Students at Victoria University (VU) in Melbourne, Australia, undertake their study in an English language context and they have a range of support options to assist with English language development. VU has partner universities in China (Sichuan University, Henan University and Liaoning University). VU's programs in China often have fewer language support options than programs in Melbourne. The Australian Government's Transnational Quality Strategy requires that educational programs on- and offshore provide students with a comparable learning experience. Given the relative lack of English speaking opportunities available to VU's students in China, the university is exploring how technologies might achieve a greater comparability of the student experience. This paper reports on a pilot program that uses Elluminate to conduct English conversations between students in China and Australia. The perceived lack of English competence of international students has been an ongoing issue in Australian higher education while the 'English corner' is 'a characteristically Chinese approach to informal practice' (Jin & Cortazzi, 2002) that helps students learning English in a foreign context to develop their English language proficiency. How might the idea of 'English corner' be used with educational technologies to encourage international students to practise and develop their English? This paper discusses a pilot program at VU that combines the idea of the English Corner together with the online conferencing tool Elluminate and a blog developed in WordPress, to engage Chinese students offshore in English language conversations. Through Elluminate and the Global English Corner blog, a pair of student peers in Melbourne conducts semi-structured conversations with groups of students offshore. In Elluminate, students can both hear and see each other – and they can simultaneously txt chat, share documents, images and websites and use the collaborative whiteboard function of Elluminate – to have dynamic conversations in real time. Preliminary findings of this pilot that uses technology to emphasise the societal aspects of learning – including language learning – will be presented. The discussion will consider how a more widespread English Corner program could aid the transition of international students in Australia, encourage the interaction of local students and international students, increase opportunities for international students to practise English and achieve a greater comparability of language support options on- and offshore.


Los Angeles is one of the best places in the country for a relatively easy and cost-effective measure to improve public health, combat climate change, reduce energy demand, and save money: installing cool roofs. This Pritzker Brief makes a case for accelerating the adoption of cool roofs in L.A. and recommends law and policy strategies for achieving that goal. Using a dataset of L.A. rooftops and some conservative estimates of energy savings, Cara Horowitz shows that L.A. residents could save $30 million a year if the city significantly improved its adoption of cool roofs on new and existing buildings. Other benefits would include improved air quality, lower urban temperatures, and a reduction in global warming equivalent to removing millions of cars from the road for a year.


Die casting process is one of the widely used processes in the
manufacturing area. It has the capability for high production rates with good
strength, high quality parts with complex shapes. Die is the main factor which
affects the cost of this process. Even when the process is semi or fully automated
the cost of the die is proportionately high.
To design an optimum die, it has been understood that it is very difficult to
achieve the target practically without prior prediction. It needs continuous
monitoring of the process, starting from the first shot until the failure of the die.
Even then it cannot be said that, the die has been optimised to produce a particular
part. To decide so, several tests should be carried out on the same part. As this will
be very costly, it would be unwise to do it. But in the presence o f theoretical
analysis, the number of tests will be reduced. For these reasons the Finite Element
Analysis (FEA) would appear to be well suited to investigate the response of such
system to structure and potential loading. Such a computational investigation is the
subject of this re search. Commercially available FE A So ftware (LUSAS) ha s been used. A full
Finite Element Analysis was carried out in order to achieve an optimum design,
and to predict the die life. The analysis has been repeated several time s for different
elements to achieve the best possible design. Since ca sting is a repetitive
manufacturing process, fatigue load was taken into consideration and analysis
carried out for a high number of cycles.


A novel algorithm for calculating a brass instrument's acoustic pressure response to an impulsive volume flow at the input end [R. D. Ayers, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 100, 1190–1198 (1996)] is applied to sound simulation. The algorithm employs several impulse responses that have no multiple reflections and that decay very rapidly. These are convolved with the mouthpiece pressure and volume flow in the past to give the pressure at the present. The impulse responses calculated from the measured dimensions of an actual B■ trumpet can be considered for simulation purposes as being confined in a period of 13 ms, which is four times shorter than the nonzero period of the reflection function used in the conventional algorithm. Due to the shorter convolution time, the new algorithm, incorporated with a nonlinear driver model of lip vibration and airflow, can run about 4.5 times faster than the method using the reflection function. Simulations with the two algorithms indicate the same behavior for the transition among the air‐column resonance modes. Individual waveforms synthesized with the new algorithm are in very good agreement with their counterparts synthesized with the conventional algorithm.


A large share of dollar-denominated lending is done by non-U.S. banks, particularly European banks. We present a model in which such banks cut dollar lending more than euro lending in response to a shock to their credit quality. Because these banks rely on wholesale dollar funding, while raising more of their euro funding through insured retail deposits, the shock leads to a greater withdrawal of dollar funding. Banks can borrow in euros and swap into dollars to make up for the dollar shortfall, but this may lead to violations of covered interest parity (CIP) when there is limited capital to take the other side of the swap trade. In this case, synthetic dollar borrowing becomes expensive, which causes cuts in dollar lending. We test the model in the context of the Eurozone sovereign crisis, which escalated in the second half of 2011 and resulted in U.S. money-market funds sharply reducing the funding provided to European banks. Coincident with the contraction in dollar funding, there were significant violations of euro-dollar CIP. Moreover, dollar lending by Eurozone banks fell relative to their euro lending in both the U.S. and Europe; this was not the case for U.S. global banks. Finally, European banks that were more reliant on money funds experienced bigger declines in dollar lending.


Social media sites like Facebook have recently been blamed for their negative impact on wellbeing, with support from recent research. However, certain features and mechanisms of social media sites may actually increase their users' wellbeing, and the sites may serve as platforms for positive interventions to reach large populations and improve their lives. This paper examines China's leading Social Network, WeChat, and its potential effectiveness in cultivating wellbeing among Chinese users, through a review of the literature. The paper has six sections. Part 1 presents a brief summary of Positive Psychology and Positive Interventions. Part 2 reviews research findings regarding the impact of social media on wellbeing. Part 3 introduces WeChat's design features and how they may affect the users' behaviors. Part 4 suggests six hypotheses on how WeChat may improve user wellbeing. Part 5 proposes possible ways to apply positive interventions on WeChat which would enable users to actively improve their wellbeing. Finally, Part 6 reviews how datasets from various social networks have assisted psychological and developmental research. The last section also outlines a quantitative research proposal to validate the hypothesis that WeChat makes a positive impact on users' wellbeing, and offers limitations and implications for future work.


It has been proposed that the perception of palatalized consonants is influenced by their primary place of articulation. Both perceptual studies of palatalization and cross-linguistic distributional patterns suggest the existence of a markedness asymmetry: palatalized labials are more marked than palatalized coronals. This paper presents the results of a perceptual study of labial and coronal fricatives, with 22 native speakers of Romanian. It was found that, unlike Russian and Japanese listeners, Romanians exhibit higher sensitivity to the plain-palatalized contrast in labials as opposed to coronals. Thus Romanian seems to pose a challenge to the typological generalization. Several differences between Romanian and other languages with the plain/palatalized contrast are discussed. It is suggested that the different behavior of Romanian may be due to the different nature of palatalization in this language with regard to its phonetic realization and its position in the syllable (final only).


Abstract Cuneiform is a minimal functional programming language for large-scale scientific data analysis. Implementing a strict black-box view on external operators and data, it allows the direct embedding of code in a variety of external languages like Python or R, provides data-parallel higher order operators for processing large partitioned data sets, allows conditionals and general recursion, and has a naturally parallelizable evaluation strategy suitable for multi-core servers and distributed execution environments like Hadoop, HTCondor, or distributed Erlang. Cuneiform has been applied in several data-intensive research areas including remote sensing, machine learning, and bioinformatics, all of which critically depend on the flexible assembly of pre-existing tools and libraries written in different languages into complex pipelines. This paper introduces the computation semantics for Cuneiform. It presents Cuneiform's abstract syntax, a simple type system, and the semantics of evaluation. Providing an unambiguous specification of the behavior of Cuneiform eases the implementation of interpreters which we showcase by providing a concise reference implementation in Erlang. The similarity of Cuneiform's syntax to the simply typed lambda calculus puts Cuneiform in perspective and allows a straightforward discussion of its design in the context of functional programming. Moreover, the simple type system allows the deduction of the language's safety up to black-box operators. Last, the formulation of the semantics also permits the verification of compilers to and from other workflow languages.


Scientific funding within the academy is an often complicated affair involving disparate and competing interests. Private universities, for instance, are vastly outpacing public institutions in garnering large, prestigious grants. Inequities also extend to the kinds of research funded, with government, corporate, and even military interests privileging certain types of inquiry. This work proposes an innovative type of research fund using cryptocurrencies, a fast-growing asset class. Although not a total funding solution, staking coins, specifically, can be strategically invested in to yield compound interest. These coins use masternode technologies to collateralize the network and speed transaction pace. Additionally, these staking coins pay dividends to masternode holders, so an institution that purchases these types of central hubs could potentially engage in a lucrative form of dividend reinvestment. Using cryptocurrencies as a new funding stream, it is possible that simply garnering large amounts of capital and creating a nonprofit institute could also be the future of funding scientific research.


