Throughout their lifetimes, consumers use financial service professionals (FSPs) to achieve important financial goals and ensure financial wellbeing, often turning to FSPs as their levels of income and investable assets necessitate professional guidance. This study evaluates the impact of consumer perceptions of advisors' financial designations/credentials on rate of compensation to the FSP when controlling for consumer age, income, and investable assets. It further evaluates the impact of consumer perceptions of advisors' financial designations/credentials on consumers' perceived value received when controlling for consumer age, income, and investable assets. Using data from Advisor Impact's 2014 "Economics of Loyalty Research" survey, this study finds that consumers who value designations, as well as those with higher incomes and investable assets, pay advisors more than those who do not. The study also finds that consumers in older age groups tend to pay less to their advisors than the youngest age group, possibly indicating less of a need for financial advice. As a potential explanation for why those who value designations tend to pay more to their FSPs, the results regarding the perception of value received suggest that consumers who value designations also perceive greater value in return for the fees paid to their FSP. For advisors, these results provide support for the acquisition of designations as a means for greater perceived value on behalf of the consumer, and ultimately, higher levels of compensation.


The focus of this thesis is the forcing mechanisms incorporated with salinity transport for the Lower St. Johns River. There are two primary analyses performed: a historical data analysis of primary forcing mechanisms to determine the importance of each individual influence, and a tidal hydrodynamics analysis for the Lower St. Johns River to determine the required tidal constituents for an accurate resynthesis. This thesis is a preliminary effort in understanding salinity transport for the Lower St. Johns River for engineering projects such as the dredging of navigation canals and freshwater withdrawal from the river. The analysis of the physical forcing mechanisms is performed by examining the impact of precipitation, tides, and wind advection on historical salinity measurements. Three 30-day periods were selected for the analysis, to correspond with representative peak, most-variable, and low-salinity periods for 1999. The analysis displays that wind advection is the dominant forcing mechanism for the movement of salinity over a 30 day duration; however all mechanisms have an impact at some level. The dominant forcing mechanism is also dependent on the period of record examined where tidal influence is vital for durations of hours to a day, while freshwater inflow has more significance over a longer period due to climatological variation. A two-dimensional finite difference numerical model is utilized to generate a one month tidal elevations and velocities simulations that incorporates geometry, nonlinear advection and quadratic bottom friction. Several combinations of tidal constituents are extracted from this modeled tidal signal to investigate which combination of tidal constituents produces an accurate tidal resynthesis for the Lower St. Johns River. The analysis displays the need for 39 total tidal harmonic constituents to accurately resynthesize the original tidal signal. Additionally, due to the nonlinear nature of shallow water, the influence of the overtides for upstream or downstream


The premise of this commentary is that the terms 'radical' and 'radicalisation' need to be defended. These terms are being unfairly bracketed with 'violent extremism'. Extremist atrocities, whether implemented by terrorist groups (e.g. destruction of the Twin Towers) or governments (e.g. Hitler's final solution), are just those: atrocities to be condemned. Radicalism, however, is a desire to bring about substantive change, and in its simplest form this term is divorced from any moral or ethical connotation. I will contextualize this debate using the example of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the former University College London (UCL) student charged with attempting to blow up a US airliner. A discussion of what is meant by radicalisation will follow, after which some examples of well-known radicals will be presented. Finally, I shall argue that contemporary society is 'bust' and that we need radical ideas and radical people in order to 'fix' our future society. As such, we need radicalisation within society in general and universities in particular.


The thesis explores the history of the Scottish Enlightenment in its transatlantic context and, in particular, the diffusion of Scottish Enlightenment moral philosophy in late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Scotland and the United States. This project is the first full-scale attempt to examine the tensions between late eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment intellectual culture and counter-Enlightenment interests in the Atlantic World. My comparative study focuses on two of the most influential university educators in Scotland and the newly-founded United States. These are Dugald Stewart at the University of Edinburgh and Samuel Stanhope Smith at the College of New Jersey (which later became Princeton University). Stewart and Smith are ideal for a transatlantic comparative project of this kind, because of their close parallels as moral philosophy professors at the University of Edinburgh (1785-1810) and the College of New Jersey (1779-1812) respectively; their conflicts with ecclesiastical factions and counter-Enlightenment policies in the first decade of the nineteenth century; and finally their uses and adaptations of Scottish Enlightenment moral philosophy. The broader question I address is how the diffusion and fate of Scottish Enlightenment moral thought was affected by the different institutional and, above all, religious contexts in which it was taught. Dugald Stewart's and Stanhope Smith's interpretations of central philosophical themes reflected their desire to improve the state of society by educating enlightened and virtuous young men who would later enter careers in public life. In doing so, their teaching of natural religion and metaphysics brought them into conflict with religious factions, namely American religious revivalists on Princeton's Board of Trustees and members of the Scottish ecclesiastical Moderate party, who believed that revealed religion should provide the foundation of education. The controversies that emerged from these tensions did not develop in an intellectual vacuum. My research illustrates how the American and Scottish reception of the French Revolution; the 1793-1802 Scottish Sedition Trials; Scottish and American 'polite' culture; Scottish secular and ecclesiastical politics; American Federalist and Republican political debates; American student riots between 1800 and 1807; and American religious revivalism affected Smith's and Stewart's programmes of moral education. While I identify this project as an example of cultural and intellectual history, it also advances interests in the history of education, ecclesiastical history, transnational history, and comparative history. The thesis has two main parts. The first consists of three chapters on Dugald Stewart's system of moral education: the circumstances in which Stewart developed his moral education as a modern version of Thomas Reid's so-called Common Sense philosophy, Stewart's applied ethics, and finally, his defence of the Scottish Enlightenment in the context of the 1805 John Leslie case. Complementing the chronology and themes in part one, the second part consists of three chapters on Smith's programme of moral education: the circumstances that gave rise to Smith's creation of the Princeton Enlightenment, Smith's applied ethics, and finally, Smith's defence of his system of moral education in the contexts of what he saw as two converging counterEnlightenment factions (religious revivalists and rebellious students) at Princeton. In examining these areas, I argue that Dugald Stewart and Samuel Stanhope Smith attempted to systematically sustain Scottish Enlightenment ideas (namely Scottish philosophy) and values ('Moderatism') against counter-Enlightenment movements in higher education.


Closely related species are key models to investigate mechanisms leading to reproductive isolation and early stages of diversification, also at the genomic level. The brittle star cryptic species complex Ophioderma longicauda encompasses the sympatric broadcast‐spawning species C3 and the internal brooding species C5. Here, we used de novo transcriptome sequencing and assembly in two closely related species displaying contrasting reproductive modes to compare their genetic diversity and to investigate the role of natural selection in reproductive isolation. We reconstructed 20 146 and 22 123 genes for C3 and C5, respectively, and characterized a set of 12 229 orthologs. Genetic diversity was 1.5‐2 times higher in C3 compared to C5, confirming that species with low parental investment display higher levels of genetic diversity. Forty‐eight genes were the targets of positive diversifying selection during the evolution of the two species. Notably, two genes (NHE and TetraKCNG) are sperm‐specific ion channels involved in sperm motility. Ancestral sequence reconstructions show that natural selection targeted the two genes in the brooding species. This may result from an adaptation to the novel environmental conditions surrounding sperm in the brooding species, either directly affecting sperm or via an increase in male/female conflict. This phenomenon could have promoted prezygotic reproductive isolation between C3 and C5. Finally, the sperm receptors to egg chemoattractants differed between C3 and C5 in the ligand‐binding region. We propose that mechanisms of species‐specific gamete recognition in brittle stars occur during sperm chemotaxis (sperm attraction towards the eggs), contrary to other marine invertebrates where prezygotic barriers to interspecific hybridization typically occur before sperm–egg fusion.


The management of environmental hazards in the U.S.-Mexican borderlands presents a unique challenge. Two very dissimilar economic, social, and political communities are set along side one another, forming a dynamic region defined by cultural pluralism, migration and rapid growth. At the same time, marked differences in economic resources, administrative and political resources, and social values complicate the task of managing the border environment. Environmental hazards in the borderlands range across a wide issue spectrum, including contamination of air and water resources as well as the problem of hazardous wastes. Each of these issues requires binational cooperation in the form of planning, management, and ameliorative action. Neither country is capable of maintaining a sound environment acting strictly within its domestic jurisdiction. The difficulty entailed in monitoring, regulating, and eliminating threats to habitation and the physical environment demands a continuous and coordinative process. This would include participation in international treaties and agreements to routine cooperation among domestic agencies of each nation in gathering and disseminating information as well as implementing solutions to identified hazards in the border arca. Both the United States and Mexico have acknowledged their commitment to environmental protection, both nationally and with respect to the shared border region. Despite this base, however, disparities in development, resources, and administration hamper cooperative endeavors in dealing with a broad set of issues on the borderlands' environmental agenda.


