the client, may be reluctant to challenge the decisions or positions taken by the former partner or other professional" (1999: 13). Hence, this topic is of considerable interest not only to the accounting profession but also to financial statement users as well as corporate managers.
The objective of this study is to provide empirical evidence about the perceptions of company executives and managers about their ability to resolve disagreements with their auditors who happen to be their former employers. While prior research has studied the perceptions of users and auditors (Imhoff, 1978; Parlin and Bartlett, 1994) on employment with audit clients, this is the first study that looks at clients' perceptions about their influence on auditors. Perceptions may be particularly useful in this context because (1) actual data about resolving disagreements with former colleagues are extremely difficult to obtain, and (2) perceptions can influence actions. We believe that this research is relevant to the general concern about auditors' employment with audit clients.


Adolescent reading achievement is of grave concern in America as a persistent literacy achievement gap harms the intellectual potential of many American school children. The selection and implementation of approaches to reading curricula and professional development are relevant factors examined in this quantitative study. Using an ex post facto method, this study identifies the different reading curricula and coach-based professional development models in North Carolina school districts and examines their alignment with current best practices for curricula and professional development. A researcher-created survey was distributed to the 115 North Carolina curriculum directors with a 35% (n = 40) response rate. A researcher-created classification system was designed and used to determine which districts fit into three main models of curricula: balanced literacy, core-based, and unknown. The responding (n = 11) literacy coach-based districts were classified as using either a responsive or unknown model. The study found that the balanced literacy curricula model was associated with greater proficiency rate in reading achievement relative to the state average across a three-year period. During the fifth grade year, districts using a balanced literacy approach experienced a three percentage point increase above the state average proficiency rate. A similar association of curricula on composite student achievement data for the sub group of "Economically Disadvantaged" students showed an increase of seven points as compared to the state's proficiency rate. Recommendations for practice include aligning reading curricula and literacy coaching with best practice research. The study recommends continued research examining the impact of curricula choices on student achievement with particular focus on districts implementing literacy coach-based practices. Further examination is needed to understand the intricacies of how reading curricula selection and implementation may differ depending on districts' reading philosophy and how curricula choices impact struggling readers and achievement.


Most scholars of constitutional law and history equate American constitutionalism with the Federal constitution. This spotlight on the Federal constitution rests on a series of modern assumptions that elevate the status of the Federal constitution over the rich history of state constitutions, and inevitably neglect the central constitutional tenet of the American Revolution - the sovereignty of the people. Viewing American constitutionalism from the perspective of the constitutional legacy of the Revolution suggests a modified paradigm in which state constitutions play a critical role in our understanding the full meaning of American constitutionalism. The idea of a collective sovereign introduced a tension and implicit challenge to one of the most sacrosanct constitutional values that we take for granted today - the rule of law as written and enforced by elected officials. The acknowledgment of sovereignty linked to the authority of the people opened up the possibility that the collective sovereign might be expressed without such constraints. The claims for a broader popular authority - reflected in the slogan of vox populi, vox dei (the voice of the people is the voice of God) and its corollary commitment to the rule of raw majoritarianism would today be rejected out of hand as inconsistent with our notion of codified proceduralism as one of the cornerstones of the modern notion of the rule of law. Such a perspective was hardly so clear, unequivocal, and uncontested during the early years of our Republic. Initially, the powerful constitutional idea and vocabulary of a collective sovereign as often expressed in the Post-Revolutionary period could (and did) push and pull people in various ways and produced a far more complicated calculus than we are willing to entertain today. Nonetheless, the historical experience with written constitutions in America suggests that the rule of law, as written and administered by representatives of the people, was not so inevitable to all Americans of earlier generations, particularly among those willing to extend the logic of the sovereignty of the people to its fullest extent.


This paper is my last word, in the present journal, in the debate I have been having with Walter Block on the subject of evictionism as an alleged libertarian "third way," capable of transcending the familiar "pro-life" and "pro-choice" dichotomy. In this debate, I myself defended what might be regarded as a qualified "pro-life" position, while Block consistently argued that the mother is morally allowed to expel the fetus from her womb provided that no non-lethal methods of its eviction are available. While my position articulated in this paper contains an element of what Block might consider a concession on my part — i.e., an explicit declaration that abstaining from lethal evictions of fetuses conceived as a result of rape is a libertarian duty, but only an imperfect one — I continue to regard the unqualified support of evictionism as indefensible on libertarian grounds.


The purpose of this work is to apply the methods of textual semiotics to subcultures, in particular to the little known glam subculture. Subcultures have been the main research field of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, known for its interdisciplinary approach, and for its focus on the creative aspects of subculture. Hebdige, in particular, introduced many semiotic elements in his work, as the aberrant decoding after Eco and the cultural creativity via bricolage after Levi-Strauss. His definition of subculture as symbolic resistance has been criticized by the following post-subcultural researchers for its abstractness and lack of cohesion.
Semiotics eventually have been expelled from the set of tools used in sociology for the analysis of subcultures. Nowadays, the studies on subcultures have a strong ethnographic focus. Due to terminological proliferation and a descriptive approach, it is difficult to compare them on a common basis.
Textual semiotics, through the concept of semiosphere developed by Lotman, allows to go back to the intuitions of Hebdige, organizing the semiotic elements already present in his work into a wider system of interpretation. The semiosphere offers a coherent theoretical horizon as a basis for further analysis, and a new methodological perspective focusing on the cultural. In this thesis for the first time the work of Lotman is applied to the study of a subculture.


One philosophical approach to causation sees counterfactual dependence as the key to the explanation of causal facts: for example, events c (the cause) and e (the effect) both occur, but had c not occurred, e would not have occurred either. The counterfactual analysis of causation became a focus of philosophical debate after the 1973 publication of the late David Lewis's groundbreaking paper, "Causation," which argues against the previously accepted "regularity" analysis and in favor of what he called the "promising alternative" of the counterfactual analysis. Thirty years after Lewis's paper, this book brings together some of the most important recent work connecting--or, in some cases, disputing the connection between--counterfactuals and causation, including the complete version of Lewis's Whitehead lectures, "Causation as Influence," a major reworking of his original paper. Also included is a more recent essay by Lewis, "Void and Object," on causation by omission. Several of the essays first appeared in a special issue of the Journal of Philosophy, but most, including the unabridged version of "Causation as Influence," are published for the first time or in updated forms.Other topics considered include the "trumping" of one event over another in determining causation; de facto dependence; challenges to the transitivity of causation; the possibility that entities other than events are the fundamental causal relata; the distinction between dependence and production in accounts of causation; the distinction between causation and causal explanation; the context-dependence of causation; probabilistic analyses of causation; and a singularist theory of causation.


Shelters such as leaf nests, tree holes or vegetation tangles play a crucial role in the life of many nocturnal mammals. While information about characteristics and availability of these resources may help in conservation planning, nest use gives an indication about a species' social organisation. The northern giant mouse lemur (Mirza zaza) is threatened by habitat loss within its restricted range. Our aim was to examine nest site preferences of M. zaza and to explore the species' social organisation by examining sleeping site aggregation size and genetic relatedness within and between such aggregations. In the Ankarafa Forest inside Sahamalaza – Iles Radama National Park, northwestern Madagascar, we radio-tagged five male and three female M. zaza and followed them for 2.5 months during the dry season. We identified sleeping trees and observed animals during emergence in the evening and return in the morning. We compared sleeping trees and microhabitats around nest sites to trees and habitat used during nightly activity and to random sites. We found that nests were well covered by canopy, even during the dry season, and were located near the tree trunk a few meters below the tree top. Nest sites were characterised by large (> 30 cm DBH) and tall trees (>16 m) with many lianas. Up to four animals shared one to three group-exclusive nests for up to 50 days. Two of the nest groups included two and three males with fully developed testes. Relatedness data revealed that the adult males sharing nests were either unrelated or closely related. These data suggest that M. zaza is sleeping in social nest groups including multiple males, which is unusual among nocturnal strepsirrhines. Apart from protecting suitable sleeping trees and discouraging selective logging of large trees, we recommend conducting further studies on the species' social organisation throughout an entire season.


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Cypherpunks are activists who advocate the widespread use of strong cryptography (writing in code) as a route to progressive change. Julian Assange, the editor-in-chief of and visionary behind WikiLeaks, has been a leading voice in the cypherpunk movement since its inception in the 1980s. Now, in what is sure to be a wave-making new book, Assange brings together a small group of cutting-edge thinkers and activists from the front line of the battle for cyber-space to discuss whether electronic communications will emancipate or enslave us. Among the topics addressed are: Do Facebook and Google constitute the greatest surveillance machine that ever existed, perpetually tracking our location, our contacts and our lives? Far from being victims of that surveillance, are most of us willing collaborators? Are there legitimate forms of surveillance, for instance in relation to the Four Horsemen of the Infopocalypse (money laundering, drugs, terrorism and pornography)? And do we have the ability, through conscious action and technological savvy, to resist this tide and secure a world where freedom is something which the Internet helps bring about? The harassment of WikiLeaks and other Internet activists, together with attempts to introduce anti-file sharing legislation such as SOPA and ACTA, indicate that the politics of the Internet have reached a crossroads. In one direction lies a future that guarantees, in the watchwords of the cypherpunks, privacy for the weak and transparency for the powerful; in the other lies an Internet that allows government and large corporations to discover ever more about internet users while hiding their own activities. Assange and his co-discussants unpick the complex issues surrounding this crucial choice with clarity and engaging enthusiasm.


