Although millions of slaves were forcibly transported from Africa to Brazil, the languages the slaves brought with them remain little known. Most studies have focused on African contributions to Brazilian Portuguese rather than on the African languages themselves. This book is unusual in focusing on an African-descended language. The author describes and analyzes the Afro- Brazilian speech community of Calunga, in Minas Gerais. Linguistically descended from West African Bantu, Calunga is an endangered Afro-Brazilian language spoken by a few hundred older Afro-Brazilian men, who use it only for specific, secret communications. Unlike most creole languages, which are based largely on the vocabulary of the colonial language, Calunga has a large proportion of African vocabulary items embedded in an essentially Portuguese grammar. A hyrid language, its formation can be seen as a form of cultural resistance. Steven Byrd's study provides a comprehensive linguistic description of Calunga based on two years of interviews with speakers of the language. He examines its history and historical context as well as its linguistic context, its sociolinguistic profile, and its lexical and grammatical outlines.


Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) has been utilized as an alternative project delivery method by encouraging team collaboration, sharing risks/rewards, and more importantly, requiring trust and transparency amongst all stakeholders for projects in the United States. In Colombia, a traditional approach for delivery of projects is typically utilized under a Design/Bid/Build model with limited collaboration. This paper describes the analysis conducted to evaluate potential barriers of implementation of IPD concepts as a delivery method for construction projects in Colombia. The analysis conducted includes research of perceived cultural, financial, legal and technological barriers to stimulate the adoption of collaborative delivery models. It includes a survey and interviews with different stakeholders and industry members (developers, designers, construction managers and general contractors) to understand the benefits and shortcomings when engaging with collaborative methods. Survey results were evaluated by using correlational coefficient models to gauge dependencies among all factors identified as potential inhibitors of IPD. Detailed analyses of the findings as well as future steps for a successful implementation of IPD in Latin America, focused in the Colombian case study are discussed.


We report a semiautomated postprocessing method based on magnetization transfer MR imaging that can quantify the extent of global disease in patients with multiple sclerosis. The technique combines segmentation and quantitative analysis of imaging data reflecting the structural integrity of white matter. Applications of this technique may include assessment of disease progress and of the efficacy of experimental therapeutic intervention. The height of the histogram peak corresponding to white matter was found to be lowered in patients with multiple sclerosis and the overall distribution of magnetization transfer ratios was shifted to lower values.


Time‐series measurements of chloride (Cl‐) concentrations in lagoon and pore waters of an estuary on the east coast of Florida (Indian River Lagoon) demonstrate exchange of lagoon surface water to depths of ~40 cm in the sediment in less than 46 h. The exchange rate may be as fast as 150 cm d‐1 based on models of the decay in the amplitude of diurnal temperature variations and the time lag of maxima and minima of the temperature variations at depths of 15 and 30 cm below the sediment‐water interface. These flow rates indicate a minimum residence time of 0.33 d for the pore water. Considering the small tides and waves, rate of the exchange, and large number of bioturbating organisms in the Indian River Lagoon, the exchange of water is driven largely by bioirrigation. The exchange provides a greater flux of excess radon‐222 from the sediment to the lagoon than would occur from diffusion alone. The exchange also pumps oxygenated water into the sediments, thereby enhancing organic carbon remineralization and the flux of nitrogen from sediments to the lagoon water. High rates of exchange across the sediment‐water interface indicate that marine sources are volumetrically more important than terrestrial sources to submarine groundwater discharge in the permeable sediments of this estuary.


In many discrimination problems a large amount of data is available but only a few of them are labeled. This provides a strong motivation to improve or develop methods for semi-supervised learning. In this paper, boosting is generalized to this task within the optimization framework of MarginBoost. We extend the margin definition to unlabeled data and develop the gradient descent algorithm that corresponds to the resulting margin cost function. This meta-learning scheme can be applied to any base classifier able to benefit from unlabeled data. We propose here to apply it to mixture models trained with an Expectation-Maximization algorithm. Promising results are presented on benchmarks with different rates of labeled data.


I. INTRODUCTION II. DRUG VIOLENCE IN MEXICO AND THE SPILLOVER EFFECT A. Mexico's drug violence B. DTO-related violence threatens U.S. national security III. A WEAK RULE OF LAW IN MEXICO A. The connection between a weak rule of law and increased violence B. The Mexican criminal justice system IV. REBUILDING RULE OF LAW THROUGH MEXICO'S CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS AND MERIDA INITIATIVE A. Mexico's judicial reforms attempt to rebuild rule of law B. The United States" efforts to rebuild rule of law in Mexico through Merida V. CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS AND MERIDA HAVE NOT RESTORED RULE OF LAW IN MEXICO A. Difficulties implementing judicial reforms in Mexico B. The Merida Initiative and the one-size-fits-all dilemma C. Other factors indicating an evasive rule of law VI. REVISITING RULE OF LAW: LESSONS LEARNED FROM TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE MODELS A. The Middle Eastern model: The use of international partners, green zones, and judge advocates B. The Guatemalan model: The case for hybrid tribunals VII. CONCLUSION I. INTRODUCTION "If you see dust in the air, don't worry because we are cleaning the house." (1) The United States leads the world in demand for illicit drugs, with Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) as its leading supplier. (2) When Mexico's ex-President, Felipe Calderon, took office in December 2006, he deployed fifty thousand troops to wage war on DTOs in Mexico's most violent cities. (3) In November 2012, just one month before Calderon was due to leave office, the death toll related to criminal violence in Mexico had reached a staggering 57,449, (4) seven times more casualties than endured by all members of the coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. (5) Mexico's war against DTOs has been criticized as unsuccessful, (6) and is expected to mar Calderon's presidential legacy. (7) Nevertheless, Mexico's newly elected President, Enrique Pena Nieto, has vowed to advance a security strategy against organized crime. (8) As a result of continued enforcement efforts, cartel violence is expected to plague Mexico and will inevitably impact the U.S. southwestern border and other regions where DTOs are active. (9) Primarily, this Comment focuses on the use of rule of law as a means of eliminating DTO related violence. Strengthening rule of law and reforming the Mexican criminal justice system is just one facet of a larger effort to eliminate the threat of DTO violence on both sides of the border, however, other efforts are beyond the scope of this Comment. (10) Part II of this Comment provides a brief background of Mexico's drug-related violence and its effect on U.S. national security interests. It will also consider a new approach to defining spillover violence that is relevant to the threat that DTOs present. Part III introduces the rule of law concept and analyzes how the implementation of rule of law (or lack thereof) can influence the level of violence in society. These theories are applied to Mexico's criminal law system to examine some of the judicial deficiencies that have weakened rule of law in Mexico and permitted unprecedented violence to flourish. Part IV examines specific Mexican and U.S. efforts to use rule of law measures to reduce violence in Mexico and ultimately protect U.S. national security. These measures include the 2008 Mexican constitutional reforms that overhauled the criminal justice system and the enactment of the Merida Initiative, a $1.9 billion appropriation designated to aid Mexico's drug war and support Mexico's recent constitutional reforms. (11) However, an analysis of the societal impact indicates that these approaches are failing. Part V presents alternate rule of law strategies that combine recent advances made in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guatemala and are relevant to Mexico's current conditions. …


Rubber bush (Calotropis procera) was recognised during industry and expert weed prioritisation processes as an important economic and environmental weed in northern Australia. It establishes at high densities hindering pastoral management and reducing range productivity. It is estimated to infest 1.8-3. 7 million hectares of northern Australia, however, the drivers of its spread are not well known. This thesis documents various aspects of its reproductive biology and ecology, seed ecology, competitiveness and distribution in Australia; and how these attributes contribute to its invasiveness. A combination of greenhouse, field, laboratory, observational and computer simulation studies, covering the competitive ability, reproductive biology and ecology, seed ecology and species habitat modeling were performed at multiple locations in the Northern Territory and Queensland over three and a half years. This work addressed the question whether rubber bush invasions are a symptom of rangeland management practices or a consequence of natural biological interactions with native species. The results demonstrated that rubber bush is not a strong competitor of native grasses and its invasion is dependent on anthropogenic disturbance. The spread of rubber bush is facilitated by a self-compatible breeding system and an ability to recruit new pollinators during range expansion. Additionally, it exerts considerable propagule pressure through prolific wind-dispersed and highly germinable seeds in Australia compared to native environments. The seeds are quiescent under unfavourable temperature conditions but germinate rapidly when conditions improve. Species habitat modeling showed that it has not saturated the current suitable area, and its suitable area will expand under future climate scenarios. These abilities combine with ruderality to make rubber bush a high risk weed in northern Australia. Nevertheless, because feasibility of control is low, targeted control and protection of priority areas is recommended. Given the important role of disturbance in the spread of rubber bush, careful management of disturbance regimes on rangelands is necessary to limit the spread of rubber bush across northern Australia. For greater effectiveness, it is recommended that policy frameworks regarding the management of rubber bush be harmonised across affected Australian States and Territories.


This multiple use forestry plan is made on the property Basunda which is located in the southern parts of the province Ostergotland. The owners of the property today are Jonas and Ulrik Saanum, but it has been in the family since their grandfather bought it 1933.
There is a slaughterhouse on the property in which they take care of domestic cattle and animals from the forest. Jonas and Ulrik are also dedicated hunters. These are the two reasons to why the focus is wildlife and wildlife management.
The question at issue of this work is simplified: what demands does the wildlife have; and how will the owners be able to fulfill these, what changes in the forest management must be made and will these changes result in a different budget, compared to the ordinary forest management.
This work is based from a freshly made forestry management plan. I based my fieldwork on this plan, but made my own management proposals, that would benefit the game. The games I have specialized this work on are roe deer, fallow deer, moose and wild boar. I have consistently worked with hardwood trees for food and thick stands as shelter. Food and shelter are namely the most important conditions for the wild animals.
The conclusion in my work is that the cost of all felling and scarification is the same in both alternatives, while planting and clearing got cheaper and regular clearing and removal of seed trees became more expensive.


