The purpose of this body of work is to explain the development of revolutionary ideology at the regional level, utilizing the backcountry counties of North Carolina from the earliest migration of white settlers through the ratification of the Federal Constitution in 1788. The North Carolina backcountry offers an important case study for the regional development of Revolutionary activity and ideology for a number of reasons. The backcountry was a region in its political, social, and economic infancy. As the region developed, so did the Revolution itself. This work will not define a single political ideology or theme, rather it traces the day to day interactions that backcountry inhabitants of all ethnicities had with those in power at the local, colonial, and later federal level. This work concludes that what pushed inhabitants to support, or oppose the Revolution, was grounded in local issues regarding land ownership, and political and social control within the region itself. The North Carolina backcountry began building a society that worked for their interests in the 1760's and that goal was achieved in the establishment of the Federal Government in 1788.


Research on relative performance measures, transfer pricing, beyond budgeting initiatives, target costing, piece rates systems and value based management has for decades underlined the importance of external benchmarking in performance management. Research conceptualises external benchmarking as a market mechanism that can be brought inside the firm to provide incentives for continuous improvement and the development of competitive advances. However, whereas extant research primarily has focused on the importance and effects of using external benchmarks, less attention has been directed towards the conditions upon which the market mechanism is performing within organizations. This paper aims to contribute to research by providing more insight to the conditions for the use of external benchmarking as an element in performance management in organizations. Our study explores a particular type of external benchmarks external suppliers' bids on sub-components (which can be produced either in-house or by the external suppliers) in a Danish manufacturing firm – and we study the conditions that determine the success of the mechanism in the manufacturing firm which include issues related to the calculation of the 'inside' costs of the sub-component, technical specifications of the product, opportunistic behavior from the suppliers and cognitive limitation. These are all aspects that easily can dismantle the market mechanism and make it counter-productive in the organization. Thus, by directing more attention towards the conditions for the use of the external benchmarks we provide more insights to some of the issues and challenges that are related to using this mechanism for performance management and advance competitiveness in organizations.


Predicting secondary structures of RNA molecules is one of the fundamental problems of and thus a challenging task in computational structural biology. Existing prediction methods basically use the dynamic programming principle and are either based on a general thermodynamic model or on a specific probabilistic model, traditionally realized by a stochastic context-free grammar. To date, the applied grammars were rather simple and small and despite the fact that statistical approaches have become increasingly appreciated over the past years, a corresponding sampling algorithm based on a stochastic RNA structure model has not yet been devised. In addition, basically all popular state-of-the-art tools for computational structure prediction have the same worst-case time and space requirements of O(n^3) and O(n^2) for sequence length n, limiting their applicability for practical purposes due to the often quite large sizes of native RNA molecules. Accordingly, the prime demand imposed by biologists on computational prediction procedures is to reach a reduced waiting time for results that are not significantly less accurate.
We here deal with all of these issues, by describing algorithms and performing comprehensive studies that are based on sophisticated stochastic context-free grammars of similar complexity as those underlying thermodynamic prediction approaches, where all of our methods indeed make use of the concept of sampling. We also employ the approximation technique known from theoretical computer science in order to reach a heuristic worst-case speedup for RNA folding.
Particularly, we start by describing a way for deriving a sequence-independent random sampler for an arbitrary class of RNAs by means of (weighted) unranking. The resulting algorithm may generate any secondary structure of a given fixed size n in only O(n·log(n)) time, where the results are observed to be accurate, validating its practical applicability.
With respect to RNA folding, we present a novel probabilistic sampling algorithm that generates statistically representative and reproducible samples of the entire ensemble of feasible structures for a particular input sequence. This method actually samples the possible foldings from a distribution implied by a suitable (traditional or length-dependent) grammar. Notably, we also propose several (new) ways for obtaining predictions from generated samples. Both variants have the same worst-case time and space complexities of O(n^3) and O(n^2) for sequence length n. Nevertheless, evaluations of our sampling methods show that they are actually capable of producing accurate (prediction) results.
In an attempt to resolve the long-standing problem of reducing the time complexity of RNA folding algorithms without sacrificing much of the accuracy of the results, we invented an innovative heuristic statistical sampling method that can be implemented to require only O(n^2) time for generating a fixed-size sample of candidate structures for a given sequence of length n. Since a reasonable prediction can still efficiently be obtained from the generated sample set, this approach finally reduces the worst-case time complexity by a liner factor compared to all existing precise methods. Notably, we also propose a novel (heuristic) sampling strategy as opposed to the common one typically applied for statistical sampling, which may produce more accurate results for particular settings. A validation of our heuristic sampling approach by comparison to several leading RNA secondary structure prediction tools indicates that it is capable of producing competitive predictions, but may require the consideration of large sample sizes.


What do we mean when we say that something is contemporary? And what should the designator "contemporary art" refer to? An immediate response would be that contemporary art is an art of the present, that it somehow addresses and expresses the present. But what is this present? What constitutes the present present or the contemporary contemporary? This first book in the Contemporary Condition series introduces some of the key issues concerning contemporaneity as a defining condition of our historical present. It thus acts as an extended preface to the series as a whole, calling for a rethinking of the deep structures of temporalization that render our present the way it is.
The aim of the Contemporary Condition book series is to question the formation of subjectivity and concept of temporality in the world now. It begins from the assumption that art, with its ability to investigate the present and make meaning from it, can lead to an understanding of wider developments within culture and society. Addressing a perceived gap in existing literature on the subject, the series focuses on three broad strands: the issue of temporality, the role of contemporary media and computational technologies, and how artistic practice makes epistemic claims.


Paleja, S.N. Native Americans: a visual exploration. Toronto: Annick Press, 2013. Print. This book is a non-fiction text using graphics to cover topics as diverse as Aboriginal arrival, culture, language, food, housing, and the environment to present-day Aboriginal issues. It is chock-full of information using a variety of non-linguistic representations, such as graphs, pictographs, and a variety of graphic organizers in the form of timelines and other visuals.  The colourful pictures help to draw children's interest and they also help reluctant readers access the content. A major drawback of the text is that too much information is covered, which means that many of the facts have been overgeneralized and can result in children applying the content to all aboriginal groups.  There are occasional problems with diction, such as using the word "tribes" instead of "First Nations". Also, there should have been more focus on their culture, what issues they face, and how those issues are dealt with in their communities. The book is intended for children ages 9-12 but too often, the language used is difficult for readers at this age.  In an attempt to include a vast amount of information the graphics become confusing and are difficult to interpret. This book is a good starting point for those interested in this topic and is certainly recommended reading for an elementary school.  The timelines and information capture some of the most important points in the historical development of the Aboriginal Peoples. Recommended: 3 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Alicia Odeen Alicia worked for 5 years in a high school library before getting her dream job at the Bruce Peel Special Collections Library.  She now spends most of her time reading stories about dinosaurs, robots, and trains with her 3 year old son William.


The present study was carried in Ngumburuni Forest Reserve (NFR), Rufiji District, Coast Region, Tanzania to determine the status of forest vegetation cover under the influence of land use intensification in the surrounding environment over the period of 1985 to 2008. Socio-economic surveys were conducted to gather information pertaining to land use and causes of forest cover changes from three adjacent villages namely: Umwe north, Muyuyu and Mangwi. Landsand TM satellite imagery approach was, also, used to reflect on the forest vegetation cover dynamics over time using satellite images of 1985, 1995 and 2004 years. The results revealed that the major causes of changes in vegetation cover in Ngumburuni forest reserve were the existence of several forest management practices such as cultivation, logging and charcoaling. Similarly, analysis of satellite images confirmed expanding and shrinkage of some vegetation covers within the forest over time. The changes were more pronounced in the period 1995 to 2004 compared to the period 1985 to 1995. To reduce further degradation of the forest, several measures are suggested in this study.


Most video and film editors understand that the story is central to their work and that editing choices need to serve the telling of that story in the best way possible. What they may not know, however, are all the valuable techniques to making this craft appear seamless and part of the busy editor's normal workflow. This book takes an approach to editing that both beginners and intermediate editors will find refreshing. While other books approach the topic of editing by teaching the functions of the editing software, this book explains how you can make smart choices and use those functions to affect the story. In the book you'll learn workflow tips, time saving techniques, linear and non-linear theory, cutting techniques, enhancing emotion through music and sound effects, leveling and mastering audio, color correction, and most importantly, the role editing can have on the telling of the story. Additional techniques are shown through multiple step-by-step videos available on the author's site as well as clips from a documentary the author created on editing.


