Ideal for graduate and senior undergraduate courses in computer arithmetic and advanced digital design, Computer Arithmetic: Algorithms and Hardware Designs, Second Edition, provides a balanced, comprehensive treatment of computer arithmetic. It covers topics in arithmetic unit design and circuit implementation that complement the architectural and algorithmic speedup techniques used in high-performance computer architecture and parallel processing. Using a unified and consistent framework, the text begins with number representation and proceeds through basic arithmetic operations, floating-point arithmetic, and function evaluation methods. Later chapters cover broad design and implementation topics-including techniques for high-throughput, low-power, fault-tolerant, and reconfigurable arithmetic. An appendix provides a historical view of the field and speculates on its future.An indispensable resource for instruction, professional development, and research, Computer Arithmetic: Algorithms and Hardware Designs, Second Edition, combines broad coverage of the underlying theories of computer arithmetic with numerous examples of practical designs, worked-out examples, and a large collection of meaningful problems. This second edition includes a new chapter on reconfigurable arithmetic, in order to address the fact that arithmetic functions are increasingly being implemented on field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and FPGA-like configurable devices. Updated and thoroughly revised, the book offers new and expanded coverage of saturating adders and multipliers, truncated multipliers, fused multiply-add units, overlapped quotient digit selection, bipartite and multipartite tables, reversible logic, dot notation, modular arithmetic, Montgomery modular reduction, division by constants, IEEE floating-point standard formats, and interval arithmetic.Features:* Divided into 28 lecture-size chapters * Emphasizes both the underlying theories of computer arithmetic and actual hardware designs * Carefully links computer arithmetic to other subfields of computer engineering * Includes 717 end-of-chapter problems ranging in complexity from simple exercises to mini-projects * Incorporates many examples of practical designs * Uses consistent standardized notation throughout * Instructor's manual includes solutions to text problems * An author-maintained website http://www.ece.ucsb.edu/~parhami/text_comp_arit.htm contains instructor resources, including complete lecture slides


The physics of supra thermal test ions in turbulent plasmas can be conveniently studied in basic plasma physics devices, which allow high-resolution measurements of plasma and fast ion parameters and wave fields throughout the whole plasma cross-section. We describe recent advances in the development of an experimental setup consisting of a non-perturbative Li 6+ miniaturized ion source and a detector for the investigation of the interaction between supra thermal ions and drift/interchange–driven turbulence on the TORPEX device. We present first measurements of the spatial and energy space distribution of the fast ion beam in different plasma scenarios, in which the plasma turbulence is fully characterized. We also discuss the possibility of using the fast ion source in basic plasma devices for fusion. This work is partly funded by the Fonds National Suisse de la Recherche Scientifique.


Abstract Ever since the introduction of the national political programme of "Building a new socialist countryside" (BNSC) in the early 2000s, renewed focus has been cast on how the Chinese government manages the gap between its rural and urban areas in the new millennium. Previous research has mostly studied the social and political consequences of the BNSC initiative without paying particular attention to its effects on public opinion. In this article, we present an analysis of the 2002 and 2008 waves of the mainland China subset of the Asian Barometer. Our results show a significant shift in the perceptions of the rural population in respect to how much impact government policies have on daily life. This shift brings rural perceptions more in line with those of the urban population in 2002. The paper concludes with the implications of our findings for the study of the relations between public opinion and public policy in China. 摘要 从二十一世纪初开始的建设社会主义新农村运动, 重启了对中国政府新世纪如何处理城乡差距的关注。之前, 对于社会主义新农村建设的研究多聚焦其社会和政治效应, 却从未研究其与公共舆论的关系。在这篇文章里, 我们分析了 2002 年次和 2008 年次关于中国大陆地区的亚洲民主动态调查。我们的研究发现自从建设社会主义新农村运动开始以来, 对于政府政策如何影响日常生活感知的城乡差距有所缩小。我们的结论对于如何研究中国的公共政策和公共舆论提出了一点启发。


In recent years, many health claims have been made about dietary and supplemental fiber. However, some reports (eg, those regarding oat bran) have been controversial. A review of scientifically rigorous studies shows that fiber has some preventive or therapeutic benefits in irritable bowel syndrome, diverticulosis, colorectal cancer, diabetes, and hypercholesterolemia. However, it appears to have no direct benefit in patients with inflammatory bowel disease, gallstones, or obesity. The United States has one of the lowest per capita intakes of fiber in the world. Therefore, increasing daily fiber intake either through diet or with supplements is recommended for most Americans. Consumer interest groups should lobby for more fiber-enriched foods. The challenge for education and healthcare professionals alike is to remold the nation's interest in and understanding of dietary fiber.


The primary objective of this research was to explore the impact of possible social factors on non-institutionalized adults 18 years of age or older residing in the United States who exhibited severe mental illness (SMI). A holistic sociological model was developed to explain SMI by incorporating elements of social learning theory, social disorganization theory, and gender socialization theory with social demographic factors. Based on the holistic sociological model, the following factors were investigated: demographic aspects of age, education, income and gender; gender socialization; influence of neighborhood area; social network influence based on communication and interaction among peers and family members; and socially deviant behaviors such as frequently smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol and using drugs specifically marijuana. The impact of these factors on SMI was examined. A sample of 206 respondents drawn from National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 2003 was assessed. These respondents had answered all the questions related to SMI; social deviant behaviors; neighborhood environment; and communications among peers, family members and friends; and the other studied factors. Ordinary linear regression with interaction terms was employed as a statistical tool to assess the impact of social determinants on SMI. Being female, living a disorganized neighborhood, and frequent and high levels of smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol had a significant influence on SMI. This reevaluation and reexamination of the role of gender socialization path, socially deviant behaviors like smoking and drinking, and community construction on SMI provided additional insights. This research is one of the first to develop a more holistic sociological model on SMI and explored the previously untested interactive relationships. The limitations of this study suggest the need to test a potential recursive research model and explore additional bi-directional associations.


Often, an improvement in performance at one operating point in a compressor/turbine operating map will lead to a reduction in performance at another area. For example, improving the efficiency of a compressor at design point (DP) may result in a reduction of efficiency at other operating points or it may result in a reduced stable operating range.
 In order to reduce the compressor cost and weight, a 15% radial reduction was applied to the diffuser passage length of a high pressure ratio centrifugal compressor. The diffuser endwall was diverged to achieve an appropriate area ratio from diffuser inlet to outlet. Two different vane shapes were considered with the radially reduced diffuser passage. The first diffuser vane was a scaled version of the baseline airfoil vane shape and this was used to develop an understanding of the impact of the passage length reduction and diverging endwall. The second vane geometry was parameterized using an unconventional method derived from published literature and optimized to improve performance at DP.
 Increased losses were generated through the diffuser passages of the radially reduced designs, but this was compensated for by lower losses through the volute due to more desirable flow at volute inlet. As a result, the radially reduced designs not only matched the performance of the baseline configuration, but also succeeded in achieving a marginal efficiency improvement. Furthermore, despite not being one of the goals of the optimization procedure, an extension of the stable operating range of 36% and 20% at the highest speed condition was achieved for the scaled and optimized designs, respectively. The current study focuses on understanding the physical reasons that generated this significant enhancement to the compressor operating range.
 In order to acquire the desired understanding, experimental data is presented to validate the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model and a detailed numerical investigation is presented to explain the changes in the flow field within the radially reduced designs. The study focuses on low flow rate operating points, necessitating the use of an Unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) approach to analyse the flow. Detailed scrutiny of the flow field revealed a secondary flow feature in the diffuser passage which resulted in higher diffuser passage losses at DP but stabilised the flow as it developed for lower mass flow rate operating points.


A solution is described that does not assume a contact pressure-area curve or ice crushing strength. The impact force is related to Korzhavin's ice crushing equation by simple laws of physics. A time-history analysis is performed in which the instantaneous ice crushing strength, which is a function of the floe velocity and indentation width (i. e. strain rate), is used at each point in time. The impact force is then calculated as a function of time. This method has the added benefit of allowing the engineer to actually calculate a pressure-area curve which is consistent with the ice crushing strength. Furthermore, this method uses an industry-accepted ice crushing formula and readily available unconfined compressive ice strength data to solve the impact problem. Results of the time-history analysis are then compared with current solutions.


In today's business environment, the asset evaluation models used to reach an optimised asset management situation are one of the important tools that can help a company to gain a competitive advantage. A firm's balance sheet contains different types of assets and this study focuses the analysis on the tangible and fixed asset of 'real estate' (RE), which includes buildings and land.

This study is an applied research project on the topic of real estate portfolio (REP) management. It uses a cross-sectional design with the aim of developing a REP empirical
decision model (REP-EDM) for a pension fund (PF) to utilise as part of its REP evaluation processes. The REP-EDM is based on the benchmarking of REP physical characteristics to a REP benchmark. Correlational research methodology with a multivariate regression is used to develop the REP-EDM model. The model is limited to the Canton Zurich in Switzerland but the methodology may be applied to other RE
markets.

The relevant theories that have been considered are: Real estate theory, finance theory with the focus on investments, risks and modern portfolio theory, as well as
benchmarking theory. In the literature, REP optimisation models are focused on the risk/return ratio, benefits and occupancy costs. There is limited evidence of REP
optimisation models that start from an empirical model based on a REP benchmark. Thus, this research addresses a relevant topic of interest within the community that has
not yet been empirically investigated. The research question has been formulated as follows: How can a customer's REP be optimised in order to reduce its idiosyncratic risks, basing the analysis on the REP's physical characteristics and comparing it to a
benchmark of the RE market physical characteristics?

