The price of vacant land in an urban area is a fundamental indicator of an area's attractiveness. However, because the value of vacant land is hard to measure, indirect methods are typically used to gauge prices. A more direct approach to measuring land prices, using a unique data set, reveals that the price of unimproved land in the New York area is high, and rose sharply from 1999 to 2006. The rising trend suggests the underlying strength of the area's economy and the increasing value of the area's productivity and amenities.


Abstract:Perhaps of all the archipelagos of the Pacific imagined by Euro-Americans as "paradisiacal," Hawai'i has been the most "possessed" by an unusually harmonious combination of Christian, capitalist, and imperial agents of the United States. The notion of paradise, rooted in Zoroastrian and Judeo-Christian imaginaries, projected ideas of the harmony and beauty of a primordial state. But just as Christians saw darkness harbored in the Garden of Eden, so did the imperial occupation of Hawai'i usher in an era of ecological and cultural devastation. Reflecting on the embodied experiences of the anu Pacific Islands Field School in 2015, this essay considers how the occupation and possession of Hawai'i, depicted by Teresia Teaiwa as "militourism," has deployed imaginaries of paradise. But it also suggests how Kānaka Maoli engaged in the sovereignty movement are mobilizing alternative notions of paradise in projects of repossession. This is explored through stories of three sites focal to our visit: Mauna a Wākea on the Big Island, Aulani Disney Resort and the University of Hawai'i–West O'ahu campus, and Hālawa Valley. Kanaka Maoli notions of "paradise" emphasize balance (pono), genealogical connections between the human and the nonhuman, and the intimate imbrication of corporeal and spiritual well-being. These ideas draw from the past to imagine a future: the "fall from grace" from ancient Hawai'i to contemporary occupation and precarity is to be redressed by projects to restore social and ecological harmony.


BACKGROUND
The risk of Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) acquisition among children is increased by HIV infection. Antiretroviral therapy (ART) was recently made widely available to HIV-infected children in Zambia. However, the impact of early ART on KSHV transmission to HIV-infected children is unknown.

METHODS
We enrolled and followed a cohort of 287 HIV-exposed, KSHV-negative children under 12 months of age from Lusaka, Zambia, to identify KSHV seroconversion events. Potential factors associated with KSHV infection-with an emphasis on HIV, ART, and immunological measures-were assessed through structured questionnaires and blood analyses. Incidence rate, Kaplan-Meier, and multivariable Cox regression models were used to assess differences in time to event (KSHV seroconversion) between groups. All statistical tests were two-sided.

RESULTS
During follow-up, 151 (52.6%) children underwent KSHV seroconversion. Based on 3552 months of follow-up, we observed similar KSHV incidence rates between HIV-infected and uninfected children. Among HIV-infected children, ART-naïve children had statistically significantly increased risk of KSHV acquisition (adjusted hazard ratio [AHR] = 5.04, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.36 to 10.80, P < .001). Time-updated CD4(+) T-cell percentage was also statistically significantly associated with risk of KSHV acquisition (AHR = 0.82, 95% CI = 0.74 to 0.92, P < .001), such that each 5% increase of CD4(+) T-cells represented an 18% decrease in risk of acquiring KSHV.

CONCLUSIONS
Our data suggest that early ART and prevention of immune suppression reduce the risk of KSHV acquisition among HIV-infected children in an area where both viruses are highly endemic. This study highlights the importance of programs in Africa to provide children with ART immediately after HIV infection is diagnosed.


Nanotechnology in present era gaining value due to capability of modulating metals in to their nanoparticles. There are few studies which are paying attention on the effects and mechanisms of nanomaterials on plants. The present research prominence on the biological synthesis of silver nanoparticle using herbal extract a natural biopolymer, acting as a reducing and stabilizing agent. In green synthesis we used natural reducing agents to synthesize nanoparticles (in this case silver nanoparticles). The leaves were found to be a good reducing as well as capping agent which can rapidly reduces silver ions (Ag + to Ag). The characteristic color changes from pale yellow to dark brown in the reaction due to their specific properties (Surface Plasmon Resonance). Characterization of newly synthesized silver nanoparticle was made using UV – Visible spectroscopic technique. The UV-Vis spectrum of green synthesized silver nanoparticle from Jasminum grandiflorum and Cymbopogon citrullus have maximum absorbance peaks at 206.50 and 199.00 respectively. This study focus on a cost efficient ecofriendly and safe technique for the synthesis of silver nanoparticle using leaves of important medicinal plants.


Although recent economics contributions represent important strides forward in the understanding of leadership behavior, the cognitive and symbolic dimensions of the phenomenon have attracted virtually no interest from economists and game theorists. I argue that an understanding of these dimensions may be founded on coordination games, particularly to the extent that these illustrate interactive belief formation. In this context leadership is defined as the taking of actions that coordinate the complementary actions of many people through the creation of belief conditions that substitute for common knowledge and where these actions characteristically consists of some act of communication directed at those being led. The concept of common knowledge (or its approximation by means of notions of common belief) is argued to be particularly important to understanding leadership. Thus, leaders may establish common knowledge conditions, and assist the coordination of strategies in this way, or make decisions in situations where coordination problems persist in spite of common knowledge. Copyright 2001 by Oxford University Press.


OBJECTIVES: To describe the radiographic changes in coalworkers exposed to unusual concentrations of respirable quartz during the 1970s, and to relate these to exposure measurements. METHODS: Men who had worked at one Scottish colliery during the 1970s were invited to a health survey. Chest radiographs were taken from 547 subjects. Classifications of these films under the International Labour Organisation (ILO) 1980 scheme were related, by logistic regression, to existing data on individual men's exposures to respirable dust and quartz. RESULTS: Taking the median of the three readers' results on profusion of small opacities, 203 men (38%) showed progression of at least one profusion category on the 12 point scale, from the various 1970s surveys to the follow up in 1990-1. A total of 158 men (29%) had a profusion of at least 1/0, and 47 (8.6%) of at least 2/1 at the follow up survey. Large opacities were recorded as present by at least two readers for 14 (2.6%) of the men. Profusion of small opacities was strongly related to exposures experienced in the 1970s, and more strongly for quartz than for the non-quartz fraction of the dust. Estimates of risk are presented over the range of quartz exposures experienced. CONCLUSIONS: The quartz exposures experienced by some men at this colliery have caused considerable progression of radiographic abnormalities since exposure ended. The data accumulated offer opportunities for further more detailed analyses to inform debate on occupational limits for quartz exposures, both in collieries and in other industries where there is exposure to quartz in mixed dust.


How can an agent bootstrap up from a pixel-level representation to autonomously learn high-level states and actions using only domain general knowledge? This thesis attacks a piece of this problem and assumes that an agent has a set of continuous variables describing the environment and a set of continuous motor primitives, and poses a solution for the problem of how an agent can learn a set of useful states and effective higher-level actions through autonomous experience with the environment. There exist methods for learning models of the environment, and there also exist methods for planning. However, for autonomous learning, these methods have been used almost exclusively in discrete environments.
This thesis proposes attacking the problem of learning high-level states and actions in continuous environments by using a qualitative representation to bridge the gap between continuous and discrete variable representations. In this approach, the agent begins with a broad discretization and initially can only tell if the value of each variable is increasing, decreasing, or remaining steady. The agent then simultaneously learns a qualitative representation (discretization) and a set of predictive models of the environment. The agent then converts these models into plans to form actions. The agent then uses those learned actions to explore the environment.
The method is evaluated using a simulated robot with realistic physics. The robot is sitting at a table that contains one or two blocks, as well as other distractor objects that are out of reach. The agent autonomously explores the environment without being given a task. After learning, the agent is given various tasks to determine if it learned the necessary states and actions to complete them. The results show that the agent was able to use this method to autonomously learn to perform the tasks.


Relational or semistructured data is naturally represented by a graph, where nodes denote entities and directed typed edges represent the relations between them. Such graphs are heterogeneous, describing different types of objects and links. We represent personal information as a graph that includes messages, terms, persons, dates, and other object types, and relations like sent-to and has-term. Given the graph, we apply finite random graph walks to induce a measure of entity similarity, which can be viewed as a tool for performing search in the graph. Experiments conducted using personal email collections derived from the Enron corpus and other corpora show how the different tasks of alias finding, threading, and person name disambiguation can be all addressed as search queries in this framework, where the graph-walk-based similarity metric is preferable to alternative approaches, and further improvements are achieved with learning. While researchers have suggested to tune edge weight parameters to optimize the graph walk performance per task, we apply reranking to improve the graph walk results, using features that describe high-level information such as the paths traversed in the walk. High performance, together with practical runtimes, suggest that the described framework is a useful search system in the PIM domain, as well as in other semistructured domains.


OBJECTIVES
The objective was to test the hypothesis that hydrocodone/acetaminophen (Vicodin [5/500]) provides more efficacious analgesia than codeine/acetaminophen (Tylenol #3 [30/300]) in patients discharged from the emergency department (ED). Both are currently Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Schedule III narcotics.