Fibre laser surface treatment of a cold isostatic pressed (CIP) Si3N4 engineering ceramic was performed using various processing gas compositions to observe the changes on and within the surface of the engineering ceramic; in particular, surface topography, material removal, chemical composition, surface hardness and distribution of the heat affected zone (HAZ). Material removal, oxidation, morphological changes were found with all fibre laser irradiated samples as the surface decomposed. Surface finish and the material removal varied with changes in the gas composition. Fibre laser processing of the Si3N4 with N2 assist gas proved to be the most effective combination for effecting micro-structural changes as small sized elongated grains were found as a result of the faster cooling rate. Consequently, O2, ambient air and compressed air produced considerable amount of morphological changes. This was found to be due to material removal and de-composition of the upper most surface layer as well as the Si3N4 ceramic's interaction with the assist gas compositions and the atmosphere at elevated temperatures. Maximum material removal was found when O2 assist gas was employed, taking in account of the O2 generating an exothermic reaction and consequently excessive heating. The compositional analysis revealed a chemical change occurring within all fibre laser irradiated surfaces of the Si3N4 engineering ceramic as fibre laser irradiated Si3N4 was transformed to SiO2.


In the past two decades, the revival of New Confucianism in mainland China has accelerated and become a crucial component of the intellectual public sphere. New Confucians have appeared alongside the larger groups of liberals and the New Left, often developing in dialogue or contrast with these intellectual neighbours. As part of the series of research dialogues on mapping the intellectual public sphere in China, this article examines recent discourse from New Confucian intellectuals, particularly dialogue with liberals and the New Left, to highlight the major debates and leading figures that define the cultural nationalist movement of Mainland New Confucianism. We show that, despite the immense difficulty of finding power as a minority voice in contemporary China, an integration of the religious and political dimensions of Confucianism in mainstream Chinese social, political, and intellectual culture remains the primary ideal that fuels and unites these intellectuals in the 2010s.


From its broad expanses of rolling downlands across southern England, the Late Cretaceous
Chalk Group sweeps northwards across much of East Anglia, and on into Lincolnshire and
Yorkshire. The Chalk is the major bedrock unit across Suffolk, and dips gently eastwards
beneath much of the East Anglia region. The oldest strata are locally exposed along the
western margin of the outcrop, for example near Mildenhall, and progressively younger
horizons are introduced eastwards towards the coast. Consequently, the Chalk is thickest in
the eastern part of the Suffolk region, reaching about 250 m in the Combs Borehole [TM 0427
5625] near Stowmarket; perhaps close to 300 m beneath Ipswich; and about 321 m in a
borehole at Lowestoft [TM 5380 9260] (Moorlock et al., 2000). Northwards, boreholes in
Norfolk have proved more than 400 m of Chalk at Trunch [TG 2933 3455] (468 m);
Somerton [TG 4607 2120] (433 m); and West Somerton [TG 4736 1935] (423 m) (Arthurton
et al., 1994), at least part of this increased thickness being attributable to the preservation of
younger chalk in the upper parts of these successions. Just as in neighbouring Essex and
Norfolk, much of the Suffolk Chalk is buried beneath a variable succession of post-
Cretaceous, predominantly Quaternary deposits, but including Palaeogene and Neogene strata
in the south-east of the county. For this reason, the region has not developed the typical
downland landscape of southern England, and our geological understanding of the Chalk of
Suffolk has to be assembled from rare natural exposures, chalk quarries and borehole data.


OBJECTIVE
To compare the serum cobalamin concentrations in canine parvovirus (CPV)-infected dogs with those of healthy control dogs.

Animals
45 dogs with CPV enteritis and 17 healthy age-matched control dogs.

Procedures
Infection was confirmed by visualization of CPV-2 through fecal electron microscopy. All dogs received supportive care. Serum samples taken at admission were used to determine cobalamin, C-reactive protein, and albumin concentrations.

Results
Serum cobalamin concentrations were significantly lower in the CPV-infected group (median [interquartile range], 173 pmol/L [< 111 to 722 pmol/L]) than in healthy control dogs (379 pmol/L [193 to > 738 pmol/L). There was no association between cobalamin concentration and C-reactive protein or albumin concentration.

Clinical Relevance
While hypocobalaminemia was common in CPV-infected dogs, the clinical relevance of this finding remains to be determined. Studies assessing markers of cellular cobalamin deficiency in dogs with CPV infection appear warranted.


Effective control of malaria in Sub-saharan Africa has always been slowed down by lack of adequate knowledge on transmission, modes of prevention and control. Ten years after commencement of a renewed malaria control initiative'roll back malaria' (RBM) on the continent, this study was set up to assess the impact of the programme in an endemic city through knowledge and practices of malaria control. The study was carried out between October and December 2009 and was cross-sectional in nature involving 3171 adult women who were selected from households using systematic sampling methods. Quantitative information such as age, educational level, marital status, occupation number of children, and knowledge of malaria prevention and practices were obtained using structured and semi structured questionnaires, while qualitative information was obtained using focussed and in-depth group discussions to complement quantitative data. Over 99% of the respondents were aware of malaria as a disease popularly called Osuala but only 63.3% considered it a serious disease of public importance. At least 16.5% of the respondents had no clear knowledge about malaria prevention. Factors affecting knowledge about malaria prevention in the community were illiteracy, poverty and unemployment, and cultural beliefs. Health education should be strengthened on malaria prevention while efforts to intensify on formal and informal adult education strengthened in order to realise the objectives of RBM initiative in the community and hence that of Africa at large. *Corresponding author:


A Kinetic Study of Aqueous Calcium Carbonate Derek D. Harris Department of Chemical Engineering Master of Science Amorphous calcium carbonate (ACC) precipitation is modeled using particle nucleation, growth, and aggregation. The particles are tracked in terms of their radial size and particle density using direct quadrature method of moments (DQMOM). Four separate nucleation models are implemented and are compared to experimental data. In discord with a recent study, it is shown that classical nucleation, coupled with equilibrium chemistry, is in good agreement with experimental data. Novel nucleation mechanisms are presented which fit the experimental data with slightly greater accuracy. Using equilibrium chemistry it is shown that the equilibrium value of ACC is pKeq = 7.74 at 24 C, which is a factor of two smaller than the originally published equilibrium constant. Additionally, legacy equilibrium chemistry expressions are shown to accurately capture the fraction of calcium carbonate ions formed into ACC nano-clusters. The density, solubility, and water content of ACC are discussed in a brief review, finding that a wide variety of properties are reported in the literature. Based on literature findings, it is proposed that the broad variety of reported properties may be due to ACC having several unique thermodynamic states. Compelling evidence is presented exposing errors made by experimentalists studying the calcium carbonate system. The errors correct for mistakes of experimental kinetic data of the chemical-potential cascade of calcium carbonate due to the formation of meta-stable phases. Correlations are presented which correct for these mistakes. A time-scale analysis shows the overlapping of kinetic scales and mixing scales within the calcium carbonate system. The kinetic scales are based on classical nucleation theory, coupled with diffusion limited growth. The mixing scales were computed using one-dimensional turbulence (ODT).


Interviews with students who accessed enrolment support were undertaken to explore reasons students utilised this service, and how integrated student support service models can impact on student transition, retention and success. Results indicate that students primarily required support with course enrolments because of the new environment they were studying in, not being accustomed to existing processes and a lack of confidence. In addition, along with the existing service model, the integration of enrolment support into the student support service model had a positive impact on the student experience and engagement. The implications of these findings for the tertiary education sector are considered in light of the increasing focus on student engagement and success.


Automated image analysis of textile surfaces allowed determination and quantification of intrinsic yarn path variabilities in a 2/2 twill weave during the lay-up process. The yarn paths were described in terms of waves and it was found that the frequencies are similar in warp and weft directions and hardly affected by introduced yarn path deformations. The most significant source of fabric variability was introduced during handling before cutting. These resulting systematic deformations will need to be considered when designing or analysing a composite component. An automated method for three dimensional reconstruction of the analysed lay-up was implemented in TexGen which will allow virtual testing of components in the future.


Abstract. We determined the specific biomass burning biomarker levoglucosan in an ice
core from the TALos Dome Ice CorE drilling project (TALDICE) during the mid-
to late Holocene (6000–750 BP). The levoglucosan record is characterized by
a long-term increase with higher rates starting at ∼ 4000 BP and peaks
between 2500 and 1500 BP. The anomalous increase in levoglucosan centered at
∼ 2000 BP is consistent with other Antarctic biomass burning records.
Multiple atmospheric phenomena affect the coastal Antarctic Talos Dome
drilling site, where the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) is the most prominent as
the Southern Annular Mode Index (SAMA) correlates with stable
isotopes in precipitation throughout the most recent 1000 years of the ice
core. If this connection remains throughout the mid- to late Holocene, then
our results demonstrate that changes in biomass burning, rather than changes
in atmospheric transport, are the major influence on the TALDICE levoglucosan
record. Comparisons with charcoal syntheses help evaluate fire sources,
showing a greater contribution from southern South American fires than from
Australian biomass burning. The levoglucosan peak centered at
∼ 2000 BP occurs during a cool period throughout the
Southern Hemisphere, yet during a time of increased fire activity in both
northern and southern Patagonia. This peak in biomass burning is influenced
by increased vegetation in southern South America from a preceding humid
period, in which the vegetation desiccated during the following cool, dry
period. The Talos Dome ice core record from 6000 to ∼ 750 BP
currently does not provide clear evidence that the fire record may be
strongly affected by anthropogenic activities during the mid- to late Holocene,
although we cannot exclude at least a partial influence.


Adelaide has a relatively long history of innovation in wastewater treatment and water conservation, spurred on in response to South Australia's predominantly arid environment. Examples of innovation range from those in private sector developments in the inner city to suburban neighbourhood-scale projects. Treatment systems range from mechanical filtration to extensive reedbeds. Storage approaches include underground tanks and aquifer recharge. Most of the projects link water treatment to vegetation establishment as part of broader urban planning strategies. Although such techniques are still the exception rather than the rule, their increasing adoption is being driven by both legislation and perceived environmental necessity. This will impact on the design of the built environment and there is likely to be an increasingly strong imperative to integrate such measures into design thinking from the concept stage onwards. The original version of this note, CAS 25, was published in 2001 and co-authored by Claire Fulton.