The issue of estimating RE liquidity risk is crucial in developing a successful REP strategy and the REP-EDM including the REP benchmark contributes to extending the
existing body of knowledge regarding REP management, transparency and understanding of the RE market. In the model for REP evaluation developed in this study, the
interpretation of the statistical significance of the most relevant variables included into REP-EDM is done with a practical significance analysis, which includes two practical applications.

The REP-EDM can be used as an additional decision support system for PF managers in order to answer the research question of this study in an objective way and independently
from RE specialists. The REP-EDM model does not substitute other REP optimisation models but instead, it represents an additional model that supports managers in taking strategic decisions in a RE market characterised by low transparency and inefficiency.


Across Japan, the rapidly aging population is becoming more visible, especially in "aging new towns". Since mobility levels usually decline with age, having a self-contained neighborhood could be more important than before. This paper therefore explores the selfcontainment status of a new town for discretionary activities (shopping, volunteering, recreation, and so on), by using multiperiod (two waves) and multiday (two weeks) panel survey data collected in Koyo New Town located in Hiroshima, Japan. For this purpose, we develop a panel mixed logit model of destination choice with a focus on the impacts of social networks. We also examine whether or not the self-containment contributes to the improvement of residents' subjective well-being. The result reveals that social networks have a positive impact, not only on self-containment of discretionary activities, but also on residents' subjective well-being.


Background The Health Department of Regione Liguria has introduced the obligation, for every hospital department to motivate the request to obtain certain kinds of antibiotics, because their use is restricted to serious infections and in consideration of their high cost. Purpose The aim is to restrict the phenomenon of resistance to antibiotics and reduce the rising consumption of these drugs, guaranteeing a correct prescription. Materials and Methods The request for the drugs in question must be made using the appropriate form containing the clinical data of the patients, including personal details, diagnosis and the characteristics of the infection. The pharmacist verifies the administration dosage and the conformity of the diagnosis with the approved health authority indications and with prophylaxis guidelines. The pharmacist will then decide whether to dispense the drug. Some hospitals make use of written applications, others have created specific software for this purpose, others have included the application in the software for the management of the hospital admissions and patients records. Furthermore, where necessary, it has been possible also to include specialist advice, in the software. Results In the 2011 the Local Health Board of Genoa (ASL3) received and monitored 2274 specific forms, that is 100% of the requests. The intervention of the pharmacist led to a reduction of 90% in the use of Tigecycline and prevented, in 31 cases, an overdose of Vancomycin hydrochloride on Clostridium Difficile Infection. Administration of oral vancomycin in Clostridium difficile infection was 500 mg qid orally for at least 10 days instead of 125 mg qid orally stated in the international guidelines. The control of reasoned request by the pharmacist allowed to use the appropriate dosage. In the Galliera Hospital, 2100 specific forms were filled out (70% of the total requests). Antibiotics non requiring a specific request like ciprofloxacin, ceftriaxone, ceftazidime were used more than in 2009. (2009: 20872units; 2011:25508 units) The Local Health Board of Chiavari (ASL4) received 1525 applications (59% on-line). Conclusions This method has led to an increase in appropriate prescriptions and to better collaboration among medical staff. No conflict of interest.


At first sight the Internet is the ideal medium for carrying out banking activities due to its cost savings potential and speed of information transmission. From a technological and cost-driven standpoint it may seem quite logical for banks to shift as many banking activities online as possible. At the same time, the question of how to foster customer loyalty arises when the relationship between the bank and the user becomes a virtual one. This paper investigates the importance of antecedents of online loyalty such as trust, quality of the Web site, quality of the service and overall satisfaction. Rather than investigating which factors drive customers to use online banking instead of offline banking, this paper addresses the problem of how to keep customers online and loyal to a specific supplier. A survey among more than 2,000 customers of an Austrian online bank was conducted and a structural equation modeling approach was used to gain important insights into how customer retention in the online banking business can be ensured. Satisfaction and trust were identified as important antecedents of loyalty. Additionally, the moderating role of consumer characteristics (gender, age, involvement, perceived risk and technophobia) was supported by the data.


Multi-actor governance, in which a broad mix of actors collaborates to deal with complex societal problems, requires a leadership approach that can take into account the dynamic interdependencies between the involved actors. A relational approach to leadership, focusing on processes and practices, is more adequate for that purpose than approaches focusing on individuals and positions. Complexity leadership theory offers such a relational approach to leadership within organizations. In this article, we use complexity leadership theory to capture the emergent leadership processes between organizations. We focus on the characteristics of the informal relations between representatives of different organizations that enable dealing with the often-conflicting goals and values in multi-actor governance. The case of a landfill mining initiative for sustainable materials governance is used as an illustration to clarify the main concepts and arguments.


Seth McKelvey, "'But one kind' of Life: Thoreau's Subjective Theory of Value in Walden " (pp. 448–472) Literary scholars generally take for granted Henry David Thoreau's hostility to market exchange in Walden (1854). I argue, however, that Thoreau anticipates the subjective theory of value and the related concept of diminishing marginal utility, offering glimpses of ideas that would not be formalized in economics until after his death but that should nevertheless align him with a long lineage of free market thinkers. Thoreau does not reject the marketplace as a means to achieve his own best interests, but rather challenges his society's definition of what those interests should be, attacking the misguided desire to accumulate excessive material wealth and the burdensome labor that attends such aspirations. I juxtapose the economics put forth in Walden with the work of Austrian free market economist Carl Menger in order to illustrate how Thoreau can so vehemently oppose the materialistic obsessions of capitalism while simultaneously remaining amenable to the principles of free exchange.


New lithostratigraphic data have been collected from stratigraphic sections in Quaternary marine terraces located along the northern Atlantic and southern Gibraltar Strait coasts (Morocco). The sections usually start with conglomeratic lenses and large scale cross-stratification mainly followed by parallel bedding and/or fairly planar cross-bedding, dipping shoreward and seaward. These sections are usually topped by coarse- to very coarse-grained lithofacies, formed by discontinuous organized conglomerates associated with gravelly thick calcarenite strata with sharp-and flat-topped beds and medium to large scale cross-bedding. All these deposits reflect a shoreface-foreshore prograding shallow coastal palaeoenvironment within a passive margin. Petrographic analyses of detrital modes of the arenites, show that these rocks are litharenites. Biocalcarenites have been found only at the Diki-Ksar-Sghir section. The mineralogical composition of the litharenites is mainly characterized by (i) abundance of quartz (ii) a mainly extrabasinal carbonatoclastic fraction and (iii) a very scarce detrital fraction derived from epimetamorphic and metasedimentary source rocks. The provenance of the arenites of the Quaternary marine terraces is mainly from Middle-Upper Miocene and Pliocene terrigenous successions unconformably resting on various formations of the Neogene external accretionary prism, built by the stacking of Flysch and External Domain nappes. A minor component of grains derived from the Flysch Basin and External Domains, rather than the metasedimentary and epimetamorphic units of the Internal Domain. The deposition of these Quaternary marine terraces may also have been influenced by transverse, shallow, coastal drift currents, parallel to the coast of the Gibraltar Strait, thus explaining the local occurrence of biocalcarenites within some of the analyzed terraces.


Occupational health nurses (OHNs) are front-line advocates for preventing illness and injury and protecting health in a variety of workplace settings, including the areas of agriculture, construction, health care, manufacturing, and public safety. OHNs need education and training in respiratory protection in order to ensure both their safety and the safety of America's workers. At the request of the National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) examined existing respiratory protection curricula and made recommendations to improve education and training in respiratory protection for OHNs. The IOM finds that current respiratory protection education receives varying amounts of dedicated time and resources and is taught using a variety of approaches. Several recommendations are made to improve the respiratory protection education and training of OHNs.


Vigilance (scanning) and other behavior patterns were studied in free-ranging Evening Grosbeaks (Coccothraustes vespertinus) at feeders to assess how flock size and flock geometry influenced the behavior of individual birds. The present results indicate that the way in which individual grosbeaks are positioned with respect to one another effects many aspects of their behavior, especially when a flock contains four or more birds. Birds in a linear array who have difficulty seeing one another, when compared to individuals organized in a circle who can easily see one another, are (1) more vigilant, (2) change their head and body positions more often, (3) react to changes in group size more slowly, (4) show less coordination in head movements, and (5) show more variability in all measures. These differences in behavior can be explained from a cognitive ethological perspective that favors intentional or representational explanations. Specifically, the data suggest that individual grosbeaks, when scanning and moving about, are visually monitoring the flock in which they are feeding and gathering information about a number of variables including flock size, what others are doing, where others are, which individuals are present, phenotypic features of flock members, food resources, or the location of potential predators. Individuals likely use visual records of the behavior and perhaps the phenotypic features of others, and this information influences various aspects of their behavior.


Anti-Retroviral (ARV) drugs are provided free to patients in Cameroon; however there are still a number of associated costs of treatments that have socio economic implications on the lives of the patients on ARVs. This study thus aimed at examining the socio-economic implications of persons placed on ARV therapy. From our findings, there was a reduction in the average number of hours covered at work daily on initiating ART and this relationship was statistically significant (p-value= 0.001). Furthermore, a majority of the participants could not meet up with all the monthly requirements of laboratory tests, supplements and additional foods recommended at hospital and this was due to financial constraints. This is more so because of the general low and ambivalent wage rate in Cameroon. The study recommends that insurance companies should consider including HIV treatments in their schemes and policy makers should do more than the provision of free ARV.