Auditory Training (AT) describes a regimen of varied listening exercises designed to improve an individual's ability to perceive speech. The theory of AT is based on brain plasticity (the capacity of neurones in the central auditory system to alter their structure and function) in response to auditory stimulation. The practice of repeatedly listening to the speech sounds included in AT exercises is believed to drive the development of more efficient neuronal pathways, thereby improving auditory processing and speech discrimination. This critical review aims to assess whether auditory training can improve speech discrimination in adults with mild-moderate SNHL. The majority of patients attending Audiology services are adults with presbyacusis and it is therefore important to evaluate evidence of any treatment effect of AT in aural rehabilitation. Ideally this review would seek to appraise evidence of neurophysiological effects of AT so as to verify whether it does induce change in the CAS. However, due to the absence of such studies on this particular patient group, the outcome measure of speech discrimination, as a behavioural indicator of treatment effect is used instead. A review of available research was used to inform an argument for or against using AT in rehabilitative clinical practice. Six studies were identified and although the preliminary evidence indicates an improvement gained from a range of AT paradigms, the treatment effect size was modest and there remains a lack of large-sample RCTs. Future investigation into the efficacy of AT needs to employ neurophysiological studies using auditory evoked potentials in hearing-impaired adults in order to explore effects of AT on the CAS.


Utilizing a collective case study design, I examined and described the filial therapy (FT) process and adaptations discovered to be necessary and unnecessary in working with families who have a child with a life-threatening illness in the hospital setting. Data from a total of 7 parents was utilized, including those who terminated early, in order to gain a greater understanding of adapting FT for families who have a child with a life-threatening illness and their participation patterns. The parents attended 10 one- to two-hour FT sessions. The data was analyzed to examine for themes, patterns and relationships intrinsically with each case participant, as well as across cases. Analysis indicated that parents with a child with a life-threatening illness had great difficulty committing to attend FT; and a high rate of attrition occurred for those who did commit. A theme regarding flexibility was found to be of eminent importance in a variety of manifestations including therapeutic methods, session format, location and time of sessions, and intense vs traditional FT. Therapeutic adaptations in flexibility found to be important including openness to cathartic and personal parenting sessions, tolerance of forgetfulness, and lowering typical therapeutic concerns of dependency in the relationship. An inability for parents in this situation to benefit from intense FT methods was also noted. Changes noted in the child of focus included increased confidence, increased cooperation in the medical setting, increased communication with the parent and with medical staff regarding medical issues, and increased communication with the parent regarding personal feelings and issues. Changes noted in the parents included increased confidence in parenting skills, increased awareness of the child's perceptions of the environment, increased tolerance in allowing the child to struggle in and out of the medical setting, with both emotional and physical pain in order to gain coping skills, increased ability to allow the child to empower self, and increased abilities in limit setting.


The process of globalization is opening new windows for Danish initiatives. The requirement for innovation and development of new areas as a consequence of the globalization will lead to radical changes and the IT businesses need to take active part in the development. But in order to understand and explain the globalization process we also have to understand the limitations. One such limitation is found in the global digitalization of information- and communication processes. This global development requires, from the world citizens, literacy in use of computers. The majority of the world populations are illiterates, they are not only technical illiterates but also illiterates in the traditional sense: they cannot read and write, however, the global ICT development largely disregards the problem with illiteracy and cultural differences. It seems that a future area of growth for the Danish IT business with their specific competencies may be to strengthen the user oriented and interdisciplinary approaches to design and development of ICT applications - targeted to specific cultural groups and the illiterates - in developing countries and also to large groups of immigrants in the developed world. India is an example of the global structural changes. India has developed an impressive ICT industry and has a very high level of expertise in software engineering. India's government has a vision for e-democracy and have implemented e-government systems, which also address the rural populations. But the Indian population is very large and the potential users are highly diverse groups of which many are illiterate. Denmark has an IT industry that supplements India's, e.g. a strong expertise in e-government, and ICT for the agriculture. Denmark has a long tradition for cooperation between IT developers, researchers and users and is strong in interdisciplinary approaches to development and design of ICT applications. Denmark also has a tradition for a human centred design, and usability is seen as a competitive factor. In India usability is on the agenda in only few IT companies, and it is also new to the academic world (Pradeep Y. 2004). Copenhagen Business School, department of Informatics has for the last 18 months been involved in the establishment of a Euro-India Centre. The departments research group on human-computer interaction(HCI) has prioritized HCI work in the Asian world for the last 4 years (Clemmensen 2004, Nielsen Janni 2004, Nielsen, Clemmensen and Yssing 2002, Levinsen, K. 2002, Nielsen, Lene and Gregers Koch 2003). The wish for a collaborative network has come about as a result of meetings and discussions between researchers from especially India and Denmark and also from Great Britain and Sweden. The first Indian conference on HCI in December 2004 and the initiative from CBS, department of Informatics in May 2005 where an Indian – European workshop was held, created the basis for this network application.


In this paper, we compare two approaches for exploring large,rnhierarchical data spaces of social media data on mobile devicesrnusing facets. While the first approach arranges thernfacets in a 3x3 grid, the second approach makes use of arnscrollable list of facets for exploring the data. We have conductedrna between-group experiment of the two approachesrnwith 24 subjects (20 male, 4 female) executing the same set ofrntasks of typical mobile users" information needs. The resultsrnshow that the grid-based approach requires significantly morernclicks, but subjects need less time for completing the tasks.rnFurthermore, it shows that the additional clicks do not hamperrnthe subjects" satisfaction. Thus, the results suggest thatrnthe grid-based approach is a better choice for faceted searchrnon touchscreen mobile devices. To the best of our knowledge,rnsuch a summative evaluation of different approaches for facetedrnsearch on mobile devices has not been done so far.


Bright, Amy. Before We Go. Red Deer: Red Deer Press, 2012. Print. Before We Go is the bright debut of young adult novelist, Amy Bright. There is much to admire about this novel such as the quality of writing, the well-developed characters, and a carefully orchestrated plot. Bright's story is set in Victoria, British Columbia and begins on New Year's Eve with 17-year-old Emily visiting her dying grandmother in hospital. Her grandmother's imminent death is particularly poignant for Emily as she was raised by her grandparents when years before, Emily's mother opted to pursue a career as a journalist in Vancouver leaving Emily in Victoria. With the death of her grandfather occurring a year ago, Emily's routine of school, hospital, and home has left her lonely, isolated, and distant. However, this changes when Alex, a cancer patient at the hospital, asks Emily to join him and his sister, Lucy, for New Year's Eve. Emily doesn't know that Alex is dying from cancer and that his planned escape from the hospital is his last chance to be a normal teenaged boy. There is excellent chemistry and a genuine connection among the three main characters. It is apparent that Lucy loves Alex dearly and is torn between taking him back to the hospital and honoring his wish for one last adventure. Their night on the town takes them to several places and eventually to a New Year's Eve party. Through a series of flashbacks, the reader learns that the meeting between Emily and Alex is not coincidental and that family secrets have brought them together and will shape their lives and change them in ways none of them could have expected. The entire novel takes place over the course of one day and the use of flashbacks keep the reader engaged and provides further context for the character's current situation. The ending of the story is abrupt, heart-breaking, and surprising. While the title of the book is layered with meaning, unfortunately, the cover art in this edition does not adequately convey the story. The novel would also benefit from additional editing. Overall, Before We Go is a recommended read for those who enjoy good, contemporary stories. Recommended: 3 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Tami Oliphant Tami Oliphant works as a research librarian at the University of Alberta Libraries and for the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alberta. She earned her Master of Library and Information Studies from the University of Alberta and her doctorate from the University of Western Ontario. She has worked in academic libraries, public libraries, communications and planning, and as a sessional lecturer and researcher at the University of Alberta and the University of Western Ontario.


The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) effected numerous changes in the legal regime governing health care and health insurance. Among the ACA's more controversial provisions is the so-called contraceptive mandate, which requires employer-provided health care insurance plans to provide coverage of all FDA approved contraceptive methods. On March 25, 2014, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood cases, in which the shareholders of two for-profit family-owned corporations argue that requiring them to comply with the contraception mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Forty-four law corporate law professors filed an amicus brief in these cases, arguing that the essence of a corporation is its "separateness" from its shareholders and that, on the facts of these cases, there is no reason to disregard the separateness between shareholders and the corporations they control. The Brief is replete with errors, overstated claims, or red herrings, and misdirection.Contrary to the Brief's arguments, basic corporate law principles strongly support the position of Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood. In particular, the doctrine known as reverse veil piercing provides a clear and practical vehicle for disregarding the legal separateness of those corporations from their shareholders and thus granting those shareholders standing to assert their free exercise rights.