The correlation between solar radiation and sea surface temperature (SST) and growth was assessed along a latitudinal gradient. Extension rate and skeletal density were both correlated with calcification rate, indicating that calcium carbonate deposition was allocated evenly between skeletal density and linear extension. Unlike most studies on other tropical and temperate corals, in which calcification was positively correlated with solar radiation and SST, in the present study calcification was not correlated with solar radiation, whereas it was negatively correlated with SST. We hypothesize that photosynthesis of the symbiotic algae of Balanophyllia europaea is inhibited at high temperatures, consequently causing an inhibition of calcification. The regressions between calcification and SST predicted that the calcification of B. europaea would be depressed at 20.5–21.0°C mean annual SST. The scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change conclude that by 2100, SST will exceed this physiological threshold for most of the populations considered in this study. This study comprises the first field investigation of the relationships between environmental parameters and calcification of a Mediterranean coral and highlights the risks of losing Mediterranean marine biodiversity over the course of future decades.


Using monthly means for 1990-1999, we assess the systematic biases in temperature and humidity, and the surface energy and water budgets of both ERA-40, and the climate of the NASA-DAO atmospheric finite-volume general circulation model (fvGCM) for five Mississippi sub-basins. We compare ERA-40 and the fvGCM with basin averages of surface observations of 2 temperature, humidity and precipitation, the river basin estimates for the hydrological balance from Maurer et al. [2002], and the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) retrieved skin temperature and surface radiation fluxes. We show the role of the soil water analysis in ERA-40, which generally supplies water in summer and removes it in winter and spring. The ERA-40 snow analysis increments are a significant contribution to the (smaller) frozen water budget. Compared with National Climate Data Center (NCDC) observations of screen temperature, ERA-40 generally has a relatively small ( 1K) positive temperature bias in all seasons for the Mississippi basins, while the fvGCM has a large cold bias in temperature in winter. The ISCCP skin temperature estimate is generally high in winter and a little low in summer, compared to ERA-40 and the NCDC screen level temperature. For the western basins, summer precipitation is high in the fvGCM, while for the eastern basins it is high in ERA-40 (in 12-24 hour forecasts after spinup). Summer evaporation is higher in the fvGCM than in ERA-40; while winter evaporation has a high bias in ERA-40, leading to a corresponding high bias in specific humidity. Net shortwave radiation probably has a high bias in the fvGCM in summer. The seasonal cycle of incoming shortwave is much flatter in ERA-40 than the ISCCP data, suggesting that the reanalysis may have too much reflective cloud in summer, and too little in the cooler seasons. The temperature biases at the surface in both the fvGCM and the ISCCP data clearly have a negative impact on the surface long-wave radiation fluxes, although the bias in the net long-wave flux is rather less.


We've made a mistake, urges Bruce Ackerman. We've failed to notice, or have forgotten, that ours is a dualist democracy: ordinary representatives passing their statutes are in fact the democratic inferiors of We the People, who at rare junctures appear on the scene and affirm new constitutional principles. (Actually, he claims in passing that we have a three-track democracy.)' Dwelling lovingly on dualism, Ackerman doesn't quite forget to discuss democracy, but he comes close. I want to raise some questions about the democratic credentials of Ackerman's view. Not, perhaps, the ones he anticipates. So I don't mean to argue that the Constitution places illicit restraints on popularly elected assemblies: I find the so-called countermajoritarian difficulty at least as boring as does Ackerman. (More generally, any legal theory promising to relax our obsessive focus on appellate review is to be applauded, though ironically, this one turns out to be very much about that after all.) Nor do I mean to cast Publius as the fiend who subverts the democratic promise of the Revolution in the name of class interest: I find Beard and his legacy at least as mischievous as does Ackerman. (Though Arendt's quirky misreading of Athenian democracy is a dubious remedy.) Democracy, to say something screamingly obvious, is a complex ideal. I am historicist enough to believe that a fully adequate account of democracy must in part be a critical history not just of the concept, not just of some classic texts of democractic theory, but of high politics and social practices as well. Since I can't provide that history here, I will instead have to rely on an appeal to the reader's linguistic intuitions and baldly assert that the complexities I discuss here are indeed internal to democratic theory.


Utilizing resilience theory and original research conducted on fifty academically resilient low socioeconomic status students of color, this article presents specific objectives and values institutions of higher learning can adopt and emphasize to increase the retention and graduation of their most statistically at-risk students. Major findings and suggestions include: constantly build students' self-efficacy; help students realistically appraise their own strengths and weaknesses; encourage help seeking tendencies; and provide clear linkages between academic success and future economic security. According to a recent report from National Center for Education Statistics , by the year 2022, White and Asian students will increase their attendance on college campuses by 7%, whereas the rate will be 26% for African American students and 27% for Hispanics, two groups with disproportionately higher poverty rates (Hussar & Bailey, 2014). These students will continue to make up larger and larger percentages of students on college campuses nationwide. While these can be viewed as positive and exciting forecasts, they bring with them new sets of challenges. Given the changing racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic demographics of the United States, as well as shifts in expectations as to who seeks a college degree, a majority of institutions of higher education are struggling with one essential question: How do we retain and graduate greater numbers of ethnic minorities and students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds? The consequences of not meeting this challenge can be viewed on both a macro and micro level.  From a societal perspective, unemployment rates, reliance on public social service agencies, incarceration rates, and America's place in the global hierarchy are all either directly or indirectly linked with the successful education of working class and poor students, many of whom are ethnic minorities. On a more local level, as more and more first generation college students enter colleges across the country (Jehangir, 2010), institutions are increasingly recognizing the value of effectively meeting their needs (Bastedo & Gumport, 2003), for if they don't, current and future enrollment targets may not be met.  Furthermore, those with the most influence over the potential success of these students, college faculty, already acknowledge the need for, and desire, effective ways of meeting their needs (Erisman & Looney 2007). The difficulties colleges face in effectively teaching and graduating lower socioeconomic status students, often from ethnic minority backgrounds, continues to be a pressing issue. However, the issue is not a new one. Back in the early 1970s K. Patricia Cross (1971) famously talked specifically of the inability of colleges to adjust to the needs of the changing student bodies of the time. Since then, the numbers of poorer and first generation college students have only increased. Furthermore, many noted researchers in the field still acknowledge that not enough is known about how low socioeconomic college students experience and manage college life (Pascarella, Pierson, Wolniak, & Terenzini, 2004;  Pike & Kuh, 2005). The rest of this paper will further define and explore the parameters of these issues and then utilize original research on academically resilient students to provide specific approaches faculty can adopt to increase the degree of resilience and persistence among first generation college students. These suggestions will be categorized and explained, then justified through related research literature.


This paper reports on our experience with data structure design for systems having both multiple CPU cores and a programmable graphics card. We integrate our data structures into the game-like application OpenSteerDemo and compare our data structures on two pc-systems. One System has a relative fast single core CPU and slower GPU, whereas the other one uses a high-end GPU with a slower multi core CPU. We design two grid based data structures for effectively solving the k-nearest neighbor problem. The static grid uses grid cells of uniform size, whereas the dynamic grid does not rely on given grid cells, but creates them at runtime. The static grid is designed for fast data structure creation, whereas the dynamic grid is designed to provide high GPU simulation performance. The high performance is achieved by taking advantage of the GPU memory system at the cost of a more complex construction algorithm. Our experiments show that with a slower CPU the algorithm for creating the dynamic grid becomes the bottleneck and no overall performance increase is possible compared to the static grid. This also holds true when the simulation is run with a faster CPU and a slower GPU, even though the breakeven point is different. We experimented with data structure creation on the GPU, but the performance of the static grid is not feasible. The dynamic grid cannot be created on the GPU due to the lack of recursive function support. We provide a dynamic grid creation algorithm, which uses multiple CPU cores. This algorithm is slower than its sequential counterpart due to the parallelization overhead.


The static behavior of a permafrost type foundation, for a typical artificial island in the Arctic, is determined using endochronic axisymmetric finite element analysis. Endochronic constants are obtained by curve fitting an experimentally determined stree-strain curve for frozen sand. The analytical results of endochronic theory are found to compare very well with those obtained by using the computer program, ADINA (Automatic Dynamic Incremental Nonlinear Analysis), with a curve description model for stress-strain behavior. Some of the recent criticisms of the earlier endochronic formulations and the modifications made to refine the analysis are discussed briefly. 15 refs.


The evolution of the network towards 5G implies a challenge for the
infrastructure. The targeted services and the full deployment of
virtualization in all segments of the network will be possible and
necessary to provide some traffic-specific services near the next
generation base stations where the radio is processed. Thus, service
function chains that currently reside in the infrastructure of the
Network operator (like, e.g. the Expeded Packet Gateway(EPG)) will be
extended to the radio access network (RAN). In this draft we provide a
non-exhaustive but representative list of service functions in 4G and
5G networks, and explore different scenarios for service-aware
orchestration. We base on the problem statement [RFC7498] and
architecture framework [RFC7665] of the SFC working group, as well on
the existing mobile networks use cases [I-D.ietf-sfc-use-case-
mobility] and the requirement gathering process of the ITU-R IMT 2020
[1] and different initiatives in Europe [2], Korea [3] and China [4]
to anticipate network elements that will be needed in 5G networks. We
then explore service-aware orchestration scenarios identifying where
different network functions can be deployed in a fully virtualised
future network, where both the core and the edge provide advanced
virtualisation capabilities.