Relying on women's own words in letters and journals, Rosenzweig refutes the prescriptive literature of the times with its dire predictions of inevitable rifts between Victorian mothers and their daughters, the new women of the twentieth century. Instead Rosenzweig shows us mothers who rejoiced in their daughters' educational successes and, while they did not always comprehend the nature of the changes taking place, were only too happy to see their daughters escape some of their own restrictions and grief. Extremely useful to scholars and teachers of women's history and family history, The Anchor of My Life should also be fascinating to the general public for the accurate window that it provides on these complicated family relationship in our history. --Laurie Crumpacker , Department of History, Simmons College "Drawing on a broad array of historical sources, The Anchor of My Lifechallenges the common assumption that mother-daughter relationships invariably are characterized by tensions and conflicts. This lively and moving book deserves a wide audience." --Emily K. Abel , author of Circles of Care: Work and Identity in Women's Lives The relationship between mothers and daughters has been the subject of much research and study, in such fields as psychoanalysis, sociology, and women's studies. But rarely has the history and evolution of this relationship been examined. In The Anchor of My Life, Linda W. Rosenzweig draws on a wide range of primary sources--letters, diaries, autobiographies, prescriptive advice or self-help literature, and fiction--to reveal the historical nuances of this pivotal relationship. Rosenzweig's distinctive approach focuses on the interaction between mothers and daughters of the American middle class at the turn of the century, revealing that mothers and daughters managed to sustain close, nurturing relationships in an era marked by a major female generation gap in terms of aspirations and opportunities. Illustrated with photographs and portraits of the time, The Anchor of My Life provocatively challenges the facile, late twentieth-century assumption that the mother-daughter relationship is necessarily defined by hostility, guilt, and antagonism.


The Holt–Oram syndrome (HOS) is an autosomal-dominant hand–heart syndrome characterised by malformations of the upper limbs, mainly involving the preaxial (radial) ray, and variable cardiac defects. Mutations in TBX5, a transcription factor that regulates a wide variety of developmental processes, underlie HOS. Thus far, more than a hundred TBX5 mutations have been identified in patients with HOS. However, only the application of stringent diagnostic criteria will lead to a high sensitivity and specificity in TBX5 mutation screening. Various pathogenic mechanisms that lead to HOS have been uncovered, ranging from loss-of-function to gain-of-function. Nonetheless, in a significant minority of HOS patients, who do fulfil the strict diagnostic criteria, no TBX5 mutation is identified. This suggests that mutations in regulatory parts of TBX5 could cause disease, or mutations in genes other than TBX5 could underlie HOS. Application of exome sequencing or even whole-genome sequencing should be pursued in those cases.

Key Concepts:

Holt–Oram syndrome is caused by TBX5 mutations.

The majority of TBX5 mutations lead to loss-of-function.

Application of stringent diagnostic criteria increases the yield of TBX5 mutation screening in HOS patients.

In a minority of HOS patients, who fulfil the stringent diagnostic criteria, no TBX5 mutation is identified.

TBX5 is involved in the specification of the mesoderm and development of the heart, vasculature and limbs.

Keywords:

Holt–Oram syndrome;
TBX5;
transcription factor;
DNA-binding;
limb malformation;
cardiac defects


FACES (Faces, Art, and Computerized Evaluation Systems) is a project that, after two years of research support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), has established proof of concept for the application of face recognition technology to works of portrait art. In the application of face recognition technology to photographed human faces, a number of difficulties are inherent in a real or perceived alteration of appearance of the face through variations in facial expression, age, angle of pose, and so on. With works of portrait art, not only do all these problems pertain, but these works also have their own additional challenges. Most notably, portrait art does not provide what might be called a photographic likeness but rather one that goes through a process of visual interpretation on the part of the artist. After establishing the initial parameters of the application of this technology, the main goal of FACES has been to test the ability of the FACES algorithm to restore lost identities to works of portrait art, something our research has shown is clearly feasible. Our work has also suggested a number of other potential applications, both using the FACES algorithm and employing basic concept of FACES in an altered form.

The use of the FACES algorithm should not be thought of as limited to facial recognition in the sense of identification alone. An altered form of the technology used in FACES might also be used to study a wide range of other applications such as adherence or non-adherence to widely recognized artistic canons, formal or informal; the identification of variations in the practice of an individual artist (over time, with different subjects, with different genres, after exposure to external influences, and so on); probable bodies of work of anonymous artists; difference in larger bodies of works (art historical 'big data'); even to detect the change of masons in medieval building.


Recitals, those 'whereas' clauses, appear in contracts as well as legislation, although not all legislation contains recitals; indeed, recitals are 'against' the precepts of certain styles of legislation. When, however, there are recitals, parties will argue over the way they should be interpreted in view of the operative provisions, or that they have, or don't have, other legal repercussions. The courts must then choose among a number of interpretive variants: they may choose to view recitals as subordinate to, dominant over, or even equal to operative provisions. Recitals are also a feature of European Community (EC) legislation, so that the same variants exist. But the matter is complicated by a feature of EC legislation which is fairly unique: recitals in EC legislation must specify the reasons the operative provisions were adopted, and if they do not, the legislation is void. This is puzzling. Why would this be so? It does not seem to emanate from the nature of recitals themselves, nor does it seem to be reflected in the general law of recitals (principally contract law).At the same time it is claimed that while EC recitals have no legal value and cannot be the cause of derogation from an operative provision, they nevertheless create legitimate expectations (such as would defeat an operative provision). This is also strange. Recitals are supposed to be general statements. General statements are not something which ordinarily are recognized as giving rise to legitimate expectations. But also recitals in general (for instance, in contract law) are, well, recitals, not operative provisions and it is hard to fathom how they could give rise to positive obligations or defeat operative clauses.Thus, the doctrine surrounding recitals in EC law is mystifying. It is either irrational or so complicated as to amount to the same thing. The aim of the paper is to explain the mystery regarding EC recitals. Why is legislation void if recitals are lacking? Why are the purported rules concerning legitimate expectations so strange?Our findings can be summarized thusly:We began research for this paper thinking that an exposition on this general topic might be of some worth, as it might clear up what we felt were some contradictions in what was purported to be the EC law of recitals. Specifically, we felt something might be amiss with the received wisdom that recitals could justify legitimate expectations such as would give rise to positive rights. Something about it didn't jibe with what we knew of legitimate expectations in this regard: only sufficiently specific statements or acts could give rise to them. Recitals, at least in EC law, are supposed to be rather general expressions of purpose; such cannot readily justify reliance. We were gratified when we found that the received wisdom was incorrect, and that recitals in EC law do not create legitimate expectations. We certainly did feel, at the onset of our research, that the ECJ's case-law invalidating EC legal acts on the basis that the recitals in question were insufficient was curious and therefore worthy of comment; at the very least the provision seemed unusual. The ECJ's statements that recitals are necessary for the court to exercise its supervision seemed somewhat coy. We were, however, surprised when our research and analysis found that the imperative nature of the requirement to state reasons in recitals in EC law was due to the need for political reassurance.We then realized that it is only in supranational legislation where the justification assumes such importance, inasmuch as EU legislation which requires unanimity in order to be adopted does not require recitals at all.Thus de-mystified, the law of recitals in EC legislation falls within the realm of normality. Recitals in EC law are not considered to have independent legal value, but they can expand an ambiguous provision's scope. They cannot, however, restrict an unambiguous provision's scope, but they can be used to determine the nature of a provision, and this can have a restrictive effect. And the voidness of an EC legal act is traceable and due to political considerations, not legal ones. Alles ist klar.


The financial risks to the local government sector have recently reached a level that presents a major threat not only to local governments but to the entire national economy. This paper therefore aims to point out the significance of internal controls, the absence or insufficiency of which is a significant factor in the deterioration of the financial situation and assets of individual local government and thus, indirectly, in increasing risks at the national level. The method of risk analysis was used to select twelve Hungarian local governments for an examination of the design and operation of internal controls in individual processes of asset management. The audits found that in a number of local governments, internal controls had not been incorporated into processes, or had been inadequate, preventing the controls from performing their functions.


In this article I want to think through the notion of possible worlds as developed in Gilles Deleuze's book on Proust and, more significantly, his book on Leibniz. In particular I want to produce an encounter between certain philosophical concepts - such as the monad and the fold - and a specific art practice, in this case the abstract paintings (or "Abstracts") of the German contemporary artist Gerhard Richter. The art practice here is meant not as an illustration of the philosophy, rather the article attempts to think a kind of Deleuze-Richter conjunction, to set each alongside the other and in so doing produce a new kind of assemblage between the two. Indeed the article is an experiment in this sense, an exploration of the resonances between two kinds of thought which although logically distinct seem to parallel one another in their creative and affirmative character. Leading on from this conjunction I want to think a little about the "new" - or expanded - baroque as Deleuze understood it, and which might be characterised by the city, and especially the Situationist city as it was theorised in the writings of Ivan Chtcheglov. We might say that this fictionalised and utopian city is an example of the Deleuze-Leibniz monad being opened out onto an expanded field of inter-connectivity. We might also characterise this new baroque as the introduction of a logic of participation into art practice.