Although contemporary metaphysics has recently undergone a neo-Aristotelian revival wherein dispositions, or capacities are now commonplace in empirically grounded ontologies, being routinely utilised in theories of causality and modality, a central Aristotelian concept has yet to be given serious attention – the doctrine of hylomorphism. The reason for this is clear: while the Aristotelian ontological distinction between actuality and potentiality has proven to be a fruitful conceptual framework with which to model the operation of the natural world, the distinction between form and matter has yet to similarly earn its keep. In this chapter, I offer a first step toward showing that the hylomorphic framework is up to that task. To do so, I return to the birthplace of that doctrine - the biological realm. Utilising recent advances in developmental biology, I argue that the hylomorphic framework is an empirically adequate and conceptually rich explanatory schema with which to model the nature of organisms.


— Personalized E-learning seeks to provide each individual learner with the right and sufficient content they need according to learners level of knowledge, behavior and profile. The performance of the learners can be enhanced by posting the suitable E-learning contents to the learners based on their learning styles. Hence, it is very essential to have a clear knowledge about various learning styles in order to predict the learning styles of different learners in E-learning environments. However, predicting the learning styles needs complete knowledge about the learners past and present characteristics. The core objective of this survey paper is to outline the working of the existing learning style models and the metrics used to evaluate them. Based on the existing models, this paper identifies Felder–Silverman learning style model as the appropriate model for E-learning so that it can enrich the performance of the E-learning system.


Density functional theory was employed to investigate atomic layer deposition (ALD) mechanism of zirconia on Si(100)-2 X 1 surface with single and double hydroxyl groups. The ZrO2 ALD process using ZrCl4 and H2O as precursors involves two alternate deposition half-reactions: ZrCl4 and H2O half-reactions. Both the half-reactions proceeded through an analogous trapping-mediated mechanism. Compared to the singly hydroxylated Si surfaces, the neighboring hydroxyl of the doubly hydroxylated Si surfaces has a major effect on ZrCl4 half-reaction, especially the formation of ZrCl4 intermediate complex, and a minor effect on H2O half-reaction. Both ZrCl4 and H2O half-reactions were found to follow a similar reaction pathway with IRC method. In addition, the intermediate stability was lowered as the surface temperature was raised. However, increasing temperature also enlarged the dissociation free energy barrier, which in turn resulted in increased desorption of adsorbed precursors.


ZnS and ZnS–Bipy (4,4-bipyridine) hybrid based organic–inorganic materials are easily synthesized using solvothermal methods, and their structural, optical and morphological properties are characterized by FTIR spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, UV-vis spectroscopy, nitrogen physisorption and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The newly synthesized materials are tested as catalysts in the photocatalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol to 4-aminophenol using Na2SO3 as hole scavengers, under UV light irradiation. ZnS–Bipy hybrid organic–inorganic materials show a high performance in the photocatalytic activity. In contrast, for non-hybrid cubic ZnS, performance is lower in comparison and also is unable to complete the whole photoreduction reaction. The high bipy contents linked to cubic ZnS surface induce changes in the electronic-optical, steric and textural properties in the new resultant hybrid materials.


Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is an emerging technology for future cellular systems in order to accommodate more users via non-orthogonal resource allocation, especially when the number of users/devices exceeds the available degrees of freedom, resulting in an overloaded condition. To date, low density signature (LDS) and sparse code multiple access (SCMA) are two promising NOMA techniques. However, research in this area is still in its infancy and there are still several open issues in the LDS/SCMA transceiver design. This thesis aims to address some of these challenges. The contributions are summarized as follows.
1:-LDS-OFDM and low density parity check (LDPC) codes both can be represented by a bipartite graph. Inspired by their similar structure, we construct a joint sparse graph combining the single graphs of LDS-OFDM and LDPC codes, namely joint sparse graph for OFDM (JSG-OFDM). A joint detection and decoding scenario is proposed using message passing algorithm (MPA). Design guidelines for the joint sparse graph are derived through extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) chart analysis. Simulation results show that the JSG-OFDM outperforms existing techniques such as GO-MC-CDMA, LDS-OFDM and turbo structured LDS-OFDM.
2:-Due to the higher power and spectral efficiency, the filter-bank multi-carrier (FBMC) technique is a promising alternative to OFDM. We use a low density graph to model the weight matrix of intrinsic interference in the isotropic orthogonal transform algorithm (IOTA) filtered FBMC system. In addition, such graph is combined with LDS and LDPC codes to form a joint sparse graph for FBMC-IOTA (JSG-IOTA). Based on MPA, a joint detection and decoding scheme is designed for JSG-IOTA, and the joint sparse graph is optimized by EXIT chart analysis. Numerical results show the superiority of JSG-IOTA to conventional techniques.
3:-In SCMA, the processes of bit to symbol mapping and LDS spreading are combined together. We investigate multi-dimensional SCMA codebooks, and the design rules are derived to maximize the constellation shaping gain. Moreover, we propose to construct SCMA codebooks by copy-and-permute operation on protographs and three-dimensional (3D) constellation shaping. Simulation results show that SCMA outperforms LDS with high-order constellations, and the proposed optimization methods can further improve the SCMA performance.


With the nation today feeling that it is under threat, political and civic leaders have called on schools to promote patriotism by rallying around the American flag. One Supreme Court justice has maintained that society "may in self-protection utilize the educational process for inculcating those almost unconscious feelings which bind men together in a comprehending loyalty." He added, "The flag is the symbol of our national unity, transcending all internal differences.... National unity is the basis of national security." (1) Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the flag appeared on front lawns and lapels, milk trucks and billboards, in a show of solidarity. But the Supreme Court justice's galvanizing words about the flag were not written in response to current events. Rather, they were penned nearly six decades ago as part of a landmark legal battle over the American flag and the First Amendment. As World War II raged in Europe and in the Pacific, the historic U. S. Supreme Court decision would have a profound impact on the definition of freedom. The flag-salute controversy provides a rich and relevant context in analyzing the complex and sometimes competing issues of national interest and individual liberty, patriotism, and free speech. Recent threats to national security have rekindled patriotic sentiments with an intensity not seen since World War II and the Cold War era. The American flag and the Pledge of Allegiance in schools remain at the center of controversy. For example, one month after the September 11 attacks, the U.S. Secretary of Education requested some 100,000 principals to lead almost 52 million students in a nationwide, synchronized recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. (2) Additionally, more than twenty-five states have laws requiring schools to set aside time for the pledge. At least eighteen of those laws were passed after September 11, 2001. (3) Various groups and individuals have since mounted legal challenges against some of the more recent laws and local school policies which require students to stand for the pledge, (4) notify parents if students refuse to stand, or suspend teachers for displaying students' anti-war posters. (5) Every Congressional session since 1990 has attempted to pass bills to limit free speech pertaining to the flag, including the "Flag Protection" Amendment to the Constitution. This campaign began in response to the Supreme Court ruling in Texas v. Johnson (1989) regarding flag burning. (6) The Ninth U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in Newdow v. U. S. Congress (2002) that teachers can no longer lead students in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance because of the phrase "under God." (7) In opposition to this lower-court decision, Congress, state legislatures, and attorneys general of all fifty states have asked the Supreme Court to review the case. (8) Teachers and students can explore these public debates that impact the classroom, using one of the most influential periods in U.S. constitutional history to set the stage. Sixty years ago this past June, a case involving the flag salute came before the Supreme Court. In the tense climate of World War II, young Lillian Gobitas and her brother Billy had been expelled from school for refusing to pledge allegiance to the American flag. The Gobitas children were Jehovah's Witnesses, and their religious convictions against worshiping idols led them to disobey a law that made the flag salute mandatory in the schools of their town. The Supreme Court initially upheld their expulsion from school in the case Minersville School District v. Gobitis. (A federal district court clerk misspelled Gobitas.) But on Flag Day, June 14, 1943, the Supreme Court reversed itself in the landmark decision West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette. In a dramatic ruling overturning its Gobitis decision, the court struck down compulsory flag-salute laws as unconstitutional. …