The 10th Anniversary Edition of the book that has given hope and inspiration to thousands who are dealing with eating disorders "If you or someone you love has an eating disorder, this is the book to read." Dr. Phil Jenni had been in an abusive relationship with Ed for far too long. He controlled Jenni's life, distorted her self-image, and tried to physically harm her throughout their long affair. Then, in therapy, Jenni learned to treat her eating disorder as a relationship, not a condition. By thinking of her eating disorder as a unique personality separate from her own, Jenni was able to break up with Ed once and for all. Inspiring, compassionate, and filled with practical exercises to help you break up with your own personal E.D., Life Without Ed provides hope to the millions of people plagued by eating disorders. Beginning with Jenni's "divorce" from Ed, this supportive, lifesaving book combines a patient's insights and experiences with a therapist's prescriptions for success to help you live a healthier, happier life without Ed. This 10th anniversary edition features a new afterword as well as sections devoted to family, friends, and supporters; how treatment professionals can use the book with their patients and men with eating disorders. "Of all the great books written on eating disorders, none has had a wider reach than Life Without Ed. Those suffering have found connection and hope, family members have found understanding and empathy, professionals have learned from it and praised it. It will remain a classic for decades to come." (Michael E. Berrett, PhD, psychologist; CEO and cofounder of the Center for Change; coauthor of Spiritual Approaches in the Treatment of Women with Eating Disorders). "[Life Without Ed] was the first [book] to teach readers that they can not only separate from their eating disorder, but also disagree with and disobey it. I wholeheartedly recommend this witty, hopeful guide to patients, carers, professionals, and anyone else who wants to understand what it's really like to live with an eating disorder and ultimately triumph over it." (Jennifer J. Thomas, PhD, assistant professor of psychology at the Harvard Medical School; co-director of the Eating Disorders Clinical and Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital). "This uplifting book's intimate inner dialogue has energized countless young women-and men-in their own recoveries from eating disorders." (Leigh Cohn, MAT, CEDS, coauthor of Making Weight: Men's Conflicts with Food, Weight, Shape & Recovery). "Jenni is truly a remarkable woman. She unselfishly shares her struggles and triumphs in something that will probably affect all of us in one way or another in our lifetime. Her candid and inspiring story will truly help those suffering from their own "Ed." I feel privileged to know her and her story." (Jamie-Lynn Sigler, actress.).


This dissertation is intended to give a systematic treatment of hypersurface singularities in arbitrary characteristic which provides the necessary tools, theoretically and computationally, for the purpose of classification. This thesis consists of five chapters: In chapter 1, we introduce the background on isolated hypersurface singularities needed for our work. In chapter 2, we formalize the notions of piecewise-homogeneous grading and we discuss thoroughly non-degeneracy in arbitrary characteristic. Chapter 3 is devoted to determinacy and normal forms of isolated hypersurface singularities. In the first part, we give finite determinacy theorems in arbitrary characteristic with respect to right respectively contact equivalence. Furthermore, we show that "isolated" and finite determinacy properties are equivalent. In the second part, we formalize Arnol'd's key ideas for the computation of normal forms an define the conditions (AA) and (AAC). The last part of Chapter 3 is devoted to the study of normal forms in the general setting of hypersurface singularities imposing neither condition (A) nor Newton-Nondegeneracy. In Chapter 4, we present algorithms which we implement in Singular for the purpose of explicit computation of regular bases and normal forms. In chapter 5, we transfer some classical results on invariants over the field C of complex numbers to algebraically closed fields of characteristic zero known as Lefschetz principle.


Simulation education is currently flourishing in the United States and around the world. Simulation technology has improved, and its costs have dropped. When faced with demands for more accountability for quality education and increased enrollment, disciplines and specialties are embracing the idea of simulation as a valuable tool. Frequently, institutions develop simulation programs based on a narrow understanding of the technology and teaching potential of this tool. The purchase of simulation equipment often precedes the development of a sound program "vision" and plan. Only after understanding the tools and equipment can a meaningful plan be developed. This article introduces and clarifies the different types of simulation equipment, and attempts to make sense of the roles and limitations of these technologies. It is through this knowledge that educators and program directors can best develop programs that are educationally meaningful. Similarly, a good understanding of simulation technology and terminology will likely lead to more thoughtful and cost-effective purchases.


Detailed, practical guide to increasing your Web traffic through better search results Wonder how some companies pop up high in search engine rankings? It's all about search appeal. Master the strategies, techniques, and shortcuts in this detailed guide and you can improve your Web site's search rankings and drive the targeted traffic you want to your virtual door. Learn new ways to add social media to the SEO mix, make your site mobile Web-friendly, write SEO tags for maximum exposure, and more. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is hot; the online advertising market is expected to grow at 34% CAGR between 2005 and 2010, and nine out of ten companies are estimated to be implementing SEO strategies Find out how to get listed in the major search engines, directories, and indexes, and learn strategies for planning and implementing a successful SEO campaign Take advantage of the case studies of readers who implemented the SEO techniques outlined in the first edition of this book and significantly improved search rankings Discover how to target and reach the customers you really want; optimize your site specifically for Google, MSN, or Yahoo!; demystify the role of links and linking in search; implement social media and mobile search optimization; and analyze your SEO efforts to see what works If you want to make SEO work for you, the new edition of this practical book is what you need to succeed.


Genetic programming, a form of genetic algorithm that evolves programs and program-like executable structures, is a new paradigm for developing reliable, time- and cost-effective applications. The second volume of Advances in Genetic Programming highlights many of the most recent technical advances in this increasingly popular field. The twenty-three contributions are divided into four parts: Variations on the Genetic Programming Theme; Hierarchical, Recursive, and Pruning Genetic Programs; Analysis and Implementation Issues; and New Environments for Genetic Programming.The first part extends the core concepts of genetic programming through the addition of new evolutionary techniques -- adaptive and self-adaptive crossover methods, hill climbing operators, and the inclusion of introns into the representation.Creating more concise executable structures is a long-term research topic in genetic programming. The second part describes the field's most recent efforts, including the dynamic manipulation of automatically defined functions, evolving logic programs that generate recursive structures, and using minimum description length heuristics to determine when and how to prune evolving structures.The third part takes up the many implementation and analysis issues associated with evolving programs. Advanced applications of genetic programming to nontrivial real-world problems are described in the final part: remote sensing of pressure ridges in Arctic sea ice formations from satellite imagery, economic prediction through model evolution, the evolutionary development of stress and loading models for novel materials, and data mining of a large customer database to optimize responses to special offers.


Nothing in the history of recording approaches Decca's mammoth venture in producing Wagner's Ring complete for the first time. It was eight years in the making and this book tells the story of how it was made and the people who made it, written by the man who - as the recording producer - was in charge of the whole project. Conducted by the great Georg Solti, Decca's recording has been voted the best recording ever made. All the celebrated Wagner singers of their age take their places in the story, including Birgit Nilsson, Kirsten Flagstad, Hans Hotter, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Gottlob Frick and Wolfgang Windgassen. The recording was made in Vienna with the Viennese Philharmonic Orchestra, and Culshaw displayed extraordinary dedication to Wagner's musical requirements and to putting into practice his own belief that a stereo recording could create a 'theatre of the mind'. This is the story of how the recording evolved, and how it frequently almost came to grief. More than that, it is the story of how a new medium - recorded opera in stereo - reached fulfilment, and how this ground-breaking recording became seen as the highly influential gold standard for the future.


In this thesis, the impact of packet losses on the quality of received videos sent across a network that exhibit normal network perturbations such as jitters, delays, packet drops etc has been examined. Dynamic behavior of a normal network has been simulated using Linux and the Network Emulator (NetEm). Peoples' perceptions on the quality of the received video were used in rating the qualities of several videos with differing speeds. In accordance with ITU's guideline of using Mean Opinion Scores (MOS), the effects of packet drops were analyzed. Excel and Matlab were used as tools in analyzing the peoples' opinions which indicates the impacts that different loss rates has on the transmitted videos. Statistical methods used for evaluation of data are mean and variance. We conclude that people have convergence of opinions when losses become extremely high on videos with highly variable scene changes


Background Online learning in K-12 education has grown rapidly in the past decade. Cyber charter schools (CCSs) have been a particularly controversial form of online school, but there is very little scholarly examination of these new organizations. As CCSs expand, policymakers and stakeholders have a critical need to understand how to evolve the charter school policies that govern these new school forms. Focus of Study Through a three-site case study, this paper (1) explores what current charter policies govern CCSs and (2) outlines the practices in these schools that might illuminate future policy needs. Specifically, the findings highlight how cyber charters problematize existing charter school policies in the areas of authorizers and governance, teacher policy, and student achievement. Research Design The study presents an exploratory, comparative case study. The exploratory analyses illuminate implications for how policymakers understand governance, teacher policy, and the evaluation of student achievement in cyber charters. The comparative case design also highlights how different state policy contexts might influence the practices of CCSs. Conclusions Cyber charter schools introduce new ways of delivering public schooling. The study shows how state leadership is vital to coordinate student enrollment across geographic boundaries, funding mechanisms, and conflicts between CCSs and established stakeholders. This paper also illuminates how teaching and learning practices differ in an online environment and introduces questions of teacher preparation and professional practices. Finally, CCSs in this study serve unique, niche student populations that opt out of the traditional school system. These considerations are vital for evaluating student achievement in cyber charters.