Context. RW Aur A is a classical T Tauri star that has suddenly undergone three major dimming events since 2010. The reason for these dimming events is still not clear.
Aims. We aim to understand the dimming properties, examine accretion variability, and derive the physical properties of the inner disc traced by the CO ro-vibrational emission at near-infrared wavelengths (2.3 μm).
Methods. We compared two epochs of X-shooter observations, during and after the dimming. We modelled the rarely detected CO bandhead emission in both epochs to examine whether the inner disc properties had changed. The spectral energy distribution was used to derive the extinction properties of the dimmed spectrum and compare the infrared excess between the two epochs. Lines tracing accretion were used to derive the mass accretion rate in both states.
Results. The CO originates from a region with physical properties of T = 3000 K, NCO = 1 × 1021 cm−2 and vk sin i = 113 km s−1. The extinction properties of the dimming layer were derived with the effective optical depth ranging from τeff ~2.5−1.5 from the UV to the near-IR. The inferred mass accretion rate Ṁacc is ~1.5 × 10−8 M⊙ yr−1 and ~2 × 10−8 M⊙ yr−1 after and during the dimming respectively. By fitting the spectral energy distribution, additional emission is observed in the infrared during the dimming event from dust grains with temperatures of 500–700 K.
Conclusions. The physical conditions traced by the CO are similar for both epochs, indicating that the inner gaseous disc properties do not change during the dimming events. The extinction curve is flatter than that of the interstellar medium, and large grains of a few hundred microns are thus required. When we correct for the observed extinction, the mass accretion rate is constant in the two epochs, suggesting that the accretion is stable and therefore does not cause the dimming. The additional hot emission in the near-IR is located at about 0.5 au from the star and is not consistent with an occulting body located in the outer regions of the disc. The dimming events could be due to a dust-laden wind, a severe puffing-up of the inner rim, or a perturbation caused by the recent star-disc encounter.


BACKGROUND
Insomnia is the most common of all sleep complaints and is under-researched. The current treatments of choice are conventional hypnotics agents, but these have potential for serious adverse reactions. Uncontrolled and anecdotal evidence suggests that lavender oil is an effective treatment for insomnia, but this has not been formally investigated.

OBJECTIVES
The aims of this study were to evaluate the proposed trial methodology and the efficacy of Lavandula augustifolia (lavender) on insomnia.

INTERVENTIONS
INTERVENTIONS consisted of Lavandula augustifolia (treatment) and sweet almond oil as placebo/control. The aroma was supplied via an Aromastream device (Tisserand Aromatherapy, Sussex, UK).

DESIGN
This was a pilot study with randomized, single-blind, cross-over design (baseline, two treatment periods, and a washout period, each of 1 week duration).

SUBJECTS AND SETTING
Volunteers with defined insomnia treated on a domiciliary basis participated in the study.

OUTCOME MEASURES
Outcomes were assessed with the following: Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) indicating insomnia (score > 5 at entry); Borkovec and Nau (B&N) Questionnaire evaluating treatment credibility; and Holistic Complementary and Alternative Medicine Questionnaire (HCAMQ) assessing attitudes to CAM and health beliefs.

RESULTS
Ten (10) volunteers (5 male and 5 female) were entered and completed the 4 week study. Lavender created an improvement of -2.5 points in PSQI (p = 0.07, 95% CI - 4.95 to - 0.4). Each intervention was equally credible and belief in CAM did not predict outcome. Women and younger volunteers with a milder insomnia improved more than others. No period or carry-over effect was observed.

CONCLUSION
The methodology for this pilot study appeared to be appropriate. Outcomes favor lavender, and a larger trial is required to draw definitive conclusions.


The formation of identity is inextricably linked to powerful meaning-makers in a child's young life.  In the 21 st century, this typically involves engagement in virtual play worlds.  This case study reports on the identity construction of young gamers in a classroom as perceived through an I/identity framework (Rowsell & Abrams, 2011), associative I/identity framework (Abrams, 2011) and informed by New Literacies through a socio-cultural lens.  Children engage in Discourses (Gee, 2007; 2008; 2009) to experiment with early rehearsals and re-enactments, navigating fluidly among different roles and virtual world experiences.  This study shows how children form affinity groups and social connections with other players in their real world play spaces and online, thus creating a meaningful interplay of their real world and virtual I/identities in a variety of ways.


Organized crime is spreading like a global virus as mobs take advantage of open borders to establish local franchises at will. That at least is the fear, inspired by stories of Russian mobsters in New York, Chinese triads in London, and Italian mafias throughout the West. As Federico Varese explains in this compelling and daring book, the truth is more complicated. Varese has spent years researching mafia groups in Italy, Russia, the United States, and China, and argues that mafiosi often find themselves abroad against their will, rather than through a strategic plan to colonize new territories. Once there, they do not always succeed in establishing themselves. Varese spells out the conditions that lead to their long-term success, namely sudden market expansion that is neither exploited by local rivals nor blocked by authorities. Ultimately the inability of the state to govern economic transformations gives mafias their opportunity. In a series of matched comparisons, Varese charts the attempts of the Calabrese 'Ndrangheta to move to the north of Italy, and shows how the Sicilian mafia expanded to early twentieth-century New York, but failed around the same time to find a niche in Argentina. He explains why the Russian mafia failed to penetrate Rome but succeeded in Hungary. In a pioneering chapter on China, he examines the challenges that triads from Taiwan and Hong Kong find in branching out to the mainland. Based on ground-breaking field work and filled with dramatic stories, this book is both a compelling read and a sober assessment of the risks posed by globalization and immigration for the spread of mafias.


Breast cancer is one of the most prevalent forms of cancer among women in the United States. In fact, the American Cancer Society estimated that over 180,000 new breast cancer cases would be diagnosed in 2008 (American Cancer Society, 2007). The diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer are associated with physical pain, unpleasant side effects, distressing changes in physical appearance and functioning, anxiety, depression, and existential concerns (Keitel & Kopala, 2000). Further, researchers have indicated that anxiety and depression exacerbate the burden of breast cancer (Badger, Braden, Mishel, & Longman, 2004; Bender, Ergyn, Rosenzweig, Cohen, & Sereika, 2005). In addition, research results have suggested that spirituality buffers the anxiety and depression often associated with negative life events (Young, Cashwell, & Scherbakova, 2000). More specifically, spirituality has been associated with overall and emotional well-being among breast cancer patients (Romero et al., 2006). Researchers suggest, however, that in order to obtain a more robust picture of spirituality, the construct must be assessed within a broader context of well-being (Cashwell, Glosoff, & Hammond, in press; Cotton, Levine, Fitzpatrick, Dold, & Targ, 1999). Alexithymia (restriction of emotions) and mindfulness are two constructs that contribute to the broader context of breast cancer patient well-being. Alexithymia has been associated with higher levels of depression among breast cancer patients (Cordova, Cunningham, Carlson, & Andrykowski, 2001) whereas the practice of mindfulness has been associated with improved quality of life among breast cancer patients (Witek-Janusek, Albuquerque, Rambo Chroniak, Chroniak, Durazo-Arvizu, & Mathews, 2008). The purpose of this study, then, was to examine spirituality among breast cancer patients within a broader context of well-being by investigating the relationship between spirituality and both anxiety and depression as moderated by alexithymia and mindfulness among non-metastatic breast cancer patients. Also, because demographic factors may influence anxiety and depression among breast cancer patients, relationship status and stage of breast cancer were included in the research questions and analyses. A sample of 69 women in treatment for non-metastatic breast cancer completed a mailed survey. These women had received surgical treatment within the past year or were currently receiving radiation, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, or biological therapy. Instrumentation included the Spirituality Assessment Scale (Howden, 1992); the Toronto Alexithymia Scale – 20 (Bagby, Parker, & Taylor, 1994a; Bagby, Parker, & Taylor, 1994b); the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (Baer, Smith, Hopkins, Krietemeyer, & Toney, 2006); the Trimodal Anxiety Questionnaire (Lehrer & Woolfolk, 1982); the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Short Depression Scale (Andresen, Malmgren, Carter, & Patrick, 1994); and a brief demographic questionnaire.
As expected, spirituality was negatively correlated with both anxiety and depression whereas alexithymia was positively associated with anxiety and depression. Unexpectedly, alexithymia was positively correlated with mindfulness, mindfulness was positively correlated with anxiety and depression, and spirituality was not significantly correlated with either alexithymia or mindfulness. Also, spirituality, alexithymia, and mindfulness each were predictive of both anxiety and depression and accounted for 39% of the variance in anxiety and 43% of the variance in depression. Neither alexithymia nor mindfulness, however, operated as moderators of the relationship between spirituality and both anxiety and depression. Interestingly, in the prediction of anxiety, both alexithymia and mindfulness were stronger predictors than was spirituality. Regarding depression, however, spirituality was a stronger predictor than either alexithymia or mindfulness, accounting for 25% of the variance in depression by itself. Demographic factors played only a small role in the analyses. Stage of breast cancer accounted for a small amount of the variance in anxiety beyond what was accounted for by spirituality, alexithymia, and mindfulness. This study highlighted the importance of examining spirituality in a broader context of well-being. The findings provide direction for future research and useful implications for counselors working with breast cancer patients.


