The beta-casein promoter has been widely used to monitor the activation of STAT (signal transducer and activator of transcription)5 since STAT5 was originally found as a mediator of PRL-inducible beta-casein expression. However, not only is expression of the beta-casein gene regulated by STAT5 but it is also affected by other molecules such as glucocorticoid and Ras. In this report, we describe the transcriptional regulation of the beta-casein gene by cytokines in T cells. We have found that the beta-casein gene is expressed in a cytotoxic T cell line, CTLL-2, in response to interleukin-2 (IL-2), which activates STAT5. While IL-4 does not activate STAT5, it induces expression of STAT5-regulated genes in CTLL-2, i.e. beta-casein, a cytokine-inducible SH2-containing protein (CIS), and oncostatin M (OSM), suggesting that STAT6 activated by IL-4 substitutes for the function of STAT5 in T cells. IL-2-induced beta-casein expression was enhanced by dexamethasone, and this synergistic effect of Dexamethasone requires the sequence between -155 and -193 in the beta-casein promoter. Coincidentally, a deletion of this region enhanced the IL-2-induced expression of beta-casein. Expression of an active form of Ras, Ras(G12V), suppressed the IL-2-induced beta-casein and OSM gene expression, and the negative effect of Ras is mediated by the region between -105 and -193 in the beta-casein promoter. In apparent contradiction, expression of a dominant negative form of Ras, RasN17, also inhibited IL-2-induced activation of the promoter containing the minimal beta-casein STAT5 element as well as the promoters of CIS and OSM. In addition, Ras(G12V) complemented signaling by an erythropoietin receptor mutant defective in Ras activation and augmented the activation of the beta-casein promoter by the mutant erythropoietin receptor signaling, suggesting a possible role of Ras in Stat5-mediated gene expression. These results collectively reveal a complex interaction of STAT5 with other signaling pathways and illustrate that regulation of gene expression requires integration of opposing signals.


Energy consumption in downlink mode is becoming an important topic as cellular communications grow into a large scale enterprise. The search for high rates keeping energy constraints low has put forward the idea that cells with smaller size may improve not only the capacity of the network, but also reduce the amount of energy that is needed to achieve such capacities. When using heterogeneous networks, users can be encouraged to handoff to a femtocell, that offers better capacity per unit energy spent, by means of different handoff strategies. These strategies may also improve the energy use of the network if the handoff priority is given to both, capacity, and energy use.


This paper emphasises the implications of youth unemployment in Nigeria, for the third Millennium. The implications are both social, economic and political. It is argued in the paper that youth unemployment is potentially dangerous as it sends disturbing signal to all segments of the Nigerian Society. The rate of youth unemployment in Nigeria is high, even at the period of economic normalcy i.e. the oil boom of the 1970s (6.2%); 1980s (9.8%) and the 1990s (11.5%). Youth unemployment therefore is not a recent phenomenon as is conveyed in the various tables in this paper. The theoretical standpoint of the paper is influenced by functionalist school of thought, with a bias for European school of modern ism which argues that youth play a central role in the overall survival of Nigeria. Ignoring the political, economic and social roles they play amounts to threatening the very survival of Nigeria as a nation. Thus to reduce unemployment, the paper suggests among others, the establishment of Work Incentive Programme (WIN) by the Nigerian State, as is done in the capitalist America. Government in league with the private sector it is further suggested, can create job corps for school dropouts as one major remedy to unemployment. The paper further sees hope for Nigeria only if Youths are mobilized by way of genuinely socializing them into taking their roles in the stratification system.
Key Words: Nigeria; Unemployment; Political Stability; Youth; Work Incentive.
(Global Journal of Social Sciences: 2003 2 (1): 21-26)


This study examines affect regulation and adaptive goals with regard to negative and positive emotional episodes. A sample of 355 undergraduate students were asked to recall an important past-year interpersonal episode of joy, anger, and sadness. Participants reported how they regulated mood and emotions associated with those episodes, filling in an expanded version of Larsen and Prizmic's Measure of Affect Regulation Styles and also responded to measures of perceived attainment of adaptive goals for each emotional episode and psychological well-being. Affect regulation based on gratitude/self-reward, reappraisal, helping others, and seeking informative and emotional social support showed similarly high frequencies in all emotional episodes. Problem-directed action and planning, low withdrawal, seeking instrumental social support, reappraisal, rumination, active physiological regulation, gratitude/self-reward, acceptance/self-control and regulated emotional expression were related to perceived improvement in adaptive goals in all episodes. Seeking emotional and informative social support, spiritual activities, and humor were associated with adaptive goals in anger and joy. Suppression was dysfunctional in sadness and anger episodes, whereas isolation was only in anger episode. Distraction, wishful thinking, venting and confrontation were functional only in joy episode. Overall, these strategies were congruently associated with dispositional suppression and re-evaluation and psychological well-being. Regulation was globally higher in sadness and anger episodes, but venting and expression of humor and affection were higher in joy. Correlations between affect regulation strategies and adaptive goals were stronger in joy. Regulation of positive emotion is discussed as less intense but more successful than in the case of negative emotion. However, the core of adaptive regulation is importantly common to positive and negative affect.


This study examined the difference between forward lean while performing the Bulgarian Spilt Squat at different box heights of 40 cm and 20 cm. The study also compared the maximal force output of the front foot during the BSS at the different heights. Fifteen male athletes (standing height=180.73 ± 6.67 cm; mass= 80.45 ± 7.63 kg; age=18.55 ± 0.69 years) volunteered to complete the study. The participants performed three repetitions of each leg at two different heights of the Bulgarian Split Squat with 30% of self-reported back squat 1RM. Participants stood on a force plate to report maximal force during each repetition while being recorded to generate a forward lean angle. The box height of 20 cm generated lower force output (1121.86 ± 197.11 N) and a smaller degree of forward lean (19.38 ± 1.21 o) compared to the box height of 40 cm. The box height of 40 cm resulted in greater significant force output of 1163.15 ± 194.44 N and a greater significant forward lean of 27.56 ± 1.86 o. COMPARISON OF FORWARD LEAN DURING BULGARIAN SPLIT SQUAT AT HIGH AND LOW BOX HEIGHTS A Thesis Submitted In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts Craig Konrardy University of Northern Iowa December 2017


Three approaches are used to reduce the error in the satellite‐derived marine gravity anomalies. First, we have retracked the raw waveforms from the ERS‐1 and Geosat/GM missions resulting in improvements in range precision of 40% and 27%, respectively. Second, we have used the recently published EGM2008 global gravity model as a reference field to provide a seamless gravity transition from land to ocean. Third, we have used a biharmonic spline interpolation method to construct residual vertical deflection grids. Comparisons between shipboard gravity and the global gravity grid show errors ranging from 2.0 mGal in the Gulf of Mexico to 4.0 mGal in areas with rugged seafloor topography. The largest errors of up to 20 mGal occur on the crests of narrow large seamounts. The global spreading ridges are well resolved and show variations in ridge axis morphology and segmentation with spreading rate. For rates less than about 60 mm/a the typical ridge segment is 50–80 km long while it increases dramatically at higher rates (100–1000 km). This transition spreading rate of 60 mm/a also marks the transition from axial valley to axial high. We speculate that a single mechanism controls both transitions; candidates include both lithospheric and asthenospheric processes.


In this thesis we revisit the recent and ongoing debates regarding dimensions
of well-being, with particular emphasis on the complex relationship between
aspects of the Capability Approach (CA) and measures emerging from the
growing band of happiness studies. In doing so, we draw on literature from
psychology, happiness studies, development studies, economics and
sociology. We develop a conceptual model predicated on the argument that
happiness is not synonymous with well-being, but is instead one important
aspect of it. We develop a methodology suitable for exploring this model and
test it empirically through a small-scale survey conducted in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Our empirical investigation is based upon a necessary mix of quantitative
and qualitative approaches, reflecting fully the interdisciplinary nature of the
enquiry and subtle enough to capture the regional specificities which we
argue are instrumental in determining well-being. Kyiv is an important case
study, since it lies at the heart of one of the major post-communist transition
economies, while as yet remaining outside of the European Union. The
literature suggests that such countries are particularly 'unhappy', and our
approach sheds light on this stylised empirical observation. Our survey
provides data on wide-ranging aspects of well-being, including relationships,
health, income, control, environment and trust. A carefully selected cohort of
the original respondents was subsequently interviewed in-depth to explore
the narratives around their own understanding of well-being in the context of
our conceptual framework.
We find that using a mixed methodology highlights the potential pitfalls of
using surveys alone to try and capture concepts as complex as well-being,
as well as suggesting that such investigations should take into account the
specific context in which they are taking place. Our empirical approach also
helps us to shed some light on why it is that Ukraine has tended to fare
poorly in previous happiness studies.