The Arabidopsis PLEIOTROPIC REGULATORY LOCUS 1 (PRL1) encodes a nuclear WD40 protein. Plants carrying a prl1 insertion mutation are smaller than wild type, have shorter roots, leaves with serrated leaf margins and shorter petioles. In photosynthetic tissues of the prl1 mutant elevated glucose, sucrose, fructose, starch, anthocyanin and chlorophyll levels are detected. Loss of the PRL1 function results in hypersensitivity to glucose, sucrose and plant hormones, including cytokinin, ethylene, abscisic acid and auxin. To study the regulatory function of PRL1, we first developed molecular tools for characterization of PRL1 gene expression. A full length (4.2 kb) PRL1 promoter driving the expression of β-glucuronidase (GUS) reporter gene in fusion with coding sequences for the first 69 amino acids of PRL1 protein was found to be expressed in most tissues. To identify regulatory regions in the PRL1 gene, a set of promoter deletions was generated and propagated in cell suspension and in planta. Our results demonstrated that intragenic sequences are crucial for correct gene expression as PRL1 constructs lacking the second intron showed only low activity. A short promoter containing an alternative TATA-box, 5�-UTR and 0.5 kb coding region with the first two introns of PRL1 showed GUS activity similar to the previously characterized full-length promoter. Whereas upstream regulatory sequences (~3.5 kb) alone were not sufficient for correct mRNA expression, constructs containing the second intron proved to be fully functional in genetic complementation assays in the prl1 mutant background. Sequence analysis suggested the importance of a TC-rich region in the second intron. However, deletion of this sequence did not affect gene expression dramatically. When PRL1 was tagged with green fluorescent protein (GFP), it was found to be expressed in most cell types and localized mainly in the nucleus. To differentiate the role of PRL1 protein in organ development, a PRL1 genomic fragment and cDNA were misexpressed using the heterologous promoters of AtKNAT1; AtSTM; AtUFO; AtAS1; AtSUC2, At4CL1 and TobRB7 genes. Whereas genomic constructs complemented the prl1 phenotype in all cases, only cDNA construct driven by the AtAS1 and AtSUC2 promoters were able to complement the prl1 mutant leaf phenotype. Posttranslational regulation for PRL1 was suggested by our result indicating that the protein is unstable. The reversible proteasome inhibitor MG132 stabilized PRL1 suggesting that PRL1 is degraded in a proteasome-dependent manner. In the N-terminal region of PRL1, a destruction box (D box) motif was identified, which represents a putative degron for the Anaphase Promoting Complex/Cyclosome (APC) E3 ligase complex. Point mutations were introduced to disrupt the D box consensus sequence, in order to stabilize PRL1 protein. In cell suspension higher level of GFP-tagged PRL1 protein could be detected as potential result of stabilizing mutations, but this was not the case in three-week-old seedlings. Therefore, full understanding the control of PRL1 degradation requires further investigations. Biochemical studies revealed that PRL1 is present in a large nuclear protein complex associated with the spliceosome component AtCDC5 protein. Our data indicate that AtCDC5 interacts with various elements of the protein degradation system, such as the 20S core and 19S lid particles of the proteasome, the CSN5 subunit of the COP9 signalosome and the SCF E3 ubiqutin ligase subunit CULLIN 1. In addition, ubiquitinated proteins were detected in pull-down assays with AtCDC5 suggesting that substrates targeted to the proteasome are potentially also associated to this complex. These results indicate potential roles for PRL1 through its interaction with AtCDC5 in mRNA splicing and proteasome-dependent protein degradation. Ongoing projects aim at further understanding of the PRL1 function using genetic and site-specific mutagenesis approaches.


Humans are the only animals that attempt to make sense of their lived experiences through story. In Six Walks In The Fictional Woods, Umberto Eco says: 'to read fiction means to play a game by which we give sense to the immensity of things that happened, are happening, or will happen in the actual world' (1998: 87). In recent years there has been a spate of novels that attempt this negotiation through multi-narrations that surf time, genre hop and shift geographical location. In the March 8th Book Review section of the New York Times (2012: 11), critic Douglas Coupland coined the term 'translit' to describe such novels. If we accept Coupland's term, Hari Kunzru's Gods Without Men (2012), David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas (2004), and Steve Amsterdam's Things We Didn't See Coming (2009) might all be called translit, and so too Virginia Woolf 's Orlando (1928). Yet by choosing to travel across narrative boundaries in this way, what might a translit author offer the reader? Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, in 'The Story of "I": Illness and Narrative Identity', says, 'we lead our lives as stories, and our identity is constructed both by stories we tell ourselves and others about ourselves and by the master narratives that consciously or unconsciously serve as models for ours' (2002: 11). Through an encounter with my own creative process when writing my novel, Storyland, this paper argues that by situating an uncertain present with the imagined future and (or) the historical past, translit novels may offer a different way of paying attention to the world and hence to the construction of our identity.


Estimation of dietary sodium intake is problematic. The most accurate measure is average sodium excretion from multiple 24-hour urine collections, but such an approach is impractical. Using data from the Women's Health Initiative, Prentice et al. (Am J Epidemiol. 2017;186(9):1035-1043) assessed the relationship of calibrated estimates of sodium and potassium excretion with cardiovascular outcomes. The calibrated estimates were a function of self-reported sodium-to-potassium ratio from a food frequency questionnaire, age, body mass index, race, supplement use, smoking status, educational level, income, and aspirin use. In general, associations with outcomes using the calibrated estimates were in the expected direction: direct for the sodium-to-potassium ratio and sodium intake and indirect for potassium. The unexpected associations were an increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke with lower sodium-to-potassium ratio and sodium intake and increased risk with higher potassium intake, along with a null relationship of sodium intake with ischemic stroke. Overall, our assessment is that the authors have improved the estimation of mean dietary sodium and potassium intakes. However, more work is needed to show that calibrated estimates actually improve estimation of future clinical events. If this methodological issue can be successfully addressed, their approach has the potential to improve estimation of dietary sodium and potassium intakes in observational studies.


OBJECTIVE
Dietary intake of methyl donors such as folic acid prevents neural tube defects (NTD), but recent studies showed that it might also favor the development of asthma. In this work a possible ecological association between NTD and asthma was explored.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Data bases from Mexico and the United States (US) were reviewed to obtain information about geographical distribution (by state) and temporal trends (by year) of NTD and asthma.

RESULTS
Those states with the lowest frequency of NTD had the highest frequency of asthma, both in Mexico (rS=-0.48, p=0.005) and US (rS=-0.39, p=0.005). Temporal trends also showed an inverse correlation in Mexico (1997-2007, rS=-0.73, p=0.01) and US (1979-1998, rS=-0.91, p<0.001).

CONCLUSIONS
In both countries the frequency of asthma inversely correlated with the frequency of NTD, both in geographical distribution and annual trends, giving support to the possibility that methyl donors intake in diet or supplements is influencing the asthma frequency.


Psychosocial care has been shown to improve psychological and physiological functioning in cancer patients. However, as few as five percent of cancer patients engage in psychosocial care. Therefore, Study 1 of this dissertation developed measures of core TTM constructs (Stage of Change, Decisional Balance, SelfEfficacy) relevant for increasing engagement in psychosocial care among individuals diagnosed with cancer. Measure development entailed qualitative methods for item development and refinement followed by a series of quantitative analyses. The Stage of Change measure was validated against external constructs such as subjective present and future wellbeing. As expected, a chi-square test indicated that individuals in Action and Maintenance were significantly more likely to be in treatment than those in the preAction stages. Measures for Decisional Balance and Self-Efficacy were developed using splithalf, cross-validation procedures. In these, a series of Principal Component Analyses (PCAs) were conducted with half of the sample to narrow the item set and explore factor structure, and Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) were conducted on the second half of the sample to confirm the factor structure and item loadings. For Decisional Balance, PCA supported two, 8-item factors, and CFA indicated a twofactor correlated model was the best fit to the data. For Self-efficacy, PCA supported two, 3-item factors, and CFA further supported this structure. Multivariate analyses indicated significant stage-construct relationships. Overall results supported the validity of the measures developed and laid the foundation for applying the TTM to psychosocial treatment acceptance among cancer populations. Implications for application of the TTM to cancer populations are discussed. Given that cancer patients frequently experience considerable distress during diagnosis and treatment, Study 2 described the development and utilization of a behavioral health program for cancer patients, at a small community hospital, as well as provided preliminary results on program efficacy. This program was co-developed by individuals from a university-based clinical psychology doctoral program and a community hospital. The behavioral health program was comprised of a licensed, PhD-level clinical psychologist and seven clinical psychology doctoral students, who met with patients in order to accrue clinical hours. Patients were typically referred by their oncologists or nurses. Distress, depression, and anxiety were evaluated for a small subsample of participants. From the time the program was initiated, 238 patients between ages 18 and 95 (M = 66.4) were evaluated over a three-year period. The majority of patients (77.8%) were offered psychosocial care. Although 49.8% declined treatment, 23.6% engaged in one session and 26.6% engaged in two or more. Patients who were referred through the STAR Program® were more likely to engage in psychosocial care than those who found out about behavioral health through other means. First, distress tracking may be improved if nurses, oncologists, and behavioral health providers administer measures. Second, partnerships between clinical psychology doctoral programs and hospitals may be mutually beneficial. Third, hospitals offering cancer treatment may benefit from obtaining STAR® certification, in order to generate referrals for comprehensive cancer care. These efforts can serve as a model for other hospitals seeking to integrate behavioral health into routine cancer treatment. Together, these two studies address the scarcity of studies on the intersection of cancer and mental health. As such, this work aimed to bridge the gap between the two disciplines, in order to prevent and treat mental health problems in cancer patients. Results of Study 1 may be used to guide researchers and clinicians in designing and implementing interventions. Study 2 methods and findings may be used to develop other behavioral health programs and to benchmark other integration efforts.


This article reads the Smithsonian's annual folklife festival as a cultural product buffeted by changing material conditions and funding constraints as the United States transitioned from a Fordist industrial economy to a post-Fordist information economy. Based upon visitor interviews, promotional materials, and news reports, this article argues that the transition from a national to an international framework reconfigured the role of Appalachia in visitors' imaginations. In 2002, Appalachia represented ideals of "nation" and "home" in contrast to tantalizing and threatening foreign cultures and allowed visitors to entertain the wishful belief that the United States was a simple place peopled by simple denizens innocent of imperial ambitions.


BACKGROUND
The effect of the depth of sedation on the function of the autonomic nervous system is not well known.

OBJECTIVES
To describe the effect of level of sedation on heart rate variability as a marker of the function of the autonomic nervous system in patients receiving mechanical ventilation.