In the Nordic countries, agricultural co-operatives were important when family farmers organised to get access to the quickly developing markets during industrialisation in the late 1800s and early 1900s. These co-operatives were organised both as credit, insurance, processing and marketing co-operatives. Spreading at first from Denmark to the rest of Northern Europe and later reaching the new settler continent in North America, farmers' co-operatives soon became a key element in private farming in market economies. As many co-operatives became large companies in the capitalist economies, they either became ordinary share companies, or retained their farmer-owned co-operative status like in Norway. After Marxist-inspired revolutions in Russia, China, Eastern Europe and later Vietnam and Cuba, state organised and government-controlled co-operatives were set up in socialist countries. Many of the old forms of agricultural co-operatives in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe collapsed when the centrally planned economies were abolished in the early 1990s. However, new forms of food production and distribution cooperation have emerged both in the capitalist and former socialist countries. These co-operatives were organised both among producers and consumers in order to meet the common needs of direct access to foods. While it is assumed that family farming and food markets will have to play a more important role in the Cuban food economy in the future, it will be interesting to see if small farmers in collaboration with wholesale co-operatives will be allowed to develop short and sustainable supply food chains, which could be competitive against state socialist and multinational capitalist agriculture. Cuban agricultural policy must be able to evolve along two strategies: a volume agriculture that delivers high-quality, durable basic foods to the predominantly urban population, but also delivers local traditional food with craftsmanship to tourists and a growing middle class. Both strategies will be necessary in order to address a historic challenge of the Cuban socio-economic development: to produce sufficient food and make it available to consumers at affordable prices, thus also saving scarce currency today spent on food imports.


This paper aims to explore Greece's foreign policy in the Middle East in light of the Greek crisis and the "Arab Spring." Capitalising on its cultural, military and institutional resources, Greece can devise policies with the aim to contribute substantially to conflict resolution in the Middle East, despite its acute economic crisis. This study comes up with three policy proposals whose implementation would not be financially prohibitive and would not exhaust Greece's diplomatic capital: Greece could take a leadership position in addressing the question of piracy in the Horn of Africa, spearhead a campaign for the protection of Christian community rights in the Middle East and undertake a comprehensive institution-building training program in the Arab transition states. These policy measures could help re-establish Greek diplomacy in a region with strong historic, cultural and political links with Greece.


Game theory is a branch of mathematics aimed at the modeling and understanding of resource conflict problems. Essentially, the theory splits into two branches: noncooperative and cooperative game theory. The distinction between the two is whether or not the players in the game can make joint decisions regarding the choice of strategy. Noncooperative game theory is closely connected to minimax optimization and typically results in the study of various equilibria, most notably the Nash equilibrium. Cooperative game theory examines how strictly rational (selfish) actors can benefit from voluntary cooperation by reaching bargaining agreements. Another distinction is between static and dynamic game theory, where the latter can be viewed as a combination of game theory and optimal control. In general, the theory provides a structured approach to many important problems arising in signal processing and communications, notably resource allocation and robust transceiver optimization. Recent applications also occur in other emerging fields, such as cognitive radio, spectrum sharing, and in multihop-sensor and adhoc networks.


Abstract:State-building goes wrong when local politics is ignored. State-building begins not from anarchy, but from decentralized social order. In democratic state-building, transfers of power to a new national government require popular consent. A democratic state-building mission needs a stabilization-assistance team that can engage with national and local leaders as they negotiate a balanced distribution of power. When the goal is to promote political development, international assistance should be directed by local stabilization officers who can encourage trusted leaders to cooperate in a broad coalition for local governance. An instructive example is USAID's Office of Rural Affairs in Vietnam in 1962–64.


Background/Aim: Unilateral choroidal infiltration as the initial manifestation of leukemic relapse in adults is rare, particularly after an extended period of remission. This report describes this unique ophthalmic presentation, highlights the associated diagnostic challenges, and reviews the literature. Methods: Two cases are described and an extensive literature review was conducted. Results: A 59-year-old male with acute lymphoid leukemia, in remission for 18 months, presented with unilateral scleritis, exudative retinal detachment, and choroidal thickening. A 57-year-old male with a history of acute myeloid leukemia, in remission for 4 years, presented with unilateral choroidal thickening leading to secondary angle closure. In both cases, there was a significant lag from the onset of eye symptoms to establishing a systemic diagnosis of acute leukemia, leading to a delay in definitive systemic treatment, despite a high suspicion of disease based on ophthalmic findings. Conclusions: These two cases illustrate the fundus findings consistent with leukemic choroidal infiltration that can represent the first sign of relapsed leukemia. The successful treatment of these patients hinges on collaboration between ophthalmologists and oncologists to optimize patient outcomes, highlighting the need for both groups to be aware of this rare ophthalmic presentation.


Abstract Crust generated during an accretionary orogeny at 1.66–1.52 Ga (Gothian), and later during crustal extension at c. 1.51–1.49, c. 1.46, c. 1.34–1.30 Ga and after c. 1.33 Ga, dominate the Idefjorden terrane. Metamorphism under greenschist to, locally, high-pressure granulite facies, emplacement of syn-orogenic pegmatite and granite, and polyphase deformation followed at 1.05–1.02 Ga (Agder tectonothermal phase, Sveconorwegian orogeny). Sinistral transpressive deformation, including foreland-directed thrusting, preceded top-to-the-west movement and large-scale open folding along north–south axial trends during the younger orogeny. Crustal extension with emplacement of dolerite and lamprophyre dykes, norite–anorthosite, and a batholithic granite took place at c. 0.95–0.92 Ga (Dalane phase, Sveconorwegian orogeny). Ductile shear zones divide the Idefjorden terrane into segments distinguished by the character of the Gothian crustal component. Orthogneisses with c. 1.66 and c. 1.63–1.59 Ga protoliths occur in the Median segment; c. 1.59–1.52 Ga gneissic intrusive rocks and 1.6 Ga paragneisses with relicts of Gothian deformation and migmatization at c. 1.59 Ga and at c. 1.56–1.55 Ga occur in the Western segment. Mineral resources include stratabound Cu–Fe sulphides hosted by sandstone deposited after c. 1.33 Ga, and polymetallic quartz vein mineralization locally containing Au.


TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION II. STATEMENT OF THE CASE: YAMAHA MOTOR CORP. V. CALHOUN III. ANALYSIS A. From The Harrisburg to Moragne B. Unseaworthiness Becomes a Species of Liability Without Fault C. Moragne Responds to Resulting Anomalies D. Court's Uniformity Principle Soon Forgotten E. Yamaha Consciously Creates Anomaly IV. CONCLUSION I. INTRODUCTION "The federalism aspect of the United States Supreme Court's admiralty jurisprudence has long been adrift."(1) The Court's involvement with maritime wrongful death remedies since Me Harrisburg(2) epitomizes inconsistency. Setting the stage for over a decade of contradictions, The Harrisburg court held that general maritime law did not afford an action for wrongful death.(3) In reaching this conclusion, the Supreme Court relied on the traditional common-law rule, which denied any action for wrongful death,(4) and grafted it to maritime law.(5) The Supreme Court, however, did not preclude the application of state statutes to provide a right and remedy for wrongful death.(6) Twenty-one years later, the Court in The Hamilton(7) held that a state statute could be applied to grant wrongful death recovery occurring on the high seas.(8) The harshness of The Harrisburg's rule has often been avoided by federal admiralty courts permitting recovery for wrongful death under state survival and wrongful death statutes.(9) Because of the wide variance in individual state statutes, this practice has led to a lack of uniformity and overall inequity in maritime judgments. Absent contrary statutory authority, general maritime law was unable to recognize a cause of action for wrongful death.(10) In an effort to achieve desired uniformity and mitigate the impact of The Harrisburg, Congress passed the Death on the High Seas Act (DOHSA)(11) and the Jones Act(12) in 1920.(13) The DOSHA created a cause of action in admiralty for any wrongful death it occurring on the high seas beyond a marine league from the shore of any State ....".(14) The Jones Act, which incorporates provisions of the Federal Employer's Liability Act (FELA),(15) provides a wrongful death claim to the survivors of seaman killed in the course of employment, whether on territorial waters or on the high seas.(16) In its aim for uniformity, DOSHA has clearly missed the mark. The DOSHA has been appropriately labeled "statutory chaos" by one of the most prestigious admiralty treatises.(17) Attempting to correct this problem, the Court in Moragne v. States Marine Lines(18) overruled The Harrisburg.(19) For almost one hundred years, The Harrisburg decision prevented the Court from shaping a uniform remedy for maritime wrongful death. Instead of clearing the waters, Moragne left it up to the lower courts to navigate the muddied waters without a map. The Court in Moragne held "an action does he under general maritime law for death caused by violation of maritime duties,"(20) but failed to define the remedy it created. Instead, Moragne left the task of defining the parameters of the general maritime law remedy it created to "further sifting through the lower courts in future litigation."(21) Instead of seizing the opportunity to establish uniformity, the Moragne court created more questions than answers. The latest piece in this "unsolvable puzzle,"(22) Yamaha Motor Corp. v. Calhoun,(23) is the subject of this Note. The question presented in Yamaha is whether state wrongful death and survival statutes have been displaced by Moragne, a federal maritime rule of decision.(24) Yamaha held that the death of a nonseaman in territorial waters is a question to be decided in accordance with state law.(25) The Court reasoned that the motivating force behind Moragne also placed Yamaha beyond its reach.(26) As a result, state remedies may still supplement general maritime law, at least for nonseaman. This Note will focus particularly on the reasoning employed by the Supreme Court in Yamaha. …