Robotic cardiac operations evolved from minimally invasive operations and offer similar theoretical benefits, including less pain, shorter length of stay, improved cosmesis, and quicker return to preoperative level of functional activity. The additional benefits offered by robotic surgical systems include improved dexterity and degrees of freedom, tremor-free movements, ambidexterity, and the avoidance of the fulcrum effect that is intrinsic when using long-shaft endoscopic instruments. Also, optics and operative visualization are vastly improved compared with direct vision and traditional videoscopes. Robotic systems have been utilized successfully to perform complex mitral valve repairs, coronary revascularization, atrial fibrillation ablation, intracardiac tumor resections, atrial septal defect closures, and left ventricular lead implantation. The history and evolution of these procedures, as well as the present status and future directions of robotic cardiac surgery, are presented in this review.


The contours of our federal system are under constant negotiation, as governments construct the scope of one another's interests and powers while pursuing their agendas. For our institutions to manage these dynamics productively, we must understand the value the system is capable of generating. But no single conception of this value exists, because the virtues and costs of any particular federal-state relationship, in any given federalism controversy, will appear different depending on perspective: the federal, state, and even local will each perceive their own advantages. And none of these conceptions will map perfectly onto the people's perceptions. In this essay, I attempt to answer the question of what federalism might be good for from each of these perspectives by considering how it has structured various regulatory and social controversies in recent years on matters such as immigration, marriage equality, drug policy, and health care reform. I focus on the administrative and enforcement judgments that each of these debates has required, in order to illuminate the discretionary spaces in which much of the work of federalism occurs. I argue that the value of the system common to all participants and that should govern the negotiation of inter-governmental relations is its creation of a framework for ongoing negotiation of differences large and small. In the spirit of this Feature, I emphasize that having many institutions with lawmaking power enables overlapping political communities to work toward national integration, while preserving governing spaces for meaningful disagreement when consensus fractures or proves elusive. This essay is part of a symposium in the Yale Law Journal exploring the concept of "Federalism as the New Nationalism," with contributions by Heather Gerken, Alison LaCroix, Abbe Gluck, and Jessica Bulman-Pozen.


Location-based Services (LBS) afford a means of positioning, tracing and tracking individuals and objects, for purposes such as emergency management, employee monitoring, and consumer convenience. This paper reviews the present LBS setting and expected developments in this space, with a particular focus on the implications for Australian research and regulatory efforts. The origins of LBS in the mobile-commerce field are explored, incorporating an appraisal of the underlying positioning technology, the stakeholders in the LBS value chain, and the regulatory environment in which these services are employed. There is an evident disparity between the implementation of LBS technologies and the introduction of suitable regulatory provisions, substantiated through limited consideration of the social and ethical implications and the practical safeguards required to govern LBS usage. This paper provides an approach for studying LBS regulation in general, and highlights the need for an interdisciplinary and comprehensive approach to fulfil the established gap in LBS literature and research. It also alludes to the importance of such an approach in the Australian context, and identifies research progress to date.


This paper presents an approach that enable non-specialist to generate an interactive 3D scene by using simplified language descriptions. This prototype system is based on the integration of advances in computer graphics and text-to-visualization technology to generate 3D virtual environment. We explore the potential and the limitations of the binding between VRML and Java technologies for generating the interactive virtual worlds, and especially focus on how to integrate Java, VRML and XML technologies to overcome the limitations and to construct our graphic representation system.


Every device equipped with a digital camera has a unique identity. This phenomenon is essentially due to a systematic noise component of an imaging sensor, known as photo-response non-uniformity (PRNU) noise. An imaging sensor inadvertently introduces this noise pattern to all media captured by that imaging sensor. The procedure for extracting PRNU noise has been well studied in the context of photographic images, however, its extension to video has so far been neglected. In this work, considering H.264 coding standard, we describe a procedure to extract sensor fingerprint from non-stabilized videos. The crux of our method is to remove a filtering procedure applied at the decoder to reduce blockiness and to use macroblocks selectively when estimating PRNU noise pattern. Results show that our method has a potential to improve matching performance significantly.


Drug testing in the workplace has received substantial attention in media publication and in management literature, particularly in those publications targeting practitioners (see, for example, Anderson, 1986; Bloch, 1986; Green, 1989; Murphy, 1989; Redeker and Segal, 1989). Taken as a whole, the drug testing literature views drug testing technology as a common sense way to control drug use in the workplace (Angarola, 1985; Shults, 1986; Stone and Kotch, 1989). The pro-testing tone of these articles reflects the popularity of drug testing. Belief in the efficacy of drug testing appears to be shared by workers as well as managers (The Denver Post, 1986). Suggestive of the ubiquitous acceptance and use of drug testing is this statistic: more than half of U.S. firms now test employees for drug use (U.S. News & World Report, 1991). It seems reasonable to assume that organizations have some motivation for undertaking such ambitious drug testing programs. If so, what are organizations trying to accomplish and how effective is drug testing in attaining their goals? Our review of the literature suggests two possible objectives. One goal, and the one most often stated, involves increasing organizational efficiency and/or productivity, often by reducing absenteeism, safety problems and the like. It is not the purpose of this study to examine the extent to which drug testing accomplishes such goals. However, we feel it important to point out that recent research and commentary by Murphy (1989), Redeker and Segal (1989), Bogdanich (1987), and Morgan (1989) suggest that this issue is far more complex than is commonly assumed. Much additional work remains to be done before we can unequivocally state that drug testing brings beneficial results to the organization (for additional evidence, see Green, 1989; Kane, 1991; McDaniel, 1988; Parish, 1989; Segal, 1991; Winslow, 1990; Wish, 1990; Zwerling et al., 1990). A second goal of drug testing is one which is less frequently stated, but the one which involves the focal issue of this research. Implied in a number of commentaries is the idea that drug testing represents an objective, simple way to deal with the complex problem of drug usage. What is suggested, in effect, is that drug testing represents an objectively-based alternative to depending on the supervisor's subjective judgments in a potential drug usage situation. Presumably, the drug test will provide a clear-cut answer to questions of abuse by an employee and therefore will prevent or deter the employee from challenging any disciplinary action which results. Note, as well, that unionized workers are heavily subject to drug testing and that drug testing will, by its nature as a condition of employment, become an issue where unions are concerned. In the manufacturing sector, the main arena of labor arbitration, 64 percent of the firms test employees for drugs (U.S. News & World Report, 1991). What's more, LeRoy (1991) found that union workers are more subject to drug testing than the total workforce (28.8 percent versus 20 percent). We suspect that a line is drawn between unions and employers--unions favor limits on drug testing while employers want to expand its use. What is suggested, therefore, is that organizations may be moving to drug testing, at least in part, because they hope to find an approach to handling situations involving drugs that will be defensible in arbitrations. On the surface, at least, such hopes seem well founded. Drug testing is objective. Management simply administers the test and determines that drugs either are or are not present in the employee's body. But is this enough? We believe that to represent a grievance-proof solution, drug testing must itself pass other tests. First, it must be shown to be valid, and, second, it must be administered in a fair and equitable way. It is apparent that these issues are interrelated and that validity may be an underlying issue when considering the fairness of the process, since a process which relies on an invalid test cannot logically be considered fair. …


Don't leave me alone with my thoughts Nowadays, we enjoy any number of inexpensive and readily accessible stimuli, be they books, videos, or social media. We need never be alone, with no one to talk to and nothing to do. Wilson et al. explored the state of being alone with one's thoughts and found that it appears to be an unpleasant experience. In fact, many of the people studied, particularly the men, chose to give themselves a mild electric shock rather than be deprived of external sensory stimuli. Science, this issue p. 75 Can we ever be alone, and would we like it if we were? In 11 studies, we found that participants typically did not enjoy spending 6 to 15 minutes in a room by themselves with nothing to do but think, that they enjoyed doing mundane external activities much more, and that many preferred to administer electric shocks to themselves instead of being left alone with their thoughts. Most people seem to prefer to be doing something rather than nothing, even if that something is negative.


The seismic industry's conventional wisdom teaches that the temporal and spatial sample rates used when collecting seismic data place a hard limit on the maximum recoverable frequencies. This conventional wisdom is wrong. The data-collection Nyquist frequencies (time and space) do not need to limit the maximum frequencies in the final migrated stack volumes. This is not to say that the sampling theorem is wrong but that we as an industry have not optimally applied it since the advent of digital data collection and processing. Normal Neidell and Daniel Wisecup have previously told us of "the errors of our ways," but few have listened. What I present here is similar to Wisecup's method. The goal of this article is to provide simple examples that "even a geologist could explain to a teenager" as to why the sample rate does not necessarily limit the maximum recoverable frequency. It is directed at geophysics students (and their professors) so that they might have a new, enlightened "conventional wisdom" compa...


This paper explores a monetary-policy model with habit formation for consumers, in which consumers' utility depends in part on current consumption relative to past consumption. The empirical tests developed in the paper show that one can reject the hypothesis of no habit formation with tremendous confidence, largely because the habit-formation model captures the gradual hump-shaped response of real spending to various shocks. The paper then embeds the habit-consumption specification in a monetary-policy model and finds that the responses of both spending and inflation to monetary-policy actions are significantly improved by this modification.