Reduction of image noise is an important goal in producing the highest quality medical images. A very important benefit of reducing image noise is the ability to reduce patient exposure while maintaining adequate image quality. Various methods have been described in the literature for reducing image noise by means of image processing, both deterministic and statistical. Deterministic methods tend to degrade image resolution or lead to artifacts or non-uniform noise texture that does not look "natural" to the observer. Statistical methods, including Bayesian estimation, have been successfully applied to image processing, but may require more time-consuming steps of computing priors. The approach described in this paper uses a new statistical method we have developed in our laboratory to reduce image noise. This approach, Correlated-Polarity Noise Reduction (CPNR), makes an estimate of the polarity of noise at a given pixel, and then subtracts a random value from a normal distribution having a sign that matches the estimated polarity of the noise in the pixel. For example, if the noise is estimated to be positive in a given pixel, then a random number that is also positive will be subtracted from that pixel. The CPNR method reduces the noise in an image by about 20% per iteration, with little negative impact on image resolution, few artifacts, and final image noise characteristics that appears "normal." Examples of the feasibility of this approach are presented in application to radiography and CT, but it also has potential utility in tomosynthesis and fluoroscopy.


This article discusses semantic and syntactic properties of experiencer object constructions in Chinese. Cross-linguistically, experiencer object verbs have been shown to display some special semanto-syntactic properties which distinguish them from canonical transitive verbs. This has led to the conclusion that experiencer objects are non-canonical objects or even (quirky) subjects in many languages. The present paper investigates the characteristics of experiencer object verbs in Chinese using a number of tests that have been applied cross-linguistically to identify the status of these verbs and their objects. It turns out that in contrast to experiencer object verbs in languages like German or English, Chinese experiencer object verbs display all the semanto-syntactic properties of canonical transitive verbs.


We analyze the welfare consequences of a monopolist having additional information about consumers'tastes, beyond the prior distribution; the additional information can be used to charge different prices to different segments of the market, i.e., carry out "third degree price discrimination". We show that the segmentation and pricing induced by the additional information can achieve every combination of consumer and producer surplus such that: (i) consumer surplus is non-negative, (ii) producer surplus is at least as high as profits under the uniform monopoly price, and (iii) total surplus does not exceed the effi cient gains from trade. As well as characterizing the welfare impact of price discrimination, we examine the limits of how prices and quantities can change under price discrimination. We also examine the limits of price discrimination in richer environments with quantity discrimination and limited ability to segment the market.


This report examines inaccuracies in some commonly held views of China's National Oil Companies (NOCs). Until now, there has been little analysis to test the widely held presumption that these companies act under the instructions and in close co-ordination with the Chinese government. Nor have critics been challenged on the validity of their concerns about investments made by these NOCs, and how they could be blocking supplies of oil for other importing countries.The IEA analysis, however, finds that contrary to these views, the NOCs actually operate with a high degree of independence from the Chinese government, and their investments have in fact largely boosted global supplies of oil and gas, which other importers rely on.


We present results from an analysis of all data taken by the bicep2/Keck CMB polarization experiments up to and including the 2015 observing season. This includes the first Keck Array observations at 220 GHz and additional observations at 95 and 150 GHz. The Q and U maps reach depths of 5.2, 2.9, and 26  μK_{CMB} arcmin at 95, 150, and 220 GHz, respectively, over an effective area of ≈400 square degrees. The 220 GHz maps achieve a signal to noise on polarized dust emission approximately equal to that of Planck at 353 GHz. We take auto and cross spectra between these maps and publicly available WMAP and Planck maps at frequencies from 23 to 353 GHz. We evaluate the joint likelihood of the spectra versus a multicomponent model of lensed-ΛCDM+r+dust+synchrotron+noise. The foreground model has seven parameters, and we impose priors on some of these using external information from Planck and WMAP derived from larger regions of sky. The model is shown to be an adequate description of the data at the current noise levels. The likelihood analysis yields the constraint r_{0.05}<0.07 at 95% confidence, which tightens to r_{0.05}<0.06 in conjunction with Planck temperature measurements and other data. The lensing signal is detected at 8.8σ significance. Running a maximum likelihood search on simulations we obtain unbiased results and find that σ(r)=0.020. These are the strongest constraints to date on primordial gravitational waves.


Smart Girls Know Better was inspired by a villain from the Oz Book Series, by L. Frank Baum. This character, a vain Princess, possesses a collection of 30 interchangeable heads. Her self-admiration engrosses her time to the detriment of her responsibilities as ruler. Her obsession with personal appearance and its perceived unserious nature inspired the subject matter for this work. However, in contrast to the book, this artwork is about the emotional perspective of the heads, rather than the actions of the headless body.
 The viewpoint of the heads is one of isolation, helplessness, and inner-conflict. Societal views pit prettiness and intelligence at odds. Choosing between being taken seriously or looking pretty becomes a balancing act. This experience is one many people can relate to when making decisions about personal appearance. These decisions range from makeup, hairstyles, weight management, and even plastic surgery. Regardless of the choices, the results, like the heads, are inevitably on display for public judgment and critique.
 Reminiscent of vintage advertisements, the large cartoonish bodies represent the traditional societal idyllic female standard. They are interwoven with sewing patterns that measure their perfection, while cloying cut-outs spread a lacy pathogen, infecting the heads around them. Watercolor, gouache, pastel, and paper removal are all utilized in these works. Employing multiple media creates a dissonance between the figurative and figural, contrasting the realistic heads and the illusion of bodily perfection. Art Nouveau, vintage advertisements, lace, sewing patterns, and children's book illustrations are the types of kitsch art forms I have chosen to embrace for this work because they are often viewed as pretty and therefore unserious, similar to the concept behind my work.
 Smart Girls Know Better is ultimately a representation of the experience of both the private decision making on personal appearance and the resulting public exhibition. This thesis discusses the subject matter, concept, inspirations, and methods behind this artwork.


This study compares the privacy policies of Germany and the US in the field of identity management. It analyses the emergence of unlinkability within the countries' electronic citizen identity initiatives. The study used qualitative research methods, including semi-structured interview and document analysis, to analyse the policy-making processes surrounding the issue of unlinkability. The study found that unlinkability is emerging in different ways in each country. Germany's data protection and privacy regimes are more coherent than the US, and unlinkability was an incremental policy change. US unlinkability policies are a more significant departure from its data protection and policy regimes. New institutionalism is used to help explain the similarities and differences between the two countries' policies. Scholars have long been calling for the use of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) in policy-making, and unlinkability falls into this category. By employing PETs in this way, German and US identity management policies are in the vanguard of their respective privacy regimes. Through these policies, the US comes closer to German and European data protection policies, doing so non-legislatively. The digital citizen identities appearing in both countries must be construed as commercial products inasmuch as official identities. Lack of attendance to the commercial properties of these identities frustrates policy goals. As national governments embark on further identity management initiatives, commercial and design imperatives, such as value to the citizen and usability, must be considered for policy to be successful.


Throughout civilization, the power of the word has significantly influenced and shaped societies. The contributions of writers has been substantial and this is certainly true in the field of intellectual disability. The renowned author, Charles Dickens, spoke of the need for appropriate education and treatment for people with these disabilities. He is notable for his early and prophetic vision of their potential for growth. This paper reviews important examples that were included in his novels as well as in other writings on people with intellectual disabilities. The manuscript places his work in an historical perspective, highlights his contributions to the literature of disability advocacy, and references his relevance to the field of intellectual disability.


Key-value storage systems are increasingly essential building blocks of modern cloud and big data applications. The workloads these systems support often require random access to small objects over massive datasets with highly skewed and dynamic key popularity. It is challenging for a storage cluster to serve these workloads with both high performance and low-cost operations. Today's systems usually sacrifice one for the other. In this dissertation, we present novel approaches to improve both the performance and cost-efficiency of key-value systems by combining new hardware and software techniques with careful architectural design and algorithmic optimizations. First, at cluster scale, we build SwitchKV, a heterogeneous system that uses small high-end cache nodes to guarantee load balancing across many SSD-based backend nodes under nearlyarbitrary workloads. The cache nodes absorb the hottest queries so that no individual backend node is over-burdened or underutilized. The system exploits OpenFlow switches to enable efficient content-aware routing so that it can achieve scalable high throughput, low tail latency, and high availability. It uses new algorithms to keep the cache and switch forwarding rules updated with low overhead, and to ensure stable high performance under rapidly changing workloads. SwitchKV can meet the service level objectives for many cloud services more efficiently than traditional systems. Second, to improve the efficiency of each individual multi-core server, we build a highthroughput and memory-efficient concurrent hash table based around optimistic cuckoo hashing. Our re-design minimizes critical section length, reduces interprocessor coherence traffic, and enables effective prefetching through careful algorithm and data structure engineering. We explore hardware transactional memory and fine-grained locking for concurrency control, and find that both of them require the same level of algorithmic efforts to achieve high performance. Our new hash table design greatly outperforms other optimized concurrent hash tables for both readand write-heavy workloads, even while using substantially less memory for small key-value items.