METHODS
This was a prospective, randomized, double-blind, clinical trial of patients with acute extremity pain who were discharged home from the ED, comparing a 3-day supply of oral hydrocodone/acetaminophen (5 mg/500 mg) to oral codeine/acetaminophen (30 mg/300 mg). Pain was measured on a valid and reproducible verbal numeric rating scale (NRS) ranging from 0 to 10, and patients were contacted by telephone approximately 24 hours after being discharged. The primary outcome was the between-group difference in improvement in pain at 2 hours following the most recent ingestion of the study drug, relative to the time of phone contact after ED discharge. Secondary outcomes compared side-effect profiles and patient satisfaction.

RESULTS
The median time from ED discharge to follow-up was 26 hours (interquartile range [IQR] = 24 to 39 hours). The mean NRS pain score before the most recent dose of pain medication after ED discharge was 7.6 NRS units for both groups. The mean decrease in pain scores 2 hours after pain medications were taken were 3.9 NRS units in the hydrocodone/acetaminophen group versus 3.5 NRS units in the codeine/acetaminophen group, for a difference of 0.4 NRS units (95% confidence interval [CI] = -0.3 to 1.2 NRS units). No differences were found in side effects or patient satisfaction.

CONCLUSIONS
Both medications decreased NRS pain scores by approximately 50%. However, the oral hydrocodone/acetaminophen failed to provide clinically or statistically superior pain relief compared to oral codeine/acetaminophen when prescribed to patients discharged from the ED with acute extremity pain. Similarly, there were no clinically or statistically important differences in side-effect profiles or patient satisfaction. If the DEA reclassifies hydrocodone as a Schedule II narcotic, as recently recommended by its advisory board, our data suggest that the codeine/acetaminophen may be a clinically reasonable Schedule III substitute for hydrocodone/acetaminophen at ED discharge. These findings should be regarded as tentative and require independent validation in similar and other acute pain models.


Here we will try to posit the relationships between vision, thought, spoken or "signed" languages and narcissism in adolescence, such as they are revealed by deaf-muteness. For any deaf person, vision is the object of an over-investment that is both saving and problematic. Its importance need not be stressed, but its preponderance raises some questions. The theory of the "visual envelope of the ego" enables us to posit the theoretical issues, and some excerpts from the psychotherapy of a hearing-impaired adolescent bear witness to the clinical issues: narcissistic suffering and the suffering of the thought process.


UNLABELLED
The living environments of senior citizens are gaining in complexity with regard to health, mobility, information, support and behaviour. The development of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) services in order to reduce this complexity is becoming increasingly important. The question is: What relevant criteria support the development, measurement and evaluation of business models of hybrid AAL services which have to be considered in an appropriate Performance Measurement Set? Within the EU funded research project DALIA (Assistant for Daily Life Activities at Home) a Service Performance Measurement Criteria (SPMC) Set has been developed and described. With the help of literature review and expert interviews relevant performance criteria were identified and described in the context of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). In conjunction with an AAL business models scanning, a set of performance measurement criteria could be created.

DISCUSSION
The development and application of a specific AAL SPMC Set offers the possibility in a targeted and conceptual way advance the development of marketable AAL services. Here it will be important to integrate with software support the SPMC Set in the service development process of future marketable AAL applications. With the application of an adjusted AAL Service Performance Measurement Cube, the conceptual development of marketable AAL services can be maintained and relevant decisions can be supported.


In the Age of Revolution, how did American women conceive their lives and marital obligations? By examining the attitudes and behaviors surrounding the contentious issues of family, contraception, abortion, sexuality, beauty, and identity, Susan E. Klepp demonstrates that many women - rural and urban, free and enslaved - began to radically redefine motherhood. They asserted, or attempted to assert, control over their bodies, their marriages, and their daughters' opportunities. Late-eighteenth-century American women were among the first in the world to disavow the continual childbearing and large families that had long been considered ideal. Liberty, equality, and heartfelt religion led to new conceptions of virtuous, rational womanhood and responsible parenthood. These changes can be seen in falling birthrates, in advice to friends and kin, in portraits, and in a gradual, even reluctant, shift in men's opinions. Revolutionary-era women redefined femininity, fertility, family, and their futures by limiting births. Women might not have won the vote in the new Republic, they might not have gained formal rights in other spheres, but, Klepp argues, there was a women's revolution nonetheless.


Intellectually gifted individuals are increasingly seen as the problem solvers of the future who are to secure societal prosperity and welfare. However, little attention has been paid to the fact that there may exist cultural obstacles in promoting intellectual giftedness in any given culture when setting such educational targets. If certain abilities are not highly valued in a given culture, it seems unlikely that increasing an interest in education focused on excellence in these abilities would be as successful as hoped. The abilities needed for economical growth and continued welfare are not necessarily the abilities valued by the people who are expected to pursue such training. Successful implementation is likely to dependent on the culturally dominant ability climate. The presentation focuses on a recent study of ability climates in 29 European countries as based on socially represented notability. The analysis of data yielded three types of European ability climates: A uniform ability climate; a divergent ability climate, and a diverse ability climate; each of which was characterized by clusters of abilities that seemed to be particularly valued in a given European country. Only nine of the participating countries appeared to feature an ability climate conducive to intellectual pursuits.


A quantitative TaqMn Real-Time PCR assay was developed and its diagnostic value on human serum and livestock samples were evaluated. Brucella species could be distributed through communities as a biological agent. Rapid detection of biological threat agents is critical for timely therapeutic administration. Quantitative real-time PCR provides a rapid, sensitive and specific tool for molecular identification of this agent. We evaluated a new real-time PCR set by numerous human and livestock samples. For primers and probe designation BCSP31 of B. melitensis 16 M was used. Different sero-positive human samples and tissue samples livestock with suspected brucellosis were then assayed after primary adaptation of Q-PCR in the laboratory. The detection limit of the assay was 10 fg (equivalent to 2 genome). Totally 50 samples (25 sero-positive, 25 sero-negative) of patients and 75 samples from slaughtered livestock (due to brucellosis) were collected and assayed by Q-PCR, along with control samples. Brucella genome were detected by this real-time set from nearly 42% (5 out of 12) of negative samples by conventional PCR. This system also detected brucella contamination in 46 out of 75 animal samples.


This study examines patterns of growth and nutritional status of indigenous Tsimane' children under 9 years of age (n = 199 boys and 210 girls), based on a cross-sectional sample from 58 villages from the Beni Deparment of lowland Bolivia. Compared with US children, Tsimane' children are quite short, with linear growth tracking at or below the US 5th centile in both sexes. The prevalence of low height-for-age ("stunting;" HA Z-scores </=-2) is 52% in boys and 43% in girls. In contrast, weight-for-height in Tsimane' children approximates the US median, with the prevalence of low weight-for-height ("wasting"; WH Z-scores </=-2) being only 4% and 6% in boys and girls, respectively. Tsimane' boys and girls are leaner than their US peers, but their levels of body fatness are not so low as to indicate severe energy stress. Arm muscularity of Tsimane' children is similar to that of their US age peers, and this suggests that they are not experiencing acute protein malnutrition. Variation in measures of nutritional status of Tsimane' children is modestly correlated with village-level differences. Degree of isolation, as measured by distance to urban centers or to primary forest, was not a strong predictor of children's anthropometric status. Rather, in both boys and girls, nutritional status was most strongly associated with number of teachers in the village, a measure of access to education. Comparative analyses indicate that high levels of statural growth stunting are common among indigenous populations throughout lowland South America. This problem appears to be largely attributable to poor dietary quality (diets low in key micronutrients) and high disease loads. Further research is needed to identify the specific causes and potential interventions for the high rates of childhood growth stunting in this region.


Troubled Waters: Steamboat Disasters, River Improvements, and American Public Policy, 1821-1860. By Paul F. Paskoff. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007. Pp. xvii, 324. Preface, introduction, illustrations, epilogue, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. $48.00.) Steamboats are one of the most vivid icons of the nineteenth-century United States, and of the trans-Appalachian West and Mississippi Valley in particular. Even Walt Disney included one, the aptly named "Mark Twain," in his frontierland depiction of American history. Throughout the pages of Troubled Waters, Paul F. Paskoff demonstrates that riverine transportation before the Civil War would put to shame any of Disney's E-ticket rides. Paskoff's narrative focuses on the four decades preceding the great sectional conflict of the 1860s and traces the frustrating attempts to improve conditions along the nation's rivers. Both natural and manmade dangers threatened these essential routes, from "snags" by submerged trees that could quickly sink a boat to improper boiler maintenance that could lead to an explosion. Whether responding to these challenges was a local, state, or federal matter provoked heated arguments at all levels of government, as Paskoff ably demonstrates. The narrative of internal improvements throughout the antebellum period, both generally and with specific reference to steamboat travel, is a prominent aspect of Troubled Waters. Paskoff shows how the controversies over river improvements stood shoulder to shoulder with sectionalism and the rise and fall of political parties. An extensive recounting of executive and legislative wrangling over proposed river projects fills much of the book's first half. Paskoff then shifts to the various responses to the embarrassing state of the nation's rivers. New technologies helped clear snags and other obstructions, while wheeler-dealers in Congress helped negotiate obstructive politicians. Paskoff observes that steamboats, the workhorses of early nineteenth-century American commerce, struggled for funding with the new show horse of the railroads, a dazzling technology that often distracted the public's attention from the needs of the nation's rivers. The Union's triumph in the Civil War was reflected in riverine issues, as Paskoff concludes that the federal government accepted responsibility for internal flows in the 1860s, and within two decades the nation's major rivers had, for the most part, been transformed into safe corridors for passengers and freight. …


ABSTRACT Microvascular decompression (MVD) is a novel surgical procedure predominantly performed for treating trigeminal neuralgia (TN) and hemifacial spasm (HS). Multiple studies have proven the long-term success of MVD for both these conditions. The most common complications of MVD reported include chemical meningitis, facial hypesthesia, cerebrospinal fluid leak, facial paresis, and hearing loss. Delayed facial palsy (DFP) is an uncommon complication mostly noted in MVD for HS and after the removal of acoustic tumors. We report two cases of DFP occurring after performing MVD, one each for HS and TN. This is also the first case of DFP to be reported after MVD for TN. Both were young females who developed DFP 2 weeks after surgery. They were managed with oral steroids and acyclovir for 2–3 weeks and achieved excellent outcome at an average of 4.5 weeks from the onset. We conclude that although majority of the cases improve spontaneously, steroids and acyclovir might assist in faster recovery.


