"While it is usually helpful to launch improvement programs, many such programs soon get bogged down in detail. They either address the wrong problems, or they keep beating on the same solutions, wondering why things don't improve. This is when you need an objective way to look at the problems. This is the time to get some data." Watts S. Humphrey, from the ForewordThis book, drawing on work done at the Software Engineering Institute and other organizations, shows how to use measurements to manage and improve software processes. The authors explain specifically how quality characteristics of software products and processes can be quantified, plotted, and analyzed so the performance of software development activities can be predicted, controlled, and guided to achieve both business and technical goals. The measurement methods presented, based on the principles of statistical quality control, are illuminated by application examples taken from industry.Although many of the methods discussed are applicable to individual projects, the book's primary focus is on the steps software development organizations can take toward broad-reaching, long-term success. The book particularly addresses the needs of software managers and practitioners who have already set up some kind of basic measurement process and are ready to take the next step by collecting and analyzing software data as a basis for making process decisions and predicting process performance.Highlights of the book include: Insight into developing a clear framework for measuring process behavior Discussions of process performance, stability, compliance, capability, and improvement Explanations of what you want to measure (and why) and instructions on how to collect your data Step-by-step guidance on how to get started using statistical process control If you have responsibilities for product quality or process performance and you are ready to use measurements to manage, control, and predict your software processes, this book will be an invaluable resource.


We examine the role of cross-border return migration in the intertemporal and intergenerational transmission of status across seven surveys from Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia. We use transition matrices and instrumental variable regressions to link prime-age men's present outcomes to those in prior years and to their fathers' outcomes. Earnings in prior years are inferred using job-type and occupation-group cell means. We find that return migrants land higher-earning jobs and are more inter-generationally mobile. However, they outperform non-migrants not only currently but even in past years. Controlling for mitigating factors, the role of migration disappears, suggesting that individual-level effects and demographics are responsible.


ABSTRACT ERPs were employed to examine the processing of NPI/licensor dependencies in Turkish. Previous work on languages like English/German have documented intrusion effects, where structurally ineligible licensors interfere with violation responses to unlicensed NPIs (a species of "grammatical illusion"). Turkish makes it possible to test intrusion effects in environments where NPIs precede their licensors and thus where intrusive licensors can intervene between NPIs and legitimate licensors. We show that: (i) intrusion effects do arise in Turkish, (ii) that brain responses at positions where intrusive licensors are encountered strongly resemble patterns observed for conditions where licensing permissible (both situations reveal patterns seen for other types of long-distance dependency processing, e.g. filler-gap relationships in interrogatives), leading to (iii) attenuation of downstream violation responses. Accounts of intrusion in terms of cue-based retrieval versus erroneous pragmatic licensing are discussed in the context of these findings, underscoring the importance of cross-linguistic experimental work.


This article explores the ways in which early modern authors reimagined medieval texts and figures within monster discourse. While medieval monsters are typically found on the edges of civilized space, early modern writers occasionally situate 'medievalized' monsters within domestic settings, locating a medieval alterity both temporally and geographically in the process of past-creation. I analyze two cases from seventeenth-century print culture: the hog-faced monster Tannakin Skinker in A Certaine Relation of the Hog-Faced Gentlewoman called Mistris Tannakin Skinker (1640) becomes an urban loathly lady through a pamphleteer's satirical use of John Gower and his "The Tale of Florent," and Richard Johnson, among other writers, fashions the early modern folk hero Tom Thumb textually and visually as an Arthurian knight. Rather than quest in far-off locales, the midget Tom instead turns the familiar domestic landscape into a site of adventure. In both cases, the locus of the everyday becomes a place of spectacle and wonder.