This work deals with the numerical description of dilute polydispersed and turbulent two-phase flows. The method used to describe the two-phase flow is based on the Eulerian-Lagrangian approach. The carrier phase turbulent flow behavior is modeled utilizing Large Eddy Simulation (LES). Most of the recent DNS investigations attempting to provide insight into particle-fluid interaction mechanisms are performed on simple, mostly homogeneous turbulent flows with very low Reynolds numbers. In contrast to this, LES is an opportunity to extend this studies to flows with significantly higher Reynolds numbers and to more complex geometries. Moreover, it is less restrictive to flows containing particles, larger than the Kolmogorov length scale. The main objective of this work is to assess the state of the art capabilities of the two-phase LES and to identify weak points. Recommendations for additional model development for increasing the predictive ability are derived. The reliability of transfer of findings from one configuration to others is assessed. The conclusions are based on a systematic variation of relevant flow parameters, such as the Reynolds number and the Stokes number, so that a wide range of applications is covered. Therefore, several particle-laden flow configurations (two plane channel flows, a free jet and an evaporating spray at low temperature) are investigated. Special attention is paid to the prediction of the particle preferential accumulation, because of its importance for simulations of mixing and combustion in turbulent flows. By performing a systematic variation of the particle Stokes number (here defined as the ratio of the particle time scale to the Kolmogorov time scale of the fluid) and the flow Reynolds number, it is observed that the maximum preferential accumulation occurs at a constant Stokes number and that this number does not depend on the Reynolds number. The magnitude of the accumulation, however, depends on the Reynolds number of the flow. The effect of an additional sub-grid scale dispersion model on the particle accumulation is found to be less pronounced for particles with characteristic time scales in the order of the Kolmogorov scale. An additional issue arises due to unphysical particle number densities, when preferential accumulation occurs. In this context, the usage of a model, accounting for natural dispersion due to particle collisions, is inevitable. The influence of the dispersed phase on the fluid turbulence is considered in a wall bounded and a free shear flow. The improper modeling of the particle-wall interaction mechanisms can lead to different solutions for the particle velocity field and therefore to different levels of turbulence modification in the near wall region. It should be noted that these solutions are not necessarily unphysical, as some experimental investigations confirm. In contrast to this, the turbulence modification in a free shear flow is predicted very well, moreover, the prediction is found to be reliable for different mass loadings of the dispersed phase. Within the scope of this work, a time efficient non-iterative Fractional Step procedure is applied for the pressure-velocity coupling of the carrier fluid governing equations. The coupling of the method with two-way coupled particle tracking simulations is validated successfully on configurations of isothermal flows and such with low density variation using experimental and DNS data.


Quantitative behavioral measurements are important for answering questions across scientific disciplines—from neuroscience to ecology. State-of-the-art deep-learning methods offer major advances in data quality and detail by allowing researchers to automatically estimate locations of an animal's body parts directly from images or videos. However, currently-available animal pose estimation methods have limitations in speed and robustness. Here we introduce a new easy-to-use software toolkit, DeepPoseKit, that addresses these problems using an eZcient multi-scale deep-learning model, called Stacked DenseNet, and a fast GPU-based peak-detection algorithm for estimating keypoint locations with subpixel precision. These advances improve processing speed >2× with no loss in accuracy compared to currently-available methods. We demonstrate the versatility of our methods with multiple challenging animal pose estimation tasks in laboratory and field settings—including groups of interacting individuals. Our work reduces barriers to using advanced tools for measuring behavior and has broad applicability across the behavioral sciences.


The purpose of this paper is to take a closer look on the current phenomenon of a growing and still expanding interest in the history of international law. International lawyers, but also historians, turn to the history of the discipline, to the past itself as well as to its study and knowledge. Throughout the new and renewed discourse, history is closely intertwined with theory, and even with political theology. Often, it seems, the past is understood as providing traces of a path (or at least a pathfinder) into the complex future of a fragmented and differentiated international community. The paper will argue that the study of international law's history requires not only careful contextualizations of law and history, but also thoughtful distinctions. If history is to sharpen and enlighten our understanding of the present, intradisciplinary boundaries are to be respected. History is not theory is not political theology. Each discipline is, respectively, in need to reflect upon its potentials, risks and limits. The paper will proceed in three steps: Following a short, yet festive praeludium (II.), it will start by sketching the current debate about the history of international law (III.). Needless to say, it would be impossible a task to provide here a comprehensive survey. The observations described will merely be an extended promenade, introducing the reader to a variety of voices and tunes along the way. The text will then turn to the interrelatedness of history and theory, stressing the need to make the study of history a synchronic movement of distance and immersion, thereby recognizing our complex relationship to history and time (IV.). By finding their way between past and future, international lawyers can draw from experiences from other times and disciplines (V.). After all, "Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life" have been discussed before. In conclusion, there will be a return to the library shelves which had been visited in the opening part (VI.). There will be another bibliophile impression, alluding to an indeterminacy which is common to both history and theory of international law. And to the choices which are ours to make.


This paper examines the competition faced by small-scale general store and textile retailing in an island town in Malaysia. The study was carried out in Labuan Town in Labuan Island of East Malaysia. A qualitative research design was utilized, involving primarily interview data which were collected from 12 in-depth interviews with 6 sundry and general store retailers and 6 textile retailers. Content analysis was executed to analyse the narrative data. The findings reveal that large store retailing negatively impact the small traders on trade diversion, but also positively modernize their retail formats. Competition was intense for the town centre small-scale retailers who were facing multiple competitions from large retailers and bazaar retailers in the town centre, small-scale retailers from the rural areas, as well as place competition in the region. The study suggests the need for creative response of the local authority in place making and balanced development, coupled with the strategic response of small-scale retailers in cultivating local enterprise.


The federal appellate courts now decide eighty-five percent of their cases through unpublished, nonprecedential opinions. These are meant to resolve disputes squarely governed by existing precedent; they are not supposed to make law. Scholars have paid little attention, however, to the process by which unpublished opinions are prepared — or to ways in which this process allows some unpublished opinions to become de facto precedent.This essay identifies one such way. "Copy-paste precedent" arises when the text of an unpublished opinion gets repeatedly copied and pasted by staff attorneys drafting subsequent opinions on the same topic. Whereas ordinary precedent is meant to be reasoned and published, then cited and quoted, "copy-paste precedent" gets followed without being either cited or explicitly quoted, thereby gaining the influence of precedent without real precedent's authority — or scrutiny. The obscurity of copy-paste precedent makes it, paradoxically, harder to correct or overturn than regular binding precedent and strips it of the rule of law, legitimacy, notice, and reliance values standardly invoked to support precedent's use.Drawing an example from the Second Circuit's largely unpublished case law on the meaning of "social visibility" in asylum law — the subject of a deepening circuit split and a recent en banc opinion in the Ninth Circuit — this essay shows that copy-paste precedent can prove even more influential than a circuit's precedential statements on the same subject. This essay calls attention to a set of decisions in which the law that gets copied and pasted is substantively mistaken. Its broader goal, however, is to show why copy-paste precedent is itself a mistaken way for courts to make law.


Abstract. Reactive gases and aerosols are produced by terrestrial ecosystems, processed within plant canopies, and can then be emitted into the above-canopy atmosphere. Estimates of the above-canopy fluxes are needed for quantitative earth system studies and assessments of past, present and future air quality and climate. The Model of Emissions of Gases and Aerosols from Nature (MEGAN) is described and used to quantify net terrestrial biosphere emission of isoprene into the atmosphere. MEGAN is designed for both global and regional emission modeling and has global coverage with ~1 km2 spatial resolution. Field and laboratory investigations of the processes controlling isoprene emission are described and data available for model development and evaluation are summarized. The factors controlling isoprene emissions include biological, physical and chemical driving variables. MEGAN driving variables are derived from models and satellite and ground observations. Tropical broadleaf trees contribute almost half of the estimated global annual isoprene emission due to their relatively high emission factors and because they are often exposed to conditions that are conducive for isoprene emission. The remaining flux is primarily from shrubs which have a widespread distribution. The annual global isoprene emission estimated with MEGAN ranges from about 500 to 750 Tg isoprene (440 to 660 Tg carbon) depending on the driving variables which include temperature, solar radiation, Leaf Area Index, and plant functional type. The global annual isoprene emission estimated using the standard driving variables is ~600 Tg isoprene. Differences in driving variables result in emission estimates that differ by more than a factor of three for specific times and locations. It is difficult to evaluate isoprene emission estimates using the concentration distributions simulated using chemistry and transport models, due to the substantial uncertainties in other model components, but at least some global models produce reasonable results when using isoprene emission distributions similar to MEGAN estimates. In addition, comparison with isoprene emissions estimated from satellite formaldehyde observations indicates reasonable agreement. The sensitivity of isoprene emissions to earth system changes (e.g., climate and land-use) demonstrates the potential for large future changes in emissions. Using temperature distributions simulated by global climate models for year 2100, MEGAN estimates that isoprene emissions increase by more than a factor of two. This is considerably greater than previous estimates and additional observations are needed to evaluate and improve the methods used to predict future isoprene emissions.