Video matting is the process of pulling a high-quality alpha matte and foreground from a video sequence. Current techniques require either a known background (e.g., a blue screen) or extensive user interaction (e.g., to specify known foreground and background elements). The matting problem is generally under-constrained, since not enough information has been collected at capture time. We propose a novel, fully autonomous method for pulling a matte using multiple synchronized video streams that share a point of view but differ in their plane of focus. The solution is obtained by directly minimizing the error in filter-based image formation equations, which are over-constrained by our rich data stream. Our system solves the fully dynamic video matting problem without user assistance: both the foreground and background may be high frequency and have dynamic content, the foreground may resemble the background, and the scene is lit by natural (as opposed to polarized or collimated) illumination.


Preface PART ONE Becoming an Effective Reader Chapter 1 A Reading System for Effective Readers Prior Knowledge The Reading Process Before Reading: Survey and Question Before Reading During Reading: Read and Recite After Reading: Review After Reading Textbook Skills: Asking Questions and Reciting Answers Before, During, and After Reading Applications Review Tests Mastery Tests Chapter 2 Vocabulary and Dictionary Skills Before Reading About Vocabulary Skills Words Are Building Blocks Context Clues: A SAGE Approach Synonyms Antonyms General Context Examples Textbook Skills: Using a Glossary Word Parts Roots Prefixes Suffixes Reading the Dictionary How to Read a Dictionary Entry Spelling and Syllables Parts of Speech Definitions Textbook Aids for Learning Content Words Textbook Definitions Textbook Skills: Visual Vocabulary Applications Review Tests After Reading About Vocabulary and Dictionary Skills Mastery Tests Chapter 3 Stated Main Ideas Before Reading About Stated Main Ideas The Traits of a Main Idea Identifying the Topic of a Paragraph Identifying a Topic Sentence The Flow of Ideas and Placement of Topic Sentences Topic Sentence at the Beginning of a Paragraph Topic Sentence Within a Paragraph Topic Sentence at the End of a Paragraph Topic Sentence at the Beginning and the End of a Paragraph The Central Idea and the Thesis Statement Textbook Skills: Topics, Main Ideas, and Central Ideas in Textbooks Applications Review Tests After Reading About Stated Main Ideas Mastery Tests Chapter 4 Implied Main Ideas and Implied Central Ideas Before Reading About Implied Main Ideas and Implied Central Ideas What Is an Implied Main Idea? Using Supporting Details and Thought Patterns to Find Implied Main Ideas Finding the Implied Main Ideas of Paragraphs Creating a Summary from the Supporting Details The Implied Central Idea Textbook Skills: Graphics as Details That Imply a Main Idea A Final Note about Experience and Perspective Applications Review Tests After Reading About Implied Main Ideas and Implied Central Ideas Mastery Tests Chapter 5 Supporting Details Before Reading About Supporting Details Questions for Locating Supporting Details Major and Minor Details Creating a Summary from Annotations Textbook Skills: Chapter-end Questions in a Textbook Applications Review Tests After Reading About Supporting Details Mastery Tests Chapter 6 Outlines and Concept Maps Before Reading About Outlines and Concept Maps Outlines Concept Maps Textbook Skills: The Table of Contents Applications Review Tests After Reading About Outlines and Concept Maps Mastery Tests Chapter 7 Transitions and Thought Patterns Before Reading About Transitions and Thought Patterns Transition Words: Relationships Within a Sentence Thought Patterns: Relationships Between Sentences The Time Order Pattern The Space Order Pattern The Listing Pattern The Classification Pattern Textbook Skills: Thought Patterns in Textbooks Applications Review Tests After Reading About Transitions and Thought Patterns Mastery Tests Chapter 8 More Thought Patterns Before Reading About More Thought Patterns The Comparison-and-Contrast Pattern Comparison Contrast Comparison and Contrast The Cause-and-Effect Pattern The Generalization-and-Example Pattern The Definition Pattern Textbook Skills: Thought Patterns and Textbooks Applications Review Tests After Reading About More Thought Patterns Mastery Tests Chapter 9 Fact and Opinion Before Reading About Fact and Opinion What Is the Difference Between Fact and Opinion? Ask Questions to Identify Facts Note Biased Words to Identify Opinions Note Qualifiers to Identify Opinions Think Carefully About Supposed "Facts" Read Critically: Evaluate Details as Fact or Opinion in Context Evaluate the Context of the Passage Evaluate the Context of the Author Evaluate the Context of the Source Textbook Skills: Fact and Opinion in Textbook Passages Applications Review Tests After Reading About Fact and Opinion Mastery Tests Chapter 10 Tone and Purpose Before Reading About Tone and Purpose What Are Tone and Purpose? Understand How Tone Is Established Identify Subjective and Objective Tone Words Discover the General Purpose in the Main Idea Figure Out the Primary Purpose Recognize Irony Used for Special Effects Textbook Skills: Author's Tone and Purpose Applications Review Tests After Reading About Tone and Purpose Mastery Tests Chapter 11 Inferences Before Reading About Inferences Inferences: Educated Guesses What Is a Valid Inference? Making VALID Inferences and Avoiding Invalid Conclusions Step 1: Verify and Value the Facts Step 2: Assess Prior Knowledge Step 3: Learn from the Text Step 4. Investigate for Bias Step 5: Detect Contradictions Inferences in Creative Expression Textbook Skills: Inferences and Visual Aids Applications Review Tests After Reading About Inferences Mastery Tests Chapter 12 The Basics of Argument Before Reading About the Basics of Argument What Is an Argument? Step 1. Identify the Author's Claim and Supports Step 2. Decide Whether the Supports Are Relevant Step 3. Decide Whether the Supports Are Adequate Step 4: Check the Argument for Bias Textbook Skills: The Logic of Argument Applications Review Tests After Reading About the Basics of Argument Mastery Tests Chapter 13 Advanced Argument: Persuasive Techniques Before Reading About Advanced Argument Biased Arguments What Is a Fallacy in Logical Thought? What Is Propaganda? Irrelevant Arguments: Fallacies Personal Attack Straw Man Begging the Question Irrelevant Arguments: Propaganda Techniques Name-Calling Testimonials Bandwagon Plain Folks Inadequate Arguments: Fallacies Either-Or False Comparison False Cause Inadequate Arguments: Propaganda Techniques Card Stacking Transfer Glittering Generalities Textbook Skills: Examining Biased Arguments Applications Review Tests After Reading About Advanced Argument Mastery Tests PART TWO Additional Readings Celebrity Culture 1. Where Did All the Accomplished People Go? Simon Doonan 2. Whitney Houston's Private Hell and Inevitable Death Allison Samuels Work 3. Degree of Uncertainty Carlo Rotella 4. Beginning of the End of the Unpaid Internship Josh Sanburn Medical Controversy: ADHD 5. Generation RX Casey Schwartz 6. A New Poll that Trivializes ADHD Is Nonsense Dr. Harold Koplewicz Technology 7. It's Not a Tumor! The Psychology behind Cyberchondria Britt Peterson 8. The Quantified Self Movement Grows, but What Do We Learn? Beth Teitell Environmental Challenges 9. Doing the Right Thing Isn't Easy, Even for Those Who Want to Patrick O'Driscoll and Elizabeth Weise 10. Getting Real about the High Price of Cheap Food Bryan Walsh PART THREE Combined-Skills Tests PART FOUR Reading Enrichment Appendix Reading Graphics in Textbooks Chapter Review Cards Text Credits Photo Credits Index


"With this project, I would like to reconstruct pragmatism as a valid way of looking at legal problems and of solving them, in particular, the current legal debate over race-conscious admissions policies at state universities. Throughout this project, I will develop a working notion of pragmatism for twenty-first century legal theory and practice. Through constant application of pragmatic ideas to the concrete issues of affirmative action and race-conscious admissions policies, I will show that pragmatism is a means- to craft a more just legal system, and as a result, a more just society. In this project I will use the ideas of the some of the most important classical pragmatists: Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and Jane Addams. The work of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is also important to this project although Holmes shunned the appellation "pragmatist." The lives of all five thinkers form a web of interrelated relationships and thought. Peirce, James, and Holmes developed relationships through their intellectual lives in Boston. For a time, Dewey was a student at Johns Hopkins University while Peirce was a lecturer there. James and Dewey were intellectual compatriots in the area of psychology and philosophy. Dewey and Addams, both eventual residents of Chicago, developed a friendship and philosophical relationship. Their community of thought embodies the pragmatic notion that discovery and learning are communal processes. Pragmatism suggests that the more perspectives we gather, the closer we can come to a valuable truth. The law as it stands in practice deliberately excludes a majority of voices from consideration. Like the courtroom, a classroom is a focal point of authority; too often the voices of those who are perceived as outsiders are excluded from places of learning. The most valuable contribution that pragmatism can make to both legal theory and pedagogy is the insistence that legal insiders and educators insure that all perspectives be given voice. The Supreme Court decision Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) promises "diversity," but it is up to each of us to see the promise through."--Abstract from author supplied metadata.