Recent studies have shown that the positive relationship between plant diversity and plant biomass ('overyielding') can be explained by soil pathogens depressing productivity more in low than in high diverse plant communities. However, tests of such soil effects in field studies were constrained by experimental limitations to manipulate soil community composition independent of plant community composition. Here, we report of an experiment where feedback effects to plants were tested for both plant and soil monocultures and mixtures. Our results demonstrate that overyielding is the result of plant species in mixture being more growth‐limited by 'own' soil biota than by soil biota of other plant species. This effect disappeared when the soils had been sterilized by gamma‐irradiation. Mixing plants themselves did not result in overyielding except when grown in the soil of one of the species (Leucanthemum vulgare), where growth of one species disproportionally increased in mixture compared to monoculture. Soil nutrient availability could not explain differences in growth between the non‐sterilized soils. Therefore, our results suggest that plant species–specific soil biota rather than the plants have contributed to the plant community overyielding. Species biomass ranking in mixtures highly differed between non‐sterilized soils of different histories of soil conditioning, whilst the ranking was more consistent in sterilized soil. Sterilized soils of different origin differed significantly in nutrient availability. These results suggest that shifts in competitive hierarchies depend on plant species–specific interactions influenced by soil biota and cannot be induced by mineral nitrogen. Synthesis. Our results show that overyielding in four plant species mixtures can be due to species‐specific interactions between plants and their specific soil biota. Neither mixing the plant species alone nor the differential responses of species to mineral nitrogen influenced community productivity, but mixing soil biota did.


Neocortical neuroblast cell lines were used to clone G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) genes to study signaling mechanisms regulating cortical neurogenesis. One putative GPCR gene displayed an in situ expression pattern enriched in cortical neurogenic regions and was therefore named ventricular zone gene-1 (vzg-1). The vzg-1 cDNA hybridized to a 3.8-kb mRNA transcript and encoded a protein with a predicted molecular mass of 41-42 kD, confirmed by Western blot analysis. To assess its function, vzg-1 was overexpressed in a cell line from which it was cloned, inducing serum-dependent "cell rounding." Lysophosphatidic acid (LPA), a bioactive lipid present in high concentrations in serum, reproduced the effect seen with serum alone. Morphological responses to other related phospholipids or to thrombin, another agent that induces cell rounding through a GPCR, were not observed in vzg-1 overexpressing cells. Vzg-1 overexpression decreased the EC50 of both cell rounding and Gi activation in response to LPA. Pertussis toxin treatment inhibited vzg-1-dependent LPA-mediated Gi activation, but had no effect on cell rounding. Membrane binding studies indicated that vzg-1 overexpression increased specific LPA binding. These analyses identify the vzg-1 gene product as a receptor for LPA, suggesting the operation of LPA signaling mechanisms in cortical neurogenesis. Vzg-1 therefore provides a link between extracellular LPA and the activation of LPA- mediated signaling pathways through a single receptor and will allow new investigations into LPA signaling both in neural and nonneural systems.


Quantitative estimates of forage availability at the end of the growing season in rangelands are helpful for pastoral livestock managers and for local, national and regional stakeholders in natural resource management. For this reason, remote sensing data such as the Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FAPAR) have been widely used to assess Sahelian plant productivity for about 40 years. This study combines traditional FAPAR-based assessments with agrometeorological variables computed by the geospatial water balance program, GeoWRSI, using rainfall and potential evapotranspiration satellite gridded data to estimate the annual herbaceous yield in the semi-arid areas of Senegal. It showed that a machine-learning model combining FAPAR seasonal metrics with various agrometeorological data provided better estimations of the in situ annual herbaceous yield (R2 = 0.69; RMSE = 483 kg·DM/ha) than models based exclusively on FAPAR metrics (R2 = 0.63; RMSE = 550 kg·DM/ha) or agrometeorological variables (R2 = 0.55; RMSE = 585 kg·DM/ha). All the models provided reasonable outputs and showed a decrease in the mean annual yield with increasing latitude, together with an increase in relative inter-annual variation. In particular, the additional use of agrometeorological information mitigated the saturation effects that characterize the plant indices of areas with high plant productivity. In addition, the date of the onset of the growing season derived from smoothed FAPAR seasonal dynamics showed no significant relationship (0.05 p-level) with the annual herbaceous yield across the whole studied area. The date of the onset of rainfall however, was significantly related to the herbaceous yield and its inclusion in fodder biomass models could constitute a significant improvement in forecasting risks of a mass herbaceous deficit at an early stage of the year.