Abstract. We evaluate three estimates of the atmosphere-biosphere exchange against total column CO2 observations from the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON). Using the GEOS-Chem transport model, we produce forward simulations of atmospheric CO2 concentrations for the 2006–2010 time period using the Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Approach (CASA), the Simple Biosphere (SiB) and the GBiome-BGC models. Large differences in the CO2 simulations result from the choice of the atmosphere-biosphere model. We evaluate the seasonal cycle phase, amplitude and shape of the simulations. The version of CASA currently used as the a priori model by the GEOS-Chem carbon cycle community poorly represents the season cycle in total column CO2. Consistent with earlier studies, enhancing the CO2 uptake in the boreal forest and shifting the onset of the growing season earlier significantly improve the simulated seasonal CO2 cycle using CASA estimates. The SiB model gives a better representation of the seasonal cycle dynamics. The difference in the seasonality of net ecosystem exchange (NEE) between these models is not the absolute gross primary productivity (GPP), but rather the differential phasing of ecosystem respiration (RE) with respect to GPP between these models.


Twenty-three xylanolytic bacteria were isolated from soils, sediments and buffalo faeces collected in Thailand. They were divided into 10 groups based on the phenotypic and chemotaxonomic characteristics including 16S rRNA gene sequence analyses. Eleven isolates were Gram-positive, facultatively anaerobic, spore-forming, rod-shaped bacteria. They contained meso -diaminopimelic in cell wall peptidoglycan. Two isolates (Group IA) were identified as B acillus subtilis , 4 isolates (Group IB) were B. licheniformis , 2 isolates (Group IC) were B. niabensis , one (Group ID) was B. nealsonii , and 2 isolates (Group IE) were B. cereus. Seven isolates were Gram-positive, non-spore-forming, rod-shaped bacteria and were identified as Isoptericola variabilis (2 isolates in Group II), as Jonesia denitrificans (2 isolates in Group III), as Microbacterium natoriense (2 isolates in Group IV), and one isolate as Nocardioides simplex (Group V). Five isolates were Gram-negative; facultatively anaerobic, non-spore-forming, rod-shaped bacteria and each of them were identified respectively as Acinetobacter junii (Group VI), Aeromonas enteropelogenes (Group VII), Pseudomonas stutzeri (Group VIII) , Stenotrophomonas maltophilia (Group IX) and Zobellella denitrificans (Group X). The isolates produced xylanase activity ranged from 1.03 to 17.65±0.25 unit/ml.


Many critics have identified a sense of anxiety within the literary works of the Early National period. By using a hybrid of William James and Jaques Lacan's approaches to the "Divided Self," we see that this anxiety can be found internally, as key characters from Brown, Poe, and Melville display symptoms of a "Divided Self." Ultimately, all of the "Divided Selves" present in these key texts resolve into pseudo, if not actual, suicidal subjects. By applying James and Lacan's schemas to these texts, we gain a new appreciation for their psychological complexity and sophistication.


Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine specifically the impact of competing financial structure theories on economic growth in Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach : The study used time series data for a 17 year period: 1992-2008, to fill this important research gap. The study used the Ordinary Least Square regression approach to estimate the formulated models in line with financial structure theories. The growth rate of the gross domestic product per capita was adopted as the dependent variable, while the independent variables include; conglomerate index of bank-based financial structure; conglomerate index of market-based financial structure, conglomerate index of financial service-based financial structure; and the conglomerate index of the legal-based financial structure. Findings : The regression results showed that the coefficients of bank-based theory and legal-based theory were positive in promoting economic growth, while the regression coefficients of market-based theory and the financial service theory were negative in promoting economic growth. Research Limitations/Implications : Paucity of substantial local literature on financial structure and economic growth constitute the major limitation of this study. Although, this study is meant to close this gap, the implication is that foreign theoretical and empirical literature standpoint constitutes the bulk of the review, which may not explain reasons for any identifiable local trends in the Nigerian financial structure. Practical Implication : The study recommends that policy makers should focus their attention on legal, regulatory and policy reforms that encourage the proper functioning of banks, rather than concern themselves with banks and market reforms. Originality/Value : This study contributes to financial structure literature for developing economies by using data from Nigeria. Specifically, the findings reveal that for developing economies, bank-based financial structure is better in promoting growth.


Our study provides evidence on the share price reactions to the announcement of equity issues in Germany, where capital market is characterized by institutional features distinct from the U.S. market. German seasoned equity issues yield a positive market reaction which contrasts to the significant negative abnormal returns reported for the U.S. We provide evidence that these results are due to differences in both issuing characteristics and floatation methods, and in the corporate governance and ownership structures of the two countries. Our study explains much of the empirical puzzle of different market reactions to seemingly similar events across financial markets.


This item contains five representations of the entirety of Paul's NCI PC: a spreadsheet of the file extensions on the drive as a whole, a pie chart of the free and occupied space on the drive, a tree map showing the size of the files on the hard drive, a CSV file showing information for all the files on the drive, and an XML file (in a zipped folder with a XSL style sheet which will allow you to view the file in a Web browser--enable active content if necessary) with a representation the directory structure of the whole drive down to the folder level. A treemap is an information visualization format that displays hierarchical data (such as from a directory) as a map of nested rectangles. Each directory in the hierarchy is represented by a rectangle, with sub-directories nested within their parent directories. These rectangles or leaves take up an amount of space which is proportional to the size of the data in that directory or sub-directory. The CSV file with information about all the files was created using the FTK Imager software and the other visualizations were created using the TreeSize Professional software.


The constitutional amendment procedure of Article V is defective because the national convention amendment method does not work. Because no amendment can be enacted without Congress's approval, limitations on the federal government that Congress opposes are virtually impossible to pass. This defect may have prevented the enactment of several constitutional amendments that would have constrained Congress, such as amendments establishing a balanced budget limitation, a line-item veto, or congressional term limits. The increasingly nationalist character of our constitutional charter may not be the result of modern values or circumstances, but an artifact of a distorted amendment procedure. Article V should be reformed to allow two-thirds of the state legislatures to propose a constitutional amendment which would then be ratified or rejected by the states, acting through state conventions or state ballot measures. Such a return of power to the states would militate against our overly centralized government by helping to restore the federalist character of our Constitution. Moreover, a strategy exists that would allow this reform to be enacted.


Objective To assess the influence of general practice opening hours on healthcare seeking behaviour after transient ischaemic attack (TIA) and minor stroke and feasibility of clinical assessment within 24 hours of symptom onset. Design Population based prospective incidence study (Oxford vascular study). Setting Nine general practices in Oxfordshire. Participants 91 000 patients followed from 1 April 2002 to 31 March 2006. Main outcome measures Events that occurred overnight and at weekends (out of hours) and events that occurred during surgery hours. Results Among 359 patients with TIA and 434 with minor stroke, the median (interquartile range) time to call a general practitioner after an event during surgery hours was 4.0 (1.0-45.5) hours, and 68% of patients with events during surgery hours called within 24 hours of onset of symptoms. Median (interquartile range) time to call a general practitioner after events out of hours was 24.8 (9.0-54.5) hours for patients who waited to contact their registered practice compared with 1.0 (0.3-2.6) hour in those who used an emergency general practitioner service (P<0.001). In patients with events out of hours who waited to see their own general practitioner, seeking attention within 24 hours was considerably less likely for events at weekends than weekdays (odds ratio 0.10, 95% confidence interval 0.05 to 0.21): 70% with events Monday to Friday, 33% on Sundays, and none on Saturdays. Thirteen patients who had events out of hours and did not seek emergency care had a recurrent stroke before they sought medical attention. A primary care centre open 8 am-8 pm seven days a week would have offered cover to 73 patients who waited until surgery hours to call their general practitioner, reducing median delay from 50.1 hours to 4.0 hours in that group and increasing those calling within 24 hours from 34% to 68%. Conclusions General practitioners' opening hours influence patients' healthcare seeking behaviour after TIA and minor stroke. Current opening hours can increase delay in assessment. Improved access to primary care and public education about the need for emergency care are required if the relevant targets in the national stroke strategy are to be met.


A finite set of vectors ${\cal S} \subseteq {R}^n$ is called a simplex iff ${\cal S}$ is linearly dependent but all its proper subsets are independent. This concept arises in particular from stoichiometry. We are interested in this paper in the number of simplexes contained in some ${\cal H} \subseteq R^n$, which we denote by $simp({\cal H})$. This investigation is particularly interesting for ${\cal H}$ spanning $R^n$ and containing no collinear vectors. Our main result shows that for any ${\cal H} \subseteq R^3$ of fixed size not equal to 3, 4 or 7 and such that ${\cal H}$ spans $R^3$ and contains no collinear vectors, $simp({\cal H})$ is minimal if and only if ${\cal H}$ is contained in two planes intersecting in ${\cal H}$, and one of which is of size exactly 3. The minimal configurations for $|{\cal H}|=3,4,7$ are also completely described. The general problem for $R^n$ remains open.


While data-driven methods for spoken language understanding (SLU) provide state of the art performances and reduce maintenance and model adaptation costs compared to handcrafted parsers, the collection and annotation of domain-specific natural language utterances for training remains a time-consuming task. A recent line of research has focused on enriching the training data with in-domain utterances by mining search engine query logs to improve the SLU tasks. However genre mismatch is a big obstacle as search queries are typically keywords. In this paper, we present an efficient discriminative binary classification method that filters large collection of online web search queries only to select the natural language like queries. The training data used to build this classifier is mined from search query click logs, represented as a bipartite graph. Starting from queries which contain natural language salient phrases, random graph walk algorithms are employed to mine corresponding keyword queries. Then an active learning method is employed for quickly improving on top of this automatically mined data. The results show that our method is robust to noise in search queries by improving over a baseline model previously used for SLU data collection. We also show the effectiveness of detected natural language like queries in extrinsic evaluations on domain detection and slot filling tasks.