Limb apraxia is a syndrome often observed after stroke that affects the ability to perform skilled actions despite intact elementary motor and sensory systems. In a large cohort of unselected stroke patients with lesions to the left, right, and bilateral hemispheres, we used voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM) on clinical CT head images to identify the neuroanatomical correlates of the impairment of performance in three tasks investigating praxis skills in patient populations. These included a meaningless gesture imitation task, a gesture production task involving pantomiming transitive and intransitive gestures, and a gesture recognition task involving recognition of these same categories of gestures. Neocortical lesions associated with poor performance in these tasks were all in the left hemisphere. They involved the pre-striate and medial temporal cortices, the superior temporal sulcus, inferior parietal area PGi, the superior longitudinal fasciculus underlying the primary motor cortex, and the uncinate fasciculus, subserving connections between temporal and frontal regions. No significant lesions were identified when language deficits, as indicated via a picture naming task, were controlled for. The implication of the superior temporal sulcus and the anatomically connected prestriate and inferior parietal regions challenges traditional models of the disorder. The network identified has been implicated in studies of action observation, which might share cognitive functions sub-serving praxis and language skills.


We describe the isolation and characterization of 14 microsatellite loci from Fraser fir ( Abies fraseri ). These markers originated from cloned inserts enriched for DNA sequences containing tandem di- and tri-nucleotide repeats. In total, 36 clones were selected, sequenced and evaluated. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primers for 14 of these sequences consistently produced simple PCR profiles and were found to be polymorphic among 13 Fraser fir samples. In addition, more than half of these loci were found to amplify a wide range of samples from several Abies taxa.


Spectroscopy is a key aspect of deriving local arrangements of atoms in minerals. Vibrational spectroscopy in the principal O–H-stretching region and MAS NMR spectroscopy are sensitive to such local arrangements, and play a crucial role in characterizing local structure in minerals in which there is solid solution. Variation in local arrangements of ions around a "probe" ion such as (OH)− can produce shifts in the energy of the principal O–H-stretching frequency, providing a window into those local arrangements. Similarly, variation in local arrangements around a "probe" isotope such as 27Al or 29Si can produce shifts in resonance energy that are indicative of differences in local environment. It is useful to develop a configuration symbol for the structural environment of the probe species, i.e. , the configuration of nearest-neighbour and next-nearest-neighbour polyhedra/sites, and then the local arrangements of atoms may be expressed in terms of this configuration symbol. Work on the monoclinic C 2/ m amphiboles, tourmaline and monoclinic pyroxene is reviewed here in terms of the particular effects that can give rise to absorptions in the principal O–H-stretching region of vibrational spectra. It is notable that the nearest-neighbour configurations in the amphibole, tourmaline and mica structures are topologically identical, and hence there should be strong spectral characteristics that are common to minerals of all three structure types. The spectra of the C 2/ m amphiboles show strong next-nearest-neighbour effects, and one expects such effects to occur also in spectra of minerals of the tourmaline (and mica) supergroups. The valence-sum rule of local bond-valence theory provides a strong constraint on possible local arrangements involved in heterovalent solid-solution in these minerals.


This research paper outlines the method of preparation, testing procedure and salient results on the eco-friendly concrete that is manufactured using the waste products of steel industries. Results of eight flexural behaviour of Steel slag concrete beams and thier comparison with normal weight concrete (NWC) with reinforcement and without reinforcements are presented and discussed .The concrete is of grade 20 and the reinforced concrete beams of size 150 mm x 150 mm x 900 mm were prepared to study the structural behaviour. Similar grade concrete using NWC were also prepared and reinforced. It has been observed from the experimental investigation of the beams, that the moment capacity of SSRC beams was higher than NWC beams . In addition, the mode of failure observed in SSRC was ductile compared to the brittle failure of NWC beams. Thus, the SSRC beams showed a ductile failure, giving amble warning before failure happened. SSRC beams also exhibited a lot of cracking thus the crack width and crack spacing was small. The other advantage for SSRC beams was deflection. The SSRC beams exhibited higher deflection under constant load until failure, compared to NWC beams that failed in brittle manner without warning.


Because genuine emergencies demand a swift and decisive response, several federal laws consolidate limited emergency control over the energy industry in the Department of Energy (DOE) or the President, temporarily empowering them to override existing law and order actions inconsistent with the contracts, prices, or protocols that govern the industry's day-to- day operations. These authorities, however, are narrow, as befits the nature of emergency response. Congress had specific types of threats in mind and limited the authorities granted to those needed to respond to a crisis. The relevant statutes outline the conditions under which federal actors may assert emergency powers and enumerate those powers with specificity. Since early 2017, the current Administration has flirted with invoking these powers to bail out coal-fired power plants. This paper examines statutes that provide federal agencies or the President with emergency powers over energy assets, including a law related to "defense critical materials�? that is discussed in a leaked Administration document that purports to justify a bailout. We answer three key questions about these federal laws: 1) What conditions allow DOE to declare an "emergency�? or to otherwise invoke these statutes? 2) What powers does DOE have under these statutes to alleviate emergency conditions or to respond to national security threats? And, 3) When do these statutory authorities expire once invoked? We conclude that these statutes do not provide the authority this Administration seeks to prop up economically failing coal plants. We first outline the extensive frameworks in place to ensure the reliability of the electric grid. Then we survey the statutory authorities available to respond to grid emergencies. Finally, we detail the Trump Administration's proposals to support coal-fired generation and explain why the emergency statutes are a poor fit for these efforts.


This paper introduces the video mesh, a data structure for representing video as 2.5D "paper cutouts." The video mesh allows interactive editing of moving objects and modeling of depth, which enables 3D effects and post-exposure camera control. The video mesh sparsely encodes optical flow as well as depth, and handles occlusion using local layering and alpha mattes. Motion is described by a sparse set of points tracked over time. Each point also stores a depth value. The video mesh is a triangulation over this point set and per-pixel information is obtained by interpolation. The user rotoscopes occluding contours and we introduce an algorithm to cut the video mesh along them. Object boundaries are refined with per-pixel alpha values. The video mesh is at its core a set of texture mapped triangles, we leverage graphics hardware to enable interactive editing and rendering of a variety of effects. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our representation with special effects such as 3D viewpoint changes, object insertion, depth-of-field manipulation, and 2D to 3D video conversion.


"WITH PENCIL AND PEN. Primary Language I.e.sons. By Sarah Louise Arnold, dean of Slmmons-Col. .lege, Boston, formerly supervisor of schools, Boston. Boston, New York, Chicago: Ginn & Co. Cloth. 12i pp, Illustrated. List price, 35 cents; mailing prtee, 40 cents. Sarah Louise Arnold has never had a rival lu the 'hearts of primary teachers who have come into Clcs, enough relation to her to appreciate the spirit and purpose of her work with teachers for children. Although she Is nominally out of primary sehool life and Is dean ,of a woman's college It Is Impossible for her to forg;et her first love, and she repeatedly goes forth to lecture for them, and here Is the best of evidence that her pen has not forgotten Its cunning. The primary teacher of to-day Is a busy woman; bel' duties have multiplied rapIdly with the new education. Tbough she may be entlrely fitted to compose dally language 'Iessons and to write them upon the blackboard, she has very little time for this work. Furthermore, primary children ha \"e too many lessons from the blackboard. Much of the eye strain so common in onr schools arises from this cause, In response to repeated requests Miss Arnold has here prepared a primary language book which will help to remedy these troubles. It Is adapted to the upper holf of tbe primary school. contains enough lessons to admit of selectron in different schools, and affords ample material for the required written work preced.n; the fourth grade,


Studies on genetically modified (GM) feedstuffs for poultry (and other livestock species) have not added any substance to public concerns in Europe about their safety for human or bird health. The compositions of maize lines engineered for insect resistance (Bt-maize) or herbicide tolerance (glyphosate) and herbicide-tolerant soybean have all proved to be essentially indistinguishable from their conventional counterparts. Consequently, and not surprisingly, comparative feeding studies with broilers and layers in which conventional maize (50 to 78%) or soybeans (27%) were replaced in feeds by transgenic varieties, also have failed to show differences of any significance in production parameters. These data indicate that feeding studies with target livestock species contribute very little to the safety assessment of crops engineered for input traits that have little or no detectable effect on chemical composition. However, comparative growth studies made with broiler chicks, particularly sensitive to any change in nutrient supply or the presence of toxic elements in their feed, can be used to screen for any unintended adverse consequence of the recombinant event not detected by compositional analysis. This does, however, depend on whether the GM plant can be matched to a parental line or another suitable control and its suitability for inclusion in broiler diets. The discovery that DNA fragments from the digestive tract can be found in the tissues of animals evoked interest in the fate of ingested transgenes. Plant DNA derived from feed has been detected in the muscle, liver, spleen and kidneys of broilers and layers, although not in eggs. However, no fragments of transgenic DNA or its expressed protein have been found to date in poultry meat or eggs or in any other animal tissues examined.