Despite some historically conditioned differences between three Eastern-Baltic cultures, none of them seems to have had sufficient defence mechanisms to develop any substantial resistance to powerful cultural fashions and officialism in culture imposed by major centres of economical-political power of Europe and the West in the different stages of their cultural history. A more detailed and concrete analysis of these processes has hardly been possible, as the mutual access to the "other" in its respective permutations has been deficient and highly fragmented. Genuinely comparative cultural studies have been quite weak so far even in such fields of creativity as music and visual arts, not to speak of literature, the most complicated and multi-layered creative-cultural area, in which the dependence on the vernacular linguistic factor is exclusive and unavoidable. For the time being – without any guarantee that future could bring some improvement – we can only intuitively grasp some parallel developments. What we can do in the field of comparative literature is to describe and establish the contours of a model of the interaction between fashion, officialism and resistance in one particular ethnic culture. After that first step we can follow to the comparison of all three models, as well as to introduce their correction and modification, describing concrete cases of coincidence, overlapping and also difference.


Although social scientists devote considerable effort to mitigating measurement error during data collection, they often ignore the issue during data analysis. And although many statistical methods have been proposed for reducing measurement error-induced biases, few have been widely used because of implausible assumptions, high levels of model dependence, difficult computation, or inapplicability with multiple mismeasured variables. We develop an easy-to-use alternative without these problems; it generalizes the popular multiple imputation (MI) framework by treating missing data problems as a limiting special case of extreme measurement error and corrects for both. Like MI, the proposed framework is a simple two-step procedure, so that in the second step researchers can use whatever statistical method they would have if there had been no problem in the first place. We also offer empirical illustrations, open source software that implements all the methods described herein, and a companion article with technical details and extensions.


We argue that an understanding of the faculty of language requires substantial interdisciplinary cooperation. We suggest how current developments in linguistics can be profitably wedded to work in evolutionary biology, anthropology, psychology, and neuroscience. We submit that a distinction should be made between the faculty of language in the broad sense (FLB) and in the narrow sense (FLN). FLB includes a sensory-motor system, a conceptual-intentional system, and the computational mechanisms for recursion, providing the capacity to generate an infinite range of expressions from a finite set of elements. We hypothesize that FLN only includes recursion and is the only uniquely human component of the faculty of language. We further argue that FLN may have evolved for reasons other than language, hence comparative studies might look for evidence of such computations outside of the domain of communication (for example, number, navigation, and social relations).


Arthritis is a significant problem in both humans and animals that may occur at any age but is particularly common in older individuals. In dogs, both degenerative and inflammatory arthropathies may occur but the most common form of joint disease is osteoarthritis (OA), a complex, progressive disease characterized by the degeneration of articular cartilage and by the formation of new bone (osteophytes) at joint margins. Inflammation of the synovial membrane may also be present in many cases of OA, but is a variable feature throughout the course of the disease. Conversely, synovitis is the major pathological feature of the inflammatory joint diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis. Degeneration of articular cartilage in OA is usually associated with some predisposing joint abnormality that produces focal areas of increased stress within the joint, resulting in accelerated turnover of cartilage matrix. Although both the synthetic and degradative activities of chondrocytes are increased, the balance is tipped toward matrix depletion with a net loss of cartilage matrix components. Joint enlargement may be evident in some affected dogs and is related to osteophyte production, joint effusion resulting from synovial inflammation and thickening of the joint capsule. Structural damage may exist for some time before clinical signs of OA are apparent, and most cases ultimately present with stiffness or lameness. Lameness, attributed to a combination of joint pain and restricted movement of the joint, may be gradual in onset or may present acutely following minor trauma or excessive exercise. A number of mechanisms are thought to be involved in the pathogenesis of joint pain itself, but one factor is the presence of synovial inflammation. Dietary factors can potentially modify some of the underlying processes involved in arthritis, including modulation of the inflammatory response, provision of nutrients for cartilage repair and protection against oxidative damage. Where effective, dietary management may help to reduce or eliminate the need for conventional drugs, some of which are associated with adverse secondary effects. Shellfish supplements have been used as a traditional remedy for arthritis in humans and, in recent years, interest has focused on the potential benefits of a nutritional supplement prepared from the New Zealand green-lipped mussel, Perna canaliculus (1–3). Although greenlipped mussel (GLM) is known to contain anti-inflammatory components and other nutrients that may benefit joint health, the precise mechanism(s) of its actions are unknown. Heat processing of GLM has been shown to destroy its activity. Therefore, the processing of whole GLM and incorporation of the GLM product into food products requires special care and processing techniques to avoid destroying any efficacy of the final product. In a series of clinical studies, we evaluated the efficacy of GLM powder in alleviating arthritic signs in dogs. The performance of GLM was investigated as a powdered supplement on top of a standard diet and when incorporated into one of two processed dietary products, a semimoist treat and a dry main meal diet. Both of these products used low-temperature manufacturing processes designed to retain the efficacy of the GLM.


Human beings are interested in understanding their environments and the dynamic content that fills their surroundings. For applications ranging from security to marketing, people have installed networks of cameras to capture the dynamic elements of scenes. In this thesis, we propose a complete real-time system to automatically analyze human behavior from any network of cameras. The proposed system leverages mixed networks of fixed and mobile cameras to locate people, track them, and analyze their trajectories. The mathematical frameworks underlying our proposed methods are based on the following claim: The dynamics of a scene are based on a small set of causes, and therefore can be parameterized by a few degrees of freedom. Every processing block of our system is driven by sparsity promoting priors, i.e., just a few elements are sufficient to capture the scene dynamics. We first present our multi-view people localization algorithm that is designed for a network of fixed cameras. An inverse problem with a sparsity constraint is formulated to detect people using the degraded foreground silhouettes extracted by the cameras. To solve this sparsity driven formulation in a manner appropriate for a real-time implementation, we then propose an approach called "Set Covering Occupancy Object Pursuit" (SCOOP) that outperforms the state-of-the-art. Next, we tackle the data association problem of finding correspondences between located people across time. We implement a graph-based greedy approach to reach real-time tracking performance. Unlike the fixed camera networks considered in the first part of this thesis, mobile cameras are uncalibrated and often monitor non-overlapping fields-of-views with other cameras. We propose a "Cascade of Grids of Image Descriptors" (CaGID) with a sparse search to accurately detect and track objects across uncalibrated cameras with non-overlapping fields-of-views. We evaluate the ability of such mixed networks of cameras to alert drivers to a potential collision with pedestrians. For this application, a camera mounted in a vehicle collaborates with a network of fixed cameras installed in a city. Finally, the proposed system is evaluated for coaching and marketing purposes. The behavior of people in sports games and stores is analyzed in real-time with a graph-based algorithm coined "SpotRank". A probability map inspired by the PageRank algorithm is proposed to rank the most salient 'hot spots' based upon mutual flows. Several public data sets have been used to quantitatively and qualitatively evaluate the performance of our system. To our knowledge, it is the first system to capture the behavior of people in crowded environments and analyze this behavior in real-time with sparsity priors.


Holistic processing refers to the obligatory tendency to process objects as a whole rather than parts. It has been suggested to be a common potential marker for perceptual expertise across domains, including faces, cars, chessboards, musical notes, words, etc. However, whether there is an overlap in the underlying mechanisms for holistic processing across some of these domains remain unknown. In our study, we aimed to address this gap by examining the interference between holistic processing of Chinese characters and that of English words in Chinese-English bilinguals, using a paradigm similar to the one in Gauthier et al. (2003) and Boggan et al. (2012). We measured holistic processing of Chinese characters, as indicated by the congruency effect in a composite paradigm, and how this was affected by holistic processing of English words. Two-part Chinese words and four-letter English words were alternately presented in each block. Participants had to attend only to the left or right part of the words, and make a two-back judgment on whether the attended part of the current word was identical to that of the last word of the same writing system (Chinese or English). If holistic processing is more engaged in perceiving English words with aligned letters than words with misaligned letters, and if it competes for common resources with holistic processing of Chinese characters, then the congruency effect for Chinese characters should be reduced when embedded in aligned vs. misaligned English words. This English alignment by Chinese congruency interference was found, indicating interference between Chinese and English holistic processing. Such interference is unlikely to have a verbal locus, since throughout each block participants had to repeat aloud eight numbers for subsequent matching (verbal suppression). Overall, the findings indicate that there is a shared holistic processing mechanism for words in different writing systems. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


Aims were (1) to review the literature on clinical audit; its history, methodology and role in the current National Health Service (NHS) Clinical Effectiveness initiative; and (2) to describe and discuss one national clinical audit exercise, the Gynaecology Audit Project in Scotland (GAPS) audit of the investigation and initial management of infertility.Care by general practitioners: The review of referral letters revealed that less than half of couples have basic tests of confirmation of ovulation and semen analysis performed in primary care. Conversely, up to a fifth of women with regular menses undergo unnecessary and expensive endocrine investigations. Between the two audit periods, significant, but modest, improvements occurred in the proportion of couples where the male partner was examined and had semen analysis performed and where the women's rubella status was checked.Care by gynaecologists: Between the two audit periods, significant changes in line with nine of the agreed audit criteria were demonstrated. two significant changes contrary to the agreed criteria also occurred.Patient satisfaction and experience: The patient survey indicated that 87% of women were satisfied with their care. However, over a third (39%) had never been asked to bring their partner to the clinic; 86% felt they had not been given enough help with emotional aspects of infertility; only a third had been given any written information and 78% expressed a wish for more written information.Conclusions: Clinical audit remains a cornerstone of national strategies to promote more uniform standards of high quality, evidence-based care. The GAPS Infertility Audit demonstrated the feasibility of conducting a national audit exercise encompassing patient management in both primary and secondary care settings. Modest changes in the process of care and in patients' experience were demonstrable. The modest extent of change confirms the view that audit and feedback may not be the most effective means of promoting improvements in practice. Further research is needed to determine obstacles to change and the most effective ways of overcoming them.