This paper examines the ability of a dual-system, formal model of categorization COVIS (Ashby, Paul & Maddox, 2011) to predict the learning performance of participants on the six category structures described in Shepard, Hovland and Jenkin's (1961) seminal study. COVIS assumes that category learning is mediated by two dissociable neural systems that compete to control responding. The verbal system explicitly tests verbalizable rules, whereas the implicit system gradually associates each stimulus with the appropriate response. Although COVIS is highly influential, there are no published evaluations of the formal model against classic category learning data (COVIS is most typically applied heuristically to the design of new experiments). In the current paper, we begin to address this gap in the literature. Specifically, we demonstrate that COVIS is able to accommodate the ordinal pattern found by Shepard et al., provided that adjustments consistent with the model's theoretical framework are made.


The widespread application of photovoltaics, directly converting of solar energy to electrical, has not been realised, in spite of being a favoured power source by many. In order to make them more economically viable new solar technologies are being developed, with an emphasis on low cost and simple production processes. The dye sensitised solar cell is part of this category, however the efficiency of this technology is relatively low.
One approach to improve this efficiency is to create a tandem architecture, with two active layers (in this case a photoanode and photocathode). This concept was demonstrated a little over a decade ago, and to date the photocathode is the limiting element in the quest for a high efficiency tandem dye sensitised solar cell. This thesis aims to gain a better understanding into the photocathode, and to improve overall performance.


ABSTRACT This contribution presents a review and a theoretical process framework for human intuitive numerical judgments based on numerical information, The NJP model. The model is descriptive and includes one or several of the following stages, each consisting of information processing and solution strategies (1) problem readings (2) recognitions, (3) associations, (4) similarity assessments, (5) problem interpretations, (6) computations, (7) marker nominations, (8) start value selections and (9) adjustments. three main types of strategies are used separately, in sequence or simultaneously with others in and across stages: (i) Associative strategies, e.g., an answer is retrieved immediately, (ii) Computational strategies, different algorithms are applied to the information and (iii) Analogue strategies, visual analogue representations, e.g., anchoring and adjustment. The paper concludes that a generic model of intuitive judgments will inspire further studies of the psychological processes activated when a judge makes an intuitive numerical judgment.


Background: Adolescence presents an opportunity to influence diet, which impacts present and future health outcomes, yet adolescent diets globally are poorly understood. Objective: We generate evidence on adolescent diets globally and explore patterns and trends by subpopulation. Methods: We estimated mean frequency of consumption and prevalence of less-than-daily fruit and vegetable consumption, at-least-daily carbonated beverage consumption, and at-least-weekly fast-food consumption among school-going adolescents aged primarily 12 to 17 years from the Global School-based Student Health Surveys in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Latin America between 2008 and 2015. Random-effects meta-analysis was used to pool estimates globally and by subgroup. Results: On average, adolescents consumed fruit 1.43 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.26–1.60) times per day, vegetables 1.75 (1.58–1.92) times per day, carbonated soft drinks 0.99 (0.77–1.22) times per day, and fast food 1.05 (0.78–1.32) times per week. Overall, 34.5% (95% CI 29.4–39.7) consumed fruit less than once per day, 20.6% (15.8–25.9) consumed vegetables less than once per day, 42.8% (35.2–50.7) drank carbonated soft drinks at least once per day, and 46.1% (38.6–53.7) consumed fast food at least once per week. Mean daily frequency of fruit consumption was particularly low in South and East Asia (1.30 [1.02–1.58]); carbonated soft drink consumption high in Latin America (1.54 [1.31–1.78]), high-income countries (1.66 [1.29–2.03]), and modern food system typologies (1.44 [0.75–2.12]); and mean weekly fast food consumption high in mixed food system typologies (1.29 [0.88–1.71]). Conclusions: School-going adolescents infrequently consume fruits and vegetables and frequently consume carbonated soft drinks, but there is wide variability by subpopulation.


In an effort to explore the effect of substitution Fe by Cr in NaZn13-type La0.7Pr0.3Fe11.4−xCrxSi1.6 (x = 0, 0.06, 0.12, 0.26, and 0.34) compounds, the structure and magnetic properties have been investigated by high intensity of x-ray and neutron diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, specific heat, and magnetization measurement. It has been found that a substitution of Cr for Fe in this compounds leads to decrease in the lattice parameter a at room temperature but variation on Curie temperature (TC). While the first order nature of magnetic phase transition around TC does not change with increasing Cr content up to x = 0.34. High intensity x-ray and neutron diffraction study at variable temperatures for highest Cr concentration x = 0.34 confirmed the presence of strong magneto-volume effect around TC and indicated the direct evident of coexistence across magnetic transition as characteristic of first order nature. The values of −ΔSM around TC decrease from 17 J kg−1 K−1 for x = 0 to 12 J kg−1 K−1 for x = 0.06 and then increases with further increasing Cr content up to 17.5 J kg−1 K−1 for x = 0.34 under a change of 0-5 T magnetic field. Similar behavior on relative cooling power which is decrease from 390 J kg−1 for x = 0 to 365 J kg−1 for x = 0.06 at the beginning and then increases up to 400 J kg−1 for x = 0.34. From the point of this view with the highest Cr concentration (x = 0.34) exhibits favourable material candidate for magnetic refrigerator application therefore should inspire further study concerning on higher Cr concentration in this compound.


High level reasoning is becoming essential to autonomous systems such as robots. Both the information available to and the reasoning required for such autonomous systems is fundamentally incremental in nature. A stream is a flow of incrementally available information and reasoning over streams is called stream reasoning. Incremental reasoning over streaming information is necessary to support a number of important robotics functionalities such as situation awareness, execution monitoring, and decision making. This paper presents a practical framework for semantically grounded temporal stream reasoning called DyKnow. Incremental reasoning over streams is achieved through efficient progression of temporal logical formulas. The reasoning is semantically grounded through a common ontology and a specification of the semantic content of streams relative to the ontology. This allows the finding of relevant streams through semantic matching. By using semantic mappings between ontologies it is also possible to do semantic matching over multiple ontologies. The complete stream reasoning framework is integrated in the Robot Operating System (ROS) thereby extending it with a stream reasoning capability.


I. INTRODUCTION In the midst of the software boom, and with so much at stake, computer software developers scrambled to protect their products from blatant copying and unscrupulous takeoffs. Ultimately, they responded by imposing restrictive licenses (shrinkwrap licenses1) upon everyone who would purchase and use their computer software. The enforcement of these licenses has fueled a great debate. Courts and commentators alike have questioned whether these licenses strip federally granted rights from the public and bestow these rights upon software developers. Courts have yet to reach a consensus on whether shrinkwrap licenses, backed by state contract law, should be preempted by federal copyright law. However, an analysis of § 301 of the Copyright Act,2 read in light of the purposes of copyright law, shows that breach of contract claims based on shrinkwrap licenses should be preempted by copyright law. Courts denying preemption under § 301 distinguished copyright claims from contract claims by applying the "extra element" test.3 Under this test, a contract claim is not equivalent to (and thus not preempted by) a copyright claim if the contract claim requires the accuser to prove additional elements superfluous to the copyright claim. Courts have found that shrinkwrap licenses are not preempted by improperly distinguishing the contract claim with the extra element of bargain-an element that is not present in shrinkwrap licenses because the consumer has no option but to accept the license or return the software to the developer. Preemption of shrinkwrap licenses is also proper because it does not leave software developers unprotected. Under the current test for fair use found in § 107 of the Copyright Act,4 the economic interests of computer developers can be respected while allowing the public fair use of digital materials (digital fair use5). Further, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act6 (DMCA) serves the interests of software developers by prohibiting the circumvention of technological measures that developers chose to employ in protecting their software.7 Precluding preemption of breach of contract claims based on shrinkwrap licenses presents significant problems. The copyright doctrine of fair use-which permits consumers to freely use copyrighted materials for limited personal, noncommercial purposes such as archival copying, developing interoperability, or modifying computer programs-will be eviscerated if copyright law wields no preemptive power over breach of contract claims based on shrinkwrap licenses. This problem arises because while fair uses cannot constitute copyright infringement, these same uses are not insulated against breach of contract claims.8 Therefore, even though a particular use of copyrighted software is a fair use, this public right will not be a valid defense to a breach of contract claim.9 Thus, allowing breach of contract claims based on shrinkwrap licenses sets at naught the fair use doctrine and the purposes of Congress. By weighing the practical effects of the shrinkwrap licensing provisions against the purposes of copyright law, courts should be moved to invalidate such provisions. This Comment begins by introducing the foundational principles of copyright law, including the copyright infringement standard, digital fair use, and reverse engineering, a category of fair use. Part II discusses several reasons why software developers may have been displeased with the protection available to them under copyright law, as well as the consequent advent of shrinkwrap licenses. Part III analyzes the shrinkwrap licenses under § 301 of the Copyright Act, concluding that breach of contract claims based on shrinkwrap licenses should be preempted by copyright law because these claims are substantively equivalent to copyright claims. Although some courts have distinguished breach of contract claims based on shrinkwrap licenses from copyright claims using the extra element test, these courts have inappropriately relied on the element of bargain, which is not present in shrinkwrap licenses. …