Two groups of broiler chickens were used in this study. One was reared under typical conditions at the animal house of Veterinary Medicine College/Mosul University- Iraq, while the other group was reared under common commercial farm conditions. Fifty and 80 birds from the two respective groups were sacrificed at 49 days of age for detecting Toxoplasma gondii by using Species-specific PCR technique. Results of Latex agglutination test indicated, principally, that 29.3% and 49.2% of the serum samples were positive for the birds of both groups, respectively. Titer figures ranged between 1:20 to 1:320 where the highest value was 1:160 (39.3%) and the lowest was 1:20 (5.8%). Confirmation of 38 and 64 serum samples, using Latex agglutination test was performed by PCR technique, from the two respective groups of chickens. Of those, 8 samples from the college birds and 35 from the commercial farm birds were confirmed positive by giving band of 133 bp, according to specific primers designated on gene B1.Based on these results, pursuing the PCR technique is considered, so far, a most sensitive method for Toxoplasma gondii detection. Also, positive PCR results are counted on as an early marker for reactivation and useful means in monitoring therapies.


This article argues that the debate between originalism and living constitutionalism offers a false dichotomy. Many originalists and their critics improperly conflate fidelity to the original meaning of the constitutional text with fidelity to how people living at the time of adoption expected that it would be applied. That is, they confuse original meaning with original expected application. Constitutional interpretation requires fidelity to the original meaning of the Constitution and to the principles that underlie the text, but not to original expected application. This general approach to constitutional interpretation is the method of text and principle. This approach is faithful to the original meaning of the constitutional text, and to its underlying purposes. It is also consistent with the idea of a basic law that leaves to each generation the task of how to make sense of the Constitution's words and principles in their own time. Although the constitutional text and principles do not change without subsequent amendment, their application and implementation can. That is the best way to understand the interpretive practices characteristic of our constitutional tradition and the work of the many political and social movements that have transformed our understandings of the Constitution's guarantees. It explains, as other versions of originalism cannot, why these transformations are not simply mistakes that we must grudgingly accept out of respect for settled precedent, but are significant achievements of our constitutional tradition. The article applies this method to the most contentious constitutional issue of our generation - the constitutional right to abortion. It concludes, contrary to conventional wisdom, that the constitutional right to abortion is consistent with the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, and, in particular, its prohibition on class legislation that is embodied in the Equal Protection Clause. The article criticizes Roe v. Wade's original trimester system, arguing that there are actually two rights to abortion instead of one. Finally, it explains how courts might have better implemented the constitutional guarantee of the two rights to abortion in ways that are more respectful of democratic politics. [This article will appear in 24 Constitutional Commentary (2007). A response to critics, expanding on the some of the key ideas of the article, appears in Original Meaning and Constitutional Redemption, 24 Constitutional Commentary (2007), available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=987060]


The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is the main site for protein folding, lipid biosynthesis, and calcium storage in the cell. Disturbances of these critical cellular functions lead to ER stress. The ER responds to disturbances in its homeostasis by launching an adaptive signal transduction pathway, known as the unfolded protein response (UPR). The UPR strives to maintain ER function during stress; however, if the stress is not resolved, apoptotic responses are activated that involve cross talk between the ER and mitochondria. In addition, ER stress is also known to induce autophagy to counteract XBP-1-mediated ER expansion and assist in the degradation of unfolded proteins. One family of proteins involved in the regulation of apoptosis is that of B-cell lymphoma protein 2 (Bcl-2). Complex interactions among the three subgroups within the Bcl-2 family [the antiapoptotic, the multidomain proapoptotic, and the Bcl-2 homology domain 3 (BH3)-only members] control the signaling events of apoptosis upstream of mitochondrial outer membrane permeabilization. These proteins were found to have diverse subcellular locations to aid in the response to varied intrinsic and extrinsic stimuli. Of recent interest is the presence of the Bcl-2 family at the ER. Here, we review the involvement of proteins from each of the three Bcl-2 family subgroups in the maintenance of ER homeostasis and their participation in ER stress signal transduction pathways.


Chromosome analysis has been a cornerstone both for the identification of genetic defects that predispose to a variety of genetic syndromes as well as for the analysis of cancer progression. The relatively low resolution of metaphase chromosomes, however, only allows characterization of major genetic events which are defined at the megabase level. The development of the human genome-wide bacterial artificial chromosome (BACs) libraries which were used as templates for the human genome project made it possible to design microarrays containing these BACs which can theoretically span the genome uninterrupted. Comparative genomic hybridization to these arrays using test and reference DNA samples reveals numerical chromosome abnormalities (deletions, gains and amplifications) which can be accurately defined with a resolution depending on the density of the arrays. Analysis of test DNA samples using these arrays reveals low level deletions and amplifications that cannot be detected by chromosome analysis and provides a global view of these genetic changes in a single overnight hybridization using a high throughput approach. The extent of the genetic changes can then be determined precisely and the gene content of the affected regions established. These BAC arrays have widespread application to the analysis of constitutional genetic abnormalities associated with human diseases as well as cancer patients and their tumors. The development of similar BAC arrays for the mouse genome means that it is now possible to extend the CGHa approach to the study of genetic disorders and cancer models in mice.


Large proportions of the electorate can best be described as politically ignorant. If casting a competent vote requires some basic knowledge of the incumbent's identity, the workings of the political system, one's own policy preferences and the policy preferences of the main candidates, many voters cannot vote competently. Wittman (1989) suggests that, if ignorance is unbiased, overall results will be determined by informed voters as the ignorant cancel each other out. Lupia and McCubbins (1998) provides a mechanism whereby voters with little information can take cues from more informed colleagues in order to vote as if they had the requisite information. Using data from a uniquely useful dataset, the 2005 New Zealand Election Survey, I show that both mechanisms fail. Political ignorance is not unbiased: rather, it strongly predicts policy and political party preferences after correcting for the demographic correlates of ignorance. Moreover, membership in the kinds of organizations held to allow the ignorant to overcome their deficiencies fails to improve outcomes. Voter ignorance remains a very serious problem.


While the role of the United States in the development of Japan's post-war constitution is well documented, less is known of the role of other Allied nations. This article seeks to narrate the role of Australia in this process, giving particular focus to the debate over provisions to provide an avenue for popular expression of approval of the constitution via referendum and/or a Diet review process. This process was approved as an official Far Eastern Commission (FEC) policy, known as the 'Provision for Review'. The debate over this issue, and other elements of the constitutional replacement process, help illuminate the workings of the FEC, the relationship and conflict between the various Allied powers over policy and practice, the role of US unilateralism in the Allied control bodies, and the nuances of Australian policy towards Occupied Japan. Additionally and importantly, it demonstrates the appropriation of idealistic terms, especially the expression of the 'will of the people', by both sides of the ...


This study reviews the taxonomy of the ant genus Nesomyrmex Wheeler, 1910 in the Afrotropical region. Previous revisionary studies are discussed and four species groups are proposed on the basis of external morphology. The N. angulatus group contains seven species that are widely distributed throughout the whole Afrotropical region, with one species also occurring in the Palaearctic and Malagasy regions. The N. cataulacoides group is monotypic, with one morphologically bizarre species found in Equatorial rain forests. The N. humerosus group is also monotypic and occurs in East Africa. The last and by far most species-rich group is the N. simoni group that contains 17 species, all of which are endemic to South Africa. The four groups are defined for the first time for the region, and an illustrated identification key is provided. Furthermore, the N. angulatus group is more thoroughly reviewed. One new species from Mozambique is described, N. inhaca sp. nov., and species accounts for the other six are provided. Also, an illustrated identification key to the species of the N. angulatus group is presented.


We report performance measurements of a sub-millimeter resolution CdZnTe strip detector developed as a prototype for astronomical instruments operating with good efficiency in the 30-300 keV photon energy range. The prototype is a 1.4 mm thick, 64/spl times/64 contact stripe CdZnTe array of 0.375 mm pitch in both dimensions. Pulse height spectra were recorded in orthogonal-stripe coincidence mode which demonstrate room-temperature energy resolution 5:1. Good response is also demonstrated at higher energies using a coplanar grid readout configuration. Spatial resolution capabilities finer than the stripe pitch are demonstrated. We present the image of a /sup 133/Ba source viewed through a collimator slit produced by a 4/spl times/4 stripe detector segment. Charge signals from electron and hole collecting contacts are also discussed.


Research into the modelling and analysis of microstrip patch antenna have been reported in many studies. These include Transmission Line Modelling, Cavity Modelling, Coplanar Multiport Modelling and Full wave Modelling. Since the electromagnetic field elements are time harmonic, the phasor-form of the Maxwell field equations is used. In this thesis results are presented of the research that has been carried out into the segmental approach for the analysis of the microwave patch antennas. The segmental approach includes the "Segmentation" and the "Desegmentation" methods. In the segmentation method two distinct structural forms have been identified, cascade and shunt types. In the cascade type all consecutive segment elements share a common boundary, while for the shunt type, all appended segment elements have no common boundary. In the case of the shunt type structure a generalised input impedance matrix formula, for any number of appended segment elements, has been obtained. For the desegmentation method a generalised input impedance for any number of deleted segment elements, has been obtained. The above research studies have been applied in the design of a circular polarised two corner deleted square patch microstrip antenna with a single feed. For this structure the design involves both square and triangular patch geometries. The overall patch geometry for circular polarised is determined using perturbation analysis to determine the size of the deleted triangular segment elements. New computationally efficient impedance coupling expressions for the interconnecting port impedances on a rectangle, and, on a right angled isosceles triangle shaped antenna patch have been derived. In the determination of the input impedance of the overall antenna structure the coupling impedances constitute the elements of the individual segment coupling matrices. The matrices are used in a general multiport matrix circuit analysis to obtain the input impedance formula. It is established that, where applicable, the desegmentation method is computationally more efficient than the segmentation method. The new results obtained have been applied to the design of a corner deleted square patch antenna, and, the design procedure is fully described. The computer program implementation evaluates the perturbation quantity, and, the antenna input impedance. The structural properties of the coupling matrices, which are used for efficient computation, are described in detail. All the results from the above work show close agreement with full-wave software simulation and practical results. SIGNIFICANT RESEARCH ACHIEVEMENTS: Both segmentation and desegmentation methods have been studied and it has been shown that the desegmentation approach, when applicable, is in general significantly more computationally efficient. In the segmentation method two structural forms, cascade and shunt have been identified. In the latter case a new generalised input impedance matrix formula has been obtained for any number of appended segment elements. A new generalised input impedance matrix formula has been obtained for any number of deleted segment elements in the desegmentation method. New computationally efficient expressions for the coupling impedances have been derived and used in test applications. New computationally efficient expressions for the offset input impedance of a linear polarised rectangular patch, and, an isosceles right-angled triangular patch have been derived and experimentally verified. A program implementing the design procedure for the corner-deleted truncated square patch circular polarised microstrip antenna has been constructed using MATHCAD programming.