In this paper, an evolving least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) learning paradigm with a mixed kernel is proposed to explore stock market trends. In the proposed learning paradigm, a genetic algorithm (GA), one of the most popular evolutionary algorithms (EAs), is first used to select input features for LSSVM learning, i.e., evolution of input features. Then, another GA is used for parameters optimization of LSSVM, i.e., evolution of algorithmic parameters. Finally, the evolving LSSVM learning paradigm with best feature subset, optimal parameters, and a mixed kernel is used to predict stock market movement direction in terms of historical data series. For illustration and evaluation purposes, three important stock indices, S&P 500 Index, Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) Index, and New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Index, are used as testing targets. Experimental results obtained reveal that the proposed evolving LSSVM can produce some forecasting models that are easier to be interpreted by using a small number of predictive features and are more efficient than other parameter optimization methods. Furthermore, the produced forecasting model can significantly outperform other forecasting models listed in this paper in terms of the hit ratio. These findings imply that the proposed evolving LSSVM learning paradigm can be used as a promising approach to stock market tendency exploration.


Since 1975, Cambodians have sought survival in the United States by escaping from extreme forms of violence, torture, and other traumas from the Khmer Rouge genocide and refugee camps. Although some have lived within the United States for several decades, many Cambodian Americans continue to experience inadequate access to health that results in ongoing poor health outcomes, such as physical suffering, psychological distress, and premature death. Rooted in social determinants (e.g., social economic status, education, stress), these poor health outcomes have led to disproportionate rates of illness (i.e. health disparities) when compared to the general population. Improving health access, defined as having the available resources to address key social determinants, may improve health outcomes. This study explored Cambodian Americans' experience of health access from the perspective of Cambodian community health workers (CHWs). This community-based participatory research employed qualitative methodology to understand health access from a public health lens and critical pedagogical framework. Findings suggest that although Cambodian Americans are survivors of historical trauma, the silence and invisibility they have experienced continues within the United States today through cultural invasion. Additionally, cultural synthesis and healing may occur when interventions address the social, cultural, economic, and political marginalization of Cambodian Americans. Although their lived experiences may be unique, many other communities share the process of cultural invasion and the resulting effects on health. Public health social work is ideally suited to advance knowledge regarding health access; highlight the unique roles of CHWs; and challenge social, economic, and political injustice for Cambodian Americans and other communities that experience similar effects of marginalization on health.


In a recent survey of sexual and gender minorities in Nepal over 60 percent of respondents reported experiencing at least one incident of abuse or discrimination, and over one-third reported discrimination or abuse in three or more public settings. The research methodology and study was implemented through the Williams Institute and the Blue Diamond Society (BDS). The survey utilized Nepal's inclusion of a third gender category in its national census, the first such attempt in the world. The survey reveals that LGBT people in Nepal continue to face a wide range of obstacles as individuals and as a community. These challenges include widespread bullying in schools, lack of protection from discrimination by employers, paucity of programming to address the reproductive health needs of lesbians, and the lack of sensitive HIV healthcare for transgender women and gay men who are at exponentially higher risk of HIV infection than the general population.


Successive relaying has recently emerged as an effective technique for cooperative networks and provides significant improvements in bandwidth efficiency over traditional relaying techniques; however, to achieve full-diversity, the available successive relaying protocols generally assume noise-free source-relay and interference-free inter-relay channels. In this paper, a novel successive relaying protocol is proposed for N-relay wireless networks by removing these optimistic assumptions. The proposed protocol benefits from distributed space-time block codes (STBCs) with coordinate interleaving and relay selection. It achieves a diversity order of two and high transmission rate under realistic network conditions with single-symbol maximum likelihood (ML) detection. A general N-relay signaling protocol is presented, and specific design examples are given for N=2, 3 and 4-relay cooperative networks. The average symbol error probability (ASEP) is analytically derived and shown to match with computer simulation results. It is also shown via computer simulations that the proposed scheme achieves significantly better error performance and is more robust to channel estimation errors than its counterparts given in the literature under realistic network conditions.


Cross-country bank lending mushroomed over the past decade. This helped to spread risks but also meant that international banks were more vulnerable than previously to shocks from abroad including from each other. Following the outbreak of the US sub-prime crisis, and especially after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, cross-border bank flows reversed dramatically. This paper is aimed at better understanding how the recent crisis propagated through the international banking system. It describes the pattern of deleveraging by international banks in reaction to their funding and capital pressures, the international spillovers and the vulnerability of the UK banking system to shocks from abroad given its global role.


While bulimia nervosa may affect up to five percent of women attending general practice, little attention has been paid to the possibility of treating patients in primary care. Improvements have been reported in patients using cognitive behaviour, self-help manuals. General practitioners may be well placed to support such patients. The study was designed to compare in a pragmatic, randomised controlled trial, the effectiveness of a general practice based self-help approach to the treatment of bulimia nervosa (a self-help manual with general practitioner support) with that of specialist out-patient treatment ascertain, through two postal questionnaires, general practitioners' views about the experience of supporting patients in primary care and explore, using qualitative and quantitative methods, patients' views of the treatment interventions. It was hypothesised that there would be no serious disadvantage in outcome for patients randomised to receive the self-help intervention in general practice compared to those receiving specialist care. Patients recruited from general practitioner referrals to specialist clinics were randomised to receive the general practice based self-help intervention (n=34) or specialist clinic treatment (n=34). The main outcome measure was the Bulimic Investigatory Test Edinburgh score assessed at baseline and at six and nine months. Secondary measures included eating pathology, depression, social adjustment and self-esteem. Seventy-four percent and 80% of patients were followed up at six and nine months respectively. An intention-to-treat analysis revealed that while bulimic symptoms declined in both groups over time, there was no significant difference in outcome between the two groups. The general practitioner surveys and patients' subjective views highlighted advantages and drawbacks to the self-help approach, but suggested that in general neither patients nor general practitioners were averse to using a general practice based intervention. The study findings suggest that general practitioners should consider offering self-help interventions to patients who present with bulimia nervosa.


CASE DESCRIPTION The primary subject matter of this case concerns recognizing and correcting earnings management and fraud. Secondary issues include helping students to develop professional judgment and to become aware of typical reporting problems experienced by growing companies. The case has a difficulty level of three and is appropriate for junior-level students in intermediate financial accounting courses. It could also be used at level four in a senior-level auditing class. The case is designed to be taught in 2.5 class hours and is expected to require 4 hours of outside preparation by students. Alternatively, the case can be assigned as a project that requires minimal classroom time. CASE SYNOPSIS Earnings management has received a great deal of publicity by the press and increased scrutiny by the SEC. However, many students do not understand how earnings management and frauds are perpetrated, the extent to which "gray" areas exist in accounting practice, and the role that professional judgment plays in determining the correct course of action. This instructional case is designed to help students learn to recognize earnings management and fraud, to develop professional judgment, and to become aware of typical reporting problems experienced by growing companies. Students are required to identify problem situations and differentiate between unintentional errors and omissions, aggressive accounting practices and fraud. They must also propose adjusting journal entries and determine the effect on income. The case is based on a fictional fast-growing high tech company, Virtually There Technologies, which manufactures and markets virtual reality game systems. In the wake of the abrupt departures of the CFO and controller, students assume the role of the new controller. Their job is to get the financial records in order before the annual audit of the company financial statements begins. INSTRUCTORS' NOTES Recommendations for Teaching Approaches This case can be discussed in class or assigned as a project to be completed outside of class. The requirement to prepare a memorandum of their findings was designed to improve written communication skills and professional judgement. The requirements to prepare adjusting journal entries and determine the effect on income were designed to improve the students critical thinking skills and to reinforce the necessity of being aware of how proposed journal entries effect income per the books. The case may also be used to improve analytical and verbal communication skills by requiring students to present or discuss in class, the problems encountered, their proposed corrections, and the effect on income. For example, students can be required to make a presentation to the company's Board of Directors to discuss their investigation and explain their findings. Versions of this case have been used for the last two years in one of the author's Intermediate Financial Accounting II classes. The vast majority of the students felt that the case helped them integrate and apply the materials covered in the course. The case was distributed approximately three-quarters of the way through the course and collected on the last day of class. It was weighted at approximately 7% of the final grade for the course. The basic methods of manipulating income were discussed in class. Students were expected to complete the requirements of the case outside of class. However, they were also strongly urged to have their journal entries reviewed before handing in the case. This gave the instructor the opportunity to meet with the students, evaluate their reasoning processes, and reinforce critical concepts. In cases where several students had difficulties with the same journal entry, the issue was discussed in class. This required students to logically express their reasoning process and to develop their verbal communication skills. An additional benefit was that the students were exposed to audit procedures that would be covered later in their course work. …