Despite the large number of speakers of English in China, little previous work has been done to describe their pronunciation. Thirteen young speakers from north-east, east and central China were recorded reading a passage and participating in a short interview, and their pronunciation is analyzed. The most salient features of their speech include the use of an epenthetic vowel after word-final plosives especially before another word beginning with a consonant, avoidance of reduced vowels especially in function words, heavy nasalization of vowels preceding a final nasal consonant, substitution of [s] for /θ/ and [z] or [d] for /ð/, use of [x] for /h/, and emphasis on sentence-final pronouns. It is suggested that some of these features may become established as part of a unique variety of English that is emerging in China.


A rapid and easy-to-follow introductory tutorial to help you use PHP code to create your first Joomla! extensions: modules, components, and plugins. This book is suitable for PHP programmers who want to take their first step in customizing and extending the features of Joomla! through custom PHP development. It is not a reference guide for advanced Joomla! developers. You need only the basics of PHP programming; no experience of developing Joomla! extensions is assumed. You are expected to be familiar with the general operation of Joomla!


In Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks, the Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Services over Single Frequency Network (MBSFN) operation enables the delivery of the same multimedia content to a set or all the users in a cell, leading in this way to efficient utilization of the network resources. This is achieved through a time-synchronized common waveform that is transmitted from multiple cells for a given duration, which enables over-the-air combining, and therefore significantly improves the spectral efficiency. However, the performance of MBSFN is directly connected to the Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) and the transmission mode that will be selected for the delivery of the multimedia data. This paper proposes three different approaches for the selection of the MCS during MBSFN transmissions. Main target is to determine the most efficient approach depending on the target that the operator may set, i.e. the approach that either maximizes the spectral efficiency or achieves a target spectral efficiency for various user distributions. The performance of the approaches is evaluated for scenarios that include users' mobility and for three different transmission modes in order to also examine the effectiveness of Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) techniques.


Cowpea aphid (Aphis craccivora Koch) is a major pest of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp.) particularly in the drier regions of the tropics. Although aphid resistant varieties had been developed, resistance has recently broken down. The present study seeks to identify new sources of resistance. 105 cowpea cultivars and 92 wild cowpea accessions were screened in a greenhouse for resistance to cowpea aphid. The results revealed that Among the cowpea cultivars only IT97K-556-6 showed some level of tolerance as 40 % of the seedlings survived until 21 days after infestation even with a high aphid population. The cultivar TVu 1659 had the highest number of aphids per seedling with 59.0 and 268.0 at 9 and 13 days after infestation, respectively while the wild cowpea accession TVNu 1158 had the lowest number of aphids per seedling with 3.2, 11.0 and 25.0 at 5, 9 and 13 days after infestation, respectively. Apart from having the lowest number of aphids 80% of the seedlings of this wild cowpea line survived to 21 days after infestation. The wild cowpea line TVNu 1158 was consistently aphid resistant and should be a good source of resistance genes for incorporation into cultivated cowpea. Keys: Cowpea, Aphis caccivora, resistance, control.


In this article I report on a study that focused on the concept of resilience, in order to determine the nature of personal attributes in adolescents with learning difficulties, who were able to rebound from life's onslaughts, and to continue determinedly along the path of self-actualisation. The personal attributes impacting on the ability to surmount life's challenges were delineated by an empirical study focusing on 20 adolescents with learning difficulties', half of which had demonstrated resilience, whilst the other half appeared to have reneged on self-actualisation. The aim was to provide an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon of resilience, so that vulnerable adolescents might ultimately be therapeutically assisted to choose a more resilient attitude and behaviour. The results of the study delineated nine key personal attributes which anchored resilience and promoted self-actualisation, despite obstacle-ridden circumstances. South African Journal of Education Vol.24(4) 2004: 317-321


Clerical marriage during the time of the Reformation raised issues of theology for the reformers, but for the Catholics it flagged issues of morality in its verdict that theology was simply being used in the service of immorality. This is best underscored in the matrimonial case involving Martin Luther and Katherine von Bora. Luther's writings on the subject of marriage had to be applied to his own life. Protestants defended Luther, while Catholic polemicists, especially Thomas More, attacked the matter of clerical marriage relentlessly. In more strident denunciations, Luther's marriage specifically, and clerical marriage generally, was rooted in charges of lust and disobedience to God. As for the Luthers, who had been under holy orders, their union, by definition of canon law, was blatant and deliberate incest. The reformers regarded clerical marriage as an act of faith, a work of God, and a witness to the gospel. Catholic theologians perceived it as sin, the breaking of faith, an offense to God, and an abuse of the freedom of the gospel. The Luther marriage is a test case for exploring one dimension of the social implications of theology.


Most commentators assume that, except for the few textual limitations mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, the President's pardon power is effectively unlimited. This paper suggests that this common view is mistaken in at least one unexpected way: Presidential pardons must satisfy a specificity requirement. That is, to be valid, the pardon must list the specific crimes insulated from criminal liability.

This claim bears a significant burden of persuasion, since it runs so counter to accepted opinion. Nonetheless, that burden can be met. The paper's argument rests on an originalist understanding of the Constitution's text, an approach that leaves little doubt that a specificity requirement is an implicit limitation on the President's pardon power. It also demonstrates that the main objections to the argument – that the requirement runs contrary to the Constitutional text or historical practice – are misguided and unpersuasive.

Of course, even if a specificity requirement exists, one may wonder about its significance. After all, the requirement does not prevent a President from issuing a pardon to any person or for any crime. Nonetheless, as the paper explains, a specificity requirement may prove more powerful than it first appears. Most importantly, it both limits the scope and raises the cost of issuing pardons for criminal violations, including violations of the electoral process. In so doing, the specificity requirement serves as an unexpected ally in the fight for political accountability and in defense of the rule of law.


In contrast to conventional explosives which constitute rapid decomposition of the molecular structure acconlpanied by the release of large volumes of gaseous products, heterogeneous mixtures in the SHS realm react by progression of a thermal wave at velocities far below the speed of sound in such mixtures. Interestingly, ultrafast solid phase reactions can be initiated under the right conditions. A shock wave compresses the solid mixture to densities well beyond the theoretical mean ambient density (TMD) and compression becomes the major form of preheating. In addition, elastic potential energy is pumped into the lattice structure to induce severe distortion and eventually a structural collapse of the lattice on the atomic scale. Mixing and reaction proceed as in a dense gas and condensed products form. A continuum model is presented which addresses the following elements in the process. Compaction of the porous preform is described by an amended equation of state which includes plastic yielding and dilatation. The equation of state of densified material is based on an isobaric modification of the Mie-Gruneisen equation of state to account for anomalous behavior - a phenomenon of density reduction in the shock wave. Pressure is coupled into the kinetics as suggested by Benderskii insofar the activation energy is reduced proportionally to the stored elastic potential energy. Examples are presented of anomalous shock behavior, stable and unstable detonations.


The major objective of this work has been to investigate methods of reconstructing tomographic images from incomplete projection data. Furthermore the practical application of such techniques to industrial non-destructive testing has been considered with particular regard to the nuclear industry. Two distinct situations are considered, region of interest (ROI) tomography and limited angle of view (LV) tomography. ROI tomography relates to situations where data is limited in linear extent and can be used for high spatial resolution imaging of particular areas of interest within larger structures. Data collection times are reduced by concentrating on the ROI and the imaging of structures which cannot fit in the field of view of the scanner can be made possible. It has been shown that corrected ROI images can be of equal quality to those reconstructed from complete data. The situation where data is limited in angular range is known as LV tomography. Practical applications of such situations can include in situ imaging of objects which cannot be accessed at all required angles, and the imaging of time varying objects where limitations on the data collection times restrict the angular range of measurements. The use of the Gerchberg-Papoulis algorithm has been shown to significantly reduce the resulting artifacts. The initial work involved investigation into the minimum data requirements for tomographic imaging of objects without compromising image quality. The relative performance of filtered backprojection and ART iterative reconstruction algorithms were investigated and the superiority of ART in situations of limited data was demonstrated. The most important causes of SPECT image degradation are scattering and attenuation of photons. For scatter correction the dual energy window and Wiener deconvolution correction methods have been investigated and the results compared. A number of attenuation correction algorithms have also been investigated and their comparative performance evaluated.