This book develops a consistent macroscopic theory of electromagnetism and discusses the relation between circuit theory and filed theory. The theory is developed in successive steps from the Lorentz force, the integral form of Maxwell's equations in free space, and suitable macroscopic models of polarized and magnetized matter. It covers the electromagnetism of moving bodies and the process of electromechanical energy conversion; introduces a power-series technique for analyzing quasi-static fields and quasi-stationary systems; it emphasizes the synthesis of fields as opposed to the analysis of fields. Presented in an appendix, the reader will also find, the four-dimensional relativistic formulation of macroscopic electrodynamics.


West African Journal: A Travel Account is a narrative of the author's trip in twelve West African countries. In the first chapter the author describes her previous travels and preparations for this trip and introduces her husband. She begins the second chapter with a discussion of the benefits and hardships of independent travel and describes the hotels, restaurants, forms of transportation, and difficulties with language. The remainder of Chapter II is a close account of the first sixteen days of travel. The narrative continues chronologically in Chapters III through VIII. Each chapter pertains to a distinct stage of the trip. In Chapter IX, the author reviews her personal accomplishments during the journey, relates her and her husband's reactions on their return to the U.S., and concludes with some evocative descriptions of West Africa.


In an undirected graph G we associate costs and weights to each edge. The weight-constrained minimum spanning tree problem is to find a spanning tree of total edge weight at most a given value W and minimum total costs under this restriction. In this thesis a literature overview on this NP-hard problem, theoretical properties concerning the convex hull and the Lagrangian relaxation are given. We present also some in- and exclusion-test for this problem. We apply a ranking algorithm and the method of approximation through decomposition to our problem and design also a new branch and bound scheme. The numerical results show that this new solution approach performs better than the existing algorithms.


Before 1980, sick building syndrome did not exist. By the 1990s, it was among the most commonly investigated occupational health problems in the United States. Afflicted by headaches, rashes, and immune system disorders, office workers—mostly women—protested that their workplaces were filled with toxic hazards; yet federal investigators could detect no chemical cause. This richly detailed history tells the story of how sick building syndrome came into being: how indoor exposures to chemicals wafting from synthetic carpet, ink, adhesive, solvents, and so on became something that relatively privileged Americans worried over, felt, and ultimately sought to do something about. As Michelle Murphy shows, sick building syndrome provides a window into how environmental politics moved indoors.

Sick building syndrome embodied a politics of uncertainty that continues to characterize contemporary American environmental debates. Michelle Murphy explores the production of uncertainty by juxtaposing multiple histories, each of which explains how an expert or lay tradition made chemical exposures perceptible or imperceptible, existent or nonexistent. She shows how uncertainty emerged from a complex confluence of feminist activism, office worker protests, ventilation engineering, toxicology, popular epidemiology, corporate science, and ecology. In an illuminating case study, she reflects on EPA scientists' efforts to have their headquarters recognized as a sick building. Murphy brings all of these histories together in what is not only a thorough account of an environmental health problem but also a much deeper exploration of the relationship between history, materiality, and uncertainty.


We consider the Goldberg-Coxeter construction $GC_{k,l}(G_0)$ (a generalization of a simplicial subdivision of the dodecahedron considered by Goldberg [Tohoku Mathematical Journal, 43 (1937) 104–108] and Coxeter [A Spectrum of Mathematics, OUP, (1971) 98–107]), which produces a plane graph from any $3$- or $4$-valent plane graph for integer parameters $k,l$. A zigzag in a plane graph is a circuit of edges, such that any two, but no three, consecutive edges belong to the same face; a central circuit in a $4$-valent plane graph $G$ is a circuit of edges, such that no two consecutive edges belong to the same face. We study the zigzag (or central circuit) structure of the resulting graph using the algebraic formalism of the moving group , the $(k,l)$-product and a finite index subgroup of $SL_2(\Bbb{Z})$, whose elements preserve the above structure. We also study the intersection pattern of zigzags (or central circuits) of $GC_{k,l}(G_0)$ and consider its projections , obtained by removing all but one zigzags (or central circuits).


We report on the AeroCom Phase II direct aerosol effect (DAE) experiment where 16 detailed global aerosol models have been used to simulate the changes in the aerosol distribution over the industrial era. All 16 models have estimated the radiative forcing (RF) of the anthropogenic DAE, and have taken into account anthropogenic sulphate, black carbon (BC) and organic aerosols (OA) from fossil fuel, biofuel, and biomass burning emissions. In addition several models have simulated the DAE of anthropogenic nitrate and anthropogenic influenced secondary organic aerosols (SOA). The model simulated all-sky RF of the DAE from total anthropogenic aerosols has a range from −0.58 to −0.02 Wm−2, with a mean of −0.27 Wm−2 for the 16 models. Several models did not include nitrate or SOA and modifying the estimate by accounting for this with information from the other AeroCom models reduces the range and slightly strengthens the mean. Modifying the model estimates for missing aerosol components and for the time period 1750 to 2010 results in a mean RF for the DAE of −0.35 Wm−2. Compared to AeroCom Phase I (Schulz et al., 2006) we find very similar spreads in both total DAE and aerosol component RF. However, the RF of the total DAE is stronger negative and RF from BC from fossil fuel and biofuel emissions are stronger positive in the present study than in the previous AeroCom study. We find a tendency for models having a strong (positive) BC RF to also have strong (negative) sulphate or OA RF. This relationship leads to smaller uncertainty in the total RF of the DAE compared to the RF of the sum of the individual aerosol components. The spread in results for the individual aerosol components is substantial, and can be divided into diversities in burden, mass extinction coefficient (MEC), and normalized RF with respect to AOD. We find that these three factors give similar contributions to the spread in results.


"For centuries, experts have argued that learning was about memorizing information: You're supposed to study facts, dates, and details, burn them into your memory, and then apply that knowledge at opportune times. But this approach to learning isn't nearly enough for the world that we live in today, and in Learn Better journalist and education researcher Ulrich Boser demonstrates that how we learn can matter just as much as what we learn. In this brilliantly researched book, Boser maps out the new science of learning, showing how simple techniques like comprehension check-ins and making material personally relatable can help people gain expertise in dramatically better ways. He covers six key steps to help readers "learn how to learn," all illuminated with fascinating stories like how Jackson Pollock developed his unique painting style and why an ancient Japanese counting device allows kids to do math at superhuman speeds. Boser's witty, engaging writing makes this book feel like a guilty pleasure, not homework. Learn Better will revolutionize the way students and society alike approach learning and makes the case that being smart is not an innate ability — learning is a skill everyone can master. With Boser as their guide, readers will be able to fully capitalize on their brain's remarkable ability to gain new skills and open up a whole new world of possibilities."


This book presents an inside look at how the professionals read and write. Long before there were creative writing workshops and degrees, how did aspiring writers learn to write? By reading the work of their predecessors and contemporaries, says the author. In "Reading Like a Writer", Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and the tricks of the masters. She reads the work of the very best writers, Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Kafka, Austen, Dickens, Woolf, Chekhov, and discovers why these writers endure. She takes pleasure in the long and magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breath-taking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; she is deeply moved by the brilliant characterization in George Eliot's "Middlemarch". She looks to John Le Carre for a lesson in how to advance plot through dialogue, to Flannery O'Connor for the cunning use of the telling detail, and to James Joyce and Katherine Mansfield who offer clever examples of how to employ gesture to create character. She cautions readers to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which literature is crafted. Written with passion, humor, and wisdom, "Reading Like a Writer" will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart.


Dosing a predetermined quantity of one liquid into another, in a controlled fashion, is a process often encountered in a variety of operations at both industrial and laboratory scales. This process becomes a challenging one if it has to be carried out in a continuous mode, without using any dosing pump and if the dosage levels are very small. A possible simple and elegant solution to the problem is to use a venturi. A venturi works on the principle that a fluid flowing through a pipe of decreasing diameter experiences a pressure drop, which leads to the formation of a low pressure inside the venturi at its lowest diameter. Connecting a reservoir of another fluid by means of a dosing tube inserted at that low pressure area results in suction of that fluid into the flowing stream (Figure 1). In the present work, we have modeled a venturi based dosing system using COMSOL Multiphysics. The extent of variation in dosage of the injected fluid from the reservoir with varying venturi dimensions, hydrodynamic conditions and rheology of the dosed fluid has been predicted. Velocity and pressure distribution in the venturi have also been estimated. Decrease in the cone angle (by decreasing the venturi inlet diameter or increasing the throat diameter) decreased the pressure drop and dosage (Figures 2 and 3). Increase in the diameter of the dosing tube resulted in a significant increase in the dosage of the fluid (Figure 4). Increase in the viscosity of dosed fluid significantly reduced the dosage. The predictions were further validated with experimental observations and empirical calculations. Good agreement has been observed between measured and theoretical values computed with COMSOL Multiphysics.