This thesis deals with the micro-politics of farm workers' evictions. It documents farm workers' narratives of the processes of eviction and displacement from farms in the Western Cape of South Africa. It analyses farm relations and their relationship with law, through the eyes of farm workers and through the legal actors who assist them with representation and by lobbying on their behalf. In particular, it focuses on the Extension of Security of Tenure Act (62) of 1997, which was implemented to protect farm workers from the large scale evictions that were taking place on farms and as part of a broader land reform programme. Drawing particularly on the work of Andries Du Toit, who has written about paternalism on Western Cape Farms (eg. 1998) and more recently on the impact of policy (2002), and on Blair Rutherford's arguments relating to farm workers' organisation in Zimbabwe, I argue that (neo)paternalistic sociality on farms is constantly being renegotiated in spite of and because of new laws, and through involvement of other influences such as locally based paralegals. The core of my argument is that farm workers are 'liminal' in this moment, particularly in the negotiation of eviction and housing tenure, as they operate both within the limits of paternalism where they can, and increasingly through 'access to justice' and related concepts. The boundaries of these discourses and social spaces are constantly shifting back and forth as farm dwellers are influenced by worker organisation as espoused by NGOs, and by increased interaction and understanding with and of laws that protect them; at the same time as they are influenced by their relationships with farm owners and other farm workers, or by paternalism. The anthropological fieldwork upon which the thesis is based was multi-sited, conducted between February 2002 and September 2003. The thesis follows the work of NGOs and paralegals, and the life histories and recent legal experiences of farm workers. The importance of the interaction between farm workers with law and its interlocutors should not be underestimated even in a context where laws such as ESTA in fact offer limited protection to farm workers' security of tenure. These interactions must be understood in the contexts of continuing but ever renegotiated forms of gendered and racialized paternalism, of a changing economic, legal and political landscape. The thesis is therefore


Youth is a period of rapid emotional, physical and intellectual change, where young people progress from being dependent children to independent adults. Young people who are unable to make this transition smoothly can face significant difficulties in both the short and long term. Although the vast majority of young people are able to find all the resources they need for their health, well-being and development within their families and living environments, some young people have difficulty in locating resources that can help them and moreover, difficulty in integrating into society. One way to support this transition is to create an environment that enables youth to be well supported through the provision of information and the creation of a community where youth feel empowered to collaborate with their peers as well as decision makers and legislators. This article focuses on the exploring the use of the Internet by youth and how youth well-being can be improved through the design of a youth-friendly web space. This article begins with a definition of youth well-being and what this means in the context of the Web. We propose key requirements for the design of youth web spaces that will result in their well-being. We use these requirements to analyse existing web spaces and conclude with the problems and issues that need to be addressed. These problems, issues and requirements then motivate us to propose a framework and architecture for the design and implementation of Wikis for enhancing youth well-being.


Besides maintaining long-term stability, the most difficult aspect in the management of bipolar affective disorder is the depressive phase. The similarities in the cluster of symptoms with unipolar depression, as well as factors related to the patient, psychiatrist and the treatment itself could make the tasks of diagnosing and treating bipolar depression extremely challenging. A lack of clear guidance makes the choice of medication even harder, especially with the presence of conflicting recommendations. In this review we will explore the evidence base for available medication options, from antidepressants, lithium, anticonvulsants and antipsychotics as well as from other groups. However, any conclusions and guidance still suffer from some degree of uncertainty due to the limitations of evidence for some drugs, especially the relative lack of head-to-head comparisons.


We use two taxonomic indexes to assess the variability of the taxonomic structure and diversity of the ichthyofauna of two low-energy environments in southern Brazil and to compare the temporal patterns of these two ichthyofaunas. Sampling was conducted in the infralittoral zones of Maciel (Paranagua Bay, PR) and Indio Beach (Norte Bay of Florianopolis, SC). A fyke net was set up at a depth of 0.5 to 2.0 m and left in place for 48 h for each of the samplings. A total of two diurnal and two nocturnal samplings were conducted monthly per one year. The ichthyofaunas at the two sites exhibited similar temporal dynamics, with their abundance and biomass presenting a tendency to increase with increasing temperature during the spring and summer months. A total of 113 species were captured, of which 47 were present at both sites. Harengula clupeola, Sphoeroides testudineus and S. greeleyi were especially abundant at both sites. The co-occurring species displayed similar day and night occupancy trends. In all seasons, the obtained values for the average taxonomic distinctness and variation in taxonomic distinctness were within the confidence intervals. The seasonal reproduction and recruitment patterns led to slight changes in taxonomic distinctness during the year, which were within the expected intervals.


PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To evaluate the current knowledge of symptoms experienced by adults with acute leukemia (AL) and provide evidence to inform practice and research.

DATA SOURCES
Literature review using an electronic search supplemented by a hand search of current literature reporting the physiologic and/or psychological symptoms of patients with AL was conducted.

DATA SYNTHESIS
Because of the variability found in the methods and specific aims of the articles, a rating system was applied to score how strongly the findings contributed to meeting the aims of the research. This rating system was applied to assist the authors in analyzing the findings. Therefore, the articles that scored lower ultimately contributed less during the analysis phase.

CONCLUSIONS
Knowledge regarding the symptoms experienced by adults undergoing treatment is being slowly evaluated. However, to better understand and subsequently manage these symptoms, longitudinal research examining the symptom trajectories in this population is needed.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
Additional investigation into symptom characteristics will facilitate the development of tailored interventions to manage the temporal characteristics of symptoms for this population.


This article introduces the concept of 'technology-driven normativities', marking the difference between norms, at the generic level, as legitimate expectations that coordinate human interaction, and subsets of norms at specific levels, such as moral or legal norms. The article is focused on the normativity that is generated by text, fleshing out a set of relevant affordances that are crucial for text-driven law and the rule of law. This concerns the ambiguity of natural language, the resulting open texture of legal concepts, the multi-interpretability of legal norms and, finally, the contestability of their application. This leads to an assessment of legal certainty that thrives on the need to interpret, the ability to contest and the concomitant need to decide the applicability and the meaning of relevant legal norms. Legal certainty thus sustains the adaptive nature of legal norms in the face of changing circumstances, which may not be possible for code- or data-driven law. This understanding of legal certainty demonstrates the meaning of legal protection under text-driven law. A proper understanding of the legal protection that is enabled by current positive law (which is text-driven), should inform the assessment of the protection that could be offered by data- or code-driven law, as they will generate other 'technology-driven normativities'.
Reply by Michael Rovatsos, Professor of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh.


Abstract Background Lower extremity peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is a common medical condition causing substantial morbidity. Limited data exist on whether discrepancies in PAD prevalence exist between the lower extremities using resting ankle-brachial indices (ABIs) and postexercise pressures. Objective We predicted the prevalence of PAD between the lower extremities. Methods and Results Consecutive patients who had undergone a noninvasive arterial lower extremity study at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, between January 1996 and December 2012 with suspected PAD were retrospectively reviewed. We identified 12,312 consecutive patients who underwent an arterial lower extremity and an exercise treadmill study. Prevalence of PAD was assessed at rest and after exercise using two criteria: a resting ABI ≤ 0.90 and a postexercise pressure decrease of > 30 mm Hg. Mean age was 67 ± 12 years and there were 4,780 (39%) women studied. At rest, we found a higher prevalence of PAD on the left extremity (27.4%) compared with the right (24.6%) (p < 0.0001). After exercise, we found a higher prevalence of PAD on the right extremity (25.1%) compared with the left (19.0%) (p < 0.0001). These discrepancies between the prevalence of PAD at rest and after exercise were present in women and men. Conclusion Using validated criteria of a resting ABI of ≤ 0.90 and postexercise ankle pressure decrease > 30 mm Hg, our results suggest that there is a significantly higher prevalence of PAD in the left lower extremity at rest, in contrast to a greater prevalence of abnormal postexercise testing in the right lower extremity. The reason(s) of these discrepancies remain to be studied.


Issuers of structured products have great power when setting the price of their securities. Each issuer is the sole liquidity provider in the secondary market for her products, and short-selling is not possible. Using a large, high-frequency data set, we investigate the pricing dynamics of a class of structured products, bank-issued warrants, and show that issuers use their monopoly powers to extract wealth from investors. First, we find that warrants are more overpriced the harder they are to evaluate, and the fewer substitutes are available. Second, issuers are able to anticipate demand in the short term and preemptively adjust prices for warrants upwards (downwards) on days when investors are net buyers (sellers). Third, issuers decrease the amount of overpricing over the lifetime of most warrants, lowering returns for investors further. Lastly, while we find a negative relationship between issuer credit risk and overpricing, the effect is generally too small, is absent prior to the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and does not conform to models of vulnerable options. Thus, issuers gain access to cheap financing.


Underpinning every digital library and digital repository there is a policy framework, which makes the digital library viable - without a policy framework a digital library is little more than a container for content. Policy governs how a digital library is instantiated and run. It is therefore a meta-domain which is situated both outside the digital library and any technologies used to deliver it, and within the digital library itself. Policy is also a key aspect of digital library and digital repository interoperability in a common and integrated information space. Policy interoperability - that is the exchange and reuse of policies - is a step beyond policy standardisation. Furthermore, effective and efficient policy frameworks are also one of the Digital Curation Center (DCC), DigitalPreservationEurope (DPE), nestor and Center for Research Libraries (CRL) core criteria for digital repositories. In this article, we share our research on policy interoperability levels and the experimental survey on policy interoperability conducted with real-life digital libraries, as a contribution towards the definition of a Policy Interoperability Framework.