This thesis examines the area of conflict between the fundamental principles of sovereign equality of states and a people's right to self-determination on the one hand, and the need for efficient protection of human rights and the imperative to end impunity for perpetrators of international crimes on the other. In this context, the argument is focused on the question whether the current system of international criminal justice is suitable to administer justice, i.e. not only appropriate to improve the protection of human rights, but also to promote justice and peace in general. At the centre of this question lies the problem of selectivity, that is the question whether international criminal law is just another means for powerful states to suppress weaker countries by judging their nationals and even their state officials while at the same time the nationals of powerful nations are basically exempt from the jurisdiction both of foreign national criminal courts and the International Criminal Court (ICC). In order to find an answer to this question and to give a better understanding of international criminal justice, the highly controversial principle of universal jurisdiction and the still, vague and blurred principle of complementarity as established by the Rome Statute of the ICC are analysed. The thesis concludes that the suggestion that any limitation of the principle of state sovereignty is regarded as a success for human rights is false and dangerous since it has even been used to justify the use of force by one state against another and without the authorization of the U N Security Council. However, in view of the unprecedented atrocities committed throughout the 20 t h century by humans against humans, there is clearly an exigence to bring the perpetrators of these crimes to justice to prevent the repetition of at least some of such events in the future. Still, it is indispensable that national criminal courts and the ICC exercise their jurisdiction over foreign perpetrators of the ICC core crimes with caution in order to prevent that international criminal law is abused to further increase the inequality between states.


Supply chain management (SCM) has developed more than 30 years. However, few studies explore intellectual structure of SCM. The purpose of this study is to examine the intellectual structure of SCM through co-citation method. Data was collected from Web of Science online database. A total of 4,033 articles and 117,984 references were identified. Authors' productivity and 41 highly cited/value articles were extracted by using a citation and document co-citation analysis. Using cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling (MDS), we identified four key issues of supply chain management researches: sustainable SCM (SSCM), strategic competition, value of information, and development of SCM where SSCM is an emerging area. Results in this paper are also compared with the previous studies, to show the shift in intellectual structure of SCM. The contribution of this study is to provide core knowledge for both researchers and practitioners to understand the aspects of SCM.


Abstract:Once of interest mainly to specialists, the problem of explaining how institutions change is now a primary concern not only of economists, but of the international donor community as well. Many have come to believe that political institutions are decisive in shaping economic institutions and, with them, the course of innovation and investment that leads to a developed society. This is the shift from patrimonialism to ethical universalism, a transformation that most of today's advanced democracies accomplished through a long historical evolution. But there has been very little research on whether and how this kind of change can be engineered and speeded up by human design. The EU-funded ANTICORRP project that I have been leading aims to help fill this gap. The big challenge is to explain the shift of the governance paradigm from particularism to universalism in the few societies that have managed to accomplish it in the postwar era. Do these success stories offer any lessons about how other societies can make that journey?


This is the first bibliography of Postmodernism to take account of work published in all subject areas and in all languages. Deborah Madsen has identified a new first occurrence of the term in 1926, preceding by more than twenty years the first occurence documented by the Oxford English Dictionary. In a chronological listing, books, articles, notes, letters and working papers on Postmodernism are described with full bibliographical details. Reviews of major books are documented and full contents listings are given for special issues of journals devoted to Postmodernism. An appendix includes books on Postmodernism announced for publication in 1995. This bibliography brings together in one place all secondary material published on Postmodernism. All disciplines are included, from anthropology to zoology: architecture, cultural studies, dance, drama, feminism, fiction, geography, history, legal studies, literary theory, mathematics, medicine, music, pedagogical theory, philosophy, photography and film, poetry, politics, religion, sociology, the visual and plastic arts, and others. The bibliography also documents items in a range of languages other than English: Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Slovanian, Spanish, and the Scandinavian languages. Access to the information contained in the bibliography is made easy with a comprehensive index providing guidance according to author, subject, language, and key words. Postmodernism: A Bibliography, 1926-1994 is an essential reference text for anyone working in the area of contemporary culture studies.


According to the National Innovation System (NIS) approach, the innovative capabilities of a firm are explained by its interactions with other national agents involved in the innovation process and by formal and informal rules that regulate the system. This paper intends to verify how product and process innovation in the European food and drink industry are affected by: i) the NIS structure in terms of universities vs public research labs, faculties/department mix and size; ii) the NIS output in terms of WoS indexed publications vs the supply of graduates; iii) the NIS fragmentation and coordination and iv) the NIS scientific impact and specialisation.The source of data on firm innovation is the EU-EFIGE/Bruegel-UniCredit dataset supplemented by information from the International Handbook of Universities, Eurostat and the bibliometric analysis of academic research quality. The results obtained suggest that large size of public research institutions are detrimental to interactions between university and industry and the indicators used for public research assessment are not appropriate proxies of local knowledge spillovers.


Plankton community structure in the Scotia Sea was investigated during January/early
February 2003 based on phytoplankton cell counts from 20 m depth and mesozooplankton counts
from 0 to 400 m net hauls. Cluster analysis and multi-dimensional scaling revealed 4 major groups of
stations within each ordination that broadly corresponded geographically. A grouping of stations to
the east of the Antarctic Peninsula was characterised by low phytoplankton cell counts. The corresponding
grouping of stations in the mesozooplankton data were characterised by low abundance,
overwintered state of many species, low egg production rates, and low carbon mass of copepod
instars. In contrast, groupings of stations in the northern part of the Scotia Sea were characterised as
chlorophyll and mesozooplankton rich, and the summer generation was well advanced. Latitude was
most strongly correlated with mesozooplankton community pattern (rank correlation ρ = 0.608),
whereas surface chlorophyll a was a weaker correlate (ρ = 0.344) but along with measures of sizefractioned
chlorophyll contributed towards explaining variation in species stages carbon mass and
egg production rates. Additional hauls to 1000 m with an LHPR indicated copepod populations were
broadly in an overwintered state in the south of the region, whereas to the north of South Georgia
recruitment had been completed and some species were undergoing a seasonal descent. A comparison
with January/February 2000 revealed higher abundances of krill larvae throughout the Scotia
Sea in 2000 as well as a more advanced generation of the copepod Calanoides acutus. Ice cover during
the 2 years differed considerably; in 2000 the position of the summer ice edge broadly accorded
with the 25 yr average, whereas in 2003 the ice edge lay much further north than usual. We suggest
that the timing of ice retreat influenced the timing of reproduction with the late retreat in 2003
causing delayed reproduction and reduced population sizes.


The Paleoproterozoic Mooidraai Formation is an up to 220 m thick succession of marine carbonate rocks that caps the Fe- and Mn-bearing Hotazel Formation in the Kalahari Manganese Field, South Africa. Although it occupies an important stratigraphic position within the upper Transvaal Supergroup, which records major perturbations of the early Paleoproterozoic biosphere, a detailed sedimentological study on the Mooidraai Formation has never been conducted. Here we present a detailed facies analysis that distinguishes eight carbonate and two iron formation lithofacies types. The lower Mooidraai Formation is dominated by carbonate rhythmites and slope breccias deposited on a foreslope, occasionally interbedded with oxide or carbonate facies iron formation. The upper part of the formation reflects various shelf and peritidal environments arranged in shallowing-upward parasequences. Clastic-textured massive dolarenites deposited in shelf and lagoonal environments typically form the base of parasequences and are overlain by subtidal thrombolites, lagoonal to intertidal microbialaminites, and upper intertidal to supratidal smoothly laminated stromatolites. Supratidal intraclast breccias cap shallowing-upward parasequences. Strong base level rise in the lower Mooidraai Formation reflects a transgressive systems tract tied to rapid early subsidence. Together with considerable lateral thickness variation in the following regressive systems tract, this suggests deposition in a basin with significant seafloor relief.


Contemporary discrete GPUs support rich memory management features such as virtual memory and demand paging. These features simplify GPU programming by providing a virtual address space abstraction similar to CPUs and eliminating manual memory management, but they introduce high performance overheads during (1) address translation and (2) page faults. A GPU relies on high degrees of thread-level parallelism (TLP) to hide memory latency. Address translation can undermine TLP, as a single miss in the translation lookaside buffer (TLB) invokes an expensive serialized page table walk that often stalls multiple threads. Demand paging can also undermine TLP, as multiple threads often stall while they wait for an expensive data transfer over the system I/O (e.g., PCIe) bus when the GPU demands a page. In modern GPUs, we face a trade-o on how the page size used for memory management affects address translation and demand paging. The address translation overhead is lower when we employ a larger page size (e.g., 2MB large pages, compared with conventional 4KB base pages), which increases TLB coverage and thus reduces TLB misses. Conversely, the demand paging overhead is lower when we employ a smaller page size, which decreases the system I/O bus transfer latency. Support for multiple page sizes can help relax the page size trade-o so that address translation and demand paging optimizations work together synergistically. However, existing page coalescing (i.e., merging base pages into a large page) and splintering (i.e., splitting a large page into base pages) policies require costly base page migrations that undermine the benefits multiple page sizes provide. In this paper, we observe that GPGPU applications present an opportunity to support multiple page sizes without costly data migration, as the applications perform most of their memory allocation en masse (i.e., they allocate a large number of base pages at once). We show that this en masse allocation allows us to create intelligent memory allocation policies which ensure that base pages that are contiguous in virtual memory are allocated to contiguous physical memory pages. As a result, coalescing and splintering operations no longer need to migrate base pages. We introduce Mosaic, a GPU memory manager that provides application-transparent support for multiple page sizes. Mosaic uses base pages to transfer data over the system I/O bus, and allocates physical memory in a way that (1) preserves base page contiguity and (2) ensures that a large page frame contains pages from only a single memory protection domain. We take advantage of this allocation strategy to design a novel in-place page size selection mechanism that avoids data migration. This mechanism allows the TLB to use large pages, reducing address translation overhead. During data transfer, this mechanism enables the GPU to transfer only the base pages that are needed by the application over the system I/O bus, keeping demand paging overhead low. Our evaluations show that Mosaic reduces address translation overheads while efficiently achieving the benefits of demand paging, compared to a contemporary GPU that uses only a 4KB page size. Relative to a state-of-the-art GPU memory manager, Mosaic improves the performance of homogeneous and heterogeneous multi-application workloads by 55.5% and 29.7% on average, respectively, coming within 6.8% and 15.4% of the performance of an ideal TLB where all TLB requests are hits. CCS CONCEPTS • Computer systems organization → Parallel architectures;


Abstract:Abu-Lughod's piece introduces the special section "Palestine: Doing Things with Archives." The four essays in this forum explore the challenges and possibilities of archives. They not only do what historians excel at—uncovering or illuminating past moments that reframe our understandings of the past and present—but they linger on less conventional questions of the materialities and affects of archives, as well as the formidable challenges archives present for assembly, authority, access, categorization, and political futures.