METHODS
This pilot study was part of a larger study in which sedation level was measured continuously for up to 24 hours. The sample consisted of 14 patients receiving mechanical ventilation. The R-R interval was measured continuously via electrocardiography. Sedation level was determined by using the Patient State Index and was categorized as deep (<60) or light (=60). Continuous heart rate data of 5 to 10 minutes for each sedation level for each patient were analyzed.

RESULTS
Parasympathetic activity as indicated by root mean square of successive difference of the R-R interval, the high-frequency component, and the percentage of differences of successive N-N intervals (intervals due to normal sinus depolarization) that differed more than 50 milliseconds was significantly lower for deep sedation than for light sedation. The markers indicating sympathetic activity, including the low-frequency component and the ratio of the low-frequency component to the high-frequency component, did not differ significantly between the 2 levels of sedation. Most patients were receiving benzodiazepines.

CONCLUSIONS
Deep sedation may be associated with depression of parasympathetic function in patients receiving mechanical ventilation. Use of benzodiazepines most likely contributed to this finding.


Polyembryony (PE) is a rare phenomenon in cultivated plant species. Since nineteenth century, several reports have been published on PE in maize. Reports of multiple seedlings developing at embryonic level in laboratory and studies under greenhouse and field conditions have demonstrated the presence of PE in cultivated maize (Zea mays L.). Nevertheless, there is a lack of knowledge about this phenomenon; diverse genetic mechanisms controlling PE in maize have been proposed: Mendelian inheritance of a single gene, interaction between two genes and multiple genes are some of the proposed mechanisms. On the other hand, the presence of two or more embryos per seed confers higher nutrimental quality because these grains have more crude fat and lysine than normal maize kernels. As mentioned above, there is a necessity for more studies about PE maize in order to establish the genetic mechanism responsible for this phenomenon; on the other hand, previous studies showed that PE has potential to generate specialized maize varieties with yield potential and grain quality.


Following an initial overview of theoretical and empirical currency crisis models, the paper presents an early warning system of a currency crisis in Croatia, based on two standard empirical methods of researching and forecasting a currency crisis: the signalling method and the probit model. Measuring the index of exchange market pressure has so far indicated two currency crises in Croatia: one in September 1998 and the other in August 2001. The signalling method was used for the purpose of selecting the determinants of a currency crisis (in the period from January 1996 to March 2003) from a wide range of variables that are considered the best predictors of currency crises in the period of 12 months preceding them: the share of public finances in GDP, the share of the current account balance of the balance of payments in GDP, inflation, the share of freely available bank reserves in total bank assets, the rate of external debt growth, the rate of growth of the m2 multiplier, the deviation of the real exchange rate from the trend, the share of the foreign exchange assets of CNB in M4, and the growth of domestic credit. The currency crisis composite index, expressed as a weighted average of all the previously listed currency crisis indicators, shows a considerable predicting power of currency crisis in the sample. The statistically more rigorous probit model method exposes five variables among the indicators of vulnerability, of various forms of functional specification, that best empirically describe the characteristics of the periods preceding the two currency crises in Croatia. Thus there is a real exchange rate appreciation that is below the trend, a decrease in the share of the balance of public finances in GDP, a decrease in the share of the current account balance of the balance of payments in GDP, an increase in inflation and an increase in external debt, which increase the probability of a speculative attack on the kuna. As is the case with the composite indicator, the various goodness-of-fit measures of the customised probit model used in the Croatian example indicate a very high level of predicting power regarding the currency crisis in the sample. A more detailed analysis of each of the currency crisis indicators leads to the conclusion that the two currency crises in Croatia were not of the same nature. The indicators of the first crisis can be found in the literature on the third generation currency crises which describes the correlation between banking system difficulties and the currency crisis, while the signalling variables of the second crisis can be linked to the self-fulfilling characteristics of the second generation models of currency crises.


The goal of this paper is to assess the impact of consumers' incentives to building renovations - introduced in Italy in 1997 by means of tax reimbursements - on construction sector's economic activity. Our analysis - which absent any sectional variability in the policy under scrutiny, identifies its impact by taking advantage of a longitudinal variation in its generosity within a context of no variation in the remainder of the relevant legislation and of no autonomous trends in the dependent variable - proves that reducing the number of installments of the reimbursement plans enhanced in 2003 the number of renovations by 0.026 squared meters per inhabitant. Based on this result, the recent changes occurred in the relevant legislation, which were expected to have a stimulus impact on Italian economy, can be more easily interpreted as a "restrictive" policy, thus casting serious doubts on the extremely positive comments which have been put forward at the institutional level.


We synthesized different Cu2−xS nanoparticles (CuS and Cu1.8S NPs) with localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) absorbance in the near infrared (NIR) region and applied a silica layer on the surface of Cu2−xS nanoparticles (NPs) to achieve high photo-stability and dispersion stability. These plasmonic Cu2−xS NPs have been much utilized as thermal shielding materials of energy-saving windows, due to shielding the ultraviolet (UV) and NIR regions, and transmitting the visible (Vis) region. However, this application is limited because Cu2−xS NPs show photocatalyst properties that lead to the decomposition of organic matter, and dispersing these NPs into polymer films is difficult. Herein, silica coating successfully suppressed the generation of hydroxyl radicals on the surface of CuS NPs, which caused the photo-degradation of a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) polymer. Furthermore, a silica layer with the structure similar to that of PDMS provided the dispersion stability of CuS NPs. The achievement of good photo-stability and dispersion stability in the Cu2−xS NPs was demonstrated by the thermal shielding effect using a simulated experiment. The temperature change of a box shielded with a CuS/SiO2–PDMS film (ΔT = 6.8 °C) was smaller than that when the box was shielded with common glass (ΔT = 12.7 °C) or a CuS–PDMS film (ΔT = 9.2 °C). This research introduces a new and reliable thermal shielding material.


Argentina's money and banking system was hit hard by the Great Depression. The banking sector was awash with bad assets that built up in the 1920s. Gold convertibility was suspended in December 1929, even before the crisis seriously damaged the core economies. Commonly, these events are seen as being driven by external real shocks associated with the World Depression, espite the puzzle of the timing. We argue for an alternative, or complementary, explanation of the crisis that focuses on the inside-outside money relationship in a system of fractional-reserve banking and gold-standard rules. This internal explanation for the crisis involves no timing puzzle. The tension between internal and external convertibility can be felt when banks fall into bad times, and an internal drain can feed an external drain. Such was the case after financial fragility appeared in the 191427 suspension. Resumption in 1928 was probably unsustainable due to the problems of the financial system, and a dynamic model illustrates the point well. The resolution of the crisis required lender-of-last-resort actions by the state, discharged at first by the state bank issuing rediscounts to private banks. When the state bank became insolvent, the currency board started bailing out the system using high-powered money. Thus came about the demise of the currency board and the creation of a central bank in 1935, an institution that had no pretense of a nominal-anchor commitment device and no ceiling on lender-of-last-resort actionsinnovations with painful long-run consequences for inflation performance and financial- sector health. As one of its first substantive actions, the central bank engineered a bailout of the banking system at a massive social cost. The parallels with recent developing-country crises are remarkable, and the implications for the institutional design of monetary and banking systems are considered.


Benefiting from the advent of social software, information sharing becomes pervasive. Personalized rating systems have emerged to evaluate the quality of user-generated content in open environment and provide recommendation based on users' past experience. In this paper, a trust-based rating prediction approach for recommendation in Web 2.0 collaborative learning social software is proposed. Trust network is exploited in the rating prediction scheme and a multi-relational trust metric is developed in an implicit way. Finally the evaluation of the approach is performed using the dataset of collaborative learning social software, namely Remashed.


Call for Papers/Sessions - International Medieval Congress 2016 The IMC seeks to provide an interdisciplinary forum for the discussion of all aspects of Medieval Studies. Paper and session proposals on any topic related to the European Middle Ages are welcome. However, every year, the IMC chooses a special thematic strand which - for 2016 - is 'Food, Feast & Famine'. The theme has been chosen for the crucial importance of both phenomena in social and intellectual discourse, both medieval and ...


RATIONALE, AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
Although several studies have compared patient outcomes by provider specialty in the treatment of back and joint pain, little is known about the cost-effectiveness of improving patient outcomes across specialties. This study uses a large-scale, nationally representative database to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of being treated by specific provider specialists for back and joint pain in the United States.

METHOD
The 2002-2012 Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys were used to examine patients diagnosed with back and/or joint problems seeking treatment from doctors (internal medicine, family/general, osteopathic medicine, orthopaedics, rheumatology, neurology) or other providers (chiropractor, physical therapist, acupuncturist, massage therapist). A total of 16,546 respondents aged 18 to 85 and clinically diagnosed with back/joint pain were examined. Self-reported measures of physical and mental health and general quality of life (measured by the EuroQol-5D) were compared with average total costs of treatment across medical providers.

RESULTS
Total annual treatment costs per person ranged from $397 for family/general doctors to $1205 for rheumatologists. Cost-effectiveness analysis suggests that osteopathic, family/general, internal medicine doctors and chiropractors and massage therapists were more cost-effective than other specialties in improving physical function to back pain patients. For mental health measures, family/general and orthopaedic doctors and physical therapists were more cost-effective compared with other specialties. Similar to results on physical function, family/general, osteopathic and internal medicine doctors dominated other specialties. However, only massage therapy was cost-effective among non-doctor providers in improving quality of life measures.

CONCLUSIONS
Patients seeking care for back and joint-related health problems face a wide range of treatments, costs and outcomes depending on which specialist provider they see. This study provides important insight on the relationship between health care costs and patients' perceived physical and mental health status from receiving treatment for diagnosed back/joint problems.