Background: In recent years, peripheral blood stem cell transplantation has replaced autologous bone marrow transplantation to a large extent in patients with hematological malignancies. Optimal timing and adequate harvesting rely upon the precise quantification of mobilized CD34+ cells in blood and apheresis products. The quality assessment of collected stem cells includes viability tests, short-term culture assays and the determination of CD34+ cells by flow cytometry. External quality controls have suggested the urgent need for greater standardization of the enumeration of CD34+ cells. Material and Methods: We evaluated a single-platform assay for CD34+ cell quantification in peripheral blood and leukapheresis samples (n = 22) by using a four-parameter flow-cytometric method (forward and side angle light scatter, CD34 PE, CD45 FITC) including Flow Count fluorospheres for direct quantification. Results: When processing times of 30 and 300 s were compared, the inter-assay coefficients of variation declined significantly from 11% and 12% in peripheral blood and leukapheresis to 4.7% and 5.2% (p = 0.003 and p = 0.016), respectively. The precision analysis of the flow-cytometric method (intra-assay variation) generated coefficients of variation, which dropped from 8.1% and 8.5%, respectively, to 3.3% for both samples with regard to the processing time (p < 0.001). Conclusion: The data demonstrate the need of single-platform flow-cytometric methods based on fluorescent microparticles. They showed a greater precision of CD34+ cell enumeration over the course of analysis time. Because of its clinical relevance in peripheral blood stem transplantation, these improvements should supplement the current guidelines.


The purpose of this paper is to ask critical questions about the widespread conception of the universal democratisation of the Greek society during the archaic and classical periods, leading from the Dark Age monarchies via archaic aristocracies to the establishment of the classical Greek democracy. The concept is based on the opinion of Aristotle, and on the combination of the evidence from the Homeric epics, the poems of Hesiod, archaic poetry and what is known about the late archaic and classical Greek city states, mostly on the example of Athens. Crucial for it are the assumptions that Homeric epics predate the Hesiodic poems and the lyric poetry, and that they give a reliable depiction of the poet's contemporary society, which allows to consider the 'Homeric kingship' as a normal social phenomenon of the Dark Age and to view everything known from the other sources as a result of further development. If we question these assumptions about Homeric epics, neither of which can be considered as certain, the whole conception will be seriously weakened. The other evidence we have - the half-legendary stories about the archaic era and the information we possess about the archaic legislation - does not depict any clear trend in the social development. It is therefore asked in this paper, if it would not be more reasonable to view the Dark Age and archaic communities as preserving a social balance between the nobility and the commoners by giving the initiative to the elite, but still preserving the participation of the fighting commoners in the governmental affairs. In such case there would be no reason to assume a general development from monarchies to aristocracies and from aristocracies to the more democratic forms of government during this period.


We present a dual-phase host-based intrusion detection process. We have demonstrated, through experimental validation, that our process improves the current state of intrusion detection capabilities. The first phase uses cluster analysis to compare samples of low-level operating system data to an established model of normalcy. The second phase takes instances of non-conforming data from phase-1, maps that data to instances of our target-centric ontology and reasons over it. The reasoning process serves two purposes: primarily it is intended to classify the anomalous data as a specific type, or class, of attack. Its secondary purpose is to provide an orthogonal test to differentiate between true and false positives.
We developed a novel metric (self-distance) to quantify the streams of system calls generated by a process, and we have constructed a feature set from the low-level operating system data, which is subsequently used as input to the clustering process. We experimented with different clustering algorithms (Fuzzy c-Medoid, k-Means, and Principal Direction Divisive Partitioning), distance measures (Euclidean and Mahalanobis), and the effects of z-normalizing the data set. Our experiments indicated that the Fuzzy c-Mediod algorithm using the Mahalanobis metric as a distance measure was the optimal performer, yielding an F-Measure of .9822. The F-Measure is a common method for describing accuracy and is combination of precision and recall.
We experimentally demonstrated the case for migrating from taxonomic classification systems and their syntactical representation languages to ontologies and semantically rich ontology specification languages. We created a data model of the relationships that hold between the low-level data and instances of attacks and intrusions. We used the DARPA Agent Markup Language + Ontology Inference Layer to specify the data model as a ontology and the Java Theorem Prover, a sound and complete First Order Logic theorem prover, to reason over and classify instances data that were deemed to be anomalous in the first phase of our process. Our classification mechanism achieved an F-Measure of .9776.
The overall F-Measure of our dual-phase process was .9718. Ignoring the characteristics of the data population is a classic mistake that is made when evaluating intrusion systems. This is also referred to as the base-rate fallacy. When evaluating the posterior probability (the probability of an alarm given an intrusion) of our process we achieve a score of .998.
We also present two novel mechanisms to detect and mitigate aberrant behaviors encountered in Mobile Ad Hoc and Wireless Sensor networks. Both of these networks consist of resource constrained devices. Accordingly, we present our intrusion detection mechanisms as protocols that monitor network state rather than system state.


Intellectual property rights have traditionally been the primary policy mechanism for encouraging private investments in innovation, including for the production of mitigation and adaptation technologies. Yet while global climate change negotiations have made some progress in the area of technology transfer, as reflected in last year's agreement in Cancun to establish a Technology Mechanism under the UNFCCC, the role of intellectual property rights has remained a particularly divisive issue. Not only has no agreement been reached in this area, but even the path to a constructive and meaningful discussion seems elusive. Unless the role of intellectual property is addressed in a constructive and balanced manner, the potential for achieving sustainable and realistic outcomes from the climate talks could be compromised. In this policy brief, we seek to untangle the issues that lie behind this impasse. We also suggest a possible course for action that, while taking into account a diversity of perspectives, also challenges countries – and other stakeholders – to go beyond entrenched negotiating positions.


Interconnected complex systems usually undergo disruptions due to internal uncertainties and external negative impacts such as those caused by harsh operating environments or regional natural disaster events. To maintain the operation of interconnected network systems under both internal and external challenges, design for resilience research has been conducted from both enhancing the reliability of the system through better designs and improving the failure recovery capabilities. As for enhancing the designs, challenges have arisen for designing a robust system due to the increasing scale of modern systems and the complicated underlying physical constraints. To tackle these challenges and design a resilient system efficiently, this study presents a generative design method that utilizes graph learning algorithms. The generative design framework contains a performance estimator and a candidate design generator. The generator can intelligently mine good properties from existing systems and output new designs that meet predefined performance criteria. While the estimator can efficiently predict the performance of the generated design for a fast iterative learning process. Case studies results based on power systems from the IEEE dataset have illustrated the applicability of the proposed method for designing resilient interconnected systems.


The target strength as a function of aspect angle were measured for four species of fish using dolphin-like and porpoise-like echolocation signals. The polar diagram of target strength values measured from an energy flux density perspective showed considerably less fluctuation with azimuth than would a pure tone pulse. Using detection range data obtained from dolphin and porpoise echolocation experiments, the detection ranges for the Atlantic cod by echolocating dolphins and porpoises were calculated for three aspect angles of the cod. Maximum detection ranges occurred when the fish was broadside to the odontocete and minimum detection ranges occurred when the cod was in the tail aspect. Maximum and minimum detection ranges for the bottlenose dolphin in a noise-limited environment was calculated to be 93 and 70 m, respectively. In a quiet environment, maximum and minimum detection ranges for the bottlenose dolphin were calculated to be 173 and 107 m, respectively. The detection ranges for the harbor porpoise in a quiet environment were calculated to be between 15 and 27 m. The primary reason for the large differences in detection ranges between both species was attributed to the 36 dB higher source level of the bottlenose dolphin echolocation signals.


This paper attempts to examine, using data envelopment analysis, the productivity performance trends of the Indian commercial banks for the period: 1997-98 - 2004-05. Our broad empirical findings are indicative in many ways. First, the increasing average annual trends in technical efficiency for all ownership groups indicate an affirmative gesture about the effect of the reform process on the performance of the Indian banking sector. Second, the higher cost efficiency accrual of private banks over nationalized banks indicate that nationalized banks, though old, do not reflect their learning experience in their cost minimizing behavior due to X-inefficiency factors arising from government ownership. This finding also highlights the possible stronger disciplining role played by the capital market indicating a strong link between market for corporate control and efficiency of private enterprise assumed by property right hypothesis. And, finally, concerning the scale elasticity behavior, the technology and market-based results differ significantly supporting the empirical distinction between returns to scale and economies of scale, often used interchangeably in the literature.