One of the principal lessons of The Concept of Law is that legal systems are not only comprised of rules, but founded on them as well. As Hart painstakingly showed, we cannot account for the way in which we talk and think about the law - that is, as an institution which persists over time despite turnover of officials, imposes duties and confers powers, enjoys supremacy over other kinds of practices, resolves doubts and disagreements about what is to be done in a community and so on - without supposing that it is at bottom regulated by what he called the secondary rules of recognition, change and adjudication. Given this incontrovertible demonstration that every legal system must contain rules constituting its foundation, it might seem puzzling that many philosophers have contested Hart's view. In particular, they have objected to his claim that every legal system contains a rule of recognition. More surprisingly, these critiques span different jurisprudential schools. Positivists such as Joseph Raz, as well as natural lawyers such as Ronald Dworkin and John Finnis, have been among Hart's most vocal critics. In this essay, I would like to examine the opposition to the rule of recognition. What is objectionable about Hart's doctrine? Why deny that every legal system necessarily contains a rule setting out the criteria of legal validity? And are these objections convincing? Does the rule of recognition actually exist? This essay has five parts. In Part One, I try to state Hart's doctrine of the rule of recognition with some precision. As we will see, this task is not simple, insofar as Hart's position on this crucial topic is often frustratingly unclear. I also explore in this part whether the United States Constitution, or any of its provisions, can be considered the Hartian rule of recognition for the United States legal system. In Part Two, I attempt to detail the many roles that the rule of recognition plays within Hart's theory of law. In addition to the function that Hart explicitly assigned to it, namely, the resolution of normative uncertainty within a community, I argue that the rule of recognition, and the secondary rules more generally, also account for the law's dexterity, efficiency, normativity, continuity, persistence, supremacy, independence, identity, validity, content and existence. In Part Three, I examine three important challenges to Hart's doctrine of the rule of recognition. They are: 1) Hart's rule of recognition is under- and over-inclusive; 2) Hart cannot explain how social practices are capable of generating rules that confer powers and impose duties and hence cannot account for the normativity of law; 3) Hart cannot explain how disagreements about the criteria of legal validity that occur within actual legal systems, such as in American law, are possible. In Parts Four and Five, I address these various objections. I argue that although Hart's particular account of the rule of recognition is flawed and should be rejected, a related notion can be fashioned and should be substituted in its place. The idea, roughly, is to treat the rule of recognition as a shared plan which sets out the constitutional order of a legal system. As I try to show, understanding the rule of recognition in this new way allows the legal positivist to overcome the challenges lodged against Hart's version while still retaining the power of the original idea.


Intra Health International
Because health workers save lives
For over 30 years, in more than 90 countries, Intra Health International has empowered health workers to better serve communities in need. Intra Health fosters local solutions to health care challenges by improving health workers performance, strengthening health systems, harnessing technology, and leveraging partnerships.
In collaboration with governments, nongovernmental organizations, and private-sector organizations around the world, Intra Health champions the needs and contributions of health workers from doctors and nurses to community health workers to health facility managers and works to ensure they have the tolls, supplies, information, training, and support they need to provide communities they serve with the best possible opportunity for health and wellbeing.


The objective of this study was to test the combined effect of offstream water and trace mineral salt on cattle distribution in a riparian meadow and its adjacent uplands. From July 15 to August 26, 1996 and 1997, three treatments were each randomly assigned to one pasture in each of three blocks. Sixty cow/calf pairs were then randomly allotted to the grazed pastures. The treatments included 1) stream access and access to offstream water and trace-mineral salt (off-stream), 2) stream access and no access to offstream water or trace-mineral salt (no-offstream), and 3) ungrazed control. The response of cattle was measured through visual observations of cattle distribution, grazing activity and travel distance, cow/calf performance, and fecal deposit distribution. Distribution patterns of the cattle, measured as the distance of cattle from the stream, was characterized by a time of day x treatment x time in grazing period x year interaction (P < 0.05). No-offstream cattle began the day further from the stream than offstream cattle but consistently moved closer to the stream after the morning grazing period (0600 to 0900). Differences in distribution patterns between the two treatments were more pronounced early in the grazing period than late in the grazing period. Grazing activity, fecal deposit distribution, and travel distance of cattle were not affected by the presence of offstream water and trace-mineral salt. Cows and calves with offstream water and trace-mineral salt gained 11.5 kg and 0.14 kg/d more, respectively, than no-offstream cows and calves averaged across years (P < 0.05). Overall, cattle distribution patterns and cow/calf performance were influenced by the presence of offstream water and trace-mineral salt. Changes in distribution were most pronounced early in the grazing season.


Georgian London evokes images of elegant buildings and fine art, but it was also a city where prostitution was rife, houses of ill repute widespread, and many tens of thousands of people dependent in some way or other on the wages of sin. The sex industry was, in fact, a very powerful force indeed, and in "The Secret History of Georgian London", Dan Cruickshank compellingly shows how it came to affect almost every aspect of life and culture in the capital. His approach is an ambitiously wide-ranging one. He examines the nature of the sex trade and the sort of people who became involved in it. He looks at the ways in which it shaped the building of Georgian London, from the smart new streets that sprang up in Marylebone to the squalid alleys around Charing Cross, and from the coffee houses where many prostitutes operated to the popular bathhouses, or bagnios, now known to us often only from fleeting references and tantalising archaeological remains. He examines the impact of prostitution on the arts and, in particular, on such artists as William Hogarth and Joshua Reynolds. And he discusses the very varied attitudes of contemporaries - those who sympathised (the writer Richard Steele, for example), those who indulged (including the notorious Sir Francis Dashwood), and those who condemned (not least Saunders Welch, author of "A Proposal to Render Effectual a Plan to Remove the Nuisance of Common Prostitutes from the Streets of This Metropolis"). Finally, he draws on memoirs, newspaper accounts and court records to give us vivid portraits of some of the women who became involved in the world of prostitution. As Dan Cruickshank powerfully argues, these women, and many thousands like them, shaped eighteenth-century London, and they also helped determine its future development.


The past year marked a return to conditions in the agricultural sector that closely parallel those prior to 1973. Agricultural production rose to a record high, boosting "reserves" to levels comparable to the "surpluses" experienced in the late sixties and early seventies. Increased output dropped net income per farm—adjusted for inflation—to levels more typical a decade ago. Lower earnings coupled with record-high production expenses and debt-servicing obligations rekindled concerns about farmers' "tight cash flows" similar to past concerns about the "cost-price squeeze." A "farm strike" late in the year enhanced public awareness of the deterioration in farm income but probably will have no more impact on prices than past "withholding" efforts. New legislation in 1977 propelled the federal government back into a major role in supporting farm earnings at potential costs likely to surpass previous highs. The return of government has brought a number of programs—such as "set-aside acreage" and "extended Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) loans"—that embody features similar to programs of a few years ago. These parallels may ultimately be judged as the bridging of a time span during which the farm sector experienced a major debtfinanced boom in capital expenditures and land values that may result in particularly difficult adjustments in the years ahead.


Michael Nauenberg, Professor of Physics: Recollections of UCSC, 1966-1996, is the edited transcript of a single interview conducted by Randall Jarrell on July 12, 1994. Nauenberg received his B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1955 and his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1960. Prior to his appointment as a professor of physics at UC Santa Cruz in 1966, he was an assistant professor at Columbia University and a visiting associate professor at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and Stanford University. At UCSC, Nauenberg served as department chairman of physics from 1970 to 1972, and again from 1983 to 1985. He was instrumental in developing both Stevenson and Crown Colleges, but in 1973 shifted his focus to building a graduate program in physics. He also founded and served as the director of the Institute of Nonlinear Sciences at UC Santa Cruz. Nauenberg's primary research interests are in particle physics, condensed matter physics, and nonlinear dynamics, and he is the author of numerous publications in these areas. His most recent work is on a new quantum mechanical treatment of neutrino and neutral meson oscillations and on the dynamics of wave packets in weak external fields. He has had a long standing interest in the history of physics and mathematics, particularly during the seventeenth century, and published about a dozen articles on the works of Hooke, Newton and Huygens, and several reviews of recent books on Newton's Principia. He has a particular interest in the history of physics and has helped to bring historians of science and physicists together. In this oral history narration, Nauenberg shares his impressions and critical evaluation of UCSC as an experiment in public higher education, particularly the tensions between the college-based model and the pressures of the faculty tenure system within the large research University of California system. He points out that the founders of UCSC appear to have overlooked or underestimated the demands building graduate programs would make on faculty members' time. He discusses faculty appointments in the physics department, as well as other key faculty members on campus. He provides a sweeping and cogent assessment of the strengths and achievements of the physics department, and describes the struggle to establish the very successful Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, as well as his frustrating and ultimately unsuccessful political battle to attract the Institute for Theoretical Physics to UC Santa Cruz. This oral history is an invaluable and insightful historical contribution by a senior faculty member with an extensive and distinguished history on the Santa Cruz campus.