Intensive insonification of liquids can generate cavitation bubbles. The bubbles collapse violently, and in doing so generate high temperatures and pressures within the gaseous contents. This can lead to a reactive chemical environment as well as the often observed pulse of light near the end of the collapse phase of the bubble oscillation. Research studies have concentrated on either an isolated single bubble or clouds of many bubbles. The acoustic cavitation bubble is likely to be near–spherical in single–bubble sonoluminescence (SBSL), with almost an indefinite number of oscillations being observed, while in multibubble sonoluminescence (MBSL) it will more likely be non–spherical, with only a small number of oscillations before it breaks up. High temperatures of 104 to 105 K have been measured in SBSL while an order of magnitude lower (103 to 104 K) are more typical of MBSL. The chemical constituents of the bubble interior are also different, typically argon in many of the SBSL experimental studies, while in MBSL they are related to the vapour of the liquid solution, each of the constituents being identified by the different spectral characteristics. Clearly, such a potentially chemically reactive environment has attracted significant attention from chemists and industrialists, as well as the innate scientific curiosity with such seemingly simple observable phenomena. Nevertheless, the phenomenon is much more complicated than first thought and the complex nonlinear mathematics, physics and chemistry make acoustic cavitation and sonoluminescence an exciting area of research. The aim of this volume is to show the excitement of this evolving field through introducing the physico–mathematical modelling of a spherical bubble in SBSL followed by the understanding arising from experimental studies, the development of non–spherical bubble phenomena which are the basis for the study and understanding of shock phenomena and luminescence. Bubbles in MBSL occur in large numbers and their interaction is important with regard to applications in sonochemistry and industry. Within this field of study, an opportunity exists to provide solutions, provided laboratory studies can be scaled up to the industrial level, to a range of chemical, metallurgical and environmental problems that are due to the enormous pressures and temperatures that can be generated inside the cavitation bubble.


In this study we investigate the use of noisy-labeled data for pretraining multi-label audio tagging models. The system is implemented based on Neural Network architecture using convolutional and dense layer applied to log-scale mel-frequency spectrograms of the input data. Pretraining on the full noisy dataset is compared with pretraining on a part of the noisy dataset, selected automatically based on a model trained on a curated data, and with use of a curated only data for building an audio tagging system. In addition, the effect of the model architecture on the performance of the system is assessed. In particular, the baseline model consisted of four convolutional blocks followed by a fully connected head is com-pared with models build based on densely connected blocks. The effect of the number of blocks and pooling, for generation of features for fully connected part, is verified. Use of an optimized architecture along with 64 frequency channels in preprocessed melspectrograms has allowed us to build a fast baseline model with 5-fold cross-validation label-weighted label-ranking average precision (lwlrap) score reaching 0.87 and taking only 60-90 seconds (5-folds) for generating a prediction on the public portion of test dataset. The final system is composed of 15 models trained with slightly modified parameters and selected to minimize correlations between model predictions in the ensemble.


Sludge is a by-product of wastewater treatment and contains multitude of pollutants. In the present study, irradiation with ultrasound as treatment technique was carried out to treat complex effluent paper sludge, sugar sludge and sewage sludge samples from different industrial places. Wastewater samples were treated in ultrasonic bath at 25 kHz for different time periods of 5 min, 10 min, 20 min and 30 min. Treated wastewater samples were tested for different parameters, viz. particle size reduction by particle size analyser, chemical oxygen demand (COD), degree of disintegration COD, ammonical nitrogen and total phosphorus. Results show that the extent of disintegration by ultrasonication in wastewater samples was different in the three cases. Sewage sludge had maximum disintegration followed by paper and sugar sludge. It is concluded that low-frequency ultrasonication is very effective in decreasing the bacterial population in industrial wastewater samples.


Analysis of the entire genome (genomics) provides static information about the genes of an organism. In contrast, total protein analysis (proteomics) reflects the dynamic situation, providing information about the rate of expression and regulation of individual proteins within the cell. Clues as to the function of proteins in diverse cell processes can only be obtained if their structure and modifications or variations are fully understood. Recently, we learned to define important individual posttranslational protein modifications for function.

Keywords:

protein modifications;
structure and function of modifications;
identification of modifications;
2DE separation and MS analysis;
protein processing;
phosphorylation


INTRODUCTION
Anosmia has not been formally recognised as a symptom of COVID-19 infection. Growing anecdotal evidence suggests increasing incidence of cases of anosmia during the current pandemic, suggesting that COVID-19 may cause olfactory dysfunction. The objective was to characterise patients reporting new onset anosmia during the COVID-19 pandemic METHODOLOGY: Design: Survey of 2428 patients reporting new onset anosmia during the COVID-19 pandemic.

SETTING
Volunteer sample of patients seeking medical advice of recent onset self-diagnosed loss of sense of smell RESULTS: 2428 surveys were completed within 7 days; 64% respondents were under 40. The majority of respondents reported onset of their anosmia in the last week. Of the cohort, 17% did not report any other symptom thought to be associated with COVID-19. In patients who reported other symptoms, 51% reported either cough or fever and therefore met current guidelines for self-isolation.

CONCLUSIONS
Anosmia is reported in conjunction with well-reported symptoms of coronas virus, but 1 in 6 patients with recent onset anosmia report this as an isolated symptom. This might help identify otherwise asymptomatic carriers of disease and trigger targeted testing. Further study with COVID-19 testing is required to identify the proportion of patients in whom new onset anosmia can be attributed to COVID-19.


Subcutaneous allergen specific immunotherapy is an effective treatment of IgE-mediated allergies, but it requires repeated allergen injections with a risk of systemic allergic reactions. Other routes of immunization had been explored to improve patient compliance and safety. Skin is not only a physical barrier between the body and outside world, but also an important immune organ eliciting innate and adaptive immune function. Skin has been used as an ideal site for vaccination of infectious diseases. Food allergen topically applied onto disrupted skin can induce sensitization and food allergy would develop subsequently. However, immune tolerance would be induced if the skin barrier is kept intact. Several mice and human studies on epicutaneous immunotherapy showed successful treatment on IgE-induced allergy models or allergic diseases. Migratory Langerhans cells might play a decisive role in the induction of different immune responses. Further research on the underlying mechanism of the crosstalk between skin and gut or airway is helpful for the understanding of many protective or sensitizing immune responses induced via skin, and also is helpful for the development of new strategy for the treatment of allergic disease.


Sexual violence on college and university campuses in Canada and the United States has been an unsettling issue for several decades. However, the understanding that politicians, policy makers, and academic administrations can no longer ignore these violations is a more recent development. This thesis investigates the management and the potential mismanagement of sexual violence policy and practice with a specific focus on one Canadian University in Southern Ontario. Intersectional feminist theory provided the conceptual framework informing this research and institutional ethnography was the methodology engaged to explore a range of university policy and practices. This research illuminates the difficulties that policy makers and students identified in the development of accessible sexual violence policies and practices and provides recommendations to help post-secondary institutions implement sexual violence policies and protocols that are more useful for students and more socially just. MISHANDLED: TURNHILL UNIVERSITY'S APPROACH TO SEXUAL VIOLENCE ii


STUDY OBJECTIVE: Relative risks are frequently assumed to be stable across populations but this may not apply in psychiatric epidemiology where sociocultural context may modify them. Such ecological effect modification will give curved associations between aggregated risk factor and outcome. This was examined in connection with the ecological association between suicide rates and an aggregate index of religiosity. DESIGN: Ecological study of associations between suicide rates and an index of religiosity, adjusted for socioeconomic variation. The effect of stratification of the study sample according to levels of religiosity, was examined. SETTING: 26 European and American countries. SUBJECTS: Interview data from 37,688 people aggregated by country. OUTCOME MEASURES: Age and sex specific (1986-1990) suicide rates. MAIN RESULT: Adjusted for socioeconomic variation, negative associations of male suicide rates with religiosity were apparent in the 13 least religious countries only (test for interaction F (1, 25) = 5.6; p = 0.026). Associations between religiosity and female suicide rates did not vary across countries. CONCLUSION: The bent ecological association was apparent only after adjustment for socioeconomic variation suggesting that, rather than confounding, ecological modification of individual level links between religion and male (but not female) suicide risk is the responsible mechanism. This concurs with micro-level findings suggesting that suicide acceptance depends not only on personal but also on contextual levels of religious belief, and that men are more sensitive to this phenomenon than women. In psychiatric epidemiology, relative risks vary with the exposure's prevalence. This has important implications for research and prevention.


We demonstrate a new full range complex spectral domain optical coherence tomography (FRC SD-OCT) method. Other than FRC SD-OCT systems reported in literature, which employed devices such as electro-/acousto optic modulators or piezo-driven mirrors providing the phase modulations necessary for retrieval of the complex-valued signal, the system presented works without any additional phase shifting device. The required phase shift is introduced by the galvanometer scanner used for transversally scanning the sample beam. By means of a slight displacement of the probe beam with respect to the scanning mirror's pivot axis, the sample arm length and thus the phase is continuously modulated as the beam is scanned in lateral direction. From such modulated spectral data, the complex-valued data yielding a twofold increase of accessible depth range can be calculated using an algorithm based on the Hilbert transform. To demonstrate the performance of our method quantitative measurements of the suppression of mirror images as a function of induced phase shift were performed. In order to validate the FRC SD-OCT technique for high-speed imaging of biological tissue, we present full-range images of the human anterior chamber in vivo.