OF THESIS RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN BEHAVIORAL MEASURES AND PRODUCTIVITY IN GROWING BEEF CATTLE The relationships between behavioral measures, growth performance, and immunocompetence in receiving beef steers were explored in three experiments. Specifically, exit velocity (EV) and objective chute score (OCS) were examined as temperament measures. In experiment 1, no main effects or interactions with degradable intake protein (DIP) or interactions between temperament measures were observed (P ≥ 0.11); however, high OCS steers had greater intake and gain:feed (P < 0.10) and slow EV steers had higher intake and gain (P < 0.10) than their counterparts. In experiment 2, during week two of social observations, dominance hierarchy rankings were dependent on OCS and EV (P < 0.05); slow EV steers also had increased antibody responses and gain (P < 0.10) and high OCS steers had increased gain (P < 0.10). In experiment 3, subjective chute scores and OCS were positively correlated (P < 0.01) and both EV and OCS treatments changed over time (P < 0.10); intake, vaccine titer response, and gain:feed responses to monensin were dependent on OCS treatment (P < 0.10). The studies suggest that temperament, measured by EV and OCS, affects growth performance and health related measures and is related to social dominance behavior in receiving beef steers.


Understanding what users need, as opposed to what they say they need, can be a challenge. In order to better address users' true needs, two consecutive methods were used in this study: Future Workshops and Repertory Grid Technique. The Future Workshops-where 21 participants designed for two different future scenarios-opened up for inscribing need expressions and possibilities into five futuristic automobile concepts. These concepts were used as a basis for the Repertory Grid, a technique where users compare objects, describing properties that they find to be important or significant. In this study, 78 participants provided 390 constructs of properties, which were refined to 19 dimensions relevant to user needs. Two study measures, Evaluative Ability and Descriptive Richness, indicate which methods to use when exploring the need dimensions further. Finally, the analysis of the constructs and dimensions point towards how three aspects of vehicles and driving are emerging: how novel technology should, or should not, support driving; how the automobile can be seen as something else than just a means of transportation, and how an automobile could be a part of a greater collective of vehicles.


This professional project seeks to answer the question of how social media are changing business reporters' sourcing practices. In the past, reporters depended on face-to-face interviews or email. With the popularity of social media in the newsrooms, there are new ways of reporting — finding sources and user-generated content on social media. This study aims to find out in what situations social media are most used for sourcing, how reporters utilize it, the benefits and drawbacks of this method, how reporters overcome the drawbacks, and what the future could be like for social media sourcing. The study discovered that business reporters are increasingly using social media sourcing, but they still largely rely on traditional sourcing methods. Business reporters and social media editors do embrace social media sourcing because it creates a large quantity of knowledge in a short time, but they also recognize the potential risk of false information and therefore pay special attention to fact checking. They also identify social media sourcing as a way to interact with the audience and hope social media can provide more opportunities for public engagement. The study is of importance to reporters because it can shed light on social media sourcing practices and how traditional journalistic standards such as verification are maintained.


Using the City of Roanoke, Virginia as a study site, this paper quantifies the forest structure, ecosystem services and values of vacant and residential land. Single family residential land had more trees (1,683,000) than vacant land (210,000) due largely to the differences in land area (32.44 km2 of vacant land vs. 57.94 km2 residential). While the percentage of tree coverage was almost identical across land uses (30.6% in vacant to 32.3% in residential), the number of trees per ha is greater on residential land (290.3) than on vacant land (63.4). The average healthy leaf surface area on individual trees growing on vacant land was greater than that of individual trees on residential land. The fact that trees in vacant land were found to provide more ecosystem services per tree than residential trees was attributed to this leaf area difference. Trees on vacant land are growing in more natural conditions and there are more large trees per ha. Assessing the forest structure and ecosystem services of Roanoke's vacant and residential land provides a picture of the current extent and condition of the vacant and residential land. Understanding these characteristics provides the information needed for improved management and utilization of urban vacant land and estimating green infrastructure value.


Use of illicit stimulants such as methamphetamine, cocaine, and ecstasy is a significant health problem. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that 14–57 million people use stimulants each year. Chronic use of illicit stimulants can cause neurotoxicity in animals and humans but the long-term functional consequences are not well understood. Stimulant users self-report problems with tremor whilst abstinent. Thus, the aim of the current study was to investigate the long-term effect of stimulant use on human tremor during rest and movement. We hypothesized that individuals with a history of stimulant use would exhibit abnormally large tremor during rest and movement. Tremor was assessed in abstinent ecstasy users (n = 9; 22±3 yrs) and abstinent users of amphetamine-like drugs (n = 7; 33±9 yrs) and in two control groups: non-drug users (n = 23; 27±8 yrs) and cannabis users (n = 12; 24±7 yrs). Tremor was measured with an accelerometer attached to the index finger at rest (30 s) and during flexion and extension of the index finger (30 s). Acceleration traces were analyzed with fast-Fourier transform. During movement, tremor amplitude was significantly greater in ecstasy users than in non-drug users (frequency range 3.9–13.3 Hz; P<0.05), but was unaffected in cannabis users or users of amphetamine-like drugs. The peak frequency of tremor did not significantly differ between groups nor did resting tremor. In conclusion, abstinent ecstasy users exhibit an abnormally large tremor during movement. Further work is required to determine if the abnormality translates to increased risk of movement disorders in this population.


Twenty-eight Red Sokoto does were supplemented with crop residue-based and concentrate rations at 1 and 2% of body weight in a 7-treatment completely randomised block design experiment. Average daily milk yield, total milk yield, total lactation length and milk composition were monitored and subjected to least squares analysis to test the effect of treatment. Results indicated that Ration 1C which comprised of mainly crop residue with much lesser protein levels than the concentrate rations (1A and 2A), produced 54kg of milk over a 90-day lactation period averaging 0.60 kg per day. At the other extreme, the negative control ration (Green grass and Digitaria hay) contained the least protein and dams that fed on it had the shortest lactation length (41 days), and therefore least total and average daily milk yields (10.2 and 0.25kg, respectively). It was evident that in absolute terms, milk from does on Ration 2A contained the highest percentages of fat (6%), protein (6.33%), total solids (21.85%) and SNF (15.85%). As expected, milk from does on the negative control ration ranked least with respect to all the parameters studied. It was concluded that Ration C fed at 1% level is a good supplementary feed package for increased milk production in Red Sokoto goats because it competes favourably with conventional concentrate rations. It also gives milk with lower fat content than conventional concentrate rations which from a consumer point of view, is healthy and desirable.


The hydrologic community has recently focused substantial attention on ungauged or poorly gauged catchments, since hydrological prediction under these conditions is highly uncertain, but represents the majority of practical applications. Catchments in Greece are usually ungauged, due to resource constrains, whilst in gauged areas the period of record is often short for safe estimation of highly parameterised hydrological models. This paper is driven by the Prediction in Ungauged Basins initiative aiming to estimate catchment responses using readily available data, i.e. topographical, soil and land use information. The parsimonious rainfall-runoff model developed in a Geographical Information System (GIS) environment is based on the Clark's synthetic unit hydrograph technique to estimate the hydrological response. The method requires estimation of the time of concentration (based on the curve number), the storage attenuation coefficient and the time area histogram of the catchment. The models further compared with a data-based modelling approach using a Transfer Function and the simulated streamflow is analysed to investigate similarities as well as to better understand possible extensions of the resulting unit hydrograph. A case study using 10-minute observed data from the 15 km(2) Lykorema catchment, Attica, Greece, highlights the potential of the GIS-based model to predict, at least, the dynamic characteristics of the runoff response in ungauged or poorly gauged catchments.


The Chilean jagged lobster (Projasus bahamondei) is a deep-water crustacean (175-550 m) occurring in certain areas of the southeastern Pacific Ocean, including the Nazca Ridge, Desventuradas Islands, the Juan Fernandez archipelago and ridge, and the continental slope off the central coast of Chile. This review describes the taxonomic status, geographical and bathymetric distribution, some biological aspects and habitat characteristics of this species. Additionally, both artisanal and industrial exploitation attempts made within the region are detailed, as well as fishing operation results, chemical composition, different elaboration procedures and the destination of the catch. The main objectives of this review are to contribute to the knowledge of P. bahamondei as a component of the deep-sea ecosystem and to highlight its importance as a potential fishery resource.


The image of nonprofit and for-profit as dual and exclusive categories is misleadingly simple. This blurring of the boundary between for-profit and nonprofit has gone on for years and appears only to be gaining steam. Yet, traditionally, the law has put organizations to a choice of either the nonprofit or for-profit form of governance. In the first decade of this century, organizational law is beginning to catch up with the boundary-blurring trend. Legislatures are creating new forms for blended enterprise, including several U.S. states' low-profit limited liability company (the "L3C") and the community interest company (the "CIC ") in England and Wales. Along with these more formal efforts, at least one self-regulatory scheme provides a framework to fashion a blended form (the "B Corporation") under traditional state for-profit corporation law. This article describes and compares these forms, evaluating whether they can enhance the governance and finance of blended enterprise.


In recent times a dramatically decreasing tendency in female participation in Computer Science has been documented around the world. When this occurs, it creates a series of problems that must be addressed. For the case of the undergraduate and graduate programs in Computer Science and Informatics at the Universidad de Costa Rica, we present evidence that (a) women are under-represented at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, and (b) the relative frequency of women in the undergraduate (but not graduate!) levels is effectively decreasing, and (c) women are more efficient at both graduating and getting admitted to graduate programs. Based on the available data, we confirm that the differences are not because of some inherent female deficiency but due to gender issues.