Spirit landed on the floor of Gusev Crater and conducted initial operations on soil-covered, rock-strewn cratered plains underlain by olivine-bearing basalts. Plains surface rocks are covered by wind-blown dust and show evidence for surface enrichment of soluble species as vein and void-filling materials and coatings. The surface enrichment is the result of a minor amount of transport and deposition by aqueous processes. Layered granular deposits were discovered in the Columbia Hills, with outcrops that tend to dip conformably with the topography. The granular rocks are interpreted to be volcanic ash and/or impact ejecta deposits that have been modified by aqueous fluids during and/or after emplacement. Soils consist of basaltic deposits that are weakly cohesive, relatively poorly sorted, and covered by a veneer of wind-blown dust. The soils have been homogenized by wind transport over at least the several kilometer length scale traversed by the rover. Mobilization of soluble species has occurred within at least two soil deposits examined. The presence of monolayers of coarse sand on wind-blown bedforms, together with even spacing of granule-sized surface clasts, suggests that some of the soil surfaces encountered by Spirit have not been modified by wind for some time. On the other hand, dust deposits on the surface and rover deck have changed during the course of the mission. Detection of dust devils, monitoring of the dust opacity and lower boundary layer, and coordinated experiments with orbiters provided new insights into atmosphere-surface dynamics.


A very common but futile practice in scientific research investigating non-western consumer cultures and markets is the imposition of concepts that are derived from a single historical trajectory of western modernization. This paper aims to show that there are alternative historical trajectories in the early modern period which have formed today's multiple modern consumer cultures. The particularities of the Ottoman context, which shaped the development of an alternative early modern consumer culture, are examined as an example. Islamic ethics, fluid social structure, wakf institutions, the negotiability of market institutions, and a public sphere formed by aesthetic, emotional, and playful communicative action are among the particularities discussed in this study.


An effective and novel methodology that integrates infrared (IR) thermography measurement and a three-dimensional (3-D) finite element (FE) model is proposed for thermal characterization of packages in a steady state under a natural convection environment based on JEDEC specification . To perform surface temperature measurement using an IR thermometer, a black paint coating is applied on the surface of packages so as to calibrate the surface radiation. The associated emissivity is approximately assessed using a simple calibration experiment, and an appropriate thickness of the coating is determined. By using a typical 100-lead Thin Quad Flat package (TQFP) as the test vehicle, the proposed methodology is benchmarked by a thermal test die measurement in terms of the junction-to-ambient (J/A) thermal resistance and the chip junction temperature. To demonstrate the accuracy of the benchmarked data from the thermal test die measurement, a corresponding uncertainty analysis is performed. It is found that the worst possible uncertainty in the measured power, based on the specific power supply, is about 0.005 W and that of chip junction temperature measurement is about 0.78/spl deg/C. Additional studies are performed to evaluate the feasibility of the correlation models for convective heat transfer coefficients on typical TQFP packages. It turns out that for a small device such as the TQFP package, these correlation models are fairly reliable.


Background Thirty percent of patients do not achieve an adequate antiplatelet effect despite therapy with aspirin (ASA) 100 mg/d after coronary artery bypass-graft surgery (CABGS), probably due to reduced inhibitory effect of ASA, increased platelet activation and increased platelet turnover secondary to the surgical procedure. Objectives To evaluate the relation between platelet count and lower antiplatelet effect and to determine if antiaggregation improves by dividing the dose of ASA. Material and Methods A total of 50 patients undergoing CABGS (with an average of 2.95 grafts per surgery) were randomly assigned to three groups depending on the dose of ASA indicated: G100 (100 mg/d, n=18 patients), G300 (300 mg/d, n=14) and G100×3 (100 mg TID, n=18). All the patients received 100 mg/d before surgery. Platelet reactivity was assessed by whole blood impedance using arachidonic acid before surgery (T0), 24 h (T1), 72 h (T2), 7 days (T3), and one month post-CABG (T4). Results Before surgery, all patients had optimal values of antiaggregation (0 W). During the postoperative period, antiaggregation values were better in patients from G100×3 (p 20% was related with values of platelet aggregation ≥6 W; OR=2.1 (CI 1.8-4.21; p=0.0028). Conclusions In patients undergoing CABGS, the lowest antiplatelet effect of ASA was associated with the highest platelet turnover. A better antiaggregation might be achieved by dividing therapy in low dose of ASA.


Professor Kovacic-Fleischer reviewed Pregnant Pause, which collects legal documents relating to workplace discrimination with emphasis on maternity and paternity leave issues. The book suggests that the United States should provide paid maternity leave as most countries do and paternity leave as some countries do. No country provides women and men with equal amounts of paid family leave. Pregnant Pause explains that without maternity leave, women may lose jobs when they have a baby and/or may pay an economic "child penalty." Pregnant Pause notes that depending on how much or little leave and pay is allocated to men, parental leave policies can either encourage fathers to take part in child raising or can perpetuate the stereotype of mothers as the main caregivers. In reviewing Pregnant Pause, Professor Kovacic-Fleischer says that it might have delved more into why United States' leave laws are different from those of most of the world. The United States government does not require any employer to provide employees with paid leave. While many employers do, if they provide leave to mothers beyond disability leave, they must provide fathers with the same. Professor Kovacic-Fleischer therefore notes that the United States applies the "equal treatment" method of defining equality, which requires that the same rules apply to eveyone despite their differing situations. Most other countries apply the "equal opportunity" (also referred to as "special treatment") method, which adjusts rules to account for peoples' differences, in this case the reproductive difference between men and women. Professor Kovacic-Fleischer notes that Pregnant Pause demonstrates the conundrum that policy makers face in deciding whether to choose between equal or special treatment. The United States government treats everyone equally. This results in fewer benefits for all, including mothers who often end up disadvantaged by inadequate leave policies. Most other countries, in contrast, provide generous benefits to mothers, but no comparable benefits to fathers, risking that employers will view women as less desirable workers.


The data analysis tool of choice for many Sun-Earth Connection missions is the Interactive Data Language (IDL) by ITT VIS. The increasing amount of data produced by these missions and the increasing complexity of image processing algorithms requires access to higher computing power. Parallel computing is a cost-effective way to increase the speed of computation, but algorithms oftentimes have to be modified to take advantage of parallel systems. Enhancing IDL to work on clusters gives scientists access to increased performance in a familiar programming environment. The goal of this project was to enable IDL applications to benefit from both computing clusters as well as graphics processing units (GPUs) for accelerating data analysis tasks. The tool suite developed in this project enables scientists now to solve demanding data analysis problems in IDL that previously required specialized software, and it allows them to be solved orders of magnitude faster than on conventional PCs. The tool suite consists of three components: (1) TaskDL, a software tool that simplifies the creation and management of task farms, collections of tasks that can be processed independently and require only small amounts of data communication; (2) mpiDL, a tool that allows IDL developers to use the Message Passing Interface (MPI) inside IDL for problems that require large amounts of data to be exchanged among multiple processors; and (3) GPULib, a tool that simplifies the use of GPUs as mathematical coprocessors from within IDL. mpiDL is unique in its support for the full MPI standard and its support of a broad range of MPI implementations. GPULib is unique in enabling users to take advantage of an inexpensive piece of hardware, possibly already installed in their computer, and achieve orders of magnitude faster execution time for numerically complex algorithms. TaskDL enables the simple setup and management of task farms on compute clusters. The products developed in this project have the potential to interact, so one can build a cluster of PCs, each equipped with a GPU, and use mpiDL to communicate between the nodes and GPULib to accelerate the computations on each node.


The strong performance of real estate and other private market asset classes in the past several years has attracted considerable interest to alternative investments. While the evidence demonstrates that property and capital market forces drive real estate pricing and thus investment performance, measuring the contribution of these two forces is challenging. Examination of the historical relationship between real estate property market forces (which drive property earnings) and capital market forces (which largely determine cap rates) helps investors better understand the effect of the two forces on property values in the past and how changes in either might affect property values in the future.


Phosphorus is a nonrenewable resource, raising concerns that agricultural practices may deplete reserves. Organic farming with low P inputs can result in deficient levels of plant-available phosphorus (available-P). The purpose of this study was to determine if common organically managed rotations are depleting P reserves or iflarge reserves still exist in unavailable forms. The research was performed in the 13th year of the Glenlea Long-term Crop Rotation and Management study in southern Manitoba. The site has three 4-yr rotations under Organic and Conventional management: spring wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)-alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.)-alfalfa-flax (Linum usitatissimum L.) (forage grain) with and without manure compost, and spring wheat-field pea (Pisum sativum L.)-spring wheat-flax (grain only), as well as a restored prairie grass planting (Prairie). Conventional treatments received synthetic fertilizers and herbicides whereas the Organic received no inputs other than a one-time application of manure compost. The modified Hedley sequential P extraction procedure revealed organic management to have lower concentrations of readily available P than conventional but recalcitrant forms were similar between systems. The Prairie had P concentrations similar to conventional in all forms. Estimated cumulative P balance indicated that organic grain-only rotations compared to conventional had low P removal resulting in slightly lower concentration of available-P forms. The high yielding and P removal rotation of forage-grain decreased available-P forms to below an agronomic response threshold. Only high yielding, high P export organic rotations are a concern for developing P deficiency depending on initial reserves and the length of time without additional inputs.