This paper uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of Manufactures (ASM) to examine the effects that a growth of low-valued transactions likely has on the quality of export estimates provided in the U.S. International Trade in Goods and Services (FT-990) series. These transactions, valued at less than $2,500, do not legally require the filing of export declarations. As a result, they are often not captured in the administrative records data used to construct FT-990 estimates. By comparing industry-level estimates created from the ASM to related FT-990 estimates, this paper estimates that the undercounting of low-valued transactions in the FT-990 export series increases by roughly $30 billion over the period of 1994-1997. It also finds that regression analysis provides little insight into the undercounting issue as results are primarily driven by industries whose contributions to total manufacturing exports are small.


An interview in three sessions, January-February 1989, with J. Kent Clark, emeritus professor of literature. Professor Clark, a specialist in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English politics and literature, received his BA at Brigham Young University in 1939 and his PhD at Stanford. In this interview, he discusses his Mormon background in Utah and his early interest in musical comedy. Graduate school at Stanford was interrupted by World War II; he eventually finished his dissertation (on Jonathan Swift) and received his PhD in 1950, by which time he had already joined Caltech's Humanities Division (1947) as an English instructor. He recalls the intellectual character of the division in the late forties under the chairmanship of Clinton Judy and the high caliber of the literature and history courses. Recollections of colleagues Harvey Eagleson, Roger Stanton, George McMinn, Beach Langston, William Huse, Hallett Smith. He talks about the extremely popular musical comedies he wrote and produced with Elliot Davis on campus for many years, beginning in 1954. Recollections of Caltech president Lee DuBridge and of the changes in the late 1960s as the division became the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences; greater emphasis on research and specialization, as opposed to teaching and survey courses. Professor Clark also recalls his stint as Caltech's "culture czar" and the fate of the arts program instituted in the late sixties. He discusses the admission of women (1970) and the Jenijoy La Belle tenure case, and he concludes with a discussion of his work on biographies of the late-seventeenth-century figures (and brothers) Goodwin and Thomas Wharton.


With the increased use of Electronic Control Units (ECUs) in the automotive industry, the system creation and integration becomes progressively more complex. In order to manage this issue, the AUTomotive Open System Architecture (AUTOSAR) was initiated by several of the larger automotive companies and suppliers. Their goal was to create an architecture which will increase the reusability of software, integration of solutions from multiple suppliers and improve scalability. This thesis is made in collaboration with the company CrossControl and covers questions which are specific to their interests, features the AUTOSAR standard has to offer, evaluation of the use of development tools from different vendors, how migration is supported and how the standard affects the required hardware. Among our conclusions is that the AUTOSAR goals of decoupling software application components from the hardware is met to a high degree. Secondly even though file formats are standardized it is not a seamless integration between development tools. Finally, the choice of hardware is not only affected by properties of the standard, but the current versions of tools also limit the choices.


TASS 2013 is the second edition of the experimental evaluation workshop within the SEPLN annual Conference focused on reputation analysis in Spanish language. The main objective is to foster the research on advanced algorithms and techniques for performing sentiment analysis and automatic text categorization on opinions extracted from short social media messages in Spanish. This paper fully describes, as compared to the previous edition, the proposed tasks, the contents, format and main figures of the generated corpus, the participant groups and their different approaches, and, finally, the overall results achieved and lessons learned in these two years.


BACKGROUND
Using observational data to assess the relative effectiveness of alternative cancer treatments is limited by patient selection into treatment, which often biases interpretation of outcomes. We evaluated methods for addressing confounding in treatment and survival of patients with early-stage prostate cancer in observational data and compared findings with those from a benchmark randomized clinical trial.

METHODS
We selected 14 302 early-stage prostate cancer patients who were aged 66-74 years and had been treated with radical prostatectomy or conservative management from linked Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-Medicare data from January 1, 1995, through December 31, 2003. Eligibility criteria were similar to those from a clinical trial used to benchmark our analyses. Survival was measured through December 31, 2007, by use of Cox proportional hazards models. We compared results from the benchmark trial with results from models with observational data by use of traditional multivariable survival analysis, propensity score adjustment, and instrumental variable analysis.

RESULTS
Prostate cancer patients receiving conservative management were more likely to be older, nonwhite, and single and to have more advanced disease than patients receiving radical prostatectomy. In a multivariable survival analysis, conservative management was associated with greater risk of prostate cancer-specific mortality (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.59, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.27 to 2.00) and all-cause mortality (HR = 1.47, 95% CI = 1.35 to 1.59) than radical prostatectomy. Propensity score adjustments resulted in similar patient characteristics across treatment groups, although survival results were similar to traditional multivariable survival analyses. Results for the same comparison from the instrumental variable approach, which theoretically equalizes both observed and unobserved patient characteristics across treatment groups, differed from the traditional multivariable and propensity score results but were consistent with findings from the subset of elderly patient with early-stage disease in the trial (ie, conservative management vs radical prostatectomy: for prostate cancer-specific mortality, HR = 0.73, 95% CI = 0.08 to 6.73; for all-cause mortality, HR = 1.09, 95% CI = 0.46 to 2.59).

CONCLUSION
Instrumental variable analysis may be a useful technique in comparative effectiveness studies of cancer treatments if an acceptable instrument can be identified.


The first results involving the impact of tobacco control policy on the reduction of lung cancer mortality were observed in men during the 1980s, in some high-income countries. In Brazil, beginning in the 2000s, lung cancer mortality in men began to show a statistically significant reduction. Considering the extremely high lung cancer risk attributable to smoking, primary prevention should continue to contribute to a decrease in the incidence and (thus in the mortality) from this type of cancer, which still shows an elevated casefatality rate. The Mortality Information System (SIM) in Brazil recorded 21,868 deaths in 2010 from malignant neoplasms of the trachea, bronchi, and lung (most of which specifically involved the lung). Since the mid-1980s, lung cancer has been the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in Brazilian men, and since 2006 it has been the second leading cause in Brazilian women, next only to breast cancer. The gender difference has decreased over time; the male/female mortality rate ratio was 3.2 in 1980, decreasing to 1.7 in 2010. Lung cancer rates in women have shown a strong upward trend in the last 30 years throughout Brazil, both in the State capitals and in the interior, contrary to the trend in men. Due to the long latency period between exposure to smoking and lung cancer diagnosis, this situation indirectly suggests a decrease in smoking among men beginning in the 1980s, especially in the State capitals. Meanwhile, the increase in the number of women smokers beginning in the 1970s appears to have started in the capital cities, quickly reaching women in the interior. The smoking epidemic in Brazil was thus heavily influenced by the adoption of the urban lifestyle in the small towns and countryside, easily identified among women. Particularly important are the findings from Brazilian studies on lung cancer trends by age bracket, showing that the reduction has occurred in men less than 60 years of age, thereby suggesting that smoking initiation has decreased more as compared to smoking cessation. The tobacco control policy launched by Brazil in the 1980s has achieved highly positive results, with international recognition. The prevalence of smokers among individuals 15 years or older decreased from 40.3% in males and 26.2% in females in 1989 (according to data from the National Health and Nutrition Survey) to 21.6% and 13.1%, respectively, in 2008 (based on the Special Survey on Smoking, or PETab), thus demonstrating a consistent reduction, sustained for nearly 20 years. Nevertheless, there are still major differences between the percentages of smokers according to level of schooling, which requires specific strategies to reach lower-income population groups. Brazil still faces challenges with tobacco control, and additional efforts are needed to ensure even greater reductions, especially in low-income groups. Important measures that should be guaranteed and defended throughout the country include the intensification of smoking cessation interventions in the Brazilian Unified National Health System (SUS) and the ban on smoking in closed environments.


Previous research has shown that as wind turbine rotor designs increase in diameter they approach flutter instabilities. Recent blade designs incorporate blade sweep to lower fatigue loads and increase rotor diameter for more energy production; however, the flutter margin may be reduced with sweep. In this work, the author predicted and compared the flutter speed for turbines with straight and swept blades. For the study, the author used a wind turbine analysis tool specifically developed for blade sweep (CurveFAST), in addition to a tool developed for helicopter analysis (RCAS). The results showed that CurveFAST generally predicted a higher flutter speed and RCAS predicted a lower flutter speed compared to previous research. The difference may be attributed to the unsteady aerodynamics modeling. Results for an extended radius and swept 5 MW turbine showed the flutter speed was most sensitive to the position of the blade center of mass axis. Using the selected design parameters, it was not possible to design a swept-5 MW blade with adequate flutter margin that would produce 5% more energy with the same loads as a baseline straight rotor.


In this work, spectra of energy and fluence of neutrons produced in the conditions of deformed space-time (DST), due to the violation of the local Lorentz invariance (LLI) in the nuclear interactions are shown for the first time. DST-neutrons are produced by a mechanical process in which AISI 304 steel bars undergo a sonication using ultrasounds with 20 kHz and 330 W. The energy spectrum of the DST-neutrons has been investigated both at low (less than 0.4 MeV) and at high (up to 4 MeV) energy. We could conclude that the DST-neutrons have different spectra for different energy intervals. It is therefore possible to hypothesize that the DST-neutrons production presents peculiar features not only with respect to the time (asynchrony) and space (asymmetry) but also in the neutron energy spectra.