1. Tritonia has two eyes, each lying beneath the integument at the base of the rhinophore. Three cell types are present in the eye: large photoreceptors with nuclei up to 50 fizn. in diameter, pigment cells, and epithelial cells. A count of nuclei revealed a total of five receptors in each eye.

2. All receptors produced depolarizing generator potentials in the presence of light, regardless of intensity within the responsive range. Responses usually consisted of a fast early depolarization followed by a more slowly rising component. Spikes were uncommon in receptor somata. When present, spikes were superimposed on the slower phase of the response and measured no more than 12 mV. Depolarization was maintained at a steady level when illumination was sustained.

3. The receptors are coupled electrotonically, and synaptic inhibition was evident in a few cells. The functional consequences of these interactions are considered to be minimal.

4. Morphologically, the eye of Tritonia is very similar to that of the nudibranch, Hernissenda . But there are significant differences in the electrophysiology of the two eyes, particularly with respect to cell interactions.

5. Although the maximum recorded sensitivity was about five orders of magnitude less than that considered to be necessary for the detection of sunlight in Tritonia's natural habitat, a visual role in the regulation of periodic behavioural patterns cannot be definitely excluded. The eye may also function in the location or identification of luminescent pennatulids, the major source of food for Tritonia .


Superhydrophobic surfaces have been increasingly researched as a solution for the icing problem. Despite promising results, superhydrophobic surfaces eventually fail under condensation and frosting. All the surfaces previously investigated relied only on their wettability properties to mitigate icing/frosting. In the present work, we study the condensation frosting and defrosting properties of carbon nanofiber-based conductive superhydrophobic coatings capable of self-heating by means of the Joule heating effect. We tune the condensate morphology by varying the filler-polymer composition to yield droplets in the Cassie state, thus influencing subsequent frost growth. We demonstrate facile and efficient defrosting by raising the temperature of the coating just above the freezing temperature by Joule heating. We focus on the synergy of passive superhydrophobic surfaces and active electrothermal heating to reduce cost, energy and time required to prevent/eliminate frosting/icing. Low cost materials and simple solvent-based deposition enhance the scalability and applicability of the present nanocomposite, offering a new mechanism to prevent icing/frosting.


2621 Background: TMB is an emerging predictor of survival with immunotherapy. TMB is determined by taking the difference between somatic and germline datasets when tumor-normal pairs are available. In the case of commonly utilized tumor-only sequencing, additional steps are needed to estimate the somatic alterations. Computational tools have been developed that determine germline contribution based on sample copy state, purity estimates and occurrence of the variant in population databases. Given the potential bias of population datasets, we hypothesized that tumor-only filtering approaches may overestimate the actual TMB. Methods: We assessed the TMB from 50 tumors in 10 diseases including all missense, indels, and frameshift variants with an allelic fraction (AF) ≥5% and Coverage ≥100X within the tumor. Tumor-only TMB was evaluated against the gold standard of matched germline subtracted TMB at three levels. Level 1 removed all the tumor-only variants with AF in the non-TCGA ExAC database ≥1%. Level 2 removed all variants observed in population databases simulating a naive approach of removing germline variation. Level 3 used an internal tumor-only pipeline for calculating TMB. Results: There were significantly higher estimates of TMB with Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 tumor-only filtering approaches than that determined by germline subtraction, resulting in significant bias. Whereas there was no correlation between TMB estimates and tumor-germline TMB for Level 1 filtering, there were improvements in correlations for Level 2 and Level 3. Conclusions: The tumor-only approaches that filter variants in population databases overestimate TMB compared to that determined by germline subtraction. Despite improved correlations with more stringent filtering approaches, these falsely elevated estimates may result in the inappropriate categorization of tumor specimens and negatively impact clinical trial results and patient outcomes. [Table: see text]


Conventional e-government has many practical infrastructure development and implementation challenges. The recent surge of SMAC (Social media, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud) technologies re-defines the e-governance ecosystem. Cloud-based e-governance has numerous operational challenges which range from development to implementation. Moreover, the contemplation and vocalization of public opinion about any government initiative is quintessential to be cognizant of how citizens perceives and get benefitted from cloud/fog enabled governance. This research puts forward a semantic knowledge model for investigating public opinion towards adaption of fog enabled services for governance and comprehending the significance of two s-components (sentic and social) in aforesaid structure that specifically visualize fog enabled Sentic-Social Governance. The results using conventional TF-IDF (Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency) feature extraction are empirically compared with ontology driven TF-IDF feature extraction to find the best opinion mining model with optimal accuracy. The results depict that the implementation of ontology driven opinion mining for feature extraction in polarity classification outperforms the traditional TF-IDF method validated over baseline supervised learning algorithms. An average of 7.3% improvement in accuracy and approximately 38% reduction in features has been reported.


There are two basic ways to improve the speed of a low-level vision algorithm: careful code optimization and selective processing. Reducing the computational effort expended on each pixel reduces the time required to process an image by a constant factor. Selective processing on a limited portion of an image using a focus of attention can decrease overall computation by orders of magnitude. A fast pixel-based algorithm is developed that uses these principles to achieve fast extraction of lines for use in vision-guided mobile robot navigation. It builds upon an algorithm for extracting lines by grouping pixels with similar gradient orientation. It allows parametric control of computational resources required to extract lines with particular characteristics. >


Human trafficking is a human rights violation and a crime of human dignity and integrity, which may lead to the enslavement of victims One of the most dangerous human rights violations threatening the international community today is the phenomenon of human trafficking. Trafficking in human beings is directly related to migration, organized crime, prostitution, security, jobs, and health risks. Every year, millions of people—mostly women and children from less developed countries—are exploited. They become objects of an international criminal industry. In Lithuania, there is no established case law dealing with criminal proceedings for cases of human trafficking. Generally, legal proceedings last for several years. In such cases when a person is traumatized, he/she requires assistance and time until the victim is able to talk about the experiences. That is why prosecutors tend to investigate cases that occurred in the past. In the pre-trial stage, the victim is often under pressure and receives threats from accomplices of the accused. Since the victims' protection system in Lithuania is very weak, frightened victims often change testimony and withdraw their statements. Thus, criminals remain unpunished.


This study brings together leading scholars from Europe and the United States to consider the art of Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98-1543) from a variety of perspectives and disciplines. Generously illustrated and based on the most up-to-date research, the book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in Holbein the Younger and his magnificent art. In chapters relating to artistic exchange, the contributors discuss what Holbein knew of French and Italian art and how he utilized this knowledge. Conservation and technical chapters examine the materials and techniques in the painting The Ambassadors and documentary evidence on a series of festival paintings on canvas. Two contributors examine the artist's woocuts, particularly Dance of Death, in the light of contemporary political and theological issues. In addition, the historical and theoretical circumstances and contexts of Holbein's portraits are investigated, notably their associations with classical antiquity and its revival in humanist thought. The book also considers the impact of the first scholarly monograph on Holbein's reception and how German Romantic literary art criticism of the early nineteenth century shaped an image of his life and art.


The major goal of hemodynamic treatment is to reach adequate flow. Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) allows non-invasive assessment of skeletal muscle tissue oxygenation during rest and also during vascular occlusion test (VOT). VOT allows estimation of tissue oxygen extraction capability, which could be preserved (i.e. hypovolemic, obstructive and cardiogenic shock) or inappropriate (i.e. sepsis/ septic shock). By using ultrasound to estimate cardiac output, arterial hemoglobin oxygen saturation, skeletal muscle NIRS, arterial lactate and hemoglobin, therapeutic goals in critically ill patients with preserved oxygen extraction capability can easily be targeted. Current controversies of NIRS technology and approach to patients with impaired oxygen extraction are discussed as well.


This paper introduces urban land teleconnections as a conceptual framework that explicitly links land changes to underlying urbanization dynamics. We illustrate how three key themes that are currently addressed separately in the urban sustainability and land change literatures can lead to incorrect conclusions and misleading results when they are not examined jointly: the traditional system of land classification that is based on discrete categories and reinforces the false idea of a rural–urban dichotomy; the spatial quantification of land change that is based on place-based relationships, ignoring the connections between distant places, especially between urban functions and rural land uses; and the implicit assumptions about path dependency and sequential land changes that underlie current conceptualizations of land transitions. We then examine several environmental "grand challenges" and discuss how urban land teleconnections could help research communities frame scientific inquiries. Finally, we point to existing analytical approaches that can be used to advance development and application of the concept.


At present, China, Japan, South Korea and other East Asian countries are engaged in the reform of their corporate governance systems. Moreover, East Asian countries are in the emergence of the phenomenon of corporate governance system integration. First, we must fully understand the current issue on the reform and integration of corporate governance system in three East Asian countries, represented by China, Japan and South Korea. Second, as we interpret and describe how the East Asian company system will be integrated, it is necessary to consider the value orientation in society, in which, a clear direction and unique value orientation for integration, and referring to the U.S. and EU experiences are very important.