This thesis presents investigations into the development of a versatile scansorial mobile robot and real-time realisation of a control system for different configurations of the robot namely climbing mode, walking mode and steering mode. The mobile robot comprises of a hybrid leg and wheel mechanism with innovative design that
enables it to interchange its configuration to perform the specific tasks of pole climbing in climbing mode, walking and step climbing in walking mode, and skid steering and inclined slope climbing in steering mode. The motivation of this research is due to the surrounding environment which is not always structured for exploration or navigation missions, and thus poses significant difficulty for the robot to manoeuvre and accomplish the intended task. Hence, the development of versatile scansorial robot with a flexible and interchangeable configuration can provide a broad
range of applications and locomotion system and to achieve the mission objective successfully.

The robot design consists of four arms/legs with wheel attached at each end-effector and has two link manipulation capability. In climbing mode, the arms are configured as grippers to grip the pole and wheels accelerate to ascend or descend. The climbing
angle is monitored to retain the level of the robot while climbing. However, in walking mode, the arms are configured as legs and the wheels are disabled. By implementing a periodic walking gait, the robot is capable of performing stable walking and step climbing. In steering mode, the arms are configured as suspension and the wheels are used for manoeuvring. In this mode, the skid steering system is used to enable the robot perform the turn.

The versatile scansorial robot's configurations and locomotion capabilities are assessed experimentally in real time implementation using the physical prototype. The experiments provided demonstrate the versatility of the robot and successfully fulfill the aims and objectives of the research.


Background: This paper assesses whether an ALTC sub-project (work integrated learning Business School) special topic unit (BUS2011 Work Based Business Learning) can enhance business students understanding and integration of their University learning with their workplace learning and experience(s). The students are required to be in the workplace already - either part-time or full-time.

Aims: The paper investigates whether work integrated learning can be effectively implemented by using students existing workplace experiences (full-time or part-time) of students enrolled in a relevant business school WIL unit.

Method: The paper adopts a qualitative research approach utilising semi-structured interview questions. Teaching evaluations and learning logs will also be used as part of the data analysis. The learning experiences of the students (there are fourteen students currently enrolled in the unit in semester 1, 2010) were evaluated at the end of the semester through a series of focus group interviews as well as teaching evaluations conducted and completed in May.

Discussion: The students reported universally positive assessments of this WIL unit in their teaching evaluations and in the two focus group interviews conducted at the end of the semester. All students rated this particular unit as one of the best learning experiences they had encountered to date at the undergraduate level within their MBS business programs. They also concluded that the learning topics within the unit had provided them with critical and personally useful understandings into their own workplace experiences and the wider work environment.

The student responses to questions in focus group interviews were very positive. They reported that the weekly learning process of providing an academic overview of both the mainstream and critical theory literature and research findings in each topic area was a particularly useful insight in their overall learning within the unit. The in-class discussions were often intense and (surprisingly) insightful at times, which was a reflection of just how much students had already accumulated useful knowledge in the work environment.

Conclusions: There are three possible outcomes for this MBS unit. First, will be an evidence-based set of curriculum, pedagogy and epistemological principles and practices for effectively designing and implementing WIL in a business school setting. The second outcome is building MBS faculty capacity for: (a) determining how best educational experiences can be structured during work placement experiences; (b) learning how particular kinds of knowledge (i.e. conceptual, procedural and dispositional) can be generated and (c) understanding how students' personal epistemologies can be developed. The third outcome is the incorporation of feedback from students (through interviews and teaching evaluations) about their specific experiences and learning achievements in BUS2011 Work Based Business Learning in future offerings of the unit.


Along with continuously increasing computerization, our expectations on software and hardware reliability increase considerably. Therefore, software reliability has become one of the most important software quality attributes. Software reliability modeling based on test data is done to estimate whether the current reliability level meets the requirements for the product. Software reliability modeling also provides possibilities to predict reliability. Costs of software developing and tests together with profit issues in relation to software reliability are one of the main objectives to software reliability prediction. Software reliability prediction currently uses different models for this purpose. Parameters have to be set in order to tune the model to fit the test data. A slightly different prediction model, Time Invariance Estimation, TIE is developed to challenge the models used today. An experiment is set up to investigate whether TIE could be found useful in a software reliability prediction context. The experiment is based on a comparison between the ordinary reliability prediction models and TIE.


The Paris Salons of the mid-nineteenth century are famous today above all for the paintings that were rejected more than for those that were actually shown. The rejected works form today's canon of art history and are regarded as heralds of a modern age. This book looks to reassess the other side of the art history of the nineteenth century. Salon Painting has often been dismissed as overly academic or staid. Now art historian Norbert Wolf turns back the pages of history as he reintroduces readers to the artistry and excellence of the Salon Painting in Europe, Britain, Russia and the US. In an opulent new book, illustrated throughout with gorgeous reproductions, Wolf looks at Salon painting from a variety of perspectives, such as the rise of the bourgeoisie and Paris's position as Europe's cultural capitol. Wolf examines masterpieces by Cabanel, Manet, Bierstadt, The Pre-Raphaelites, and Sargent, demonstrating how classical subjects gave way to modern concerns. And he explores styles and themes that were especially prevalent in Salon Painting: the history painting; portraits from home and in society; the rise of "Orientalism;" and the nationalism of landscape. Readers will come away from this well-researched and absorbing book with a steadfast appreciation of the Salon's disciplined and academic approach to painting, and an understanding of why these works were once so revered by the general public.


The low dimensional chalcogenide materials with high band gap of ~1.8 eV, specially molybdenum di-sulfide (MoS2), have been brought much attention in the material science community for their usage as semiconducting materials to fabricate low scaled electronic devices with high throughput and reliability, this includes also photovoltaic applications. In this chapter, experimental data for MoS2 material towards developing the next generation of high-efficiency solar cells is presented, which includes fabrication of ~100 nm homogeneous thin film over silicon di-oxide (SiO2) by using radio frequency sputtering at 275 W at high vacuum~10 −9 from commercial MoS2 99.9% purity target. The films were studied by means of scanning and transmission electron microscopy with energy disperse spectroscopy, grazing incident low angle x-ray scattering, Raman spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, atom probe tomography, electrical transport using four-point probe resistivity measurement as well mechanical properties utilizing nano-indentation with continuous stiffness mode (CSM) approach. The experimental results indicate a vertical growth direction at (101)-MoS2 crystallites with stacking values of 7-laminates along the (002)-basal plane; principal Raman vibrations at E2g at 378 cm −1 and Ag at 407 cm . The hardness and elastic modulus values of H = 10.5 ± 0.1 GPa and E = 136 ± 2 GPa were estimated by CSM method from 0 to 90 nm of indenter penetration; as well transport measurements from −3.5 V to +3.5 V indicating linear Ohmic behavior.


The use by farmers of futures contracts and other hedging instruments has been observed to be low in many situations, and this has sometimes seemed to be considered surprising or even mysterious. We propose that it is, in fact, readily understandable and consistent with rational decision making. Standard models of the decision about optimal hedging show that it is negatively related to basis risk, to quantity risk, and to transaction costs. Farmers who have less uncertainty about prices have a lower optimal level of hedging. If a farmer has optimistic price expectations relative to the futures market, the incentive to hedge can be greatly reduced. And finally, farmers who have low levels of risk aversion have little to gain from hedging in terms of risk reduction, in that the certainty equivalent payoff at their optimal hedge may be little different to the certainty equivalent under zero hedging. These reasons are additional to the argument of Simmons (2002) who showed that, if capital markets are efficient, farmers can manage their risk exposure through adjusting their leverage, obviating the need for hedging instruments.


Top of the agenda at the European Union (EU) summit on 15/16 December 2005 is the budget for 2007-13. The original proposal from the European Commission was for a budget of one trillion euros or 1.21% of EU gross national income (GNI). The proposal at the end of the Luxembourg presidency, rejected at the summit in June 2005, was for 871 billion euros (1.06% of EU GNI). Six months, and much discussion later, the UK's proposal is for 847 billion euros (1.03% of EU GNI). • Any changes to the overall size and composition of the budget as a result of the summit are likely to be marginal. The current UK proposal includes cuts in development aid to new member states, cuts in rural aid to old member states, a major review of all spending in 2008 and a small reduction in the UK's rebate. • Of the current EU budget, approximately 45% goes on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), 35% on structural funds (the EU's supra-national regional policy) and 7% each on aid, administration and a diverse range of other policies. • The CAP has several negative effects. These include artificially inflating food prices in the EU, which is bad for consumers, particularly poorer ones; driving down the world price of food, which is bad for countries that produce food, many of which are poor and middle-income countries; and encouraging overproduction and specialisation by farmers, both of which may be bad for the environment. • Major reform of the CAP would use the principle of subsidiarity to repatriate the CAP to national level where it clearly belongs. • There are two main problems with the EU's structural funds. First, the allocation of expenditure is highly political and as a result not well targeted on the poorest regions in the poorest countries. Second, the expenditure itself has not been very effective: no Objective 1 region (those targeted by the funds) has moved out of the category.