Construction is a labour-intensive industry that places heavy reliance upon the skills of
its workforce. Construction companies need to understand and realise the importance of
long-term labour resource planning requirements. The overall aim of this thesis is to
develop a systematic planning process that offers the opportunity for gathering
information for construction labour markets throughout Europe. Such a process would
benefit the construction industry by identifying imbalances between the demand and
supply of specific construction skills. In order to plan, the construction industry must:
appreciate the complexity of labour resource requirements; understand the long-term
planning implications; have reliable information; and be aware of any restrictions or
limitations on the planning exercise. These have been reflected in the main objectives of
this research which were to: identify and collate useful and reliable sources of data on
construction labour resources throughout Europe; construct a model to predict labour
resource trends; and assess the acceptability of movement between various European
regions.
Key sources of construction industry labour statistics were identified in several European
countries. Descriptions of the information held by each source were obtained through a
questionnaire survey that illustrated the extent to which data in individual countries were
broken down. Due to the differences in the classification of data, meaningful
comparisons of labour statistics from one country to another were difficult to achieve.
The future supply of construction skills depends on the recruitment of young people,
together with some upgrading of semi-skilled operatives to skilled operatives. The
potential for modelling labour supply was identified and could provide an insight into
influences on this supply of trainees. A human capital approach to analysing labour
supply was used as a theoretical basis for developing such a model. It was found that
real craft wage and output have a strong influence on the supply of nerv entrants, along
with demographic factors and young people's image of the construction industry.
The movement of labour within Europe is more common place in the construction
industry than other industries owing to the transient nature of the workforce. Factors
governing labour mobility between various regions of Europe were identified through
literature review. This research demonstrated that the movement of construction labour
depends on several push-pull factors: push factors encourage movement from a particular
region; and pull-factors direct movement into a particular region. Mutual recognition of
qualification and common labour regulations were found to be less significant factors.


An expression for a circularly polarized Gaussian laser beam is obtained from the electromagnetic vector potential A, of which the scalar part becomes the complex-source-point spherical wave. Based on the theory of laser-beam scattering by a stationary homogeneous sphere, the analytical formulas are derived for the optical torque components exerted on the levitated sphere in the circularly polarized focused laser beam. The optical torque is numerically calculated, and interpretations of the results are presented. For a sphere with size parameters ρ = (2πα/λ) = 10π and complex refractive index N = 1.47 + i0.000001, levitated at the center of a 1-W Ar+ laser beam, the z component of angular velocity in air ωrot,z is found to be about 4.0 rad/sec.


Previous studies have compared the airtightness measurement of test enclosures utilising both the novel Pulse technique and the conventional blower door method. Discrepancies between results of the two test methods were observed and it was concluded that differences either caused by wind or blower door installation integrity would have had an impact upon the results. This study, as a continued investigation as well as validation process for product development, reports on an experimental investigation that assesses the airtightness of an indoor chamber using both the blower door and Pulse methods with the envelope difference and wind impact being minimized. This was achieved by utilising two door-sized rigid panels to replace the existing door of an indoor chamber in the setup of the blower door and Pulse units. The blower door fan was located within one of these solid panels, which then negated any impact of leakage that would have otherwise been incurred around the frame of the blower door. A wooden plate with multiple openings was utilised and mounted in the chamber envelope to provide various leakage levels and characteristics for testing by taping up different number of openings, in which airtightness tests were performed using both methods in an overlapped pressure range. This allowed both methods to be compared directly with minimum difference in testing conditions. Tests were also carried out in a house-sized indoor chamber to assess the repeatability of the Pulse unit and its agreement with the blower door test. The initial results showed that in most of the testing scenarios a good agreement (up to 7.4%) was observed between the leakage results given by both methods; however a larger discrepancy was seen in the case where the largest opening was present. Strong repeatability was observed in the Pulse testing with an overall measurement uncertainty of ±5%; with a similar spread also presented by the blower door test method as part of the chamber testing.


A 'doxastic venture' model of faith – according to which having faith involves believing beyond what is rationally justifiable – can be defended only on condition that such venturesome believing is both possible and ethically acceptable. I show how a development of the position argued by William James in 'The will to believe' can succeed in meeting these conditions. A Jamesian defence of doxastic venture is, however, open to the objection that decision theory teaches us that there can be no circumstances in which 'the evidence does not decide', so a fortiori no occasion to permit belief on a 'passional' basis. I argue that this objection does not apply to certain 'framework principles' such as those presupposed by the framework of theistic belief and practice, and that there are good grounds for preferring a doxastic venture model of faith over a more austere alternative (advocated by Richard Swinburne) according to which reasonable faith cannot be more than the commitment to act on the assumption, with any (non-negligible) degree of confidence, that God exists and is to be trusted.


This paper analyzes how major external shocks and policy reforms affect Bolivia's ability to achieve pro-poor growth. Employing a recursive-dynamic CGE model, it considers three different scenarios: an optimistic baseline scenario that roughly extrapolates the situation prevailing before the onset of the recent economic crisis; a more realistic scenario that accounts for two important negative external shocks (declining capital inflows and El Ni?o); and a scenario that captures the combined effect of the shocks and two major reform projects (development of the gas sector and deregulation of the urban labor market). It turns out that the shocks have not only contributed to the economic crisis, but that they are also likely to impair Bolivia's medium-term development prospects, leading to marked increases in both urban and rural poverty. If the reform projects were implemented, their impact on growth would be large enough to slightly overcompensate the impact of the negative external shocks. The poverty increase caused by the shocks would be more than offset for urban households, but reinforced for rural households.


New technologies are helping researchers to apply new methods to the treatment of dialectal data, accomplishing a variety of research objectives in the stages of data compilation, data processing and the presentation of results. In this regard, dialectology has at least two aspects: a) obtaining new data to learn contemporary linguistic variation; and b) retrieving earlier material to facilitate the study of linguistic change and create new opportunities to compare such data with present-day results. The main aim of this paper is to show different techniques applied to various sorts of earlier dialectal materials in order to improve the cartographical representation of the data. For the Catalan dialects, a process of mapping has been applied to data gathered by Antoni M. Alcover roughly a century ago in La flexio verbal en els dialectes catalans ("Verbal flexion"), which is a complete corpus of the verb morphology of Catalan. We present new resources applied to this dialectal data, using dialectometrical calculations with nearly half a million verbal forms and retrieving the vocal sound of morphological forms through voice synthesis. In addition, we show a new pattern of dynamic cartography that combines early and modern lexical data. Referring not only to space but also to time we use two axes of linguistic representation and, because of linguistic change, the representation of the words in space is layered. For that reason, we can speak of "dialectal stratigraphy". An important advantage of the three procedures described in this paper is that the methodology can be adapted to other sorts of dialectal data for other languages.


Energy efficiency research in dwellings has traditi
onally focused on technical
matters, implying increased fabric insulation stand
ards and using energy efficient
appliances reduces energy consumption. However this
research has been shown to
have limitations in the form of the impact of polic
y and new technologies. As a result
there is now widespread recognition of the importan
ce for researchers to engage a
broader approach of non-technical research of energ
y use such as occupant
behavior. Monitoring of energy use down to a single
appliance is now possible and
relatively inexpensive. This paper presents the res
ults of an ethnographic study,
supported by monitoring, of energy use patterns for
six dwellings with a diverse
occupant demographic in Ireland. The study supporte
d by monitoring found that
occupant sex, age and behavior predominantly affect
ed energy use followed by the
presence of technology rather than the building fab
ric itself. Energy use in older
technically less efficient dwellings with older occ
upants was found to be
substantially less than that of the younger occupan
ts in supposed more energy
efficient houses. When given feedback, occupants we
re dispassionate when
presented information in terms of energy units (kWh
) but absorbed information
straightforwardly once the same information was exp
ressed in monetary terms.
From the research it is clear that technology and m
odern living has had a
transformational effect on the way we use energy wh
ich pose many problems for the
future. Ethnographical research is a long establish
ed discipline in the field of social
science but its importance is just burgeoning in re
lation to understand energy use
patterns in buildings. Thus, in addition to the res
ults the paper presents the lessons
learned during the process and proposes a framework
for future ethnographical
research of energy use in dwellings.