... this is a well-written and rich resource. -- School Library Journal review of A Student's Guide to British American GenealogyThis groundbreaking series is the first to explain the how-to's of genealogical research in simple, jargon-free language. The Oryx American Family Tree Series explores how to research family history for 12 different ethnic groups. Each volume begins with an overview of the group's historical and cultural background, then guides readers through each step in tracing their own genealogical heritage, with practical advice on how to-- locate important family documents and other vital sources of information-- conduct interviews with family members and record eyewitness accounts of key events-- use the latest electronic research tools-- research your background if you are adopted or come from a nontraditional family-- preserve family history for future generationsEach volume is written in a friendly, narrative style and is extensively illustrated with full-color and black-and-white photographs. Hundreds of valuable resources unique to each ethnic group are also listed and annotated, including genealogical organizations, books, magazines, journals, videos, and special libraries and archives.The Oryx American Family Tree Series provides an easy-to-follow road map for anyone interested in tracing a family history -- from junior high and high school students to adults who require a basic primer. Every library will want to make this practical, highly readable series available to its patrons.Each volume is produced as a sturdy 6 x 9 casebound publication, 192 pages, and printed on acid-free paper.


Ray blight, caused by Phoma ligulicola var. inoxydabilis, causes substantial annual losses in Australian pyrethrum fields. Fifty-nine P. ligulicola var. inoxydabilis isolates were randomly selected from fields in three distinct geographical regions in Tasmania, Australia. Genetic diversity was characterized using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP). Based on genetic similarities of less than 99%, 56 distinct genotypes (putative clones) were observed. Mean haploid gene diversity of clone-corrected populations ranged between 0.05 and 0.31, and 0.11 and 0.32, for the RAPD and AFLP data sets, respectively. Cluster analysis indicated two distinct groups of isolates supported by all bootstrap replicates. The first cluster contained all but four isolates with representatives from all three populations. The second cluster contained two isolates from the Western and Central populations, respectively, while the remaining isolates were not able to be grouped with any distinct cluster. Analysis of the population structure suggested no evidence for spatial autocorrelation at the smallest distance classes. The presence of linkage disequilibrium was indicated regardless of population scale. Collectively, these findings provided further evidence for the absence or minor role of the teleomorph in the epidemiology of ray blight in Australian pyrethrum fields.


Over the past two decades, several attempts were made to provide best practices for e-service quality measurement and e-marketing strategy. It is always necessary to measure the performance quality of web services using different means such as E-SERVQUAL model. The customer satisfaction gets enhanced after measuring the E-service quality in a service-based company. The proposed study uses E-SERVQUAL model for measuring the service quality of an E-commerce Company. The survey questionnaire method is used to collect responses from customers of the company via email and newsletters. The results indicate that factors: efficiency, reliability, assurance and security in the e-service system are in favorable condition and factor: responsibility is not in the favorable condition that affects the customer satisfaction level of the company. Managerial implications are proposed with the help of theoretical study of e-marketing strategy 2P+2C+3S to enhance customer satisfaction of the company


Objective: Klebsiella (K.) pneumoniae is globally responsible for an alarming increase in hospital infections, especially in intensive care units (ICUs). The acquisition of resistance against a broad range of antibiotics has turned infections with this pathogen into a major worldwide healthcare concern. The aim of the study was to investigate if multistrain synbiotics can complement the current treatment options of multidrug-resistant K. pneumoniae infections. Methods: Antimicrobial susceptibility and PCR testing were used to characterize the K. pneumoniae causing a hospital outbreak. Effect of multistrain synbiotic administration on the presence of K. pneumoniae in an infected patient was investigated by microbiological testing for the pathogen. Effects of the synbiotic mixture and its individual probiotic bacteria on K. pneumoniae isolated from patients and of the K. pneumoniae subsp. pneumoniae ATCC© 700603TM reference strain were investigated by pathogen in-vitro inhibition experiments. Results: The outbreak K. pneumoniae strain was found to be resistant against a range of antibiotics including carbapenems, and to be a producer of New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase 1 (NDM-1). Treatment of a NDM-1 K. pneumoniae carrier with a multistrain synbiotic resulted in successful elimination of the pathogen from the patient. In-vitro inhibition experiments showed that the NDM-1 K. pneumoniae (and the reference strain K. pneumoniae subsp. pneumoniae, ATCC© 700603TM) could be effectively inhibited by the bacteria mixture of the synbiotic preparation. Conclusion: Findings of the study indicate for the first time that a multistrain synbiotic can add to the treatment repertoire available for the management of NDM-1 K. pneumoniae infections.


Product structure affects demand-supply chain (DSC) performance - this is almost self-evident. But how to develop better product structures? Which design alternative is the best among several options? Markets define the number of product variants needed. Therefore, limiting product variations is not a feasible solution. In our research, we made an effort to develop a method to guide product structure development and to quantify the comparison of alternative design implementations. We aimed at reducing both the operating costs and the asset costs without limiting the customer offering. This paper consists of four main parts. First, we define design principles. Second, we specify the metrics to measure how well the design principles are met in alternative product structures. Third, simulation results are described to evaluate the product structure metrics developed. Finally, based on our simulation results, we suggest design metrics that are useful to predict new product structures' implications for demand-supply chain cost efficiency. With the metrics "number of different physical modules" and "dependency index", it is possible to evaluate goodness of a product structure from the viewpoint of demand-supply chain efficiency. Therefore, the metrics can be used to guide new product development to reduce operative and asset costs in the demand-supply chain over the life cycle of a new product, without limiting customer offering.


SOX5 encodes a transcription factor involved in the regulation of chondrogenesis and the development of the nervous system. Despite its important developmental roles, SOX5 disruption has yet to be associated with human disease. We report one individual with a reciprocal translocation breakpoint within SOX5, eight individuals with intragenic SOX5 deletions (four are apparently de novo and one inherited from an affected parent), and seven individuals with larger 12p12 deletions encompassing SOX5. Common features in these subjects include prominent speech delay, intellectual disability, behavior abnormalities, and dysmorphic features. The phenotypic impact of the deletions may depend on the location of the deletion and, consequently, which of the three major SOX5 protein isoforms are affected. One intragenic deletion, involving only untranslated exons, was present in a more mildly affected subject, was inherited from a healthy parent and grandparent, and is similar to a deletion found in a control cohort. Therefore, some intragenic SOX5 deletions may have minimal phenotypic effect. Based on the location of the deletions in the subjects compared to the controls, the de novo nature of most of these deletions, and the phenotypic similarities among cases, SOX5 appears to be a dosage‐sensitive, developmentally important gene. Hum Mutat 33:728–740, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.


This thesis aims to explore the implications of reading the poetry of Roma Potiki with some of the critical writing about Mana Wahine Maori. At the intersections between the creative and the critical writings, I produce a grouping of literature that I name 'Mana Wahine Maori poetry in English'. Specifically, I contend that combining the kaupapa of Mana Wahine Maori scholarship with the poetry of Roma Potiki, and other Maori women poets, results in new readings of all the texts involved that are rich in complexities and multiplicities. In Chapter One I explain the choice of Roma Potiki's poetry as poutokomanawa for this thesis and briefly introduce some of the issues surrounding genre, canon-making and naming for Mana Wahine Maori poetry in English. Chapter Two illustrates the whakapapa of Mana Wahine Maori critical writings and explores the implications of the 'Mana' in Mana Wahine Maori poetry in English. Chapter Three considers the 'Wahine Maori' of Mana Wahine Maori poetry in English, both by examination of 'Wahine' in its New Zealand context, and by reference to a selection of Black American, Native American and First Nations, Australian Aboriginal and feminist literary critical writings. Chapter Four supports the pluralist nature of Mana Wahine Maori poetry in English by specific reference to Iwi/Hapu/Whanau contexts, urban wahine Maori contexts and wahine takatapui contexts. Finally, Chapter Five examines whether Mana Wahine Maori poetry in English is still a productive grouping when reading the works of not only other wahine Maori poets, but other wahine Maori writers generally, and I use the writings of Keri Hulme to investigate this. Therefore, I argue that naming this diverse collection of writing 'Mana Wahine Maori poetry in English' enables new kinds of readings that admit and debate the multiplicities inherent in all of these works.


Anthony Krupp, Reason's Children: Childhood in Early Modern Philosophy. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 2009- 261 pp. Ever since Philippe Aries's seminal study of I960 shed light on the historicity of childhood, significant further research has been conducted on the discursive construction of this stage of life. Focusing on the contributions early modern philosophers have made to the "intellectual history of childhood" (13), Anthony Krupp's monograph successfully reconstructs the role rationalist philosophy played in the discourses on childhood prior to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Emile. Countering the commonly-held belief that between 1630 and 1750 the child was merely seen as an irrational and certainly not as an important subject for philosophical consideration, Krupp's careful reading of Rene Descartes, John Locke, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Christian Wolff, and Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten uncovers new ground that will not only enrich the history of childhood but that of philosophy as well. The book begins by reconstructing Descartes's struggle between body and mind, the adult's quest to overcome childhood's cognitive deficiencies, and its dependency on premature sensationalism. Childhood is here considered a stage of uncertainty, instilling prejudices and false opinions in the mind because the premature being lacks reflection and reason, whose proper use is reserved for the adult mind, which detaches itself from the reign of the body. While the child is able to think, the adult is unable to remember these thoughts because there is no self-awareness of rationality in childhood. Traces of such activity that are remembered are clouded with premature judgments, for the child is too situated in the corporeal world. For Descartes, one becomes an adult by more or less shedding one's childhood. Only under the scrutiny of the Cartesian method can a few beliefs acquired in childhood be rendered acceptable to the mature mind. Compared with Descartes's radical opposition of childhood and adulthood, John Locke is considered the first philosopher who anticipated the idea of psychological development in children. His philosophy of the mind traces children's cognitive abilities, their deficient but not defective knowledge acquired through experiencing their immediate environment. Abstracting from these early sensuous experiences, the child gains access to the first ideas, which are not innate but learned. As Krupp points out, however, Locke had much more ambivalent ideas about children than commonly assumed. Krupp recalls Leibniz's critique of Locke's concept of self and how it is related to childhood, demonstrating the clash between empiricist (Locke) and rationalist (Leibniz). In the next two chapters Krupp spends considerable time reconstructing Locke's discussion of changelings and Leibniz's crusade against infant damnation. The latter 's idea of pre-established harmony between body and soul lends itself to structuring the relation between faith and reason, culminating in his claim that the souls of unbaptized infants rest in heaven. …