The flow in a Francis turbine at full load is characterised by the development of an axial vortex rope in the draft tube. The vortex rope often promotes cavitation if the turbine is operated at a sufficiently low Thoma number. Furthermore, the vortex rope can evolve from a stable to an unstable behaviour. For CFD, such a flow is a challenge since it requires solving an unsteady cavitating flow including rotor/stator interfaces. Usually, the numerical investigations focus on the cavitation model or the turbulence model. In the present works, attention is paid to the strategy used for the time integration. The vortex rope considered is an unstable cavitating one that develops downstream the runner. The vortex rope shows a periodic behaviour characterized by the development of the vortex rope followed by a strong collapse leading to the shedding of bubbles from the runner area. Three unsteady RANS simulations are performed using the ANSYS CFX 17.2 software. The turbulence and cavitation models are, respectively, the SST and Zwart models. Regarding the time integration, a second order backward scheme is used excepted for the transport equation for the liquid volume fraction, for which a first order backward scheme is used. The simulations differ by the time step and the number of internal loops per time step. One simulation is carried out with a time step equal to one degree of revolution per time step and five internal loops. A second simulation used the same time step but 15 internal loops. The third simulations used three internal loops and an adaptive time step computed based on a maximum CFL lower than 2. The results show an influence of the time integration strategy on the cavitation volume time history both in the runner and in the draft tube with a risk of divergence of the solution if a standard set up is used.


Developmental activities, geological reasons and mixing of industrial wastes are responsible for the deteriorating quality of surface and ground water in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand. The drinking water sources of 13 districts of Uttarakhand have been assessed for the presence of four toxic metal ions (arsenic, cadmium, chromium and lead). The health aspects of the four metal ions have also been reviewed according to the prescribed limits set up by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and World Health Organization (WHO). The present study reveals the absence of arsenic at almost all stations. Cadmium has been found only at Rudrapur, whereas chromium is found to be present in more than prescribed limits, in Kolti, Mussoorie and Dehradun. Significant presence of lead in the six districts of the state is indicative of the fact that proper management strategy of toxic metal ion remediation is required. Chromium and lead have exceeded the prescribed limit in 1.3 and 4.5% samples, respectively. However, as per BIS standard, cadmium is higher than the prescribed limit in 0.6% samples but according to the WHO standard, cadmium has exceeded in about 26% samples. Out of the total 156 samples analyzed, 6.4 and 33.3% samples have been found to possess the toxic metal ions in more than the prescribed limits as per BIS and WHO guidelines, respectively.


In the initial stage of liquid-drop impact, the contact region expands faster than the wave speed in the liquid. This causes compressible behaviour in the liquid, and high transient pressures. High-velocity jetting results when the wave motion in the liquid overtakes the expanding contact edge and moves up the free surface of the drop. The detailed pressure fields in this early time history of impact have been calculated by Lesser (Proc. R. Soc. Lond. 377, 289 (1981)) for both two and three-dimensional liquid masses and for targets of finite admittance. An important result is that the edge pressures exceed the central 'water-hammer' pressure 3ρ0CUi and at the time of shock-detachment approach ca. 3ρ0CUi. At this stage the edge pressures, for both spherical drops and two-dimensional liquid wedges, depend only on the impact velocity and the instantaneous angle between the liquid and solid surfaces. This suggests that the essential features of the early stage of liquid impact can be usefully studied by producing impacts with two-dimensional liquid wedges, and predicted data for pressures, shock angles and velocities are presented. Experiments are described for producing impacts with preformed shapes by using water-gelatine mixtures and observing the impact events with high-speed photography. The results confirm the main features of the model and give information on edge pressures, jetting, cavitation in the liquid and the effect of the admittance of the solid. The relevance of the results to the damage and erosion of materials subjected to liquid impact is discussed. In particular, it is possible to explain the apparently low damage-threshold of some materials, the form of damage and its development with repeated impact. The study highlights the importance of the detailed surface geometry in the region of contact.