Investigating optimal value of the power factor for the optimally allocated and sized solar parking lots of the plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) based on minimum total cost of the problem over the given planning period is the aim of this study. Covering a parking lot with photovoltaic (PV) panels can keep the PEVs cool, charge their batteries for free, and generate extra energy and deliver it to the grid. Moreover, the inverter installed in the charging station of a parking lot is capable of generating or absorbing reactive power by changing the operating mode of the inverter without any degradation of the PEV's battery. Therefore, the PEVs and the solar parking lots can be applied as the auxiliary sources of active and reactive powers by the local distribution company (DISCO). In this study, in order to achieve realistic results, the economic aspects and technical factors of the system, and also the behavioural model of the PEVs fleet are taken into consideration in the planning problem. Moreover, the stochastic nature of the PEVs behaviour and power of the installed PV panels are modelled in the problem. Herein, the planning problem is solved applying quantum annealing (QA).


SZOSTAK, B., P. WITKOWSKI and A. APOSTOLOV, 2016. Analysis of changes in lean meat content of fattening pigs on selected farms in the Lublin Voivodeship in 2012-2014. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 22: 293–296 The material for analysis consisted of pig carcasses weighing 80–90 kg from three farms located in the south-eastern part of the Lublin Voivodeship (from the villages of Lipowiec, Dęby and Gorajec). Commercial crossbreeding of pigs on these farms is based on the use of Polish Large White x Polish Landrace sows and Duroc x Piétrain boars. The analysis covered the years 2012–2014. The lean meat content of the carcasses obtained from each of the producers was characterized on the basis of on arithmetic mean (x) for each farm and year of production. The percentage distribution of the carcasses in each of the classes S, E, U, R, O, and P was analysed as well. The lean mean content of the carcasses evaluated can be considered good. On each of the farms analysed carcasses in classes E and S were predominant. However, the decline in average meatiness on the farms in Lipowiec and Gorajec in the last year of the analysis (2014) with respect to the previous years is worrisome. A thorough analysis should be conducted on these farms to determine the cause of the reduction in meat content. The differences in the meat content of the carcasses from the farms analysed are the result of different environmental factors on these farms, mainly diet and housing conditions.


BACKGROUND
Prognostic models for natural conception help to identify subfertile couples with high chances of natural conception, who do not need fertility treatment yet. The use of such models and subsequent tailored expectant management (TEM) is not always practiced. Previous qualitative research has identified barriers and facilitators of TEM among patients and professionals. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of those barriers and facilitators and to evaluate which factors predict patients' appreciation of TEM and professionals' adherence to TEM.

METHODS
We performed a nationwide survey. Based on the previously identified barriers and facilitators two questionnaires were developed and sent to 195 couples and 167 professionals. Multivariate analysis was performed to evaluate which factors predicted patients' appreciation of TEM and professional adherence to TEM.

RESULTS
In total, 118 (61%) couples and 117 (70%) professionals responded and 96 couples and 117 professionals were included in the analysis. Patients' mean appreciation of TEM was 5.7, on a 10-point Likert scale. Patients with a lower appreciation of TEM had a higher need for patient information (P = 0.047). The professionals reported a mean adherence to TEM of 63%. Adherence to TEM was higher when professionals were fertility doctors (P = 0.041). Facilitators in the clinical domain were associated with a higher adherence to TEM (P = 0.091). Barriers in the professional domain had a negative impact on adherence to TEM (P = 0.008).

CONCLUSIONS
The limited implementation of TEM is caused by both patient and professional-related factors. This study provides practical tools to improve the implementation of TEM.


We derive free-tropospheric NO2 volume mixing ratios (VMRs) by applying a cloud-slicing technique to data from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on the Aura satellite. In the cloud-slicing approach, the slope of the above-cloud NO2 column versus the cloud scene pressure is proportional to the NO2 VMR. In this work, we use a sample of nearby OMI pixel data from a single orbit for the linear fit. The OMI data include cloud scene pressures from the rotational-Raman algorithm and above-cloud NO2 vertical column density (VCD) (defined as the NO2 column from the cloud scene pressure to the top of the atmosphere) from a differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS) algorithm. We compare OMI-derived NO2 VMRs with in situ aircraft profiles measured during the NASA Intercontinental Chemical Transport Experiment Phase B (INTEX-B) campaign in 2006. The agreement is generally within the estimated uncertainties when appropriate data screening is applied. We then derive a global seasonal climatology of free-tropospheric NO2 VMR in cloudy conditions. Enhanced NO2 in the free troposphere commonly appears near polluted urban locations where NO2 produced in the boundary layer may be transported vertically out of the boundary layer and then horizontally away from the source. Signatures of lightning NO2 are also shown throughout low and middle latitude regions in summer months. A profile analysis of our cloud-slicing data indicates signatures of lightning-generated NO2 in the upper troposphere. Comparison of the climatology with simulations from the global modeling initiative (GMI) for cloudy conditions (cloud optical depth less than10) shows similarities in the spatial patterns of continental pollution outflow. However, there are also some differences in the seasonal variation of free-tropospheric NO2 VMRs near highly populated regions and in areas affected by lightning-generated NOx.


Large scale model studies reveal that Reynolds scaling can affect the apparent stability and wave modifying properties of layered breakwater structures. Results of a study for a breakwater configuration designed to protect offshore power and port facilities in water depths to 60 feet are presented and discussed. The armor layer of this structure is formed from quarried rock of irregular rectangular parallelepiped shape, individually placed perpendicular to 1:2 seaward slope and crest. The resulting armor layer is relatively smooth, densely packed and very stable. Model studies of similar configurations were studied at 1:10, 1:20 and 1:100 scale ratios. Stability, runup, rundown and reflection were measured for a variety of water depths, wave heights and periods. Analysis of the large scale test results establish that the placed stone armor is approximately as stable as dolos armor units. Runup, rundown and reflection respond similar to rough, impermeable slopes. Comparison of large and small scale results demonstrate that relative increases in drag forces at lower Reynolds numbers decrease stability and runup in small scale models.


Economic theory posits that the removal of impediments to trade should redound to improvement in the overall well-being of all nations. Unfortunately, for many developing countries, this has not been the case; upon significantly reducing their tariffs, they are yet to see any tangible benefits. On the contrary, they have experienced a decline in market share and in some instances significant erosion of trade preferences that they had previously enjoyed with their trading partners. The preferential market access, from which Jamaica and other ACP (African Caribbean and Pacific) states benefit, through exports of sugar and bananas to the EU (European Union), has been eroded as a result of recent rulings by the WTO. These rulings have already affected the banana industry severely; resulting in loss of jobs, reduction in foreign exchange earnings and area planted in bananas. The sugar industry is expected to be similarly affected with the pending phased reduction in the price per tonne, which the EU proposes to pay ACP sugar producers. In light of the above, there is on-going search for non-traditional commodities with good export potential and the ability to compete in the international market place. Ackee is a nontraditional crop that is considered to have excellent foreign exchange earning potential. This paper will examine the prospect of expanding the volume of ackees exported, particularly to the US market. It will also discuss the health concerns associated with the consumption of the fruit, as well as present scientific evidence to allay food safety concerns associated with it. Finally a policy analysis matrix (PAM) approach was used to assess the comparative advantage of ackee, relative to sugar and bananas. The results of the PAM indicate that whilst sugar cane and bananas enjoy some comparative advantage, ackee uses locally resources most efficiently. This suggests that some of the resources that are currently being employed in the production of sugar cane and bananas could probably be more efficiently employed in the production of ackees.


The Next Generation NATO Reference Mobility Model (NG-NRMM) plays a vital role in vehicle mobility prediction and mission planning. The complicated vehicle–terrain interactions and the presence of heterogeneous uncertainty sources in the modeling and simulation (M&S) result in epistemic uncertainty/errors in the vehicle mobility prediction for given terrain and soil conditions. In this paper, the uncertainty sources that cause the uncertainty in mobility prediction are first partitioned into two levels, namely uncertainty in the M&S and uncertainty in terrain and soil maps. With a focus on the epistemic uncertainty in the M&S, this paper presents a testing design optimization framework to effectively reduce the uncertainty in the M&S and thus increase the confidence in generating off-road mobility maps. A Bayesian updating approach is developed to reduce the epistemic uncertainty/errors in the M&S using mobility testing data collected under controllable terrain and soil conditions. The updated models are then employed to generate the off-road mobility maps for any given terrain and soil maps. Two types of design strategies, namely testing design for model selection and testing design for uncertainty reduction, are investigated in the testing design framework to maximize the information gain subject to limited resources. Results of a numerical example demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed mobility testing design optimization framework.


The wintering areas for humpback whales within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (GBRWHA) have been poorly defined, mainly because of the large size of the area which prohibits broad-scale surveys. This information gap was addressed by applying predictive spatial habitat modelling using presence-only sighting data from an opportunistic sightings database. The model identified high habitat suitability for breeding humpback whales in the southern GBRWHA, which decreased as latitude decreased. However, predictive habitat modelling is seldom validated and the accuracy of models is often unchecked. We recently validated this predictive model by conducting a dedicated line transect aerial survey that subsampled three regions in the GBRWHA predicted to represent areas of low, medium and high habitat suitability. The distribution and relative abundance of whales was investigated in relation to environmental variables using GIS and generalized additive models (GAMs). Data from the dedicated survey supports the predictive habitat model, with areas of high density closely reflecting areas of high habitat suitability identified by the predictive model. Encounter rates from the aerial survey were highest (0.04 per sq. km) in the southern GBRWHA and lowest (0.002 per sq. km) in the northern GBRWHA, according to un-modelled data. Calving areas were not separate from mating areas, and groups containing calves were distributed throughout the entire GBRWHA within the same range of groups sighted without calves. The area of highest density of whales on the breeding grounds corresponded to an offshore area adjacent to two coastal cities undergoing major port expansions, and within the GBRWHA inner shipping route. There are many proposed and several approved port expansions along the coastline adjoining the GBRWHA. With an associated increase in shipping activity and a rapidly recovering population of whales, ship strikes with breeding humpback whales are likely to be an emerging issue in Australia.