This study aims to develop a deeper understanding of the factors at play behind consumer's receptivity to a radically creative product, and whether their personalities, specifically their openness to experience, moderates their intentions to try said product. Creativity research has already established the link between radically creative ideas and the novelty and familiarity dichotomy. I have used products in the entomophagy (edible insects for human consumption) industry as suitably novel products to gauge consumer's intentions-to-try. For this study, a survey of 77 participants generated observations on intention to try edible insect products of varying familiarities, and information about the participants own resistance to change and openness to experience. A regression analysing the interaction between familiarity and intention to try found significant interactions between the two variables for unprimed populations, and also found significant interactions for the effect of openness on the relationship between familiarity and intention to try . Finally, a theory was posited to explain the results, and suggestions were given for further exploration of the nexus between radical creativity, novelty, intentionto-try, and personality factors.


Future therapy using focused ultrasound (FUS) to treat tumors in abdominal organs, such as the liver, must incorporate motion tracking of these organs due to breathing and drift caused by gravity and intestines (peristalsis). Motion tracking of the target (e.g. tumor) is needed to ensure accurately located sonications. We have performed a quantitative validation of a methodology for motion tracking of the liver with 4D (3D+time) ultrasound. The offline analysis was done using a recently published non-rigid registration algorithm that was specifically designed for motion estimation from dynamic imaging data. The method registers the entire 4D sequence in a group-wise optimization fashion, thus avoiding a bias towards a specifically chosen reference time point. Both spatial and temporal smoothness of the transformations are enforced by using a 4D free-form B-spline deformation model. For our evaluation, three healthy volunteers were scanned over several breath cycles from three different positions and angles on the abdomen (totally nine 4D scans). A skilled physician performed the scanning and manually annotated well-defined anatomic landmarks for assessment of the automatic algorithm. Four engineers each annotated these points in all time frames, the mean of which was taken as a gold standard. The error of the automatic motion estimation method was compared with inter-observer variability. The registration method estimated liver motion better than the observers and had an error (75% percentile over all datasets) of 1 mm. We conclude that the methodology was able to accurately track the motion of the liver in the 4D ultrasound data.


Developing inexpensive and non-toxic electrocatalysts that can reduce CO2 to formate with high selectivity and stability as well as high current densities is an important step for a sustainable carbon cycle. Electrocatalysts that show the highest faradaic efficiency for formate, such as Pb and Hg, are toxic or expensive and have low current densities. Bulk Zn is a cheap metal that has historically been identified to be a CO2 to CO conversion catalyst. In this work, we introduce a novel Zn electrode with a layer of nanoparticles that exhibit high performance toward CO2 electrochemical reduction to produce formate in aqueous solution. The maximum faradaic efficiency for formate production of over 87% is achieved with a formate partial current density of 12.8 mA cm−2, which are almost 8 times higher than that of bulk Zn foil and 17 times higher than that of bulk Zn foil, respectively. The improvement in catalytic performance is attributed to the catalytically active facets and special surface structure of polycrystalline Zn formed during reduction of polycrystalline ZnO. The catalyst shows no obvious performance deterioration during the 14 h continuous CO2 reduction.


Mycelial fungi and acellular slime molds grow as self-organized networks that explore new territory to search for resources, whilst maintaining an effective internal transport system in the face of continuous attack or random damage. These networks adapt during development by selective reinforcement of major transport routes and recycling of the intervening redundant material to support further extension. In the case of fungi, the predicted transport efficiency of the weighted network is better than evenly weighted networks with the same topology, or standard reference networks. Experimentally, nutrient movement can be mapped using radiotracers and scintillation imaging, and shows more complex transport dynamics, with synchronized oscillations and switching between different pre-existing routes. The significance of such dynamics to the interplay between transport control and topology is not yet known. In a similar manner, the resilience of the network can be tested in silico and experimentally using grazing invertebrates. Both approaches suggest that the same structures that confer good transport efficiency also show good resilience, with the persistence of a centrally connected core. The acellular slime mold, Physarum polycephalum also forms efficient networks between food sources, with a good balance between total cost, transit distance and fault tolerance. In this case, network formation can be captured by a mathematical model driven by non-linear positive reinforcement of tubes with high flux, and decay of tubes with low flux. We argue that organization of these simple planar networks has been honed by evolution, and they may exemplify potential solutions to real-world compromises between search strategy, transport efficiency, resilience and cost in other domains.


Background and Aims: The purpose of this study was to investigate The Effectiveness of Self-efficacy on Achievement Motivation of Students. Methods: The research method was semi-experimental with pretest-posttest design with control group. The statistical population of study included all students in Guilan University of Medical Sciences in 2015 academic year, that among them 30 students were selected by using random sampling method and assigned to experimental group (15 individuals) and control group (15 individuals). The experimental group had received 8 sessions of Self-efficacy program. Achievement Motivation questionnaire used to data gathering. Data were analyzed by multivariable co-variance test. Results: Findings indicated that the research hypothesis of effect of Self-efficacy on Achievement Motivation of Students had been proven and students of experimental group in comparison with control group, in posttest had a significantly increases test anxiety and academic burnout. Conclusion: So, we can conclude that Cognitive Self-efficacy Program has a significant effect on Achievement Motivation of Students.


Japanese film studies is an academic discipline and research community focusing on the multifaceted aspects of Japanese cinema. Deeply interdisciplinary, it employs theories, critical approaches and methods from different fields such as film studies and cultural studies to understand Japanese films as works of art, cultural products and social practices. What makes a film "Japanese", and even what is a film, are far from easy questions, particularly in the globalised, transnational and digitalised world in which we now live, but nevertheless are issues that define the disciple and its historiography.

Yomota Inuhiko puts it simply in [...]


Conjugated polymers entrapped in porous silicon microcavity have been studied as optical sensors for low volatility explosives such as trinitrotoluene. The fluorescence spectra of entrapped polymers were modulated by the microcavity via a spectral "hole" that matches the resonance peak of the microcavity reflectance. Exposure of the porous silicon microcavity containing entrapped polymer to explosives vapor results in a red shift of the resonance peak and the spectral hole, accompanied by the quenching of the fluorescence. This multiplexed response provides multiple monitoring parameters, enabling the development of an optical sensor array for the detection of target explosive vapor.


Alias calculus was proposed by Bertrand Meyer in 2011 for a toy programming language with a single data type for abstract pointers. This original calculus is a set-based formalism insensitive to the control flow; it is a set of syntaxdriven rules how to compute an upper approximation aft(S, P ) for aliasing after the execution of a program P for a given initial aliasing S. The primary purpose of our paper is to present a variant of alias calculus for a more realistic programming language with automatic and dynamic memory, regular data and a decidable pointer arithmetic. Our variant is insensitive to the control flow (like the original calculus by B. Meyer), but (in contrast to the original calculus) this calculus is equation-based.


The purpose of the thesis was to design and build an EMG measuring device that utilizes a switch capacitor block to sample the signal directly at the inputs and then perform a voltage to frequency conversion. The measured signal is then represented unprocessed with a robust digital signal that can be transmitted to a signal processor for filtering and processing. The signal processor and its communication are simulated using a computer-aided tool, Matlab, in order to verify the theoretical aspects of the handling of the signal.


Objectives This study aimed to determine the effect of a stroke education programme on elementary school students and their parental guardians in a rural area in Japan that has high stroke mortality. Design School class based intervention study. Setting Eleven public elementary schools in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. Participants 268 students aged 11–12 years and 267 parental guardians. Interventions Students received lessons about stroke featuring animated cartoons and were instructed to communicate their knowledge about stroke to their parental guardians using material (comic books) distributed in the lessons. Stroke knowledge (symptoms, risk factors and attitude towards stroke) and behavioural change for risk factors were assessed at baseline, immediately after the programme and at 3 months. We also evaluated behavioural change for risk factors among parental guardians. Results The percentage of students with all correct answers for stroke symptoms, risk factors and the recommended response to stroke was significantly increased at 3 months P<0.001). We observed a significant increase in the percentage of guardians who chose all correct symptoms (P<0.001: 61.0% vs 85.4%) and risk factors (P<0.001: 41.2% vs 59.9%) at 3 months compared with baseline. The percentage of parental guardians with a high behavioural response to improving risk factors was significantly increased at 3 months compared with baseline (P<0.001). Conclusions In a rural population with high stroke mortality, stroke education can improve knowledge about stroke in elementary school students and their parental guardians. Ethics and dissemination We conducted the intervention as a part of compulsory education; this study was not a clinical trial. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center (M27-026).


IL-4 is involved in several human diseases including allergies, autoimmunity, and cancer. Its effects are mainly mediated through the transcription factor STAT6. Therefore, investigation of compounds that regulate STAT6 activation is of great interest for these diseases. Natural polyphenols are compounds reported to have therapeutic properties in diseases involving IL-4 and STAT6. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of these compounds in the activation of this transcription factor. We found that in hemopoietic cells from human and mouse origin, some flavonoids were able to inhibit the activation of STAT6 by IL-4. To identify molecular mechanisms, we focused on kaempferol, the compound that showed the greatest inhibitory effect with the lowest cell toxicity. Treatment of cells with kaempferol did not affect activation of Src kinase by IL-4 but did prevent the phosphorylation of JAK1 and JAK3. Further enzymatic analysis demonstrated that kaempferol blocked the in vitro phosphorylation activity of JAK3 without affecting JAK1, suggesting that it specifically targeted JAK3 activity. Accordingly, kaempferol had no effect on STAT6 activation in nonhemopoietic cell lines lacking JAK3, supporting its selective inhibition of IL-4 responses through type I receptors expressing JAK3 but not type II lacking this kinase. The inhibitory effect of kaempferol was also observed in IL-2 but not IL-3-mediated responses and correlated with the inhibition of MLC proliferation. These findings reveal the potential use of kaempferol as a tool for selectively controlling cell responses to IL-4 and, in general, JAK3-dependent responses.