Content-based image retrieval in facial image collections is required in numerous applications. An interactive facial image retrieval method based on Self-Organizing Maps (SOM) is presented in this paper, in which multiple features are involved in the queries simultaneously. In addition, the retrieval performance is improved not only within queries for current user but also between queries by longterm learning from other users' relevance feedback. In that way recorded human intelligence is integrated to the system as a statistical feature. The work constituting this paper has been incorporated into our image retrieval system named PicSOM. The results of evaluation experiments show that the query performance can be substantially increased by using multiple features and the long-term learning.


Nonea (Boraginaceae) with nearly 35 species was divided into four sections based on the shape of mericarpids and the position of the anthers in the corolla tube. Although several comprehensive taxonomic studies have been performed on Turkish and European Nonea taxa, Caucasian ones have not been studied well. Therefore Caucasian Nonea need close attention with regard to molecular systematics. In this study, 15 Caucasian Nonea including N. cyanocalyx and N. bakuensis were evaluated with nrDNA ITS and cpDNA trnL-F sequence data using Maximum Parsimony and Bayesian Inference to reconstruct phylogeny. All examined members of Nonea were grouped at three main clades with weak to good support values based on nrITS and at two main clades with moderate to good support values based on trnL-F. Both trees did not coincide with the traditional sub-generic delimitation of Nonea, but nrITS tree supported monophyly of Nonea. On the other hand, Pulmonaria is deeply nested in Nonea in the trnL-F tree. Moreover, present findings support treating N. cyanocalyx and N. bakuensis as distinct species rather than subspecies and revealed a preliminary phylogenetic structure of little known Caucasian Nonea.


Ambient Intelligence (AmI) is a multidisciplinary paradigm, which positively alters the relationship between humans and technology. Concerning home environments, the functions of AmI vision include home automation, communication, entertainment, working and learning. In the area of communication, AmI still needs better mechanisms for human-computer communication. A natural human-computer interaction necessitates having systems capable of modelling words and computing with them. For this purpose, the paradigm of Computing With Words (CWWs) can be employed to mimic human-like communication in Ambient Intelligent Environments (AIEs). This paper demonstrates the extendibility of Linear General Type-2 (LGT2) Fuzzy Logic based CWWs Framework to create an advanced real-world application, which integrates a semi-autonomous, safe and energy efficient electric hob. The motivation of this work is twofold: 1) there is a need to develop transparent human-computer communication rather than embedding obtrusive tablets and computing equipment throughout our surroundings, and 2) one of the most hazardous and energy consuming household devices, the electric hob, does not have competent levels of intelligence and energy efficiency. The proposed Ambient Intelligent Food Preparation System (AIFPS) can increase user comfort, facilitate food preparation, minimize energy consumption and be a useful tool for the elderly and people with major disabilities including vision impairment. The results of real-world experiments with various lay users in the intelligent flat (iSpace) show the success of AIFPS in providing up to 55.43% improved natural interaction (compared to Interval Type-2 based CWWs Framework) while achieving semi-autonomous, safe and energy efficient cooking that can save energy between 11.5% and 35.2%.


Reports results of a research that aimed at studying the use of business models in the context of open access electronic scholarly journals publishing. Additionally, the work approaches disciplinary differences, particularly in terms of three issues, namely required publication speed, funding and features that involve the edition of a scholarly journal. In this context, the study aimed at proposing a model that allows identifying required elements to design business models appropriated to open access scholarly journals publishing. Along with identifying the elements, the study looked at the relationships between these elements and differences found between knowledge fields. Based on a bibliographic survey, the research adopted a qualitative approach that consisted of analysing the content of the literature reviewed. As a result, a business model for the activity of open access electronic journal publishing has been proposed. Based on Stähler's approach, the model entails a set of four components, namely value proposition, products and/or services, value architeture and source of resources. Derived from this basic model, three other models are presented, each one representing particularities of the three major divisions of knowledge, Sciences, Social & Human Sciences and Arts & Humanities. As conclusion, features of business models for Sciences are considerably different from the other two divisions. On the other hand, there are important similarities between business models for the Social & Human Sciences and for Arts & Humanities.


A myth exists that Jews can embrace the cultural components of Judaism without appreciating the legal aspects of the Jewish tradition. This myth suggests that law and culture are independent of one another. In reality, however, much of Jewish culture has a basis in Jewish law. Similarly, Jewish law produces Jewish culture. A cultural analysis paradigm provides a useful way of understanding the Jewish tradition as the product of both legal precepts and cultural elements. This paradigm sees law and culture as inextricably intertwined and historically specific. This perspective also emphasizes the human element of law's composition and the role of existing power dynamics in shaping Jewish law. In light of this inevitable intersection between culture and law, The Myth of the Cultural Jew: Culture and Law in Jewish Tradition argues that Jewish culture is shallow unless it is grounded in Jewish law. Roberta Rosenthal Kwall develops and applies a cultural analysis paradigm to the Jewish tradition that departs from the understanding of Jewish law solely as the embodiment of Divine command. Her paradigm explains why both law and culture must matter to those interested in forging meaningful Jewish identity and transmitting the tradition.


Background Reports from royal colleges and organisations such as Public Health England suggest that GPs and nurses should advise patients to switch to electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) if they do not want to stop smoking using licensed medication. However, there are no data on what practitioners think, feel, or do about e-cigarettes. Aim To explore practitioners' perceptions and attitudes towards e-cigarettes, and their experiences of discussing e-cigarettes with patients. Design and setting A qualitative interview study was carried out with semi-structured interviews conducted with nurses and GPs across England in 2017. Method Participants were interviewed once either via telephone or face to face. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Results Interviews were conducted with 23 practitioners (eight nurses and 15 GPs). There were three key themes: ambivalence and uncertainty; pragmatism; and responsibility. Many practitioners had uncertainties about the safety and long-term risks of e-cigarettes. Some had ambivalence about their own knowledge and ability to advise on their use, as well as uncertainty about whether to and what to advise patients. Despite this, many sought to provide honesty in consultations by acknowledging these uncertainties about e-cigarettes with patients and taking a pragmatic approach, believing that e-cigarettes were a 'step in the right direction'. Practitioners wanted advice from healthcare regulators such as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to reassure them about the safety of e-cigarettes, practical tools to support the consultation, and to control their use by providing behavioural support programmes for reduction or cessation. Conclusion Current dissemination strategies for guidelines are not effective in reaching practitioners, who are offering more cautious advice about e-cigarettes than guidelines suggest is reasonable.


Vast empirical evidence suggests a high significance of physical activity (PA) for health and well-being. Still, researches show a decline of PA in youth worldwide. Early adolescence is a particularly sensitive period because then children adopt healthy habits and build a positive attitude towards PA. Examining the significance and contribution of potential factors to overall PA in early adolescence is of theoretical and practical relevance. Thus, this study aimed to explore the validity of physical fitness and physical self-concept in the prediction of overall PA in early adolescence, taking into account gender and Body Mass Index (BMI). The sample consisted of 417 primary school students (54.9% boys), the average age 13.6 years (SD=0.73) who participate in regular physical education classes three times per week, each class 45 minutes. Physical self-concept was measured using the Physical Self-Description Questionnaire (PSDQ). To assess everyday physical activity, we used the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Adolescents (PAQ-A). Anthropometric measurements included the body height and bodyweight of the respondents. Physical fitness, i.e., flexibility, muscular strength (abdominal endurance strength and lower-limb explosive strength), and cardiorespiratory endurance were measured using the EUROFIT test battery. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that physical self-concept predicts 35% of the variance of PA over and above gender and dimensions of physical fitness. Significant predictors of physical activity were dimensions of physical self-concept: Physical Activity, Sports Competence, and Endurance. The interaction of Gender and Self Esteem contributed significantly indicating that higher Self Esteem had a significant role in the level of PA only in male adolescents. The main finding is that physical self-concept plays a crucial role in the prediction of the level of overall PA in which early adolescents will be engaged. The results support findings showing that intervention programs aimed to improve PA should encourage positive physical self-concept of adolescents with appropriate content and procedures.


In a world where web services can make real-time data accessible to anyone, how can the government leverage this openness to improve its operations and increase citizen participation and awareness? Through a collection of essays and case studies, leading visionaries and practitioners both inside and outside of government share their ideas on how to achieve and direct this emerging world of online collaboration, transparency, and participation. Contributions and topics include: Beth Simone Noveck, U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer for open government, "The Single Point of Failure" Jerry Brito, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, "All Your Data Are Belong to Us: Liberating Government Data" Aaron Swartz, cofounder of reddit.com, OpenLibrary.org, and BoldProgressives.org, "When Is Transparency Useful?" Ellen S. Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, "Disrupting Washington's Golden Rule" Carl Malamud, founder of Public.Resource.Org, "By the People" Douglas Schuler, president of the Public Sphere Project, "Online Deliberation and Civic Intelligence" Howard Dierking, program manager on Microsoft's MSDN and TechNet Web platform team, "Engineering Good Government" Matthew Burton, Web entrepreneur and former intelligence analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency, "A Peace Corps for Programmers" Gary D. Bass and Sean Moulton, OMB Watch, "Bringing the Web 2.0 Revolution to Government" Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, "Defining Government 2.0: Lessons Learned from the Success of Computer Platforms" Open Government editors: Daniel Lathrop is a former investigative projects reporter with the Seattle Post Intelligencer who's covered politics in Washington state, Iowa, Florida, and Washington D.C. He's a specialist in campaign finance and "computer-assisted reporting" -- the practice of using data analysis to report the news. Laurel Ruma is the Gov 2.0 Evangelist at O'Reilly Media. She is also co-chair for the Gov 2.0 Expo.