In the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA), there has been an ongoing debate about the role of instruction between: (1) proponents of strong interface, who are those advocating the position that explicit instruction can lead to acquisition, as supported by advocates of the Grammar-Translation Method (GTM); (2) proponents of no interface, who are those advocating the position that instruction does not lead to acquisition and that input alone through implicit techniques is sufficient; and (3) proponents of weak interface, who are those leaning towards the middle, believing that instruction can lead to acquisition only if it is geared towards the next developmental stage that the learner is ready for, as detailed in the Teachability Hypothesis of Processability Theory (PT). The Teachability Hypothesis states that instruction is most effective when it reflects the stage just beyond the learners' current interlanguage. The current study is a mixed-method experiment which provided instruction to three English classes at a Chinese university in Macau.Instruction was explicit, implicit, or developmentally moderated. The results show that students in the developmentally-moderated group outperformed their counterparts in the explicit and the implicit groups. This finding lends support to the weak-interface hypothesis.


The aim of the project was to evaluate the use of Telehealth equipment in the homes of older communitydwelling people, and to review its social and economic impact. A mixed methods approach was adopted, involving interviews, observation and Depression Anxiety Stress Scales. Overall, the greatest benefit was apparent in those participants with a low familiarity with technology and low digital literacy, where changes in behaviours to prevent an exacerbation of their condition was possible. The user-interface design reduced concern about using the technology. Changes achieved were through better compliance with medication and associated understanding of the impact on their vital signs and hence daily activities. This represented an improved health literacy and the economic benefits appear to be linked to that. Less benefit was observed by those who had been self-monitoring previously. A greater focus on specific conditions and improved self-management could strengthen the evidence for targeted economic benefits.


International audience

 Motivated by a question of Duval and Reiner about higher Laplacians of simplicial complexes, we describe various relaxations of the defining axioms of matroid theory to obtain larger classes of simplicial complexes that contain pure shifted simplicial complexes. The resulting classes retain some of the matroid properties and allow us to classify matroid properties according to the relevant axioms needed to prove them. We illustrate this by discussing Tutte polynomials. Furthermore, we extend a conjecture of Stanley on h-vectors and provide evidence to show that the extension is better suited than matroids to study the conjecture.


This Ph.D. thesis consists of a novel, EXEUNT, and research associated with it, both being specifically concerned with literary/cultural representations of love and relationships over the age of sixty-five. In consideration of the changing dynamics of ageing, declared internationally by gerontologists during the 1990s, the research investigates the perceptions of British writers, publishers and readers regarding their acceptance of late-life sexuality in British contemporary novels. It identifies key stakeholders in specific interest groups, and operates within an interpretive perspective as a suitable analytical framework for a pragmatic mixed methods investigation. Although the initial focus of the research was on publishers and writers, the inclusion of readers resulted in wider consequences that call for more transparency and a fuller understanding of concepts linked to ageism. Having explored the dynamic between author, publisher and reader, the study concludes there is a superficial disharmony between them, whereas in fact they are mutually complementary. This dichotomy appears to be due to misunderstanding, and lack of trust. In reality, a large percentage of readers, in line with recent research on film audiences, feel it acceptable for people over the age of sixty to have such sexual needs and desires. This acceptability and the new dynamics of ageing inform the novel which places the research in a wider context and constitutes the second part of the Ph.D. The multi-layered novel EXEUNT, in part ontogenetic, works against ageism within current prejudice by depicting the lovers in their fifties, sixties and seventies, and by doing so reveals the wide gap between subjective reality and the perceived public image. Their relationship is accepted by the British woman s friends, family and contemporaries, so that the epistemology of age is acquired only through negative opinions or actions, with the narrative embodying much of current research on the subject. Contrasting attitudes to ageing are found within the ethnographic detail of Romania during the period of communism, revolution and consequential freedom: 1982-2005. The frameworks of the fiction are encapsulated in the concept of Theatre as an analogy for life and death with a unique structure that portrays an ontological viewpoint. This underpins a reality where the attention of the reader/audience is disrupted by an intermittent reminder of the analogy. The term fictodrama has been used to describe this combination of fiction and theatrical effects.


Raw lines of code (LOC) is a metric that does not, at first glance, seem extremely useful for automated test generation. It is both highly language-dependent and not extremely meaningful, semantically, within a language: one coder can produce the same effect with many fewer lines than another. However, relative LOC, between components of the same project, turns out to be a highly useful metric for automated testing. In this article, we make use of a heuristic based on LOC counts for tested functions to dramatically improve the effectiveness of automated test generation. This approach is particularly valuable in languages where collecting code coverage data to guide testing has a very high overhead. We apply the heuristic to property-based Python testing using the TSTL (Template Scripting Testing Language) tool. In our experiments, the simple LOC heuristic can improve branch and statement coverage by large margins (often more than 20%, up to 40% or more) and improve fault detection by an even larger margin (usually more than 75% and up to 400% or more). The LOC heuristic is also easy to combine with other approaches and is comparable to, and possibly more effective than, two well-established approaches for guiding random testing.


For those who were around in 1985, one of the top movies of the year was Back to the Future. In the story, Michael J. Fox plays a high school student with a nerdy father, lovely mother, strict principal, and larger-than-life bully. The story's hero (Marty McFly) meets up with a mad scientist who builds a time machine out of a DeLorean (for those who weren't around in 1985; an automobile) and travels back to the 1950s where modern technology clashes with a period of Americana that many appreciate for traditional values and simpler lifestyles. The movie's theme has been duplicated many times in many theaters. At the heart of the story: how does a modern character survive in a different time, situation and culture?As with other teacher educators around the nation, Agricultural Education faculty members at Tarleton State University continue to face the same question. How do we deliver the time-tested teacher education model to a modern agricultural education student? One recent issue that highlighted this question of delivering the traditional model to a modern student is that of the Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) record keeping system. Decades ago, our entire teacher education faculty kept their SAE records in hardcopy books. We recall our vocational agriculture teachers advising us to record all expenses and income using a pencil so we could correct any mistakes. None of our students can relate to paperbased record books and the completing of award and degree applications with a typewriter! However, we still seek to instill the importance of record-keeping, project management, budgeting, and other important timetested goals of the SAE program.Tarleton's Agricultural Education "traditional" teacher preparation program is embracing the technology used by our students. After enrolling in our Agricultural Education program students become familiar with the Agricultural Experience Tracker (AET) programs. As found on the AET website:The Agricultural Experience Tracker is the premiere personalized online system for tracking experiences in agricultural education. Like other systems, the AET summarizes those experiences into standard FFA award applications. The AET can also aggregate those experiences across programs to produce local reports for school administrators and overall economic impact reports for interested stakeholders and legislative representatives. (The AET, 2012, "Agricultural Education Online Recordkeeping System")Tarleton students are being supplied passwords enabling them to develop electronic records of their collegiate agricultural experiences. This will provide students with official documentation of their extra-curricular collegiate agricultural activities and experiences. The experiences will be more accurately documented due to the accessibility of the electronic format; thus providing more timely entries before details related to dates, times, and activities are forgotten. This will be valuable when it is time to produce a resume. Advantages of an electronic collegiate record service include:* The academic department may use this record for active students when selecting honors, scholarships, team leaders, and other individual awards. Students are further motivated to accurately record activities in a timely fashion.* The student will be provided with a participation record after the completion of their entire collegiate career. Reflection of this record will enhance the students' intrinsic value placed on the university experience and inspire confidence in their ability to transition into the teaching profession. …


Insurgency and counterinsurgency are widely described as "population-centric warfare": a competition between military actors over civilian loyalties. Drawing on a high-resolution conflict event data set and a new approach for analyzing reactive behavior in space and time, this article answers the question of how civilian cooperation and defection are systematically driven by incumbent and insurgent violence. Theoretically, the study contributes to resolving a dispute between proponents of deterrence- and alienation-based approaches to population-centric warfare. Empirically, this analysis improves upon the mixed results from previous microstudies in favor of an integrated picture: indiscriminate violence has almost no effect on collaboration with the adversary in its immediate spatiotemporal vicinity. At larger levels of aggregation, however, a clear reactive pattern of collaboration with the adversary becomes visible which is in line with alienation-based reasoning.