Software must be constantly adapted due to evolving domain knowledge and unanticipated requirements changes. To adapt a system at run-time we need to reflect on its structure and its behavior. Object-oriented languages introduced reflection to deal with this issue, however, no reflective approach up to now has tried to provide a unified solution to both structural and behavioral reflection. This paper describes Albedo, a unified approach to structural and behavioral reflection. Albedo is a model of fined-grained unanticipated dynamic structural and behavioral adaptation. Instead of providing reflective capabilities as an external mechanism we integrate them deeply in the environment. We show how explicit meta-objects allow us to provide a range of reflective features and thereby evolve both application models and environments at run-time.


Abstract. During two field campaigns (OP3 and ACES), which ran in Borneo in 2008, we measured large emissions of estragole (methyl chavicol; IUPAC systematic name 1-allyl-4-methoxybenzene; CAS number 140-67-0) in ambient air above oil palm canopies (0.81 mg m−2 h−1 and 3.2 ppbv for mean midday fluxes and mixing ratios respectively) and subsequently from flower enclosures. However, we did not detect this compound at a nearby rainforest. Estragole is a known attractant of the African oil palm weevil (Elaeidobius kamerunicus), which pollinates oil palms (Elaeis guineensis). There has been recent interest in the biogenic emissions of estragole but it is normally not included in atmospheric models of biogenic emissions and atmospheric chemistry despite its relatively high potential for secondary organic aerosol formation from photooxidation and high reactivity with OH radical. We report the first direct canopy-scale measurements of estragole fluxes from tropical oil palms by the virtual disjunct eddy covariance technique and compare them with previously reported data for estragole emissions from Ponderosa pine. Flowers, rather than leaves, appear to be the main source of estragole from oil palms; we derive a global estimate of estragole emissions from oil palm plantations of ~0.5 Tg y−1. The observed ecosystem mean fluxes (0.44 mg m−2 h−1) and mean ambient volume mixing ratios (3.0 ppbv) of estragole are the highest reported so far. The value for midday mixing ratios is not much different from the total average as, unlike other VOCs (e.g. isoprene), the main peak occurred in the evening rather than in the middle of the day. Despite this, we show that the estragole flux can be parameterised using a modified G06 algorithm for emission. However, the model underestimates the afternoon peak even though a similar approach works well for isoprene. Our measurements suggest that this biogenic compound may have an impact on regional atmospheric chemistry that previously has not been accounted for in models and could become more important in the future due to expansion of the areas of oil palm plantation.


As the Chinese market economy expands and market institutions become stronger, there will be more incentives for Chinese households to substitute market activity for home production.The goal of this paper is to provide a quantitative analysis of the potential Chinese consumer demand for household services. Using dataset from the American Time Use Survey and the China Health and Nutrition Survey, I compare households' demand for services and home production between US and China. A standard choice-theoretic model of the household is used to estimate the structural parameters and to quantitatively forecast Chinese households' service demand.


In much of the developed world, air-conditioning in buildings is the dominant driver of summer peak electricity demand. In the developing world a steadily increasing utilization of air-conditioning places additional strain on already-congested grids. This common thread represents a large and growing threat to the reliable delivery of electricity around the world, requiring capital-intensive expansion of capacity and draining available investment resources. Thermal energy storage (TES), in the form of ice or chilled water, may be one of the few technologies currently capable of mitigating this problem cost effectively and at scale. The installation of TES capacity allows a building to meet its on-peak air conditioning load without interruption using electricity purchased off-peak and operating with improved thermodynamic efficiency. In this way, TES has the potential to fundamentally alter consumption dynamics and reduce impacts of air conditioning. This investigation presents a simulation study of a large office building in four distinct geographical contexts: Miami, Lisbon, Shanghai, and Mumbai. The optimization tool DER-CAM (Distributed Energy Resources Customer Adoption Model) is applied to optimally size TES systems for each location. Summer load profiles are investigated to assess the effectiveness and consistency in reducing peak electricity demand. Additionally, annual energy requirements are used to determine system cost feasibility, payback periods and customer savings under local utility tariffs.


Abstract The main aim of this research was to investigate metacognitive strategies through reading comprehension practice by first year students of engineering departments. The students of four engineering departments were selected as the participants in this research work. The qualitative instrument based on focus group interview was used for collecting data from first year students of four engineering departments to know the perceptions and their needs to develop reading comprehension through metacognitive strategies. The researchers developed interview questions for this study. These questions were validated by two experts of faculty of cognitive science and human development at university Malaysia Sarawak. The researchers obtained permission from the chairmen of four departments at a university in Pakistan. Almost 8 groups consisting of 5 informants in each participated in this research. The data was documented by using audio-tape; NVivo software, version 8 was used to organize data for obtaining main themes of the study. This research generated the most important themes for the interpretation of the results. The study contributed the most promising results which revealed that more than half of these groups used metacognitive strategies in classroom reading practice while less than half of groups did not use strategies and remained poor in reading comprehension. This research suggested administrators, teachers, and curriculum designers to design and implement reading comprehension courses and syllabus for first year engineering students.


Open distributed multi-agent systems are gaining interest in the academic community and in industry. In such open settings, agents are often coordinated using standardized agent conversation protocols. The representation of such protocols (for analysis, validation, monitoring, etc) is an important aspect of multi-agent applications. Recently, Petri nets have been shown to be an interesting approach to such representation, and radically different approaches using Petri nets have been proposed. However, their relative strengths and weaknesses have not been examined. Moreover, their scalability and suitability for different tasks have not been addressed. This paper addresses both these challenges. First, we analyze existing Petri net representations in terms of their scalability and appropriateness for overhearing, an important task in monitoring open multi-agent systems. Then, building on the insights gained, we introduce a novel representation using Colored Petri nets that explicitly represent legal joint conversation states and messages. This representation approach offers significant improvements in scalability and is particularly suitable for overhearing. Furthermore, we show that this new representation offers a comprehensive coverage of all conversation features of FIPA conversation standards. We also present a procedure for transforming AUML conversation protocol diagrams (a standard human-readable representation), to our Colored Petri net representation.


Robertson, David. Sugar Falls: A Residential School Story. Illus. Scott Henderson. Winnipeg: Highwater Press, 2011.  Print. Sugar Falls is not the first graphic novel written by Swampy Cree novelist, David Alexander Robertson. Together with illustrator Scott Henderson, Robertson created a four book graphic novel series called 7 Generations . Robertson has also written The Life of Helen Betty Osborne . Some earnings from the sales of Sugar Falls goes to the Helen Betty Osborne Memorial Foundation bursary program. Sugar Falls was inspired by the true story of Cross Lake First Nation Elder, Betty Ross. Daniel has been assigned a school project where he must get a personal account from a residential school survivor. His friend, April, connects Daniel with her grandmother, Kokum (Betsy). Betsy confesses to April and Daniel that she has never shared this part of her life with anyone before. She tells them her horrific story, dressed in her traditional clothing, surrounded by cultural items that bring her comfort and strength. Betsy shared that she had been deserted by her mother at the age of five. She was very fortunate to be taken in by a family who showed her love and kindness.  Unfortunately, at the age of eight, the government forced Betsy to attend a residential school away from her family. Betsy's adoptive father had taught her many lessons in the short time she was with her new family. One of these lessons helped Betsy to survive her experiences at the residential school. Her father had taken her to Sugar Falls where he tells her that strength in relationships with people, traditions, and Mother Earth will keep her strong. Betsy encountered many horrendous experiences at the residential school from the moment she was torn away from her family. The lesson that her father taught her enabled Betsy to endure the constant emotional, sexual and physical abuse from the staff at the residential school. Betsy used her determination and strength to survive her time away from her family and to later become a leader in her First Nation community. Robertson deals with this time in Canadian history in a straightforward manner. Residential Schools is a very sensitive topic that needs to be shared with the younger Canadian generations. However, based on the content that Robertson included in his direct approach of telling the story makes it a book that would be best suited for high school students (ages 15 and up). Recommended: 3 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Heather Dunn Heather Dunn is the K-9 Teacher-Librarian and Grade 8 Math Teacher at Athena Consolidated School in Summerside, PEI.


THE KEY TO SUCCESSFUL PRINT PRODUCTION is an understanding of the entire workflow, from scanning and file creation through prepress and print production. Fully updated by author and publishing consultant Brian Lawler, The Official Adobe Print Publishing Guide, Second Edition, brings together the collective knowledge and wisdom of the experts at Adobe Systems in a simple, elegant presentation of the fundamental concepts and issues related to producing high-quality printed output. The book includes succinct, expertly illustrated explanations of the basic concepts and terminology of print production, along with Adobe's tried and true guidelines, tips, and checklists for ensuring a successful print job.