This study investigates an episode of penury in 1879–1880 in Borsod and Zemplén Counties which occurred as one of the negative consequences of a short-term weather change which was experienced across Europe in the late 1870s and early 1880s. From the mid-1870s on, due to the wetter and cooler weather, the annual crop yields repeatedly fell below the usual and expected averages in Hungary. After a catastrophic harvest in the autumn of 1879, when the quantity of harvested cereals was sufficient neither for reserves nor for spring sowing, the situation became severe. 1878 had also been a bad year for agriculture: the severe floods in the second half of 1878 not only had washed the crops from the fields but had also covered them with thick sludge that made it impossible to sow in autumn. Since the spring of 1879 was characterized by unfavorable conditions for agriculture (increased rainfall, widespread floods, low average spring temperatures), the local and national authorities continuously kept their eyes on the crops. Thanks to this preliminary attention, the administration was able to respond quickly and in an organized manner to the bad harvest in July and August and could avert catastrophe at national level. The leadership of the two counties responded more or less in the same way to the near-famine conditions. First, they asked the Treasury to suspend tax collection until the next harvest at least so that the farmers who were facing financial difficulties would not have to go into debt. Second, they appealed to the government for financial and crop relief to save the unemployed population from starvation. For those who were able to work, they asked for the approval of public works and major construction projects from the Ministry of Transport and Public Works. For many, such state-funded road construction or river regulation projects were the only way to make a living. Third, the county administrations also gave seeds for spring sowing to the farmers. While Borsod county survived the years of bad harvests without dire problems due to the higher proportion of better quality fields, in the more mountainous region of Zemplén, most landowners had smaller and lower quality lands, and they often chose to emigrate to avoid starvation. These difficult conditions may have provided the initial impetus for mass emigration to Western Europe and America.


Congenital cutis laxa is a rare, clinically and genetically heterogeneous group of inherited disorders. It is characterized by degenerative changes in elastic fibres and manifests with skin laxity. Here we presented a six-month old boy with congenital cutis laxa associated with growth retardation. We reveal ultrastructural findings and discussed the differential diagnosis.


Early Christian Ireland was essentially a rural society consisting of a large number of small independent political units known as tuath. "Market" exchange was generally of a peripheral and limited nature, confined primarily to exotic goods such as wines and large drinking homs which could not be obtained in Ireland. Despite the absence of a thriving market, there was still considerable movement and transfer of ownership, especially of livestock and foodstuffs, within the tuath. Nobles and commoners continually exchanged goods, but not to obtain a more varied range of goods for consumption, as one does in a market economy. The goods exchanged were almost invariably agricultural produce and the people involved were almost invariably farmers. The goods were exchanged in order to maintain a contract institution known as clientship. The evidence indicates that the animal bones found on a rural site of the period cannot be assumed to represent the produce of the farm unit.


In this paper, Numerical Linear Algebra techniques for data encoding and decoding are presented. The algorithms are based on matrix triangularization leading to an ecient coding procedure. Rounding o errors can cause serious problems in the process of coding and thus the decoding may be led to inaccurate results. Techniques for improving the stability of the whole process are proposed. The complexity and the error analysis of the proposed methods are discussed. Examples illustrating the algorithms are presented.


ABSTRACT: The New Castle County Resource Protection Area Technical Advisory Committee (RPATAC) requested that the University of Delaware utilize impervious cover estimates to evaluate the performance of the Water Resource Protection Area (WRPA) ordinance. This 1991 ordinance was the first in Delaware to protect the quantity and quality of drinking water supplies by limiting new development in WRPAs ‐ such as areas of ground water recharge, wellhead protection, drainage above reservoirs (reservoir watersheds), and limestone aquifers ‐ to a maximum 20 percent impervious cover. The research used geographic information system (GIS) techniques to evaluate the effectiveness of the ordinance in attaining its objective. The analysis indicated that 138 new developments were proposed in WRPAs since the ordinance was approved in 1991. The composite impervious cover of the 231 square kilometers of WRPAs in New Castle County is 15 percent, less than the 20 percent code requirement, ranging from 7 percent in recharge areas to 41 percent in several wellhead protection areas. To further protect drinking water supplies, the study results indicate, New Castle County should discourage code variances for applications in the more developed WRPAs, those where impervious cover already exceeds 20 percent, and should acquire parks and open space to protect the healthier WRPAs where impervious cover is currently less than 20 percent.


After a ten-year silence, Christopher Alexander and his colleagues at the Center for Environmental Structure are not publishing a major statement in the form of three works which will, in their words, "lay the basis for an entirely new approach to architecture, building, and planning, which will, we hope, replace existing ideas and practices entirely." The three books are The Timeless Way of Building, A Pattern Language, and The Oregon Experiment. At the core of these books is the idea that people should design for themselves their own houses, streets, and communities. This idea may be radical (it implies a radical transformation fo the architectural profession) but it comes simply from the observation that most of the wonderful places of the world were not made by architects but by the people. This book is the master plan for the University of Oregon, and is now being implemented at that university; but it shows at the same time how any community the size of a university or small town might go about designing its own future environment-with all members of the community participating personally. It is a concrete example at the Center's theories in practice, showing in simple detail, with numerous illustrations, how to implement six guiding principles: organic order, participation, piecemeal growth, patterns, diagnosis, and coordination.


This paper tests between fads and bubbles using a new empirical strategy (based on switching-regression econometrics) for distinguishing between competing asset-pricing models. By extending the Blanchard and Watson (1982) model, we show how stochastic bubbles can lead to regime-switching in stock market returns. By incorporating statedependent heteroscedasticity into the Cutler, Poterba, and Summers (1991) fads model, we show that it can also lead to regime-switching. Two main features of the bubbles model distinguish it from the fads model. First, the bubbles model implies that returns are drawn from two distinct regimes. Second, the bubbles model implies that deviations from fundamental price will help predict regime switches. Using U.S. data for 1926-89, we find evidence that is consistent with the fads model even when we allow for variation in expected dividend growth rates and expected discount rates. However, the restrictions that the fads model implies for a more general switching model are rejected. The rejections point in the direction of the bubbles model, although not all the implications of the bubbles model are supported by the data.


Data augmentation is the process of generating samples by transforming training data, with the target of improving the accuracy and robustness of classifiers. In this paper, we propose a new automatic and adaptive algorithm for choosing the transformations of the samples used in data augmentation. Specifically, for each sample, our main idea is to seek a small transformation that yields maximal classification loss on the transformed sample. We employ a trust-region optimization strategy, which consists of solving a sequence of linear programs. Our data augmentation scheme is then integrated into a Stochastic Gradient Descent algorithm for training deep neural networks. We perform experiments on two datasets, and show that that the proposed scheme outperforms random data augmentation algorithms in terms of accuracy and robustness, while yielding comparable or superior results with respect to existing selective sampling approaches.


Regulating the reactivity and equilibrium of dynamic reaction is essential for adaptive chemistry and functional materials. Herein, cucurbituril-based host-guest interaction was embedded into the dynamic metathesis between diselenide and ditelluride to establish an equilibrium-adaptive system. In this system, cucurbit[6]uril (CB[6]) selectively bound with diselenide while cucurbit[7]uril (CB[7]) bound with not only diselenide but also ditelluride and exchange product. The dynamic nature of diselenide bond was locked after forming the inclusion complex with CB[6]. Based on this selective locking effect, the Se-Te products were reversed back to diselenide and ditelluride reactants, which was an equilibrium regulating process. Therefore, by combining CB[6]-based host-guest interaction and dynamic diselenide chemistry, the reactivity of diselenide bond and the equilibrium of Se-Te metathesis was successfully regulated.


Based on fieldwork carried out in Delhi during 2006-2007 this thesis explores the social world of transparency and accountability activism in the city. I focus in particular on the activism scene that has grown up around the campaign for and implementation of the national Right to Information Act 2005. There is a global interest in improving the transparency and accountability of government bureaucracies, and in schemes to foster active citizenship. In tune with this campaigns to provide Indian citizens with a right to access government information have captured the imagination of activists, policy makers, and national and international donor organisations.

For transparency and accountability activists rights to access government information offer Indian citizens opportunities to interrogate official procedures and hold officers individually accountable; to provide people with mechanisms with which they might become more ‗active' as citizens; and to provide a means of monitoring the performance of the state in fulfilling its constitutional responsibilities regarding welfare, equality and social justice.

Taking boundaries as my theme my work looks at the activist scene in Delhi from an ethnographic perspective, investigating how activist projects work. I argue that the ideology and practice of transparency and accountability activism is concerned with boundaries in two ways. First it is directed at illuminating and delineating boundaries between the state and society, and public and private roles. The intention is to combat the effects of private influence and unofficial practices that might lead to the misallocation of government resources. Second it is directed at transcending social and spatial boundaries based on class, caste or community in order to enrol people into projects aimed at producing empowered and active citizens.