Werry, Brian S. M.S., Department of Chemistry, Wright State Univeristy, 2007. Modifiable Poly(arylene ether)s and Hyperbranched Poly(esters). Two different polymer systems have been studied in regards to their potential for functionalization to introduce new characteristics to the polymer. The first polymer system is a poly(arylene ether) with a truly pendant sulfone group from the monomer 3,5difluorodiphenylsulfone. The work entails incorporating a bromine moiety onto the monomer for the versatile ability to bring in functional groups prior to or post the polymerization. The introduction of bromine onto the pendant ring had the best results from electrophilic bromine addition using N-bromosuccinimide in a mixture of sulfuric acid and acetic acid (80:20) yielding 76% of the desired material. Incorporation of the bromine moiety did not interfere with the nucleophilic aromatic substitution reaction utilized in the polymerization and modification was shown to proceed smoothly both prior and post polymerization. The second project involved the study and production of a poly(ester) hyperbranched system from glycerol and fumaric acid. These hyperbranched polymers were prepared using an A2 + B3 approach in a bulk synthesis. The study involves varying the molar ratio of A2 to B3 and temperature to control the polymerization and avoid gelation while pushing the polymerization to larger molecular weights. The two monomers bring the characteristic of biocompatibility with them into the polymer. In addition, the fumaric acid monomer unit brings an alkene bond available for modification. Average molecular weights achieved were around 5,000 daltons. Obtained PDI values were as low as 4.6, and DB values ranged from 0.26 to 0.38. Analysis on new compounds and polymers was done by NMR spectroscopy, GC/MS, and size exclusion chromatography where applicable.


This is a groundbreaking, accessible introduction to the building-block concepts of democracy and comparative civics. Designed specifically to help high-school students build critical-thinking skills, "Exploring Political Ideas" presents a conceptual-comparative approach to the study of the political ideas that shaped world history and continue to affect today's political landscape. This unique approach gives students a solid grasp of the core concepts behind civics and democratic government, and shows how these concepts are applied in practice through comparisons over time, and across nations. The four-color text explores many intertwined concepts, including the uses of power and authority, the influence of political culture and political institutions, the relationships between rights and responsibilities, political participation and representation, the prerequisites of leadership and governance, and the challenges facing democratic governance in an age of rapid globalization. Each chapter illustrates the concepts through practical examples about political thinkers, leaders, ideas, institutions, and policies. Students explore historical and contemporary applications of political ideas from four perspectives: The decisions individuals make; The interests individuals articulate and pursue; The institutions they create and work within; and, The issues they to seek to resolve. "Exploring Political Ideas" is a terrific addition to public and college library collections, and ideal for high schools supporting curriculum in AP Government, civics, world history, geography, and AP social studies. No other resource unpacks the core concepts behind politics and government in this historical-comparative way that students can easily explore and digest.


The methods of theoretical chemistry were used to characterize the molecular structure and some reactivity properties of (–)-9-nor-9β-hydroxyhexahydrocannabinol (9-nor-9β-OH-HHC), our template molecule for cannabinoid analgesia. This characterization is part of a project whose ultimate goal is the design of cannabinoid analgesics with reduced psychoactive liabilities. Our working hypothesis is that the analgesic activity of 9-nor-9β-OH-HHC is due to the presence and relative location of two regions of negative potential in the top half of the molecule. A complete conformational study of the fused ring structure of 9-nor-9β-OH-HHC was performed using the technique of molecular mechanics as encoded in the MMP2(85) program. This study revealed six accessible conformers of 9-nor-9β-OH-HHC. All six conformers were found to have the same fused ring conformation, but to differ in the position of the phenol and 9β-hydroxyl groups. Molecular electrostatic potential (MEP) maps of each accessible conformer were calculated from molecular wave functions obtained with the LP-3G basis set implemented into the Gaussian 80 program. The MEP maps calculated at distances of 1.5 and 3.3 A from the molecular plane defined by the aromatic ring serve as a discriminative factor for the conformers of the studied compound. In order to quantiate the spatial relationship of the potential minima in the MEPs of each accessible conformer, points of minimum potential associated with the 9β-hydroxyl oxygen (X1 at –1.5 A and X2 at –3.3 A) and with the phenol oxygen (Y1 at 1.5 A and Y2 at –1.5 A) were identified in the MEP maps of each conformer. The distances, |;XnYn|, and the nonbonded torsion angles, Yn–O–C9–Xn, were then measured for all conformers. The accessible conformations of 9-nor-9β-OH-HHC along with their MEPs and the measurements |XnYn| and Yn–O–C9–Xn form our preliminary template for cannabinoid analgesia. Future comparisons of this template with the properties of active and inactive cannabinoid analgesics should permit the identification of the relevant conformer at the site of action of these compounds and permit the formulation of an interaction site model for the cannabinoid analgesics.


SiC nanowires (NWs) with diameters of 20–200 nm and lengths from tens to hundreds of micrometers have been synthesized by the carbothermal reduction of colloidal silica. The morphology and microstructure of NWs have been studied in detail by electron microscopy techniques. SiC NWs have been found to be hexagonal prisms, "bamboo-like" nanorods and nanobelts. The NWs with a [111] growth axis are hexagonal prism nanorods, while the nanobelts have growth directions varying from [110] to [113]. It has been found that NW growth proceeds in two stages. Initially, SiC crystallites grow on the carbon fiber surface. These crystallites serve as seeds, on which the SiC NWs nucleate and grow. The crystallites containing microtwins and stacking faults (SFs) with a preferential [111] growth direction give rise to the growth of nanorods, while the nanobelts start growing on the (111) facets of relatively perfect crystallites. Wires with core (SiC)–shell (SiO2) structure have been obtained under special temperature treatment in air. The core–shell structure has been confirmed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) mapping techniques.


Codling moth (Cydia pomonella) (CM) is a major pest of apples in New Zealand. Several biocontrol agents introduced in the past to control CM have only been partially successful at reducing CM populations, so a parasitoid wasp, Mastrus ridens (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae), was recently released into apple-growing regions. This study sought evidence of the establishment of CM parasitoids. Corrugated cardboard bands (2-cm wide bands with sentinel CM larvae and 10-cm wide empty bands to trap wild CM larvae) were used to assess the presence of M. ridens and other CM parasitoids in Hawke's Bay, Nelson, Central Otago and Waikato regions. Five CM parasitoid species, including M. ridens, were recovered from sentinel and wide bands. Liotryphon caudatus (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae, released to control CM in 1906) was found in Hawke's Bay and Waikato. Ascogaster quadridentata (Hymenoptera: Braconidae, released to control CM in the 1930s), Glabridorsum stokesii (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae, released in 1967 to control light brown apple moth), Dibrachys microgastri (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea: Pteromalidae, an accidental arrival) and M. ridens were found in all regions. The interspecific competition between M. ridens and other parasitoid species remains to be investigated.


Abstract. The long term response of surface waters to changes in sulphur deposition and afforestation is investigated for three upland river systems in the Galloway region of south-west Scotland. From 1984-1999, these rivers exhibited a statistically significant decline in non-marine sulphate concentrations in response to reduced acid deposition. This reduction in non-marine sulphate was, however, insufficient to induce a pH recovery over the period. A statistically significant increase in river pH was observed between 1956-1970 (0.05 yr-1) when subsidised agricultural lime payments were at a maximum. In 1976, this subsidy ceased and surface waters have progressively acidified. In addition, climatic change is found to influence long-term trends in pH. Mean annual pH was greatest during a dry period between 1969-1973 when total annual discharge was low. Thereafter, pH declined gradually in response to higher rainfall and increased total annual discharge. Overall, surface waters draining the afforested catchments of the Rivers Cree and Bladnoch are more acid than those draining the moorland catchment of the Luce. These results indicate that in afforested catchments, current reductions in sulphur emissions have not led to an observed improvement in the acid status of surface waters. Forestry, therefore, represents a confounding factor with regard to chemical recovery from acidification in this region. Keywords: acidification, afforestation, deposition, rivers, lochs, non-marine sulphate, pH


Abstract Liquid salts have become more attractive as coolants for low-carbon power generation due to needs for high-temperature heat and affordable energy storage. Of particular interest are halide salts utilized in fluoride-salt-cooled high-temperature reactors, molten salt reactors, and high-magnetic-field fusion machines, as well as in concentrated solar power systems. Because of their high-temperature operation and semitransparent nature, the liquid salts in these designs may experience the effects of participating media radiative heat transfer (RHT). While some work has been conducted on measuring the thermophysical properties of these fluids, there is currently very little known about their radiative properties. Here, we present the initial results of a two-part methodology to enhance RHT understanding and improve modeling in high-temperature liquid salts. First, an experimental apparatus designed to measure liquid chloride and fluoride salt absorption coefficients by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy was completed and validated with water measurements. Second, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were run to determine the contribution of thermal radiation to the overall heat transfer for flow between parallel plates. This geometry was used to verify code accuracy and investigate requirements for absorption coefficient spectral banding. Future work will be to complete halide salt absorption measurements and couple them to the established CFD methods to identify geometries and temperatures where RHT is significant and enable prediction of heat transfer in such systems.


Random testing (RT) is a well-studied testing method that has been widely applied to the testing of many applications, including embedded software systems, SQL database systems, and Android applications. Adaptive random testing (ART) aims to enhance RT's failure-detection ability by more evenly spreading the test cases over the input domain. Since its introduction in 2001, there have been many contributions to the development of ART, including various approaches, implementations, assessment and evaluation methods, and applications. This paper provides a comprehensive survey on ART, classifying techniques, summarizing application areas, and analyzing experimental evaluations. This paper also addresses some misconceptions about ART, and identifies open research challenges to be further investigated in the future work.


Russia's border with its immediate European neighbors is shaped through a variety of transborder initiatives, each of which has its own regionbuilding potential. These initiatives lack a single source. Transborder region-building projects sometimes result from European Union policy (as in the case of the Northern Dimension), sometimes are conceived by a non-EU country (as with Norway and its Barents-Euroarctic project), and sometimes are stimulated from outside Europe (as with the United States and the Northern European Initiative). The general question under consideration is the way political space in the immediate vicinity of Russia's western borders is being reinvented. The Baltic–Black Sea Region (BBSR) is one such section in the chain of region-building initiatives directly affecting Russia.