Abstract This article examines the legacy of the ground-breaking judgment in Aydin v Turkey in which the European Court of Human Rights held that rape could constitute torture. Ten years on, it examines jurisprudential developments in the conceptualisation of torture in the specific context of the offence of rape. It is argued that while all rapes should be found to satisfy the minimum threshold for Article 3, rape does not per se satisfy the severity of harm criterion for torture. Nonetheless, where the severity of harm is established, the case is made that the purposive element of torture is satisfied in all cases of rape. Finally, in relation to the scope of State responsibility for rape, particularly by private individuals, the article suggests that while the Court's achievements in recognizing rape as a serious harm are considerable, there remain further avenues for jurisprudential development which would ensure that rape as a form of torture is recognized in a wider range of situations and circumstances than is currently the case.


Objective Bariatric surgery improves glucose metabolism. Recent data suggest that faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) using faeces from postbariatric surgery diet-induced obese mice in germ-free mice improves glucose metabolism and intestinal homeostasis. We here investigated whether allogenic FMT using faeces from post-Roux-en-Y gastric bypass donors (RYGB-D) compared with using faeces from metabolic syndrome donors (METS-D) has short-term effects on glucose metabolism, intestinal transit time and adipose tissue inflammation in treatment-naïve, obese, insulin-resistant male subjects. Design Subjects with metabolic syndrome (n=22) received allogenic FMT either from RYGB-D or METS-D. Hepatic and peripheral insulin sensitivity as well as lipolysis were measured at baseline and 2 weeks after FMT by hyperinsulinaemic euglycaemic stable isotope (2H2-glucose and 2H5-glycerol) clamp. Secondary outcome parameters were changes in resting energy expenditure, intestinal transit time, faecal short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) and bile acids, and inflammatory markers in subcutaneous adipose tissue related to intestinal microbiota composition. Faecal SCFA, bile acids, glycaemic control and inflammatory parameters were also evaluated at 8 weeks. Results We observed a significant decrease in insulin sensitivity 2 weeks after allogenic METS-D FMT (median rate of glucose disappearance: from 40.6 to 34.0 µmol/kg/min; p<0.01). Moreover, a trend (p=0.052) towards faster intestinal transit time following RYGB-D FMT was seen. Finally, we observed changes in faecal bile acids (increased lithocholic, deoxycholic and (iso)lithocholic acid after METS-D FMT), inflammatory markers (decreased adipose tissue chemokine ligand 2 (CCL2) gene expression and plasma CCL2 after RYGB-D FMT) and changes in several intestinal microbiota taxa. Conclusion Allogenic FMT using METS-D decreases insulin sensitivity in metabolic syndrome recipients when compared with using post-RYGB-D. Further research is needed to delineate the role of donor characteristics in FMT efficacy in human insulin-resistant subjects. Trial registration number NTR4327.


The authors have applied the difference fault model (DFM) approach to the simulation of high-level designs and built a complete environment for test generation and fault simulation of designs expressed in a hardware description language (HDL), such as VHDL. Their environment, called Whistle, consists of a set of programs that supports a library-based design style. They describe the tools in Whistle, with special emphasis on the tools used to analyze each block in the design library, and the generation of code for the simulation of the F-faults in the design. The authors then evaluate Whistle from several points of view. First, they illustrate the accuracy of the fault coverage estimates by comparing them with the actual fault coverage obtained by gate-level fault simulation. Second, they examine the correlation between the accuracy measurements as given by their evaluation functions and the behavior of various characterization functions for a given block. This illustrates how critical it is to choose a good characterization function and how it affects the accuracy of the results. A third aspect of Whistle that they look at is its test-generation capability.<<ETX>>


Increasingly, educators from all disciplines are using blogs, social networking sites, VLEs and wikis to encourage academic discourse between students. However, a common problem experienced by educators is how these important learning experiences can be assessed and because of this difficulty many are not assessed. For some time now, I have been using online discussions via the University VLE as a way to encourage student debate around key lecture topics (e.g. Taylor, 2002). The key learning outcomes which this assessed activity addresses, in addition to learning more about the topic, are to develop skills in reflective practice, critical evaluation and leadership. This article will review the ways that face–to–face and online academic discourse between students have been assessed, highlighting some of the differences to consider when setting up online discussion activities, compared to face–to–face discussion. I will then provide a case study of the way I set up online discussions and the method I currently use to assess contributions. The final part of the paper will consider the potential for using quantitative content analysis (QCA) and automated methods to assess online participation.


This paper focuses on two-phase flow boiling of refrigerant R134a inside a copper multi-microchannel heat sink for microelectronic central processing unit cooling applications. The heat sink is composed of 100 parallel microchannels, 100 μm wide, 680 μm high, and 15 mm long, with 72-μm-thick fins separating the channels. The base heat flux was varied from 2.57 to 189 W/cm2 and the mass flux from 205 to 1000 kg/m2s, at a nominal saturation temperature of 63°C. Over 40 000 local heat transfer coefficients were measured at 35 locations using local heaters and temperature sensors, for which different heat transfer trends were identified. The main ones were that the heat transfer coefficient increased with heat flux and was independent of mass flow rate. Heat transfer coefficients as high as 270 000 W/m K (relative to the base area) were reached, keeping the chip under 85°C with a maximum of 94 kPa of pressure drop, for no inlet subcooling and a coolant flow rate of 1000 kg/m2s.


1. A method is described for the measurement of forearm blood flow during sustained voluntary isometric hand-grip contractions that can be maintained constant by the subject9s monitoring of the strength of his contractions. 2. In most subjects it was found that contractions of 5% of their maximal voluntary force could be maintained without fatigue, and without any post-exercise increase in blood flow. More powerful contractions produced both fatigue and a large post-exercise hyperaemia, even though blood flow had reached a plateau during the exercise. 3. An attempt to show that the post-exercise hyperaemia was a response to a steadily accumulating 'metabolic vasodilator stimulus' and varied directly in size with the duration of the contraction gave equivocal results. 4. Ischaemic pain in the hand was not the cause of the post-exercise hyperaemia.


Multiterminal (MT) source coding refers to separate lossy encoding and joint decoding of multiple correlated sources. This paper presents two practical MT coding schemes under the same general framework of Slepian-Wolf coded quantization (SWCQ) for both direct and indirect quadratic Gaussian MT source coding problems with two encoders. The first asymmetric SWCQ scheme relies on quantization and Wyner-Ziv coding, where a quantized source is compressed using asymmetric Slepian-Wolf coding (with side information at the decoder). It is implemented via source splitting with one classical source coding component and two Wyner-Ziv coding components. In the second symmetric SWCQ scheme, the two quantized sources are compressed using symmetric Slepian-Wolf coding. We show that each scheme can potentially achieve any point on the inner bound of the rate region for both direct and indirect MT coding problems. Practical designs based on entropy-coded TCQ for classic source coding and LDPC code based asymmetric Slepian-Wolf coding of TCQ indices for Wyner-Ziv coding in the first scheme, and arithmetic code and turbo code based symmetric Slepian-Wolf coding of TCQ indices in the second scheme perform only 0.29 bit per sample away from the inner bound of the rate region. This work thus represents a major step towards limit-approaching MT code designs.


Purpose: Forensic facial reconstruction (FFR) is an auxiliary technique that approximates a face in order to generate identifications. Technological development allows access to open software that can be applied to FFR. The demonstrated protocol has features from creating 3D replicas of the skull to finishing and displaying the reconstruction. PPT GUI is used for 3D scanning, and the resulting point cloud is converted into a 3D mesh in MeshLab. The sculpture is made in Blender, according to the user's preferred technique. The adaptation of the skin layer and finishing of the reconstruction is optimized with the use of templates. In this phase, details can also be hand-carved. Allied to basic training in the software featured in this protocol, the open access to these tools and its independence of imaging hardware other than digital cameras is an advantage to its application in forensic and research contexts.


A Potential Classic: On Brita Egardt's Hastslakt och Rackarskam

 If ethnologists were to put together their own list of classic texts, what books should be included, and for what reasons? This question was posed as an invitation to a workshop at the 30th Nordic meeting of ethnologists and folklorists in June 2006, and brought about, in the first place, a little handful of suggested books. This paper presents one of these: Brita Egardt's dissertation Hastslakt och rackarskam (app.: The Slaughter of Horses and the Shame of the Slaughterer), published in 1962. My suggestion is that this study can serve as a model for ethnologists because it is extremely cogently thought and argued, and because of its focus, at the end of the analysis, on general social phenomena and processes such as hierarchy, exclusion and stigmatisation. In addition, I reflect on the posthumous reputation of the author of the book, and suggest further reflection on two issues. The first is marginalisation in academic contexts. If such a fate should affect any of us, how can it be handled, and how can personal bitterness be avoided? The other issue is academic leadership, which I suggest is a composite phenomenon that ought to be thoroughly rethought.


In order to begin a meaningful discussion of characterization in Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, it is first necessary for the critical reader to confront the major changes in the novel form which have emerged during the last two decades. Since the early sixties, traditional expectations about what Gerald Graff calls "the narrative method of the realistic novel" have been challenged by a new type of fiction, commonly called the anti-novel or the postmodern novel, which represents, in part, a protest against the established conventions of the novelist's art, as well as a departure from the nineteenth-century emphasis upon the depiction of a recognizable external reality. Consequently, if the reader persists in using the conventions of the nineteenth-century realistic novel (which Linda Hutcheon rightly suggests have threatened to become a genre definition rather than a period description) to judge, structure, systematize, and otnerwise pigeonhole Gravity's Rainbow, then the critic will, as many have done, simply toss the book into the heap of unreadable experiments.