However, in looking at the activist scene a number of what I call ‗boundary paradoxes' become apparent. Activist campaigns to get transparency and accountability legislation passed rely in part on the personal connections to the highest levels of government of activists from India's social elite. At the grassroots level activists play a mediating role between the local state and poor or illiterate clients. Social and cultural capital, space, class and gender distinctions emerge as significant factors in the everyday practice of activism, in turn reproducing existing social hierarchies in activist organisations. While seeking transparency and accountability from others activists have to negotiate the boundaries of transparency and accountability in their own organisations, deciding what can be made public and what should remain hidden. And, as activism is organised through informal networks sustaining a livelihood and a full time role in the scene immerses activists in webs of patron-client relations, recommendations and obligations, the antithesis of the disciplined, transparent and accountable bureaucratic organisation that transparency and accountability activism requires from the state.

My thesis contains examples of the positive effects that involvement in activism can have, particularly for people from some of Delhi's poorer neighbourhoods. However, although activism is directed at producing a future that conforms to activist's ideal constructions of how India should be, activists must work in the present to bring this future about. I argue that even as activists work for change, activism itself is a site in which the existing structures of society are reproduced.


The 9/11 attacks fundamentally transformed how the U.S. approached terrorism, and led to the unprecedented expansion of counterterrorism strategies, policies, and practices. While the analysis of these developments is rich and vast, there remains a significant void. The diverse actors contributing to counterterrorism increasingly consider, engage and impact women as agents, partners, and targets of their work. Yet, flawed assumptions and stereotypes remain prevalent, and it remains undocumented and unclear how and why counterterrorism efforts evolved as they did in relation to women.
This book examines how, where and why women have become visible in the discourses and practices related to counterterrorism through the lens of US efforts since 2001. Drawing on extensive primary source interviews and documents, A Woman's Place traces the evolution of women's place in U.S. counterterrorism efforts through the administrations of Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump, examining key agencies like the U.S. Department of Defense, the Department of State, and USAID.
In their own words, Joana Cook investigates how and why women have developed the roles they have, and interrogates U.S. counterterrorism practices in key countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen. Analysing conceptions of and responses to terrorists, she also considers how the roles of women in Al-Qaeda and ISIS have evolved and impacted on U.S. counterterrorism considerations. It argues that it is imperative to meaningfully engage and consider women in every aspect of counterterrorism as actors, partners and targets of this work.


Background
Binge eating is often co-morbid with obesity. There is no widely accepted theoretical model for binge eating, this has treatment implications. Research has highlighted the role of
metacognitions in psychopathology, including eating disorders. However, metacognitions in obesity and binge eating have not yet been researched. The self-regulatory executive functioning model (S-REF; Wells & Matthews, 1994, 1996) conceptualises the role of metacognition in the aetiology and maintenance of psychological disturbance. This exploratory study aimed to explore metacognition in people with obesity and binge eating, and people with obesity without binge eating.
Design
A clinical sample of ten participants, five with obesity and binge eating, and five with obesity without binge eating were recruited. A mixed-method design was utilised, with a dominant qualitative component. Participants were interviewed using the Metacognitive Profiling Interview and completed self-report measures to contextualise the results. Using template analysis the two groups were first analysed separately, and then compared to each other.
Results
Three main themes were identified; metacognitive judgements, metacognitive processes and thought control strategies. The binge-eating group reported experiencing greater and more problematic metacognitions, metacognitive processes and thought control strategies than the non binge-eating group.
Conclusions
The results build upon existing metacognitive research, indicating that metacognitions involved in the development and maintenance of binge eating in obesity are often very
different from those involved in obesity without binge eating. This suggests the S-REF iii model may have relevance for binge eating in obesity. The study supports the idea that individuals with binge eating should be offered specialised treatment that is distinct from the treatment for obese non-binge eaters. Further research is needed to develop an empirically-tested disorder-specific model of binge eating.


Alarms and operator response are one of the first layers of defense in preventing a plant upset from escalating into an abnormal situation. The new ISA 18.2 standard [1] on alarm management recommends following a lifecycle approach similar to the existing ISA84/IEC 61511 standard on functional safety. This paper will highlight where these lifecycles interact and overlap, as well as how to address them holistically. Specific examples within ISA 18 will illustrate where the output of one lifecycle is used as input to the other, such as when alarms identified as a safeguards during a process hazards analysis (PHA) are used as an input to alarm identification and rationalization. The paper will also provide recommendations on how to integrate the safety and alarm management lifecycles.


This book is focused on the theoretical and practical design of reinforced concrete beams, columns and frame structures. It is based on an analytical approach of designing normal reinforced concrete structural elements that are compatible with most international design rules, including for instance the European design rules – Eurocode 2 – for reinforced concrete structures. The book tries to distinguish between what belongs to the structural design philosophy of such structural elements (related to strength of materials arguments) and what belongs to the design rule aspects associated with specific characteristic data (for the material or loading parameters). A previous book, entitled Reinforced Concrete Beams, Columns and Frames – Mechanics and Design, deals with the fundamental aspects of the mechanics and design of reinforced concrete in general, both related to the Serviceability Limit State (SLS) and the Ultimate Limit State (ULS), whereas the current book deals with more advanced ULS aspects, along with instability and second-order analysis aspects. Some recent research results including the use of non-local mechanics are also presented. This book is aimed at Masters-level students, engineers, researchers and teachers in the field of reinforced concrete design. Most of the books in this area are very practical or code-oriented, whereas this book is more theoretically based, using rigorous mathematics and mechanics tools.


The zero-dispersion characteristics are shown of coupled modes in twin waveguides when the medium of the substrate is lossy or active or when leakage exists. When the coupling strength of coupled modes composed of even and odd modes is critical, the phase velocities of these modes degenerate to make dispersion zero. The condition for zero dispersion is analytically obtained. The characteristics of reflection coefficients at various boundaries in the twin-waveguiding structure are studied in terms of the dual relation in the case in which the medium of the substrate is lossy or is active. The effect of the degenerate modes caused by leakage on the phase-shift characteristics of reflected waves at the prism–twin-waveguide boundaries is also studied.


This study examined the relation between statolith and somatic growth in the tropical squid Sepioteuthis lessoniana. Five separate linear dimensions were measured on the statoliths of 103 individuals (17–245 mm mantle length). In addition the statoliths of 80 adults (82–245 mm mantle length) were weighed. Statolith increment analysis provided age estimates for 78 individuals. Statolith total length was correlated with age for squid less than ~60 days of age, although neither statolith total length nor weight was a useful predictor of age in older squid. Combining the five statolith dimensions to produce a description of statolith shape provided only slightly better estimates of age than statolith total length or weight alone. Statolith shape changed during ontogeny, developing from relatively elongate juvenile statoliths into the adult form with more robust dorsal and lateral domes. This development was reflected in wider spacing and superior optical definition of daily growth increments in the dorsal and lateral domes of adult statoliths, in relation to the slower growing rostrum. Growth of S. lessoniana statoliths does not appear to be strongly linked to mantle growth; both statolith total length and weight increase more slowly than mantle length.


Optical microring resonators can be integrated on a chip to perform switching operations directly in the optical domain. Thus they become a building block to create switching elements in on-chip optical interconnection networks, which promise to overcome some of the limitations of current electronic networks. However, the peculiar asymmetric power losses of microring resonators impose new constraints on the design and control of on-chip optical networks. In this work, we study the design of multistage interconnection networks optimized for a particular metric that we name the degradation index, which characterizes the asymmetric behavior of microrings. We also propose a routing control algorithm to maximize the overall throughput, considering the maximum allowed degradation index as a constraint.


Some places in Henan Province are investigated by using sample surveys and interviews. Result shows that land circulation in less developed agricultural area of Henan Province has the characteristics of small scale, single formi¼Œ short period, and circulation land in economic core region. Problems in land circulation are as follows: slow transfer of rural surplus labor force, hard implementation of fundamental land circulation, complicated mentality towards rural land circulation, many misgivings about land circulation, the unformed social service system of land circulation, and imperfect agricultural risk prevention mechanism for circulated land use. Based on the characteristics of land circulation, suggestions for promoting the land circulation of less developed agricultural areas are put forward in order to solve the problems in land circulation and to lay the foundation for effective implementation of land circulation, such as speeding up the development of urbanization, developing the circulation of collective land, effectively implementing the laws and regulations of rural collective land circulation, transferring land according to law, establishing market mechanism of agricultural land circulation, promoting the agricultural industrialization, establishing market mechanism of agricultural land circulation, promoting the agricultural industrialization, energetically readjusting rural industrial structure, and developing economy with local characteristics.


Ready to transport your web applications into the Web 2.0 era? Head First Rails takes your programming -- and productivity -- to the max. You'll learn everything from the fundamentals of Rails scaffolding to building customized interactive web apps using Rails' rich set of tools and the MVC framework. By the time you're finished, you'll have learned more than just another web framework. You'll master database interactions, integration with Ajax and XML, rich content, and even dynamic graphing of your data -- all in a fraction of the time it takes to build the same apps with Java, PHP, ASP.NET, or Perl. You'll even get comfortable and familiar with Ruby, the language that underpins Rails. But you'll do it in the context of web programming, and not through boring exercises such as "Hello, World!" Your time is way too valuable to waste struggling with new concepts. Using the latest research in cognitive science and learning theory to craft a multi-sensory learning experience, Head First Rails uses a visually rich format designed to take advantage of the way your brain really works.


Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs, mainly acetate, propionate, and butyrate), which are primarily derived from the gut microbiome, may exert anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effects, and regulate energy homeostasis. It has been suggested that weight loss may affect SCFA metabolism, but a systematic review of intervention studies is lacking. We aimed to systematically assess the effects of dietary, physical activity-based, and surgical weight-loss interventions among overweight [body mass index (BMI) 25-29.9 kg/m2)] or obese (BMI ≥30 kg/m2) adults (≥18 y) on concentrations of acetate, propionate, butyrate, and total SCFAs in blood, urine, or feces. We conducted a systematic literature search in PubMed, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) up to April 30, 2018 for randomized and nonrandomized weight-loss trials among overweight or obese adults, in which the concentrations of individual and total SCFAs were assessed. A total of 9 studies consisting of 2 randomized parallel-arm trials, 4 crossover trials, and 3 nonrandomized clinical or surgical trials were included. In the majority of studies, changes in fecal SCFA concentrations were assessed, whereas changes in serum SCFAs were reported from 1 trial. Individual and total SCFA concentrations either remained unchanged or decreased significantly following weight loss. Three of the dietary interventions that resulted in decreased SCFA concentrations were low (≤5% of energy) in total carbohydrates. Most of the studies had a high risk of bias. Decreases in SCFA concentrations may accompany weight loss induced by bariatric surgery or dietary restriction among overweight or obese adults, particularly when carbohydrate intake is reduced. However, findings were inconsistent and based on studies with high to unclear risk of bias, and small sample sizes. Because measurements of fecal SCFAs may not be ideal due to limited sample standardization, well-powered trials with repeated blood measurements of SCFAs are required. This review was registered at PROSPERO as CRD42018088716.


This paper explores the application of multi-objective Genetic Algorithms (mGAs) to rural land use planning, a spatial allocation problem. Two mGAs are proposed. Both share an underlying structure of: fitness assignment using Pareto-dominance ranking, niche induction and an individual replacement strategy. They are differentiated by their representations: a fixed-length genotype composed of genes that map directly to a land parcel's use and a variable-length, order-dependent representation making allocations indirectly via a greedy algorithm. The latter representation requires additional breeding operators to be defined and post-processing of the genotype structure to identify and remove duplicate genotypes. The two mGAs are compared on a real land use planning problem and the strengths and weaknesses of the underlying framework and each representation are identified.


1. This paper describes the uptake by rings of everted hamster jejunum in vitro of three peptides with structural features making them resistant to hydrolysis, glycylsarcosylsarcosine, glycylsarcosylsarcosylsarcosine and beta-alanylglycylglycine. 2. Glycylsarcosylsarcosine was taken up by a saturable mechanism and accumulated intact in the intracellular compartment of the intestinal wall, apparently against an electrochemical gradient. Its uptake was reduced by Na+-replacement, anoxia and metabolic inhibitors. It was concluded that uptake of this peptide was the result of Na+-dependent active transport. 3. Glycylsarcosylsarcosylsarcosine was very poorly taken up and its uptake did not appear to be the result of active transport. 4. Beta-Alanylglycylglycine appeared intact in the intracellular compartment of the intestinal wall on a substantial scale though it was not concentrated. No satisfactory evidence of uptake by a saturable mechanism was obtained. Uptake was, however, inhibited by anoxia, 2,4-dinitrophenol and Na+-replacement. Reasons are given for supposing that uptake of this peptide may be the result of Na+-dependent active transport by the same carrier as that utilized by glycylsarcosylsarcosine. 5. The results suggest that provided that they escape brush-border hydrolysis, tripeptides, like dipeptides, are actively transported into the absorptive cells of the intestinal mucosa, but that the ability of these cells to take up peptides by an active mechanism is unlikely to extend to tetrapeptides.


This study examines capital flows and shifts in capital account and exchange rate regimes in African countries over the past two decades. The evidence shows that official lending to Africa has declined while the volume of private capital flows remains low and significantly below the levels observed in other developing regions. Private capital inflows to Africa are limited due to several factors, including the weakness of the macroeconomic environment, underdeveloped financial systems, high country risk, and exchange rate misalignments. The focus of policy reforms must be on alleviating these constraints in order to attract more foreign capital and overcome the shortage of development financing. Many African countries have pursued reforms aimed at liberalizing their capital account and exchange rate regimes. However, liberalization has not been accompanied by systematic gains income growth, price stability, and trade performance. African countries must pay serious attention to the scope, speed, and sequencing of capital account liberalization to minimize potential adverse effects of openness. It is desirable for countries to maintain selective discretionary control over capital movements and exchange rate markets in order to hedge against adverse shocks to the economy and to maintain macroeconomic and financial stability. To attract foreign capital, any move toward capital account openness and exchange rate liberalization must be supported by reforms aimed at improving credibility of macroeconomic policy and establishing an investment-friendly environment. These reforms will not only attract foreign capital but also encourage domestic investment. An important aspect of capital movements in Africa is the high level of capital flight. There is an urgent need for policies to stem further hemorrage of capital from Africa and induce the repatriation of private capital held abroad. This will require not only improvement of the macroeconomic conditions to ameliorate incentives for domestic investment, but also reform of the political and legal systems to improve accountability and credibility of economic policy.


More than half a billion users across the globe have availed themselves of e-dating services. This chapter looks at the marketing and cross-cultural aspects of mate-seeking behavior in e-dating. We content analyzed 238 advertisements from online matrimonial sites in three countries: India (n=79), Hong Kong (n=80), and Australia (n=79). Frequencies of mention of the following ten attribute categories in the advertiser's self-description were established using post hoc quantitative analysis: love, physical status, educational status, intellectual status, occupational status, entertainment services, money, demographic information, ethnic information, and personality traits. Past research on mate selection using personal ads and the three countries' positions on Hofstede's dimensions of culture were used in hypotheses generation. The results support several culture-based differences in people's self-description in online personal ads; however, some anticipated differences were not realized, suggesting that some cultural differences may not be as strong as Hofstede (2001) suggests.


Off-policy evaluation (OPE) aims to estimate the performance of hypothetical policies using data generated by a different policy. Because of its huge potential impact in practice, there has been growing research interest in this field. There is, however, no real-world public dataset that enables the evaluation of OPE, making its experimental studies unrealistic and irreproducible. With the goal of enabling realistic and reproducible OPE research, we present Open Bandit Dataset, a public logged bandit dataset collected on a large-scale fashion e-commerce platform, ZOZOTOWN. Our dataset is unique in that it contains a set of multiple logged bandit datasets collected by running different policies on the same platform. This enables experimental comparisons of different OPE estimators for the first time. We also develop Python software called Open Bandit Pipeline to streamline and standardize the implementation of batch bandit algorithms and OPE. Our open data and software will contribute to fair and transparent OPE research and help the community identify fruitful research directions. We provide extensive benchmark experiments of existing OPE estimators using our dataset and software. The results open up essential challenges and new avenues for future OPE research.


This book examines the development of Japanese literature depicting the native place (furusato) from the mid-Meiji period through the late 1930s as a way of articulating the uprootedness and sense of loss many experienced as Japan modernized. The 1890s witnessed the appearance of fictional works describing a city dweller who returns to his native place, where he reflects on the evils of urban life and the idyllic past of his childhood home. The book concentrates on four authors who typify this trend: Kunikida Doppo, Shimazaki T'son, Sat' Haruo, and Shiga Naoya. All four writers may be understood as trying to make sense of contemporary Japan. Their works reflect their engagement with the social, intellectual, economic, and technological discourses that created a network of shared experience among people of a similar age. This common experience allows the author to chart how these writers' works contributed to the general debate over Japanese national identity in this period. By exploring the links between furusato literature and the theme of national identity, he shows that the debate over a common language that might transparently express the modern experience helped shape a variety of literary forms used to present the native place as a distinctly Japanese experience.


Although the detection of methylated cell free DNA represents one of the most promising approaches for relapse risk assessment in cancer patients, the low concentration of cell-free circulating DNA constitutes the biggest obstacle in the development of DNA methylation-based biomarkers from blood. This paper describes a method for the measurement of genomic methylation content directly on circulating tumor cells (CTC), which could be used to deceive the aforementioned problem. Since CTC are disease related blood-based biomarkers, they result essential to monitor tumor's stadiation, therapy, and early relapsing lesions. Within surface's bio-functionalization and cell's isolation procedure standardization, the presented approach reveals a singular ability to detect high 5-methylcytosine CTC-subset content in the whole CTC compound, by choosing folic acid (FA) as transducer molecule. Sensitivity and specificity, calculated for FA functionalized surface (FA-surface), result respectively on about 83% and 60%. FA-surface, allowing the detection and characterization of early metastatic dissemination, provides a unique advance in the comprehension of tumors progression and dissemination confirming the presence of CTC and its association with high risk of relapse. This functionalized surface identifying and quantifying high 5-methylcytosine CTC-subset content into the patient's blood lead significant progress in cancer risk assessment, also providing a novel therapeutic strategy.