The adsorption of Th and Pa on different particle types in dependence of the provenance of natural seawaterW.GEIBERT1 AND R.USBECK11Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany (email@example.com)We performed experiments in order to investigate the adsorption of Th and Pa on different particles in recently sampled seawater. Water from three different locations was 0.2 µm filtered. Then, four different particle types were added to the respective seawater samples at a concentration of 0.5 mg/l, and neutralized Th and Pa spikes were added. Additionally, one sample was run without particles added. Th and Pa distribution was monitored in increasing time intervals for several days.Spike recoveries ranged from 40 to 100 % for Th and from 50 to 100 % for Pa (depending on particle type). Our recoveries are higher than previously observed in experiments with artificial seawater. The low losses to the container walls allowed the determination of distribution coefficients (Kd) for different particle types. Th on MnO2 was found to have a Kd of >3*107 in all water types, Pa on the same particle type >2*107. On smectite, KdTh was found to range between 4 and 10*106 towards the end of the experiments. KdPa in the same samples was 1.2 to 1.8*106. On biogenic opal particles, KdTh was about 1*106 in two of three samples. In the water sample from the Subtropical Gyre (Argentine Basin), its Kd was found to be twice as high (2*106) at the start of the experiment, and up to 8*106 at the end. For Pa on opal, Kds of 0.5*106 resulted in general, with two somewhat higher (Kd=1*106) exceptions towards the end of the experiments. The experiment with CaCO3 (non-biogenic) resulted in very variable Kds depending on the water type used for both Th and Pa.One of the most interesting results was the large percentage of Th and Pa found in the particulate fraction when no particles were added. This must be attributed to the spontaneous formation of particles from the colloidal phase <0.2 µm, like described by Chin et al. (1998). Consequently, the temporal pattern of part. vs. diss. Th and Pa here is considered to reflect the process of colloid aggregation. The very similar pattern of aggregation in all three samples without particles added, although on a different level, was observed. A strong relationship between the adsorption pattern on smectite and the aggregation pattern without particles added points to a potential role of clay minerals for the uptake of DOM in aquatic systems, like it has been extensively described for soils.REFERENCESChin W.-C., Orellana M.V. and Verduco P. (1998) Spontaneous assembly of marine dissolved organic matter into polymer gels. Nature 391, 568-572.


You're being asked to quantify usability improvements with statistics. But even with a background in statistics, you are hesitant to statistically analyze the data, as you may be unsure about which statistical tests to use and have trouble defending the use of the small test sample sizes associated with usability studies.
The book is about providing a practical guide on how to use statistics to solve common quantitative problems arising in user research. It addresses common questions?you face every day?such as: Is the current product more usable than our competition? Can we be sure at least 70% of users can complete the task on the 1st attempt? How long will it take users to purchase products on the website??This book shows you which test to use, and how provide a foundation for both the statistical theory and best practices in applying them. The authors draw on decades of statistical literature from Human Factors, Industrial Engineering and Psychology, as well as their own published research to provide the best solutions. They provide both concrete solutions (excel formula, links to their own web-calculators) along with an engaging discussion about the statistical reasons for why the tests work, and how to effectively communicate the results.

Provides practical guidance on solving usability testing problems with statistics for any project, including those using Six Sigma practices
Show practitioners which test to use, why they work, best practices in application, along with easy-to-use excel formulas and web-calculators for analyzing data
Recommends ways for practitioners to communicate results to stakeholders in plain English

Table of Contents

Dedication Acknowledgements About the Authors Chapter 1: Introduction and How to Use This Book Chapter 2: Quantifying User Research Chapter 3: How Precise Are Our Estimates? Confidence Intervals Chapter 4: Did We Meet or Exceed Our Goal? Chapter 5: Is There a Statistical Difference between Designs? Chapter 6: What Sample Sizes Do We Need? Part 1: Summative Studies Chapter 7: What Sample Sizes Do We Need? Part 2: Formative Studies Chapter 8: Standard Usability Questionnaires Chapter 9: Six Enduring Controversies in Measurement and Statistics Chapter 10: Wrapping Up Appendix Index


The article explores how recent changes in the governance of employment services in three European countries (Denmark, Germany and Norway) have influenced accountability relationships. The overall assumption in the growing literature about accountability is that the number of actors involved in accountability arrangements is rising, that accountability relationships are becoming more numerous and complex, and that these changes may lead to contradictory accountability relationships, and finally to 'multi accountability disorder'. The article tries to explore these assumptions by analysing the different actors involved and the information requested in the new governance arrangements in all three countries. It concludes that the considerable changes in organizational arrangements and more managerial information demanded and provided have led to more shared forms of accountability. Nevertheless, a clear development towards less political or administrative accountability could not be observed.


Dyer, Hadley.  Potatoes on Rooftops: Farming in the City .  Toronto:  Annick Press, 2012. Print. With the increased public interest in urban agriculture, this is a timely book.  While the publishers present it as being for grades 4-7, the content and reading level is much higher,  scoring at the Tenth Grade on the Coleman-Liau Index and 9.2 on the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level test. The design looks like a children's book, with backgrounds composed of bright colour blocks, small monochrome drawings and many irregularly shaped photographs with overlapping captions that look as if they are hand-printed.   The text is often informal, using contractions and questions to engage the reader.  "What's a city dweller to do if she doesn't want to pay a king's ransom for an egg?" (p. 18). However, the content is dense and covers urban agriculture almost like a text book.  It begins with a substantial introductory section on the state of food and the need for urban agriculture then moves through examples of small scale urban agriculture, larger scale urban agriculture and ends up with some of the larger social and political movements and philosophies.  There is also a glossary, resource list and index. While the author is from Toronto and this book received Ontario Arts Council Funding, there is little Canadian content.  While the author does cite a number of international examples including some from Africa, Japan and Scotland, it is clear that the market for this book is the United States.  There are a few Toronto projects mentioned and the Inuvik Community Greenhouse, which is an old arena, but there is little said about the practicalities of urban gardening in Canada.  Climate is a major factor in successful gardening anywhere and the growing conditions of most American locations are quite different from those in most of Canada.  It is a lot easier to be an urban gardener in Florida than it is in Edmonton. This book is a good introduction to the concepts of urban gardening but will be most useful to teen and adult readers.  Recommended for high school and public libraries. Recommendation:  3 stars out of 4 Reviewer:  Sandy Campbell Sandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines.  Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give.


This edition of JIME sees a varied collection of papers covering a diverse range of topics. It starts with a perspective piece by the Director of the Institute of Educational Technology at The Open University, Josie Taylor, addressing the institutional approach to pedagogy and technology here at the OU. This piece was originally given as a speech internally and focuses on the OU experience, but it will be of interest to others, particularly as they seek to blend new technologies and pedagogies. Its discussion of the learning model and the connection and journey between informal and formal learning is of particular contemporary interest. There are three papers concerned with different aspects of design: designing online learning or blended courses - and the role of learning design in developing such courses. The first of these is an article by Terumi Miyazoe and Terry Anderson, which provides a much needed theoretical basis for examining OERs and MOOCs. Using the Interaction Equivalency Theorem, they address issues such as the scalability of different MOOC models. In the third article Canan Blake and Eileen Scanlon focus on designing for collaborative learning and provide a mix of the theoretical and practical in examining the nature of collaborative online learning and its relation with the learning environment. They note that, whilst much prior research has focused on empirical studies to understand the mechanisms, as well as the benefits of collaboration, this is not always helpful in addressing the challenge of designing good collaborative learning activities. The fourth article, by Anna Mavroudi and Thanasis Hadzilacos, picks up on both themes of collaboration and design again in its discussion of group work in designing for adaptive learning. This paper presents an empirical case study of collaboration on a complex design text, which like Blake and Scanlon's paper above, is in the context of Open and Distance Education, and which has implications for design guidelines in contemporary teaching contexts. A less theoretical and more practical focus is given in the final article, where Nick Pearce and Sarah Learmonth investigate the use of Pinterest as a tool for anthropology students, suggesting that its non-linear format aids the integration of material in an interdisciplinary subject. This issue also includes a book review written by Bethany Alden about Joseph P McDonald's book "Going online with Protocols: new tools for teaching and learning".


This thesis deals with 3 important aspects of optimal investment in real-world financial markets: taxes, crashes, and illiquidity. An introductory chapter reviews the portfolio problem in its historical context and motivates the theme of this work: We extend the standard modelling framework to include specific real-world features and evaluate their significance. In the first chapter, we analyze the optimal portfolio problem with capital gains taxes, assuming that taxes are deferred until the end of the investment horizon. The problem is solved with the help of a modification of the classical martingale method. The second chapter is concerned with optimal asset allocation under the threat of a financial market crash. The investor takes a worst-case attitude towards the crash, so her investment objective is to be best off in the most adverse crash scenario. We first survey the existing literature on the worst-case approach to optimal investment and then present in detail the novel martingale approach to worst-case portfolio optimization. The first part of this chapter is based on joint work with Ralf Korn. In the last chapter, we investigate optimal portfolio decisions in the presence of illiquidity. Illiquidity is understood as a period in which it is impossible to trade on financial markets. We use dynamic programming techniques in combination with abstract convergence results to solve the corresponding optimal investment problem. This chapter is based on joint work with Holger Kraft and Peter Diesinger.