Realtime Web Apps:With HTML5 WebSocket, PHP, and jQueryis a guide for beginner- to intermediate-level web developers looking to take the next leap forward in website and app development: realtime. With Realtime Web Apps, you'll be able to quickly get up to speed on what HTML5 WebSocket does, how it is going to affect the future of the web as we know it, and--thanks to Pusher's simple API--start developing your first realtime app today. Only lightly touching on the heavy theory and instead focusing on a practical approach, Realtime Web Apps will guide you through building your first app using HTML5, CSS3, jQuery, and Pusher. After your initial introduction to the technologies used in the book, you'll immediately jump into the process of creating a realtime Q&A app that will work on desktop browsers as well as mobile phones (including iOS and Android). In addition to learning realtime development strategies, you'll also learn progressive development strategies including responsive CSS3 layouts, AJAX development with jQuery, and more. The future of the web is realtime. Grab your hoverboard. Introduces you to the revolutionary capabilities of the HTML5 WebSocket API Gets you started with WebSocket immediately using the super-simple Pusher API Walks you through the development of a real-life realtime web app Gets you working with responsive layouts, jQuery, and AJAX development What you'll learn Familiarize yourself with what "realtime" means and how it changes the web as we know it. Learn how to utilize responsive web design and jQuery to create a single web app instead of multiple platform-specific applications. Get up and running with the Pusher API to start developing realtime apps today. Build a web app back-end with PHP and MySQL. Integrate AJAX and realtime interactivity into your web app. Use OAuth 2.0 to allow users to log in to your app (including Facebook and Twitter OAuth). Who this book is for Realtime Web Apps:With HTML5 WebSocket, PHP, and jQueryis for the beginning- to intermediate-level web developer who is ready to usher in the next era of web apps. It's for those whose time is precious, but have a need to implement realtime functionality into their projects. Realtime Web Apps is written for--and by--geeks who love to expand their skillset but don't have weeks to dedicate to learning how to implement new technology. It's the perfect tool for busy web professionals who need to get up to speed with the latest the web has to offer quickly and in such a way that it's immediately applicable to their projects. Table of Contents What Is Realtime? The Tools Pusher Choosing a Web App Over Native Apps Determining the App's Functionality and Structure Designing the App Creating HTML & CSS Markup Building the Back End: Part 1 Building the Back End: Part 2 Implementing jQuery Effects App A: OAuth


A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Education in fulfilment requirement for
 the Degree of Master of Education in the Department of Educational Psychology and
 Special Education at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2001.


In Ex parte Milligan, decided a year after the end of the Civil War, the Supreme Court held that the U.S. military had lacked the constitutional authority during the war to try U.S. citizens living in Indiana before a military commission. Milligan is often cited as a rare and admirable instance in which the Supreme Court invalidated Executive action during wartime in order to protect civil liberties, and it is frequently invoked in challenges to government action in the current war on terrorism. The precedential effect of Milligan, however, is far from clear. Part of the uncertainty stems from the decision's apparent inconsistency with widespread military practices during and immediately after the Civil War, including most notably the use of military commissions to try thousands of individuals not formally associated with the Confederate army. Probably because of the particular way in which the government argued the Milligan case - focusing on the bounds of martial law rather than on military jurisdiction over violations of the laws of war - the Court in Milligan did not discuss this widespread military commission practice, and it is unclear to what extent the Court meant to repudiate it. The Supreme Court's subsequent treatments of Milligan only add to the uncertainty about its scope. The Court has construed Milligan as applying only to the military detention and trial of non-belligerents, but neither Milligan nor the subsequent decisions provide a clear line for distinguishing between belligerents and non-belligerents. One possible approach would be to limit military jurisdiction to individuals covered by the international laws of war, but one problem with this approach is that the petitioners in Milligan were in fact charged with and convicted of violating the laws of war. The difficult issues of military jurisdiction that were present during the Civil War turn out to be with us still today.


This is a lab manual for a college-level human anatomy course. Mastery of anatomy requires a fair amount of memorization and recall skills. The activities in this manual encourage students to engage with new vocabulary in many ways, including grouping key terms, matching terms to structures, recalling definitions, and written exercises. Most of the activities in this manual utilize anatomical models, and several dissections of animal tissues and histological examinations are also included. Each unit includes both pre- and post-lab questions and six lab exercises designed for a classroom where students move from station to station. The vocabulary terms used in each unit are listed at the end of the manual and serve as a checklist for practicals.


Following the unprecedented level of immigration into the UK in recent years, the issue features on a number of policy agendas, notably those around employment, where the impact of migrant workers and their relationships with indigenous workers have become topics of considerable debate. In the light of the existing evidence around migrant workers' experience of being de-skilled and de-valued (e.g. Anderson et al 2006, Currie 2007) as well as indigenous workers' potential hostility emerging from their fears of wage depression and substitution, the important question of how migrants negotiate their relationships within workplaces remains largely unexplored. Assuming that migrant workers are likely to be an important part of the national economy for the foreseeable future, it is time to ask the questions of how migrants negotiate their 'fit' into the British work environment, and how that is shaped and managed over time. In the first part of the paper we critically review the traditional conceptions of immigrant acculturation into the host society. The key concern of contemporary theories of acculturation has been with identifying individual's orientations and how these relate to psychological adaptation (e.g. Berry 1990, Berry and Sam 1997). Significant here are also the models that recognise the interplay between hosts and migrants in forming the dispositions of the other. For example, the work of Bourhis and Montreuil (2001) suggests a variety of forms that may arise from combinations of migrants and hosts in relation to the preferred strategy of each. More recent adaptations of these frameworks have attempted to address the context dependency of acculturation strategies adopted by both migrants and indigenous members (e.g. Navas et al 2005). These latter models reveal important aspects of the divisions between public and private domains, real and ideal situations, and the ways that these can change over time. However, it is our contention that they remain limited by their location in an overly cognitive framework and a positivist research paradigm. In the second part of the paper we critically engage with this research and apply a discourse analytic approach to acculturation as a means of addressing some of the issues. We argue that despite their sophistication extant models reproduce overly static and de-contextualised accounts of acculturation. For instance, participants are methodologically fixed into a restricted number of mutually exclusive positions (either to integrate or segregate). Moreover, these positions are seen to point towards the same underlying attitudes within and across particular studies despite their taking place in different socio-historical settings (Bowskill et al 2007), most particularly labour markets. Further, such models assert the individualistic nature of the processes involved, glossing the socio-political construction of the meaning and value of acculturation. Locating the desire for, or opposition to, integration in the minds of individuals risks reifying the construct and shutting down the ways in which social practices serve to privilege or denigrate particular strategies, as well as placing the burden of adjustment on those least able to bear it. In place of these static typologies Bowskill et al suggest acculturation issues are better analysed through approaches that pay attention to 'the micro-level construction and functions of…broader interpretive resources' (796) but which are supplemented by a 'macro-level attention to more global patterns of acculturation discourse and their implications for power relations' (796). Following this approach we propose and operationalise a research agenda that pays close attention to the everyday accounts proffered by workplace actors detailing their 'action-oriented function' (Bowskill et al 2007: 799) and exploring their patterning by broader forces within the workplace and beyond. We present evidence around the ways in which forms of integration are positioned as moral 'goods'; the role that indigenous workers, employers and trade unions play in such positioning; and the ways in which such positioning is accepted/contested in everyday rhetorical practice. As such the research shows how influential are the types of relationships between differing migrant groups, but also among members of the in-group, in constructing identity. For instance, based on their own observations and experiences of working next to each other, Polish individuals undergo a continual process of becoming in which they set up a contrast between themselves and other members of the in-group but also with the Romanian workers who are constructed implicitly as Poles' opposites. This positions Polish migrant workers outside certain anticipated norms of behaviour but also under an expectation to learn them.


The study consisted of developing a compendium of profiles for all free-standing urban transport projects funded by the Bank in calendar years from 1999 through 2009, followed by a first-pass synthesis of patterns and trends. There were 50 such projects. In addition, profiles were done for several projects from this period which were classified as urban or transport, but with significant urban transport components. Also, profiles were done for several operations approved before 1999 or after 2009, because they formed organic sequences with some operations in the 1999-2009 batches, in the same city or the same country. In all, profiles were done for 56 operations. A list of these projects is in annex one. Full profiles are in annex two, grouped by the geographic region, and in the chronological order according to the date of loan approval. The sources consulted in writing the profiles included project appraisal documents, loan and project agreements, restructuring papers, and implementation completion reports. In addition to this introduction, the synthesis report has four chapters. In the next (second) chapter, a brief overview is provided of the batch of projects for which the profiles were done. Chapter three reviews urban transport programs by region. Chapter four presents outcome ratings for completed projects and issues related to their success or otherwise. Chapter five discusses the fit between the projects and a provisional version of the Bank's urban transport strategy.