A comparative anatomical study on the leaves of nine out of 29 species of the genus Daphniphyllum was performed to seek support for the present infrageneric classification. Daphniphyllum is composed of two sections, Lunata (with one subsection Lunata) and Daphniphyllum (with two subsections, Daphniphyllum and Staminodia). The glabrous leaves with brachyparacytic stomata appear in all species in this study; hemiparacytic, laterocytic or anomocytic stomata occur in some taxa. Two (out of three) species of section Lunata show irregular epidermal cells with undulate anticlinal walls on both surfaces and hemiparacytic stomata. Of section Daphniphyllum seven (out of 26) species were sampled; they have curved, straight or undulate anticlinal cell walls and laterocytic or anomocytic stomata. The anatomical features found in this study are useful for identification on the specific level, but there is no support for the current infrasectional classification of section Daphniphyllum; further study on section Daphniphyllum is necessary.


Although waste animal fats such as chicken fat are promising alternative energy sources, biodiesels produced from these type of feedstocks hardly satisfies the EN14214 biodiesel standards. In this study, biomixtures were prepared by blending cottonseed biodiesel and chicken rendering fat biodiesel which were produced via transesterification method. Biodiesels were blended with each other at 60/40, 50/50 and 30/70 volume ratios to produce CO60CH40, CO50CH50 and CO30CH70 fuels. First, fuel properties of the neat biodiesels and novel biomixtures were measured and compared to European biodiesel standards and diesel. Then, the engine performance, combustion characteristics and exhaust emissions of these novel biomixture fuels were measured in a three-cylinder indirect injection diesel engine under various engine loads and at constant speed of 1500 rpm. The fuel characterisation showed that CO60CH40 and CO50CH50 biomixtures met the European standards. The Brake Specific Energy Consumption (BSEC) and Brake Thermal Efficiency (BTE) of all biomixtures were comparable with CO100, CH100 and diesel at the full engine load. The combustion results revealed that the maximum in-cylinder pressure and energy release values of the CO50CH50 were 4.2% and 4.4% higher than the diesel at full engine load because of optimised fuel properties of biomixture such as molecular structure, viscosity, cetane number and iodine value. CO50CH50 had 2.9% reduced CO
 2 and comparable CO emission compared to diesel, which were also 5.6% and 13% lower than cottonseed biodiesel respectively. However, NO emission of CO50CH50 was found 3.8% and 5.8% higher than diesel and cottonseed biodiesel. A 6.5% reduction on NO emission was observed when CO60CH40 biomixture fuel was used instead of diesel. To conclude, this research showed that blending of cottonseed and chicken fat biodiesels is a promising approach to meet the EN14214 standards, improve in-cylinder pressure, optimise energy release and reduce exhaust emissions. Blending of different biodiesels will be tested as a future work.


Abstract The Verisimilitudinarian approach to scientific progress (VS, for short) is traditionally considered a realist-correspondist model to explain the proximity of our best scientific theories to the way things really are in the world out there (ʻthe Truthʻ, with the capital ʻtʻ). However, VS is based on notions, such as ʻestimated verisimilitudeʻ or ʻapproximate truthʻ, that dilute the model in a functionalist-like theory. My thesis, then, is that VS tries to incorporate notions, such as ʻprogressʻ, in a pre-constituted metaphysical conception of the world, but fails in providing a fitting framework. The main argument that I will develop to support this claim is that the notions that they use to explain scientific progress (ʻestimated verisimilitudeʻ or ʻapproximate truthʻ) have nothing to do with ʻthe Truthʻ. After presenting Cevolani and Tamboloʻs answer (2013) to Birdʻs arguments (2007), I will claim that VS sacrifices the realist-correspondist truth in favor of an epistemic notion of truth, which can obviously be compatible with certain kinds of realism but not with the one the authors have in mind (the correspondence between our theories and the way things really are).


Now in a third edition, Robert M. Sapolsky's acclaimed and successful Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers features new chapters on how stress affects sleep and addiction, as well as new insights into anxiety and personality disorder and the impact of spirituality on managing stress. As Sapolsky explains, most of us do not lie awake at night worrying about whether we have leprosy or malaria. Instead, the diseases we fear - and the ones that plague us now - are illnesses brought on by the slow accumulation of damage, such as heart disease and cancer. When we worry or experience stress, our body turns on the same physiological responses that an animal's does, but we do not resolve conflict in the same way - through fighting or fleeing. Over time, this activation of a stress response makes us literally sick. Combining cutting-edge research with a healthy dose of good humour and practical advice, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers explains how prolonged stress causes or intensifies a range of physical and mental afflictions, including depression, ulcers, colitis, heart disease, and more. It also provides essential guidance to controlling our stress responses. This new edition promises to be the most comprehensive and engaging one yet.


Context. The origin and dynamical evolution of star clusters is an important topic in stellar astrophysics. Several models have been proposed in order to understand the formation of bound and unbound clusters and their evolution, and they can be tested by examining the kinematical and dynamical properties of clusters over a wide range of ages and masses.
Aims. We use the Gaia-ESO Survey products to study four open clusters (IC 2602, IC 2391, IC 4665, and NGC 2547) that lie in the age range between 20 and 50 Myr.
Methods. We employ the gravity index γ and the equivalent width of the lithium line at 6708 Å together with effective temperature Teff and the metallicity of the stars in order to discard observed contaminant stars. Then we derive the cluster radial velocity dispersions σc, the total cluster mass Mtot, and the half mass radius rhm. Using the Gaia-DR1 TGAS catalogue, we independently derive the intrinsic velocity dispersion of the clusters from the astrometric parameters of cluster members.
Results. The intrinsic radial velocity dispersions derived by the spectroscopic data are higher than those derived from the TGAS data, possibly due to the different masses of the considered stars. Using Mtot and rhm we derive the virial velocity dispersion σvir and we find that three out of four clusters are supervirial. This result is in agreement with the hypothesis that these clusters are dispersing, as predicted by the "residual gas expulsion" scenario. However, recent simulations show that the virial ratio of young star clustersmay be overestimated if it is determined using the global velocity dispersion, since the clusters are not fully relaxed.


Objective. To determine whether a multibiomarker disease activity (MBDA) score predicts radiographic damage progression in the subsequent year in patients with early rheumatoid arthritis. Methods. There were 180 serum samples available in the BeSt study (trial numbers NTR262, NTR 265): 91 at baseline (84 with radiographs available) and 89 at 1-year followup (81 with radiographs available). Radiographs were assessed using the Sharp/van der Heijde Score (SvdH). Twelve serum biomarkers were measured to determine MBDA scores using a validated algorithm. Receiver-operating curves and Poisson regression analyses were performed, with Disease Activity Score (DAS) and MBDA score as independent variables, and radiographic progression as dependent variable. Results. At baseline, MBDA scores discriminated more between patients who developed radiographic progression (increase in SvdH ≥ 5 points) and patients who did not [area under the curve (AUC) 0.767, 95% CI 0.639–0.896] than did DAS (AUC 0.521, 95% CI 0.358–0.684). At 1 year, MBDA score had an AUC of 0.691 (95% CI 0.453–0.929) and DAS had an AUC of 0.649 (95% CI 0.417–0.880). Adjusted for anticitrullinated protein antibody status and DAS, higher MBDA scores were associated with an increased risk for SvdH progression [relative risk (RR) 1.039, 95% CI 1.018–1.059 for baseline MBDA score; 1.037, 95% CI 1.009–1.065 for Year 1 MBDA score]. Categorized high MBDA scores were also correlated with SvdH progression (RR for high MBDA score at baseline 3.7; low or moderate MBDA score as reference). At 1 year, high MBDA score gave a RR of 4.6 compared to low MBDA score. Conclusion. MBDA scores predict radiographic damage progression at baseline and during disease course.


Abstract Sweden has witnessed an increase in the rates of sexual crimes including rape. Knowledge of who the offenders of these crimes are is therefore of importance for prevention. We aimed to study characteristics of individuals convicted of rape, aggravated rape, attempted rape or attempted aggravated rape (abbreviated rape+), against a woman ≥18 years of age, in Sweden. By using information from the Swedish Crime Register, offenders between 15 and 60 years old convicted of rape+ between 2000 and 2015 were included. Information on substance use disorders, previous criminality and psychiatric disorders were retrieved from Swedish population-based registers, and Latent Class Analysis (LCA) was used to identify classes of rape+ offenders. A total of 3 039 offenders were included in the analysis. A majority of them were immigrants (n = 1 800; 59.2%) of which a majority (n = 1 451; 47.7%) were born outside of Sweden. The LCA identified two classes: Class A — low offending class (LOC), and Class B — high offending class (HOC). While offenders in the LOC had low rates of previous criminality, psychiatric disorders and substance use disorders, those included in the HOC had high rates of previous criminality, psychiatric disorders and substance use disorders. While HOC may be composed by more "traditional" criminals probably known by the police, the LOC may represent individuals not previously known by the police. These two separated classes, as well as our finding in regard to a majority of the offenders being immigrants, warrants further studies that take into account the contextual characteristics among these offenders. Key points Rape, aggravated rape, attempted rape or attempted aggravated rape (rape+) are increasing in Sweden. The majority of those convicted of rape+ are immigrants. LCA identifies two classes of rape+ offenders: LOC and HOC.