The films of Hitchcock, Welles and Godard; the aesthetics of photography and the technology of cinema; art and revolution in Russia and in Mexico; the avant-gardes in film and in painting--these are among the many topics of Peter Wollen's essays. Interwoven with fictional treatments of such themes as memory, dream, sexuality and writing, they compose a remarkable, perhaps unique, volume. These readings and writings are informed by Marxism, semiotics, psychoanalysis, and the history of art itself. Their concern is with signification: with the ways in which meanings are produced in dominant art forms and with the counter-strategies by which these meanings may be questioned or dislodged, in the practice of politically and aesthetically radical alternatives. A concluding retrospect reviews the political, intellectual and aesthetic avant-garde currents of the fifteen years over which these texts were written, outlining some perspectives for oppositional art today.


Portraits and Particulars is a 35-minute group of 10 titles produced between 2004 and 2006 first presented as a single series under this title at the CogCollective in October 2006. It has subsequently been exhibited at the Media Arts Festival Osnabrueck 28 April 2007 and as part of a four hour 'retrospective' at the Palais de Baux Arts, Brussels, 16 June 2007. The work represents a new direction focussing on characteristics of digital video and photography quite distinct from film and analogue video - an absence of the 'tactile' and traces of medium in the image. This 'lack of medium' undermines metaphor (the universal) through ultra-specificity. This series explores this specificity through elements of portraiture, person or place, and by focussing on isolated moments.

As examples of the issues addressed by the series, 'Critical Moments One' (a learning moment of a child aged one year), is inspired by the detailed observation of his children by Jean Piaget. 'Unforgettable' explores the different camera responses of four females from four generations of the same maternal line. 'Of Keys and Beauty', 'Anthony Dundee', and 'Waiting for Ian', all originate from still photographs where the lack of movement in the context of cinema becomes linked directly to the isolation of time fragments. The title 'H2O-0C-24.02.06-12.01GMT - 03,50.40W - 50.16.30N' reflects the coming inevitability of ultra-specific meta-tagging of digital images with, for example, time, date, temperature and location. 'Lecture to an Academy' - a portrait of Peter Gidal, superimposes layers of voice and gesture. DENISINED - SINEDENIS is a portrait of the artist Dennis Openheim from four stills rotated in a palindrome within a palindrome. The title echoes the palindromatic theme making reference to Marcel Duchamp's title Anemic Cinema. The music for this work is a development of JS Bach's palindromatic 'Crab' Cannon.


http://journals.cambridge.org/hyg Epidemiology and Infection publishes original reports and reviews on all aspects of infection in humans and animals. Particular emphasis is given to the epidemiology, prevention and control of infectious diseases. The field covered is broad and includes the zoonoses, tropical infections, food hygiene, vaccine studies, statistics and the clinical, social and public health aspects of infectious disease. Papers covering microbiology and immunology, which have an epidemiological relevance, are part of this broad field. Papers come from medical and veterinary scientists worldwide. It has become the key periodical in which to find the latest reports on recently discovered infections and new technology. For those concerned with policy and planning for the control of infections, the papers on mathematical modelling of epidemics caused by historical, current and emergent infections, will be of particular value. To subscribe contact Customer Services


An alternative formulation (named total entropy equation) of Van't Hoff's equation has been presented. An explanation of the effect of temperature on exothermic and endothermic processes is provided in terms of this alternative formulation. The treatment can be useful in directly highlighting the central role that the total entropy change plays in determining the direction of the process. As a chemical example the calculations of total entropy change are presented for the Haber-Bosch process. Finally, the correlation between Van't Hoff's equation and Total entropy equation is demonstrated by showing that it is possible to derive the former from the later and vice versa.


This award is given annually to the author of an outstanding article published in the previous volume of La corónica. The selection of the recipient of this award is made by the Executive Committee of the MLA Forum, LLC Medieval Iberian in memory of distinguished medievalist John K. Walsh (1939-1990). The tribute is celebrated every year with a reception at the Modern Language Association Convention.


We report results of a search for the pair production of the lightest supersymmetric partner of the top quark, ˜ t 1 , using a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1 fb − 1 collected by the DØ detector at a p ¯ p center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV at the Fermilab Tevatron collider. Both scalar top quarks are assumed to decay into a b quark, a charged lepton and a scalar neutrino. The search is performed in the electron plus muon and dielectron final states. The signal topology consists of two isolated leptons, missing transverse energy, and jets. We find no evidence for this process and exclude regions of parameter space in the framework of the minimal supersymmetric standard model. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.