The nonerythrocytic &agr;-spectrin-1 (SPTAN1) gene encodes the cytoskeletal protein &agr;II spectrin. Mutations in SPTAN1 cause early infantile epileptic encephalopathy type 5 (EIEE5); however, the role of &agr;II spectrin in neurodevelopment and EIEE5 pathogenesis is unknown. Prior work suggests that &agr;II spectrin is absent in the axon initial segment (AIS) and contributes to a diffusion barrier in the distal axon. Here, we have shown that &agr;II spectrin is expressed ubiquitously in rodent and human somatodendritic and axonal domains. CRISPR-mediated deletion of Sptan1 in embryonic rat forebrain by in utero electroporation caused altered dendritic and axonal development, loss of the AIS, and decreased inhibitory innervation. Overexpression of human EIEE5 mutant SPTAN1 in embryonic rat forebrain and mouse hippocampal neurons led to similar developmental defects that were also observed in EIEE5 patient-derived neurons. Additionally, patient-derived neurons displayed aggregation of spectrin complexes. Taken together, these findings implicate &agr;II spectrin in critical aspects of dendritic and axonal development and synaptogenesis, and support a dominant-negative mechanism of SPTAN1 mutations in EIEE5.


Compared with course management software (e.g. Blackboard and WebCT), the content and technology offered by a textbook website (TBW) is relatively costless to universities and professors, and is a potentially valuable tool that can be leveraged to help students learn course material. The present study uses the extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM2) and structural equation modelling to examine characteristics associated with the voluntary usage behaviour (UB) of TBW by students in entry-level accounting courses. Analysing survey data from 231 participants, our results indicate that perceptions of usefulness, the ability to demonstrate or explain the benefits of usage and peer usage of the TBW are all positively associated with UB. However, our findings also suggest that notwithstanding the potential benefits accruing to students, faculty encouragement is a critical enabling factor for use of the TBW. Because of persistent concerns on the part of students, educators, administrators, textbook publishers, and legislators regarding the cost and quality of higher education, we discuss the implications of our results for these stakeholders.


In its Keogh decision the Supreme Court held that although the Interstate Commerce Act did not exempt railroads from antitrust liability, a private plaintiff may not recover treble damages based on an allegedly monopolistic tariff rate filed with a federal agency. Keogh very likely grew out of Justice Brandeis's own zeal for regulation and his concern for the protection of small business — in this case, mainly shippers whom he felt were protected from discrimination by filed rates. The Supreme Court's Square D decision later conceded that Keogh may have been "unwise as a matter of policy," but reaffirmed it on the ground that Congress had had ample opportunity to overturn it but had not done so. Under the doctrine consumer overcharge actions challenging a "filed" rate will be dismissed. The rate need not have been actively reviewed for accuracy or public interest considerations — indeed, it need not have been reviewed at all in any meaningful sense. The doctrine operates as a rule against collateral attack: once filed, a rate may not be collaterally attacked in the courts. However, an objector may be able to ask the regulatory agency to review a rate within its jurisdiction. Of course, that proceeding would not be in antitrust and would not provide treble damages and attorney's fees as an inducement. The doctrine becomes more complex and even less rational under partial deregulation. Today, for example, some rates must be "filed" with the overseeing agency although the agency has little power to adjust the rates except in extraordinary circumstances. Supreme Court analysis of filed rates has focused on rates filed with federal agencies. Several lower court decisions have extended the doctrine to rates filed with state regulators, generally without distinguishing the issues. Extending the doctrine to state agencies raises the troublesome issue that rate filings may serve to confer an effective antitrust immunity in situations where antitrust's "state action" doctrine would not apply. The filed rate doctrine does not contain anything equivalent to the "authorization" or "active supervision" requirements that the state action doctrine compels. For example, a state provision may authorize an exclusionary tariff, giving no thought to competitive consequences. The state agency in turn may approve such requests with little or no evaluation. While the provision in question would not survive scrutiny under the state action doctrine, the tariff filing itself may have effective immunity under the filed rate doctrine. The Third Circuit's McCray decision applied the filed rate doctrine to price fixing among title insurers, expressly rejecting the argument that application required the defendant's to show "meaningful review" by the state regulator. The filed rate doctrine should not be applied as an additional bar to antitrust enforcement. Rather, application of the antitrust laws should rest, as it usually does, on the power of the agency to immunize conduct and the extent and nature of its supervision.


Objective of this contribution is to present a procedure for evaluating second order drift forces on floating bodies, often the most important loading component for mooring design, in case of high waves propagating in relatively shallow water depths. The non linearity associated to this condition, which is typical of installations involving wave energy converters, makes this problem particularly interesting. In particular, the note focuses on the a second order force term that depends on the second order potential. Peculiarity of the method is a simple way to compute the product of two phasor variables. It is shown in great details how to carry out the computation by means of Comsol Multiphysics.


Everything you need to know to start and run a successful eBay business eBay now has 100 million active users and just keeps growing. And they have turned to For Dummies books and bestselling eBay author Marsha Collier to help guide them through buying and selling on eBay for over a decade. This nine-books-in-one guide has now been updated to cover all the newest eBay seller tools, new techniques to drive sales, new ways to enhance an eBay business using social media, and more. Marsha Collier covers the basics, essential tools, professional selling tips, where to find merchandise, how to showcase and promote your stuff, storage and shipping, advice for Power Sellers, and legal/office issues. A complete update of the bestselling eBay business guide Covers getting the necessary eBay selling tools, how to do product research and set up payment systems, and tips on setting prices, creating good listings, and organizing sales Helps you find things to sell at prices that will make a profit, create listings that get attention, take great merchandise photos, and promote your items on social media sites Offers advice on providing customer service, safely storing and shipping your merchandise, and handling necessary bookkeeping and tax chores Includes how to analyze data and establish the needed resources to become a Power Seller eBay Business All-in-One For Dummies, 3rd Edition is the soup-to-nuts guide for running a successful eBay business.


This book is an introduction to intellectual property law, the set of private legal rights that allows individuals and corporations to control intangible creations and marks—from logos to novels to drug formulae—and the exceptions and limitations that define those rights. It focuses on the three graphmain forms of US federal intellectual property—trademark, copyright and patent—but many of the ideas discussed here apply far beyond those legal areas and far beyond the law of the United States.
The book is intended to be a textbook for the basic Intellectual Property class, but because it is an open coursebook, which can be freely edited and customized, it is also suitable for an undergraduate class, or for a business, library studies, communications or other graduate school class. Each chapter contains cases and secondary readings and a set of problems or role-playing exercises involving the material. The problems range from a video of the Napster oral argument to counseling clients about search engines and trademarks, applying the First Amendment to digital rights management and copyright or commenting on the Supreme Court's new rulings on gene patents.


Abstract The objective of the paper was to determine the level of circumferential stress in a wall of an open milk tank and to assess the tank wall degree of utilization according to the FKM Guideline calculation algorithm − Analytical Strength Assessment of Components, Made of Steel Cast Iron and Aluminium Materials in Mechanical Engineering. (German: FKM – Forschungskuratorium für Maschinenbau). The stress level in the tank wall was determined based on analytical calculations and numerical method using the FEA – Finite Elements Analysis. Numerical calculations were made in FEMAP with NX NASTRAN Solver (NASTRAN – NASA Structure Analysis). Similar stress values were found using two independent calculation methods. The difference between obtained stress values does not exceed 2%. Based on the FKM algorithm, the safety factor jges = 1.4 and static capacity of the tank wall ask = 19.7% were calculated.


A fascinating insight into the vibrant culture of Modernism, and the rich artistic world of Paris' Left Bank, Gertrude Stein's "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas" includes an introduction by Thomas Fensch in "Penguin Modern Classics". For Gertrude Stein and her wife Alice B. Toklas, life in Paris was based upon the rue de Fleurus and the Saturday evenings and 'it was like a kaleidoscope slowly turning'. Picasso was there with 'his high whinnying Spanish giggle', as were Cezanne and Matisse, Hemingway and Fitzgerald. As Toklas put it - 'The geniuses came and talked to Gertrude Stein and the wives sat with me'. A light-hearted entertainment, this is in fact Gertrude Stein's own autobiography and a roll-call of all the extraordinary painters and writers she met between 1903 and 1932. Audacious, sardonic and characteristically self-confident, this is a definitive account by American in Paris. Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), a writer of experimental prose, is one of the original American Modernists. Born in Pennsylvania, she lived most of her life in Paris with her partner, Alice B. Toklas. Experimental books like "Three Lives" (1909), "Tender Buttons" (1914), and "The Making of Americans" (1925) established her reputation as an avant-garde stylist, and "The Autobiography of Alice B". Toklas made her an international celebrity. As an experimental writer she has been an inspiration to countless novelists and poets in our century, from Ernest Hemingway and Edith Sitwell in her own time to Jack Kerouac and Robert Duncan in ours. If you enjoyed "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas", you might like Virginia Woolf's "Orlando", also available in "Penguin Modern Classics". "Buttonholes the reader with its informality, its unhurried rhythms, deadpan humour and acerbic remarks". (Frances Spalding, "Sunday Times").


The long-term future of space exploration at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is dependent on the full exploitation of autonomous and adaptive systems, but mission managers are worried about the reliability of these more intelligent systems. The main focus of the workshop was to address these worries; hence, we invited NASA engineers working on autonomous and adaptive systems and researchers interested in the verification and validation of software systems. The dual purpose of the meeting was to (1) make NASA engineers aware of the verification and validation techniques they could be using and (2) make the verification and validation community aware of the complexity of the systems NASA is developing. The workshop was held 5 to 7 December 2000 at the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, California.