BACKGROUND
Observational studies showed that exposure to exogenous insulin increases fracture risk. However, it remains unclear whether the observed association is a function of the severity of underlying type 2 diabetes mellitus, complications, therapies, comorbidities, or all these factors combined. That being so, and because of the relative infrequency of these events, it is important to study this further in a large-database setting. QUESTION/PURPOSES: (1) Is switching from oral antidiabetic agents to insulin associated with an increased fracture risk? (2) How soon after switching does the increased risk appear, and for how long does this increased risk persist?

METHODS
Data from healthcare utilization databases of the Italian region of Lombardy were used. These healthcare utilization databases report accurate, complete, and interconnectable information of inpatient and outpatient diagnoses, therapies, and services provided to the almost 10 million residents in the region. The 216,624 patients on treatment with oral antidiabetic therapy from 2005 to 2009 were followed until 2010 to identify those who modified their antidiabetic therapy (step 1 cohort). Among the 63% (136,307 patients) who experienced a therapy modification, 21% (28,420 patients) switched to insulin (active exposure), and the remaining 79% (107,887 patients) changed to another oral medication (referent exposure). A 1:1 high-dimension propensity score matching design was adopted for balancing patients on active and referent exposure. Matching failed for 3% of patients (926 patients), so the cohort of interest was formed by 27,494 insulin-referent couples. The latter were followed until 2012 to identify those who experienced hospital admission for fracture (outcome). A Cox proportional hazard model was fitted to estimate the hazard ratio (HR) for the outcome risk associated with active-exposure (first research question). Between-exposure comparison of daily fracture hazard rates from switching until the 24 successive months was explored through the Kernel-smoothed estimator (second research question).

RESULTS
Compared with patients on referent exposure, those who switched to insulin had an increased risk of experiencing any fracture (HR = 1.5 [95% CI 1.3 to 1.6]; p < 0.001). The same risk was observed for hip and vertebral fractures, with HRs of 1.6 (95% CI 1.4 to 1.8; p < 0.001) and 1.8 (95% 1.5 to 2.3; p < 0.001), respectively. Differences in the daily pattern of outcome rates mainly appeared the first 2 months after switching, when the hazard rate of patients on active exposure (9 cases for every 100,000 person-days) was higher than that of patients on referent exposure (4 cases for every 100,000 person-days). These differences persisted during the remaining follow-up, though with reduced intensity.

CONCLUSIONS
We found quantitative evidence that switching from oral antidiabetic therapy to insulin is associated with an increased fracture risk, mainly in the period immediately after the start of insulin therapy. The observed association may result from higher hypoglycemia risk among patients on insulin, which leads to a greater number of falls and resulting fractures. However, although our study was based on a large sample size and highly accurate data, its observational design and the lack of clinical data suggest that future research will need to replicate or refute our findings and address the issue of causality, if any. Until then, though, prescribers and patients should be aware of this risk. Careful control of insulin dosage should be maintained and measures taken to reduce fall risk in these patients.

LEVEL OF EVIDENCE
Level III, therapeutic study.


Leading scholars in discourse analysis and European foreign policy join force in this book, marking a real breakthrough in the literature. Not only do they offer original perspectives on European foreign policy, but they bring together various theories on foreign policy discourses that remain too often isolated from each other. This theoretical diversity is clearly reflected in the book's four-pronged structure: Part I - Post-structuralist Approaches (with contributions from Thomas Diez, Henrik Larsen and Beste Isleyne). Part II - Constructivist Approaches (with contributions from Knud Erik Jorgensen, Jan Orbie, Ferdi de Ville, Esther Barbe, Anna Herranz-Surralles and Michal Natorski) Part III - Critical Discourse Analytical Approaches (with contributions from Senem Aydin-Duzgit, Amelie Kutter, Ruth Wodak, Salomi Boukala, and Caterina Carta. Part IV- Discoursive Institutionalist Approaches (with contributions from Ben Rosamond, Antoine Rayroux,and Vivien A. Schmidt)


Abstract High hopes are pinned on tourism and its catalytic potential to foster growth in remote rural areas. In the Zambezi region of northeastern Namibia, tourism plays a key role in the design of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) programmes for nature conservation. Local communities form conservancies, small village-based entities of bottom-up nature conservation activities. These conservancies are granted rights for the use of natural resources, which are then transferred to tourism investors and trophy-hunting companies. Thus, conservancies partly determine tourism's developmental outcomes on a local level. By applying a global production network (GPN) approach, the objective is, first, to assess how much of the turnover generated in the Zambezi region remains in the region and, second, to examine the extent to which conservancies, as newly formed local institutions, enable communities to capture value from tourism. A mixed-methods approach is applied, using a business survey, qualitative interview data and financial reports which allow a calculation of value capture. Roughly 20% of the value generated by the tourism industry in the Zambezi region is captured locally. In addition, conservancies play a key role in the GPN, acting as hinges between the local and the global: conservancies are involved in the production of the resource, mediate in strategic coupling processes and use regulatory and bargaining power to capture value. Conservancies therefore have the potential to increase local gains from tourism. On the one hand, these results underline the importance of local institutions for value capture in GPN analysis. On the other hand, as local linkages are limited and the level of local ownership is low, policies are needed that ensure the participation of local residents beyond direct transfer payments from private enterprises to communities.


We develop and build a new type of inspection car. A beam that is not rigidly connected to the train axle boxes and can absorb the vibration and impact caused by the high speed train is used, and a laser-camera measurement system based on the machine vision method is adopted. This method projects structural light onto the track and measures gauge and longitudinal irregularity. The measurement principle and model are discussed. Through numerous practical experiments, the rebuilt car is found to considerably eliminate the measurement errors caused by vibration and impact, thereby increasing measurement stability under high speeds. This new kind of inspection cars have been used in several Chinese administration bureaus.


Abstract Hematite (a-Fe2O3) and goethite (a-FeOOH) can incorporate considerable amounts of tungsten (W). Although W concentrations up to several wt% in hematite and goethite have been reported in the literature, none of the proposed models for a structural incorporation has been generally accepted yet. Here, the first combination of X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) measurements with X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy (RS), electron microprobe (EMPA) and total reflection X-ray fluorescence (TXRF) provides a general relation between W content and its structural incorporation into hematite and goethite. Botryoidal specimens of goethite and hematite, obtained from the Schwarzwald ore district, Black Forest, SW Germany, and from the Grantcharitza W deposit, Bulgaria, display W concentrations of up to 5.5 and 2.15 mol% W for goethite and hematite, respectively. In addition to these natural specimens, goethite and hematite were synthesized in the presence of W and incorporate up to 7 and 1.3 mol% W, respectively. X-ray diffraction analysis does not indicate the presence of separate W-phases, supporting the structural incorporation of W into the hematite and goethite. Refined unit-cell parameters indicate no changes with increasing W concentration in hematites but a rising structural disorder within the structure of the synthetic goethites. Raman spectroscopy, however, shows an increasing structural disorder for both synthetics, indicating an increase of Fe vacancies in both hematite and goethite. A deprotonation mechanism for the goethite structure is unlikely according to the Raman results. XAS near-edge spectra indicate a strong distortion of the WO6 octahedra in both hematite and goethite. Extended XAFS spectra of the natural and synthetic goethites and hematites show striking similarities and suggest that W6+ resides in all samples on the Fe3+ position, again without developing separate W phases. Calculations of the Fe-loss related to W incorporation reach mean values of ~2.9 and ~2.8 for goethite and hematite, respectively. The formation of two Fe3+ vacancies in close proximity to the newly incorporated W6+ in addition to a protonation of the structures achieves charge balance within the hematite and goethite structure. Hematite and goethite record the presence of W in fluids even in the absence of visible W minerals. After W adsorption to ferrihydrite (the hematite and goethite precursor phase) and after its transformation to either hematite or goethite, only hematite with up to 0.4 wt% W is clearly able to continuously monitor a changing W signature as a record of the fluid history within its oscillatory growth zones. In contrast, goethite is probably not a good monitor of a primary W fluid history. Their combination, however, could be particularly useful, as hematite records the W concentrations in a fluid during ferihydrite precipitation, while goethite records W concentrations during later ferrihydrite maturation. Botryoidal Fe-ores have never been considered for W recovery but could play an important role to fight a potential supply risk of W as a high-technology metal.


Patients with mild cognitive impairment account for a significant number of referrals to old age psychiatry services and specialist memory clinics. The cognitive evaluation of such patients is commonly restricted to brief dementia screens, with no consideration to their suitability for assessing MCI. Here, we review the utility of such cognitive screens for MCI and provide an overview of validated instruments.


In 1990, the Northwestern University Law Review published The Competency and Responsibility of Jurors in Deciding Cases, 85 Nw. U. L. Rev.190 (1990). The Article conceptualized the jury "as a democratic representative of the community through its verdicts" and argued that because of this democratic role, it should be equipped for success. The Article suggested that a modern active jury model, where jurors under the proper circumstances should be permitted to take notes and ask questions, was preferable to the traditional passive model, particularly when both a cross-section of the community and verdict accuracy were desired jury parameters. That is because there is a natural conflict between the accuracy and cross-section objectives. If the cross-section of the community means jurors would be drawn from all persons in the community, the result would be to attract average citizens who may or may not have solid educational skills. Consequently, the accuracy goal would be easily marginalized, especially under a passive jury model where jurors are expected to remember evidence and arguments up to weeks—even months—at a time before they can discuss it. The argument in favor of the active jury suggested that it provided a way to improve jury efficiency and accuracy.