The replacement of the JET carbon wall (C-wall) by a Be/W ITER-like wall (ILW) has affected the plasma energy confinement. To investigate this, experiments have been performed with both the C-wall and ILW to vary the heating power over a wide range for plasmas with different shapes. It was found that the power degradation of thermal energy confinement was weak with the ILW; much weaker than the IPB98(y,2) scaling and resulting in an increase in normalized confinement from H98 ∼ 0.9 at βN ∼ 1.5 to H98 ∼ 1.2−1.3 at βN ∼ 2.5 − 3.0 as the power was increased (where H98 = τE/τIPB98(y,2) and βN = βTBT/aIP in % T/mMA). This reproduces the general trend in JET of higher normalized confinement in the so-called 'hybrid' domain, where normalized β is typically above 2.5, compared with 'baseline' ELMy H-mode plasmas with βN ∼ 1.5 − 2.0. This weak power degradation of confinement, which was also seen with the C-wall experiments at low triangularity, is due to both increased edge pedestal pressure and core pressure peaking at high power. By contrast, the high triangularity C-wall plasmas exhibited elevated H98 over a wide power range with strong, IPB98(y,2)-like, power degradation. This strong power degradation of confinement appears to be linked to an increase in the source of neutral particles from the wall as the power increased, an effect that was not reproduced with the ILW. The reason for the loss of improved confinement domain at low power with the ILW is yet to be clarified, but contributing factors may include changes in the rate of gas injection, wall recycling, plasma composition and radiation. The results presented in this paper show that the choice of wall materials can strongly affect plasma performance, even changing confinement scalings that are relied upon for extrapolation to future devices.


There is an urgent need to develop efficient and cost-effective catalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in order to realize a hydrogen economy with clean and renewable energy. Nanostructures of layered transition metal dichalcogenides show promising electrocatalytic activity towards the hydrogen evolution reaction, however, the majority of the exposed surfaces (basal planes) are inactive, and engineering their catalytically active edge sites still remains a challenge. Here we show that monodisperse single/few-layered MoSe2 nanocrystals can be directly deposited onto any conducting substrate, through electrochemical exfoliation of bulk MoSe2, which exhibit remarkable electrocatalytic activity for the HER with ultra-high efficiency showing a very low on-set potential (70.9 mV vs. the RHE) and Tafel slope (31.8 mV dec−1). The exceptional electrocatalytic activity of the MoSe2 nanocrystals results from the synergistic advantages emerging from improved edge sites, enhanced electronic conductivity and the presence of new and active sites arising upon in situ lithiation, all in one step, which is facile, economic and environmentally benign.


A fraction of human T lymphocytes, predominantly CD8+, express receptors for HLA class I molecules typical of natural killer cells (natural killer receptors or NKRs) that inhibit T cell receptor-mediated functions. Herein, we analyzed possible mechanism(s) leading to the expression of NKRs by T cells responding to superantigens or allogeneic cells in vitro. We show that, in the presence of interleukin 15 (IL-15), T cells (depleted of NKR+ cells) responding to toxic shock syndrome toxin 1 de novo express CD94, a molecule that is part of a heterodimeric NKR with a broad specificity for different HLA class I alleles. Maximal CD94 expression occurred when IL-15 was added shortly after the cells were placed into culture, and CD94 expression started 4-6 days after addition of IL-15. Although both CD4+ and CD8+ cells expressed CD94, the simultaneous expression of NKG2A (i.e., the other component of the CD94/NKG2A inhibitory NKR) was confined to CD8+ cells. Similar data were obtained in T cell populations activated in mixed lymphocyte cultures in the presence of IL-15. The expression of CD94/NKG2A led to an impairment of allo-specific cytolytic activity by mixed lymphocyte culture-derived T cell populations or clones. Remarkably, cytolysis could be restored by the addition of anti-CD94 mAb, i.e., by masking the inhibitory NKRs.


From a law-and-economics perspective, the European Commission's proposal for the introduction of an optional Common European Sales Law (CESL) has been criticized for overregulating consumer sales law in Europe and for being likely to yield more costs than benefits. In defence of CESL, it is submitted here that its optional nature may mitigate the risk of overregulation and provide an opportunity for firms to tailor their activities to consumer preferences in different markets. Furthermore, although the introduction of an optional instrument may increase transaction costs, it does not seem to be excluded that the benefits of increased cross-border trade may (on a long-term basis) outweigh these costs. Finally, in order to evaluate the institutional choices underlying the proposed rules of CESL, and other instruments of European contract law, it is suggested that the further analysis of these rules should take into account the legal-political as well as the legal-economic backdrop to this field of law.


This practice led thesis is an exploration of the ways in which theory can inform practice in documentary filmmaking. Section 1 of the thesis provides an embedded review of literature in order to offer the reader a critical evaluation of the theoretical debates that have informed my documentary practice. This section analyses issues associated with definitional debates on documentary film, while also addressing the formal features associated with what Bill Nichols (1991; 2001) called modes of documentary. The work of particular filmmakers will be discussed, namely Dziga Vertov, Jean Rouch and the city symphony makers of the early 20th century, in relation to how their ideas and film work have had a major impact on my own approach to filmmaking. Section 2 is the practical portfolio of work itself and acts as an exploration of theory within a practical context. The audio-visual texts include, A Film About Nice (2010), a dawn-to-dusk city symphony, which focuses on capturing the everyday life of a European city. It echoes the tradition of the City Symphony makers of the early 20th Century, however the significant difference here is that I explore some of the visual techniques adopted by the filmmakers and explore them within a sonic context. This film can be seen as an exploration of the impact rhythm has on signification within film. Mechanized Deconstruction (2011) is a recording of a live performance at Documentary Now 2011. This was my first venture into producing documentary films within a live context, via the use of DJ/VJ technologies. There is a cine-poem, which acts as a collaborative approach to documentary, combining the work of the poet and the work of the filmmaker. It also acts an example of how some of the techniques I have developed during the live performance of documentary have had an impact on the documentary films that I have since produced. The Mill (2016) adopts a similar structure to The City Symphony, however this film can be seen as an Industrial Symphony, in that the focus here is on the rhythm, movement and the sonic dimension of the machine. In many ways this film can be seen as that which encapsulates the essence of the formalist approach I adopt when producing documentary films. Driven By Machines (2017) uses footage from The Mill and provides an example of how a filmmaker can de-familiarize actuality footage through post-production technique. This film acts as an ode to the abstract filmmakers such as Man Ray, Len Lye, Viking Eggelling and Hans Richter, all of who used actuality footage and abstracted this footage through manipulation techniques available to them at the time. In summary, Section 2 acts as an audio-visual explication of theory within a practical context. Section 3 is a critical reflection of the practical portfolio of work. Here I aim to explain how I have used certain filmmaking techniques as a way of exploring some of the theoretical concepts outlined in Section 1. This offers the reader an opportunity to gain insight into how theory can inform practice; as such the reader of my films is able to gain insight into authorial intention, therefore the reader is able to make a more informed analysis of my practical portfolio.


AstronomicAL is a human-in-the-loop interactive labelling and training dashboard that allows users to create reliable datasets and robust classifiers using active learning. This technique prioritises data that offer high information gain, leading to improved performance using substantially less data. The system allows users to visualise and integrate data from different sources and deal with incorrect or missing labels and imbalanced class sizes. AstronomicAL enables experts to visualise domain-specific plots and key information relating both to broader context and details of a point of interest drawn from a variety of data sources, ensuring reliable labels. In addition, AstronomicAL provides functionality to explore all aspects of the training process, including custom models and query strategies. This makes the software a tool for experimenting with both domain-specific classifications and more general-purpose machine learning strategies. We illustrate using the system with an astronomical dataset due to the field's immediate need; however, AstronomicAL has been designed for datasets from any discipline. Finally, by exporting a simple configuration file, entire layouts, models, and assigned labels can be shared with the community. This allows for complete transparency and ensures that the process of reproducing results is effortless


Ensuring strong theoretical privacy guarantees on text data is a challenging problem which is usually attained at the expense of utility. However, to improve the practicality of privacy preserving text analyses, it is essential to design algorithms that better optimize this tradeoff. To address this challenge, we propose a release mechanism that takes any (text) embedding vector as input and releases a corresponding private vector. The mechanism satisfies an extension of differential privacy to metric spaces. Our idea based on first randomly projecting the vectors to a lower-dimensional space and then adding noise in this projected space generates private vectors that achieve strong theoretical guarantees on its utility. We support our theoretical proofs with empirical experiments on multiple word embedding models and NLP datasets, achieving in some cases more than 10% gains over the existing state-of-the-art privatization techniques.


The phenomenon of genomic imprinting has recently excited much interest among experimental biologists. The population genetic consequences of imprinting, however, have remained largely unexplored. Several population genetic models are presented and the following conclusions drawn: (i) systems with genomic imprinting need not behave similarly to otherwise identical systems without imprinting; (ii) nevertheless, many of the models investigated can be shown to be formally equivalent to models without imprinting; (iii) consequently, imprinting often cannot be discovered by following allele frequency changes or examining equilibrium values; (iv) the formal equivalences fail to preserve some well known properties. For example, for populations incorporating genomic imprinting, parameter values exist that cause these populations to behave like populations without imprinting, but with heterozygote advantage, even though no such advantage is present in these imprinting populations. We call this last phenomenon "pseudoheterosis." The imprinting systems that fail to be formally equivalent to nonimprinting systems are those in which males and females are not equivalent, i.e., two-sex viability systems and sex-chromosome inactivation.