In the last ten years the neuroscience of language has matured as a field. Ten years ago, neuroimaging was just being explored for neurolinguistic questions, whereas today it constitutes a routine component. At the same time there have been significant developments in linguistic and psychological theory that speak to the neuroscience of language. This book consolidates those advances into a single reference. "The Handbook of the Neuroscience of Language" provides a comprehensive overview of this field. This book is divided into five sections. Section one discusses methods and techniques including clinical assessment approaches, methods of mapping the human brain, and a theoretical framework for interpreting the multiple levels of neural organization that contribute to language comprehension. Section two discusses the impact imaging techniques (PET, fMRI, ERPs, electrical stimulation of language cortex, TMS) have made to language research. Section three discusses experimental approaches to the field, including disorders at different language levels in reading as well as writing and number processing. Additionally, chapters here present computational models, discuss the role of mirror systems for language, and cover brain lateralization with respect to language. Part four focuses on language in special populations, in various disease processes, and in developmental disorders. The book ends with a listing of resources in the neuroscience of language and a glossary of items and concepts to help the novice become acquainted with the field. Editors Stemmer & Whitaker prepared this book to reflect recent developments in neurolinguistics, moving the book squarely into the cognitive neuroscience of language and capturing the developments in the field over the past 7 years. The history section focuses on topics that play a current role in neurolinguistics research, aphasia syndromes, and lesion analysis. This book includes a section on neuroimaging to reflect the dramatic changes in methodology over the past decade. The experimental and clinical section reflects recent developments in the field.


During advanced meditative practices, unusual perceptions can arise including the sense of receiving information about unknown people who are deceased. As with meditation, this mental state of communication with the deceased involves calming mental chatter and becoming receptive to subtle feelings and sensations. Psychometric and brain electrophysiology data were collected from six individuals who had previously reported accurate information about deceased individuals under double-blind conditions. Each experimental participant performed two tasks with eyes closed. In the first task, the participant was given only the first name of a deceased person and asked 25 questions. After each question, the participant was asked to silently perceive information relevant to the question for 20 s and then respond verbally. Responses were transcribed and then scored for accuracy by individuals who knew the deceased persons. Of the four mediums whose accuracy could be evaluated, three scored significantly above chance (p < 0.03). The correlation between accuracy and brain activity during the 20 s of silent mediumship communication was significant in frontal theta for one participant (p < 0.01). In the second task, participants were asked to experience four mental states for 1 min each: (1) thinking about a known living person, (2) listening to a biography, (3) thinking about an imaginary person, and (4) interacting mentally with a known deceased person. Each mental state was repeated three times. Statistically significant differences at p < 0.01 after correction for multiple comparisons in electrocortical activity among the four conditions were obtained in all six participants, primarily in the gamma band (which might be due to muscular activity). These differences suggest that the impression of communicating with the deceased may be a distinct mental state distinct from ordinary thinking or imagination.


This essay surveys economic analyses of legal history. In order to make sense of the field and to provide examples that might guide and inspire future research, it identifies and discusses five genres of scholarship.Law as the dependent variable. This genre tries to explain why societies have the laws they do and why laws change over time. Early economic analysis tended to assume that law was efficient, while later scholars have usually adopted more realistic models of judicial and legislative behavior that take into account interest groups, institutions, and transactions costs. Law as an independent variable. Studies of this kind look at the effect of law and legal change on human behavior. Examples include analyses of the Glorious Revolution, legal origin, and nineteenth-century women's rights legislation.Bidirectional histories. Studies in the first two genres analyze law as either cause or effect. In contrast, bidirectional histories view law and society as interacting in dynamic ways over time. Laws change society, but change in society in turn leads to pressure to change the law, which starts the cycle over again. So, for example, the medieval communal responsibility system fostered international trade by holding traders from the same city or region collectively responsible. Nevertheless, the increase in commerce fostered by the system undermined the effectiveness of collective responsibility and put pressure on cities and nations to develop alternative enforcement institutions.Private ordering. A significant body of historical work investigates the ability of groups to develop norms and practices partly or wholly independently of the state. Such norms include rules relating whaling, the governance of pirate ships, and, more controversially, medieval commercial law (the "law merchant").Litigation and Contracts. Law and economics has developed an impressive body of theories relating to litigation and the structure of contracts. These theories often shed light on legal behavior in former times, including contracts between slave ship owners and captains, and the suit and settlement decisions of medieval private prosecutors.


From its beginnings in the 1920s until its demise in the 1980s, Bell Labs - officially, the research and development wing of AT&T - was the biggest, and arguably the best, laboratory for new ideas in the world. From the transistor to the laser, from digital communications to cellular telephony, it's hard to find an aspect of modern life that hasn't been touched by Bell Labs. In "The Idea Factory", Jon Gertner traces the origins of some of the twentieth century's most important inventions and delivers a riveting and heretofore untold chapter of American history. At its heart this is a story about the life and work of a small group of brilliant and eccentric men - Mervin Kelly, Bill Shockley, Claude Shannon, John Pierce, and Bill Baker - who spent their careers at Bell Labs. Today, when the drive to invent has become a mantra, Bell Labs offers us a way to enrich our understanding of the challenges and solutions to technological innovation. Here, after all, was where the foundational ideas on the management of innovation were born.


This report describes the calibration and completion of the volatility cube in the SABR model. The description is based on a project done for Assenagon GmbH in Munich. However, we use fictitious market data which resembles realistic market data. The problem posed by our client is formulated in section 1. Here we also motivate why this is a relevant problem. The SABR model is briefly reviewed in section 2. Section 3 discusses the calibration and completion of the volatility cube. An example is presented in section 4. We conclude by suggesting possible future research in section 5.


Abstract. Smoke particle emissions from the combustion of biomass fuels typical for the western and southeastern United States were studied and compared under high humidity and ambient conditions in the laboratory. The fuels used were Montana ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), southern California chamise (Adenostoma fasciculatum), and Florida saw palmetto (Serenoa repens). Information on the non-refractory chemical composition of biomass burning aerosol from each fuel was obtained with an aerosol mass spectrometer and through estimation of the black carbon concentration from light absorption measurements at 870 nm. Changes in the optical and physical particle properties under high humidity conditions were observed for hygroscopic smoke particles containing substantial inorganic mass fractions that were emitted from combustion of chamise and palmetto fuels. Light scattering cross sections increased under high humidity for these particles, consistent with the hygroscopic growth measured for 100 nm particles in HTDMA measurements. Photoacoustic measurements of aerosol light absorption coefficients revealed a 20% reduction with increasing relative humidity, contrary to the expectation of light absorption enhancement by the liquid coating taken up by hygroscopic particles. This reduction is hypothesized to arise from two mechanisms: (1) shielding of inner monomers after particle consolidation or collapse with water uptake; (2) the lower case contribution of mass transfer through evaporation and condensation at high relative humidity (RH) to the usual heat transfer pathway for energy release by laser-heated particles in the photoacoustic measurement of aerosol light absorption. The mass transfer contribution is used to evaluate the fraction of aerosol surface covered with liquid water solution as a function of RH.


Nuclear and hazardous waste disposal issues have become universal issues and problems related to the final disposal of these waste including finding a suitable site, natural and engineered barriers used, construction of the repository, long-term performance assessment have gained increasing attention all over the world. High-level radioactive and hazardous waste are required to be buried in deep geological repositories. In Germany, the ongoing researches have assessed the suitability of salt-stone formation in the country as a host rock candidate for its nuclear waste repository. Bentonite-based materials have been proposed to be used as sealing and buffer elements for the nuclear waste repository. Several hydro-mechanical processes will take place in the field and influence behaviour of the sealing and buffer elements of the repository. In this dissertation, a study on the hydro-mechanical characterisation of bentonite-sand mixtures is presented. Mixtures of a calcium-type bentonite, named Calcigel, and quartz sand were used in the investigation. Series of experiments including basic and physico-chemical characterisation, microstructure and fabric studies, suction and swelling pressure measurements, wetting and drying test, one-dimensional compression-rebound test, one-dimensional cyclic wetting-drying test under constant vertical stress, and saturated permeability test were conducted. The experimental data obtained are analysed and several characteristics of the material are brought out in this dissertation. Conclusions regarding basic behaviour of the materials are drawn based on the results of microstructure and fabric studies. Factors influencing the magnitude of suction and swelling pressure of the materials are outlined and discussed. The suction-induced compression and rebound characteristics of the material are described. The wetting and drying behaviour as influenced by the material boundary conditions are discussed. Permeability characteristics of the materials are examined based on several available permeability models. Several mechanical and hydraulic parameters that can be used in modelling using some available constitutive modelling approaches are derived based on the experimental data. At the end, conclusions regarding the hydro-mechanical characteristics of the materials are drawn and suggestions for future studies are made.


Following the Information Society Directive of 2001 (introducing the concept of "fair compensation" for private copying into EU Law), total collection from levies on copying media and equipment in the EU tripled, from about €170m to more than €500m per annum. Levy schemes exist now in 22 out of 27 Member States (with only the UK, Ireland, Malta, Cyprus and Luxembourg remaining outside). Despite their wide adoption, levy systems are little understood, both in respect of their rationale and their economic consequences. Tariffs are increasingly contested in court, leading to a large gap between claimed and collected revenues. The European Commission has announced "comprehensive legislative action" for 2012.