How have those arguments of 1990 weathered the storms of intervening decades? Fairly well, I think. This short Essay doubles down on these claims, arguing that neuroscience discoveries have shown that active, engaged thinkers have better retention and recall and therefore will be better jurors overall. The Essay makes four points about how advancing neuroscience, especially in the digital age, supports active jury functioning.


A novel Silicon Sacrificial Layer Dry Etching (SSLDE) technique using sputtered amorphous or LPCVD polycrystalline silicon as sacrificial layers and a dry fluorine-based (SF/sub 6/) plasma chemistry as releasing process is reported with a detailed experimental study of the release etching step. The process is capable of various applications in surface micromachining process, and can be applied in fabricating RF MEMS switches, tunable capacitors, high-Q suspended inductors and suspended-gate MOSFETs. The developed SSLDE process can release metal suspended beams and membranes with excellent performance in terms of etch rate (up to 15 /spl mu/m/min), Si:SiO/sub 2/ selectivity and is fully compatible with standard MEMS processing equipment and CMOS post-processing.


Gender scholars have developed a significant body of scholarship on the reproduction of gender inequality in work organizations. However, the vast majority of that research has been conducted in non-profit organizations or in employer-owned businesses. In this article, we review the existing literature on gender in worker-owned businesses. We begin by defining three distinctly different types of worker-owned businesses: companies with employee stock ownership plans, worker cooperatives, and communes. Next we review the limited research on gender inequality in each of these organizational forms. The current literature finds that women benefit from working in these alternative organizations, but gender disparities nevertheless persist due to occupational segregation and the devaluation of domestic work. Exceptions are those organizations with strong ties to feminism and those with formal power-sharing policies. Granted the scarcity of research on this topic, however, these conclusions are tentative. We conclude with a discussion of areas for further research.


Cloud computing promises flexibility and high performance for users and high cost-efficiency for operators. Nevertheless, most cloud facilities operate at very low utilization, hurting both cost effectiveness and future scalability. We present Quasar, a cluster management system that increases resource utilization while providing consistently high application performance. Quasar employs three techniques. First, it does not rely on resource reservations, which lead to underutilization as users do not necessarily understand workload dynamics and physical resource requirements of complex codebases. Instead, users express performance constraints for each workload, letting Quasar determine the right amount of resources to meet these constraints at any point. Second, Quasar uses classification techniques to quickly and accurately determine the impact of the amount of resources (scale-out and scale-up), type of resources, and interference on performance for each workload and dataset. Third, it uses the classification results to jointly perform resource allocation and assignment, quickly exploring the large space of options for an efficient way to pack workloads on available resources. Quasar monitors workload performance and adjusts resource allocation and assignment when needed. We evaluate Quasar over a wide range of workload scenarios, including combinations of distributed analytics frameworks and low-latency, stateful services, both on a local cluster and a cluster of dedicated EC2 servers. At steady state, Quasar improves resource utilization by 47% in the 200-server EC2 cluster, while meeting performance constraints for workloads of all types.


As the Great Depression touched every corner of America, the New Deal promoted indigenous arts and crafts as a means of bootstrapping Native American peoples. But New Deal administrators' romanticization of indigenous artists predisposed them to favor pre-industrial forms rather than art that responded to contemporary markets. In A New Deal for Native Art Jennifer McLerran reveals how positioning the native artist as a pre-modern Other served the goals of New Deal programs, nd how this sometimes worked at cross-purposes with promoting native self-sufficiency. She describes federal policies of the 1930s and early 1940s that sought to generate an upscale market for Native American arts and crafts. And by unraveling the complex ways in which commodification was negotiated and the roles that producers, consumers, and New Deal administrators played in that process, she sheds new light on native art's commodity status and the artist's position as colonial subject. In this first book to address the ways in which New Deal Indian policy specifically advanced commodification and colonization, McLerran reviews its multi-pronged effort to improve the market for Indian art through the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, arts and crafts cooperatives, murals, museum exhibits, and Civilian Conservation Corps projects. Presenting nationwide case studies that demonstrate transcultural dynamics of production and reception, she argues for viewing Indian art as a commodity, as part of the national economy, and as part of national political trends and reform efforts. McLerran marks the contributions of key individuals, from John Collier and Rene d?Harnoncourt to Navajo artist Gerald Nailor, whose mural in the Navajo Nation Council House conveyed distinctly different messages to outsiders and tribal members. Featuring dozens of illustrations, A New Deal for Native Art offers a new look at the complexities of folk art ?revivals as it opens a new window on the Indian New Deal.


Jesuit education challenges us to ask tough questions of ourselves and those around us. At Regis University in Denver, Colorado, the University's mission encourages students to ask, "How ought we to live?"  For some, the answer to this question can be found in a classroom, but, for others, the answer is more obvious in other settings. This question is especially prevalent as each year a group of students, faculty, and staff travel together to El Salvador to learn about important Jesuit history, diversity, solidarity, and justice, and how faith can play a role in the bigger picture of how each participant attempts to answer the question of how ought we to live. This unique learning opportunity impacts all those who participate in a way that changes them forever.


Overdiagnosis occurs when a true abnormality is discovered, but detection of that abnormality does not benefit the patient. It should be distinguished from misdiagnosis, in which the diagnosis is inaccurate, and it is not synonymous with overtreatment or overuse, in which excess medication or procedures are provided to patients for both correct and incorrect diagnoses. Overdiagnosis for adult conditions has gained a great deal of recognition over the last few years, led by realizations that certain screening initiatives, such as those for breast and prostate cancer, may be harming the very people they were designed to protect. In the fall of 2014, the second international Preventing Overdiagnosis Conference will be held, and the British Medical Journal will produce an overdiagnosis-themed journal issue. However, overdiagnosis in children has been less well described. This special article seeks to raise awareness of the possibility of overdiagnosis in pediatrics, suggesting that overdiagnosis may affect commonly diagnosed conditions such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, bacteremia, food allergy, hyperbilirubinemia, obstructive sleep apnea, and urinary tract infection. Through these and other examples, we discuss why overdiagnosis occurs and how it may be harming children. Additionally, we consider research and education strategies, with the goal to better elucidate pediatric overdiagnosis and mitigate its influence.


Purpose: This research study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of the services provided by CBR programmes in Jordan. Method: This was a mixed-methods investigation. A survey was carried out with 47 participants (stakeholders and volunteers) from four CBR centres in Jordan. It comprised 18 questions that collected both qualitative and quantitative data with both closed- and open-ended questions. The quantitative data was analysed using SPSS Version 22.0. Qualitative data was analysed through thematic content analysis and open coding to identify emergent themes. Results:  40.4% of the participants evaluated the effectiveness of CBR services as low. This mainly stemmed from the lack of efforts to increase the local community's knowledge about CBR, disability and the role of CBR programmes towards people with disabilities. Conclusions: A proposal was offered concerning the priorities of CBR programmes in Jordan. Efforts need to be directed at promoting livelihood and empowerment components in order to actualise the principles of CBR, mainly by promoting multispectral collaboration as a way of operation. Implications: This study was inclusive of all types of disability.  Barriers to the effectiveness of services may stem from accessibility issues to the families of persons with disabilities (hard to reach) or from CBR services themselves (hard to access). The culturally specific evaluative tool in this study was of "good" specificity and sensitivity, this evaluative instrument can be transferrable to measure the impact of CBR programmes in other settings.


Transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β)-deficient mice have greatly impaired vascular and hematopoietic development, but because TGF-β can signal through several heterodimeric receptors, it is not known whether defects in angiogenesis and hematopoiesis are mediated by the loss of specific receptor subunits. Larsson et al. created TGF-β type I receptor (TβRI)-deficient mice and found that yolk sacs from embryonic lethal mice had defective angiogenesis, leading to an impaired vasculature. Endothelial cells from TβRI-/- mice exhibited aberrant migration and defective fibronectin production in vitro, which correlated with the impaired vasculature in vivo. Hematopoiesis in TβRI-/- mice was normal, indicating that TβRI function is critical for proper angiogenesis but not for hematopoietic development. J. Larsson, M.-J. Goumans, L. Jansson Sjöstrand, M. A. van Rooijen, D. Ward, P. Levéen, X. Xu, P. ten Dijke, C. L. Mummery, S. Karlsson, Abnormal angiogenesis but intact hematopoeitic potential in TGF-β type I receptor-deficient mice. EMBO J. 20, 1663-1673 (2001). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Affiliative response invitations were analysed in 38 speeches delivered during the 2009 Japanese general election by 18 candidates for the House of Representatives (the lower house of the National Diet of Japan). The results clearly replicated those reported by Bull and Feldman (2011) in their analysis of the 2005 Japanese general election. Highly significant correlations were found between the two studies not only for the overall pattern of affiliative responses, but also for each type of response (applause, laughter and cheering). In both studies, over 70% of affiliative responses occurred in response to explicit invitations from the speaker. This contrasts with British political meetings, where applause occurs principally in response to implicit rhetorical devices. However, the candidates' electoral success showed no significant correlations either with overall affiliative response rate, or with rates for applause, laughter or cheering. It is proposed that the prime function of affiliative response invitations at these meetings is not so much to win votes as to give the audience the opportunity to express their support both for the candidates and for the political parties they represent.