Objective. To assess whether early swelling and tenderness in large joints in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is predictive of later local damage and whether this leads to functional disability. Methods. Two-year clinical and 8-year radiological followup data from the BeSt study (trial numbers NTR262 and NTR265), a randomized controlled treat-to-target trial, were used. The association between early local joint swelling and/or tenderness (at least once, or for ≥ 2 consecutive visits) and later large-joint damage (Larsen score ≥ 1) was assessed using generalized estimating equations. The association between large-joint damage and functional ability [by Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ)] was assessed using logistic and linear regression analysis. Results. Clinical and 8-year radiological data were available for 290 patients. Concomitant local joint swelling and tenderness at least once in the first 2 years was independently associated with damage of the large joints (OR 2.5, 95% CI 1.7–3.6), as was swelling without tenderness (OR 2.0, 95% CI 1.1–3.6). Stronger effects were seen for persistent swelling and/or tenderness. Other independent predictors for joint damage were baseline erythrocyte sedimentation rate (OR 1.01, 95% CI 1.01–1.02) and the presence of rheumatoid factor and/or anticitrullinated protein antibodies (OR 2.5, 95% CI 1.5–4.1; and OR 2.2, 95% CI 1.3–3.8, respectively). Patients with large-joint damage had a higher HAQ score after 8 years than patients without (difference 0.15). Conclusion. Early local swelling and tenderness are independent predictors of later joint damage in these joints after 8 years of Disease Activity Score-guided treatment in patients with RA. This suggests that suppression of local inflammation could help prevent local damage and functional disability.


Euphorbia is one of the largest genera in the Euphorbiaceae family, comprising 2000 species possessing commercial, medicinal, and ornamental importance. However, there are very little data available on their molecular phylogeny and genomics, and uncertainties still exist at a taxonomic level. Herein, we sequence the complete chloroplast (cp) genomes of two species, E. larica and E. smithii, of the genus Euphorbia through next-generation sequencing and perform a comparative analysis with nine related genomes in the family. The results revealed that the cp genomes had similar quadripartite structure, gene content, and genome organization with previously reported genomes from the same family. The size of cp genomes ranged from 162,172 to 162,358 bp with 132 and 133 genes, 8 rRNAs, 39 tRNA in E. smithii and E. larica, respectively. The numbers of protein-coding genes were 85 and 86, with each containing 19 introns. The four-junction regions were studied and results reveal that rps19 was present at JLB (large single copy region and inverted repeat b junction) in E. larica where its complete presence was located in the IRb (inverted repeat b) region in E. smithii. The sequence comparison revealed that highly divergent regions in rpoC1, rpocB, ycf3, clpP, petD, ycf1, and ndhF of the cp genomes might provide better understanding of phylogenetic inferences in the Euphorbiaceae and order Malpighiales. Phylogenetic analyses of this study illustrate sister clades of E. smithii with E. tricullii and these species form a monophyletic clade with E. larica. The current study might help us to understand the genome architecture, genetic diversity among populations, and evolutionary depiction in the genera.


Big data systems are becoming pervasive. They are distributed systems that include redundant processing nodes, replicated storage, and frequently execute on a shared 'cloud' infrastructure. For these systems, design-time predictions are insufficient to assure runtime performance in production. This is due to the scale of the deployed system, the continually evolving workloads, and the unpredictable quality of service of the shared infrastructure. Consequently, a solution for addressing performance requirements needs sophisticated runtime observability and measurement. Observability gives real-time insights into a system's health and status, both at the system and application level, and provides historical data repositories for forensic analysis, capacity planning, and predictive analytics. Due to the scale and heterogeneity of big data systems, significant challenges exist in the design, customization and operations of observability capabilities. These challenges include economical creation and insertion of monitors into hundreds or thousands of computation and data nodes, efficient, low overhead collection and storage of measurements (which is itself a big data problem), and application-aware aggregation and visualization. In this paper we propose a reference architecture to address these challenges, which uses a model-driven engineering toolkit to generate architecture-aware monitors and application-specific visualizations.