This report offers the first independent empirical assessment of the European levy system as a whole. The research consolidates the evidence on levy setting, collection and distribution; reviews the scope of consumer permissions associated with levy payments; and reports the results of three product level studies (printer/scanners, portable music/video/game devices, and tablet computers), analysing the relationship between VAT, levy tariffs and retail prices in 20 levy and non�levy countries.

Key findings:

There are dramatic differences between countries in the methodology used for identifying leviable devices, setting tariffs, and allocating beneficiaries of the levy. There are levies on blank media in 22 EU countries, on MP3 players in 18 countries, on printers in 12 countries, on personal computers in 4 countries. Revenues collected per capita vary between €0.02 (Romania) and €2.6 (France). The distribution of levy revenues to recording artists is less than €0.01 per album

These variations cannot be explained by an underlying concept of economic harm to rightholders from private copying

The scope of consumer permissions under the statutory exceptions for private copying within the EU vary, and generally do not match with what consumers ordinarily understand as private activities

In levy countries, the costs of levies as an indirect tax are not always passed on to the consumer. In competitive markets, such as those for printers, manufacturers of levied goods appear to absorb the levy. There appears to be a pan-European retail price range for many consumer devices regardless of levy schemes (with the exception of Scandinavia).

In non-levy countries, such as the UK, a certain amount of private copying is already priced into retail purchases. For example, right holders have either explicitly permitted acts of format shifting, or decided not to enforce their exclusive rights. Commercial practice will not change as a result of introducing a narrowly conceived private copying exception.

A more widely conceived exception that would cover private activities that take place in digital networks (such as downloading for personal use, or non-commercial adaptation and distribution within networks of friends) may be best understood not as an exception but as a statutory licence. Such a licence could include state regulated payments with levy characteristics as part of a wider overhaul of the copyright system, facilitating the growth of new digital services.


Despite rapid economic growth in recent years, Mozambique remains a very poor country. Expenditure-based poverty measures are reflected in widespread food insecurity and poor health status. In recognition of these problems, the Government of Mozambique is promoting expanded and improved quality and equity in access to health care as an important component in the global strategy to fight poverty. Given years of colonial neglect and systematic destruction of health facilities during the civil war, recent government policy has focused on expanding the rural health network. However, insofar as the ultimate objective of the provision of curative services is to ensure that those in need of care receive effective treatment, it is also necessary to think beyond supply. Specifically, we need to consider how individuals behave during episodes of illness, and what factors affect this behavior. This paper provides quantitative evidence on the importance of individual, household, and community characteristics on individuals' care-seeking decisions during episodes of illness. The paper estimates a "flexible" multinomial model of health care provider choice conditional on illness using data from the 1996/97 Mozambique National Household Survey on Living Conditions (IAF). The empirical analysis is underpinned by a basic theoretical framework of utility maximization and household production of health. A number of individual and household characteristics, e.g., age, education, and reported symptoms, stand out as highly significant determinants of health seeking behavior. Also, prices, defined in the model as the composite of user fees and time costs associated with consultations at different providers, are found to be important determinants of choice. The results indicate that the eradication of poverty, independent of improvements in physical access to health care and education, will have only a negligible effect on health care choices.


We apply mesoporous thin silica films with nanometer-sized pores as drug carriers and incorporate the widely used anticancer drug Doxorubicin. Through single-molecule based measurements, we gain mechanistic insights into the drug diffusion inside the mesoporous film, which governs the drug-delivery at the target-site. Drug dynamics inside the nanopores is controlled by pore size and surface modification. The release kinetics is determined and live-cell measurements prove the applicability of the system for drug-delivery. This study demonstrates that mesoporous silica nanomaterials can provide solutions for current challenges in nanomedicine.


This widely cited chapter was one of the first to analyze the importance of gender and feminist theory in the debate over whether to legitimate physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. The author argues that the usual debate is about a patient who does not exist - one with no gender or insurance status. Yet there is ample reason to suspect that gender, among other factors, deserves analysis. The prominent cases in the U.S. debate mostly feature women patients. Data show that dimensions of health status and health care that affect a patient's vulnerability to considering physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia - including depression, poor pain relief, and difficulty obtaining good care - differentially plague women. Suicide patterns themselves show a strong gender effect: women less often complete suicide but more often attempt it. And women still face social circumstances marred by sexism, particularly women with illness, disability, or advanced age. This chapter thus examines four potential gender effects: an effect on the incidence of assisted suicide and euthanasia by sex; differences in the reasons women seek assisted suicide and euthanasia, in part based on the long history of valorizing women's self-sacrifice; a difference in the doctor-patient dynamic for female patients seeking assisted suicide or euthanasia, especially if physicians may be susceptible to affirming women's negative self-judgments; and a gender effect in the public debate, reflecting the sense that the cases featuring female patients fit cultural stereotypes and so seem 'right.' The chapter analyzes the available data, and the way gender figures in our cases, cultural imagery, and health care practice.The chapter then brings feminist critiques and theoretical tools to bear. The debate over assisted suicide and euthanasia focuses on precisely the kinds of issues on which much feminist work has focused: what it means to talk about rights of self-determination and autonomy; the reconciliation of those rights with physicians' duties of beneficence and caring; and how to place all of this in a context including the strengths and failures of families, professionals, and communities, as well as real differences of power and resources. The chapter criticizes the usual argument that patients' rights of self-determination legitimate physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia, on the grounds that this misconstrues the utility of rights talk for resolving this debate, and ignores essential features of the context. Nor does the usual appeal to physician beneficence and "mercy" provide resolution, as it typically relies on a shallow understanding of physician care. The author elaborates what a deeper and contextualized understanding demands and argues that physicians as professional caregivers should be guided by a notion of "principled caring." Finally, the author suggests what a proper integration of rights and caring requires, and how it can be coupled with attention to the actual circumstances and fate of women.


Standard policy advice at times of fiscal adjustment is to protect public spending on the poor. However, there is remarkably little theory or evidence to draw on in assessing the case for such policies. To help fill this gap, the paper begins with a theoretical model of the incidence of fiscal expansions and contractions, identifying conditions under which the poor will be exposed to cuts without a policy change. The paper then studies various social programs in Argentina, Bangladesh and India, focusing on how targeting performance varied with aggregate outlays. The results suggest that it tends to be program spending on the non-poor that is protected from budget cuts. Drawing on these results, recommendations are made for more effective safety nets in developing countries.


Embodied conversational agents are computer-generated cartoonlike characters that demonstrate many of the same properties as humans in face-to-face conversation, including the ability to produce and respond to verbal and nonverbal communication. They constitute a type of (a) multimodal interface where the modalities are those natural to human conversation: speech, facial displays, hand gestures, and body stance; (b) software agent, insofar as they represent the computer in an interaction with a human or represent their human users in a computational environment (as avatars, for example); and (c) dialogue system where both verbal and nonverbal devices advance and regulate the dialogue between the user and the computer. With an embodied conversational agent, the visual dimension of interacting with an animated character on a screen plays an intrinsic role. Not just pretty pictures, the graphics display visual features of conversation in the same way that the face and hands do in face-to-face conversation among humans.This book describes research in all aspects of the design, implementation, and evaluation of embodied conversational agents as well as details of specific working systems. Many of the chapters are written by multidisciplinary teams of psychologists, linguists, computer scientists, artists, and researchers in interface design. The authors include Elisabeth Andre, Norm Badler, Gene Ball, Justine Cassell, Elizabeth Churchill, James Lester, Dominic Massaro, Cliff Nass, Sharon Oviatt, Isabella Poggi, Jeff Rickel, and Greg Sanders.


Szpirglas, Jeff .  You Just Can't Help It:  Your Guide to the Wild and Wacky World of Human Behavior , Toronto:  Owlkids Books, 2010.  Print. The publisher describes this brightly coloured and heavily-illustrated book as " The Naked Ape meets MAD Magazine".  It is a fun and irreverent look at what makes people behave the way they do.  The four chapters cover senses, emotions, communication and interactions with other people and the world around us. The presentation of the material is excellent for the upper elementary (ages 9-12) audience.  Throughout there are different fonts, shapes, styles, colours and media.  One page contains many elements including sidebars, boxes, cartoons, drawings, photographs. On each page there is something fun.  For example on page 19, which covers the subject of kissing, facts about kissing are listed as "The Good", "The Gross" and "The Unusual".  There is also a photograph of a cat with oversized red whiskers drawn in.  The most amusing, though, is the composite picture of a robin with worms in its beak, looking like it is about to drop them into the open mouth of a human baby. The text includes many subjects that will interest pre-teens such as hand-gestures, personal space, slang, lying and fear. The language is age appropriate and there are occasional activities for readers to try. Szpirglas uses attention-grabbing headings to present facts.  For example, "Stinky Snarl" introduces a paragraph on facial responses to bad smells.  An experiment on reflex and emotional tears is titled "a real tearjerker". This book is a nice blend of fun, fact and learning.  Highly recommended for school and public libraries. Highly recommended:  4 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.