Internet based services, particularly asynchronous communication services, offer an environment suited to the rise of knowledge communities. Knowledge communities, or invisible colleges, have existing for a long time, but have not always had efficient ways of communication.
Knowledge communities are heavily dynamic and are always changing in their composition and also in each member interests. The intersection of the interests of a given number of elements creates the environment for the rising of a community. Nevertheless, this community will benefit not by the intersection but by the union of knowledge of these elements. On the other hand, multiple overlapping communities are generated and one persons set of interests includes some intersection with the interests of several knowledge communities.
These communities are rather fluid and dynamic and the old processes for scholarly com-munication don't seem to fairly represent these properties. Digital Libraries projects keep appearing throughout the world. Paper printed journals and proceedings are beginning to be also distributed electronically. Online scientific journals are starting to be taken seriously by scientists and by some of the major scientific publishers.
Nevertheless, online documentation per se doesn't address the dynamic behavior of knowledge communities. Also, the problem of the undiscovered public knowledge (as called by Don Swanson) still tends to remain unattended. Most of the times we have been using old processes to solve new problems.
In our opinion, to address these issues, an online scholarly publication should have the following goals:

1. Promote the generation of knowledge communities composed of elements coming from different scientific communities - promote interdisciplinarity assuming it is a key factor on discovering public knowledge,
2. Promote, develop and maintain the communication between elements of a knowledge community,
3. Narrow the gaps between, and integrate as much as possible, formal and informal communication.
In this paper we present our research project on online publishing of a scientific journal, we discuss some issues related with knowledge communities and scholarly communication, and we propose a set of characteristics an online scientific publication should have in order to accomplish the aforementioned goals.


Dog in Tanzania It is recommended that dogs and cats be vaccinated using inactivated rabies vaccines. If foxes are the sole reservoir for rabies in a country/region, vaccinating only dogs and cats will not, in itself, control wildlife rabies, but will prevent infections in domestic animals and limit transmission to humans. For this reason, vaccination is compulsory in some countries, sometimes only in rabies-endemic regions. Other approaches leave the decision to the owner, but (...)


Property tax provides a significant amount of revenue to local governments. In order to maintain a just tax system, the tax base shall be constantly re-valued and potential tax inequity monitored. Valuation of real properties for tax purposes is in nature a mass appraisal and an method is needed to detect the potential appraisal inequity among properties. Regression analysis has been employed to measure the inequity of property tax and proven to be useful. However, the recent addition of geographic information system (GIS) to the analytical tool box seems to be promising, particularly in processing spatial data. This paper explores the benefits of GIS in evaluating inequity of property tax through its unique functions. With the help of a data set of sale prices and their corresponding assessed values for taxation, the assessment ratio is estimated for individual properties. All these assessment ratios are identified as points in space through address-matching. Central tendency and dispersion of these points that represent assessment ratio are estimated. Through the distribution of assessment ratios, the properties whose ratios are far away from the average figure can be easily identified in location. The spatial data will be further analysed by other GIS functions and hope to uncover more information that is ignored in traditional non-spatial analytical methods.


Neurodegenerative disorders are related to the progressive functional loss of the brain, often connected to emotional and physical disability and, ultimately, to death. These disorders, strongly connected to the aging process, are becoming increasingly more relevant due to the increase of life expectancy. Current pharmaceutical treatments poorly tackle these diseases, mainly acting only on their symptomology. One of the main reasons of this is the current drug development process, which is not only expensive and time-consuming but, also, still strongly relies on animal models at the preclinical stage. Organ-on-a-chip platforms have the potential to strongly impact and improve the drug screening process by recreating in vitro the functionality of human organs. Patient-derived neurons from different regions of the brain can be directly grown and differentiated on a brain-on-a-chip device where the disease development, progression and pharmacological treatments can be studied and monitored in real time. The model reliability is strongly improved by using human-derived cells, more relevant than animal models for pharmacological screening and disease monitoring. The selected cells will be then capable of proliferating and organizing themselves in the in vivo environment thanks to the device architecture, materials selection and bio-chemical functionalization. In this review, we start by presenting the fundamental strategies adopted for brain-on-a-chip devices fabrication including e.g., photolithography, micromachining and 3D printing technology. Then, we discuss the state-of-theart of brain-on-a-chip platforms including their role in the study of the functional architecture of the brain e.g., blood-brain barrier, or of the most diffuse neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. At last, the current limitations and future perspectives of this approach for the development of new drugs and neurodegenerative diseases modeling will be discussed.


Atomic displacement parameters (ADPs) obtained by high resolution X-ray diffraction studies on single crystals of proteins represent the mean square displacement of atoms about their mean position. The relationship between the flexibility of the protein molecule and its conformation could be examined by a careful analysis of these ADPs. This communication presents the results of such a statistical analysis. It is shown that the ADPs are related to side chain conformations and are low for energetically favourable rotamers. Examination of the dependence of ADPs on non-planar distortions of the peptide geometry as represented by w angle reveals that the parameters depend on the direction of non-planar distortion. Those conformations with w larger than the ideal trans geometry (180°–190°) are more flexible when compared to those with w < 180° (170° 180°). The average ADP of a peptide unit depends weakly on the Ramachandran angles at the corresponding Ca atom. Thus, the flexibility of different segments of the polypeptide appears to be sensitive to the conformation of the side chains as well as the main chain.


Peer-to-peer systems have seen a tremendous growth in the last few years and peer-to-peer traffic makes a major fraction of the total traffic seen in the Internet. The dominating application for peer-to-peer is file sharing. Some of the most popular peer-to-peer systems for file sharing have been Napster, FastTrack, BitTorrent, and eDonkey, each one counting a million or more users at their peak time.
 We got interested in kad since it is the only DHT that has been part of very popular peer-to-peer system with several million simultaneous users. As we have been studying kad over the course of the last 18 months we have been both, fascinated and frightened by the possibilities kad offers. Mounting a Sybil attack is very easy in kad and allows to compromise the privacy of kad users, to compromise the correct operation of the key lookup and to mount DDOS with very little resources.
 In this paper, we will relate some of our findings and point out how kad can be used and misused.


Unlike the "Declaration of Rights" annexed to many state constitutions, the ten amendments added to the federal Constitution in 1791 have no formal title at all. It is only by cultural tradition that Americans refer to these provisions as our national "Bill of Rights." Until recently, most scholars assumed that this tradition could be traced back to the moment of ratification. Over the last decade or so, however, a number of scholars have challenged this assumption. These "Bill of Rights revisionists" claim that Americans did not commonly refer to the first ten amendments as "the bill of rights" until the twentieth century. Prior to that, most Americans either did not believe they had a national bill of rights or they would have more likely pointed to the Declaration of Independence as the country's "bill of rights" than to the 1791 amendments. If the revisionists are right, then a substantial portion of constitutional historical scholarship is shot through with historical error, in particular scholarship supporting the incorporation of the Bill of Rights as part of the Fourteenth Amendment.

This essay examines the historical record in order to determine whether the claims of the Bill of Rights revisionists are correct. It presents the results of an exhaustive investigation of political, legal and cultural references to the "bill of rights" from the time of the Founding to Reconstruction (and beyond). These references, most of which are presented here for the first time, suggest that the revisionist claims about the ten amendments are false. Long before the twentieth century, and decades before Reconstruction, Americans commonly referred to the first ten constitutional amendments as "the Bill of Rights." Moreover, references to the 1791 amendments as the national bill of rights vastly outnumber historical references to the Declaration of Independence as a "bill of rights," and indicate that nineteenth century Americans were not at all confused about the meaning and content of their national "Bill of Rights." If any "revision" is in order, it is the need to (1) revisit and revise our understanding of the original theoretical role played by the Bill of Rights at the time of the Founding and (2) recognize the remarkably broad coalition of Americans who, by the time of Reconstruction and the Fourteenth Amendment, embraced an altogether different theory of the 1791 amendments.


Lithium ion battery (LIB) waste is increasing globally and contains an abundance of valuable metals that can be recovered for re-use. This study aimed to evaluate the recovery of metals from LIB waste leachate using hydrogen sulfide generated by a consortium of sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) in a lactate-fed fluidised bed reactor (FBR). The microbial community analysis showed Desulfovibrio as the most abundant genus in a dynamic and diverse bioreactor consortium. During periods of biogenic hydrogen sulfide production, the average dissolved sulfide concentration was 507 mg L−1 and the average volumetric sulfate reduction rate was 278 mg L−1 d−1. Over 99% precipitation efficiency was achieved for Al, Ni, Co, and Cu using biogenic sulfide and NaOH, accounting for 96% of the metal value contained in the LIB waste leachate. The purity indices of the precipitates were highest for Co, being above 0.7 for the precipitate at pH 10. However, the process was not selective for individual metals due to simultaneous precipitation and the complexity of the metal content of the LIB waste. Overall, the process facilitated the production of high value mixed metal precipitates, which could be purified further or used as feedstock for other processes, such as the production of steel.