Many complex control processes are interconnected MIMO process, and because the actual systems are influenced by many factors, the system model parameters are also changed. According to the system of the coupling and changeable, this paper puts forward a kind of online identification based on adaptive decoupling control strategy which is used in the actual control system. This control strategy uses a recursive forgetting factor and parameter identification algorithm based on model matching of zero frequency. When system is operating in closed-loop control conditions, process parameters are identified online. Based on the model to design the controller and the decoupling device, and the relative control loop is decoupled. To the actual system, two coupled loop is simulated and experimented. The results show that this method is effective to improve the coupling effect of the system, improve the stability and robustness of the control system


Personal Knowledge Management: Individual, Organizational and Social Perspectives David J. Pauleen and G.E. Gorman Gower Publishing Limited (201 1) 269 pages, Hardcover, $134.95Pauleen and Gorman define Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) as "an evolving set of understandings, skills and abilities that allows an individual to survive and prosper in complex and changing organizational and social environments" (p. xvii). Personal Knowledge Management: Individual, Organizational and Social Perspectives is a twelve chapter academic, theoretical, and practical book written by highly qualified contributing authors. Chapter 1 examines "The Nature and Value of Personal Knowledge Management". In this chapter the authors clarify where PKM stands in relation to KM and explain how it differs significantly from KM and must therefore not be construed as an "offshoot of KM" (p. 1). This chapter discusses how individuals can remain competitive by applying five practical aspects of PKM strategy: management, lifelong learning, communication and interpersonal skills, use of technology, and forecasting and anticipating. They present PKM as a remedy to uncertainty and change that affect the competitiveness and value of individual as resource based on two factors: information overload and the changing nature of work. The authors also examine organizational knowledge management conceived through KM ideas and discuss PKM and the knowledge worker. Finally, this chapter discusses ways to capitalize on synergies by examining strategic interconnectedness in PKM with an understanding that "The world of knowledge work is intensifying" (p. 13).Chapter 2 of Personal Knowledge Management is titled "Where is the Wisdom We Have Lost in Knowledge? A Stoical Perspective on Personal Knowledge Management" and is a philosophical approach taken by contributing authors Peter Case and Jonathan Gosling in examining the foundations of PKM. The authors try to contextualize the ideas of "knowledge" and "wisdom" with the philosophical idea of Stoicism emerging as a dominant theory which they regard as providing the most practical approach to PKM practice and strategy. They explore the role of personal knowledge in terms of what they call "person-in-role" (p. 25). The idea of "person-in-role" is contextualized in terms of a process that converts diverse inputs and outputs and affects how one manages oneself in the role of personal knowledge manager. The authors believe that "Phronesis" ("the ability to make judgments about 'what matters'" p. 32) is important to personal knowledge management (PKM).Personal knowledge management (PKM) affects how we think, use knowledge, communicate and use creative imagination. In Chapter 3 of Personal Knowledge Management, contributing author Peter Murphy describes the development of PKM along a tangent where information, logic, and system creation are variables. Titled "From Information to Imagination: Multivalent Logic and System Creation in Personal Knowledge Management", this chapter investigates the relationship between information and imagination as the author explores how factors such as intuition, visualization, pattern recognition, and other processes shape the way in which we manage personal digital libraries. The author describes information management as "a form of architecture" (p. 45), as it involves and requires design and building structures.If knowledge management is to be "personalized" then it is obvious that the individual is the center of its theorizing and strategy. Contributing author Mark Wolfe understands this idea and thus, Chapter 4 which he pens is titled, "Recovering the Individual as the Locus of Knowledge: Communication and Personal Knowledge Management". Recognizing that the individual is "the locus of knowledge" (p. 59), Wolfe raises an important issue which has for long troubled some educators and scholars, the role of technology and 'pragmatic action' as they could potentially pose as dampers to the development of PKM. …


Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is characterized by the overexpression of the epidermal growth factor receptor. However, molecular targeting strategies against EGFR have not improved the 5-year survival rates of HNSCC patients. EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors displayed limited clinical responses in Phase II trials and the FDA-approved monoclonal antibody cetuximab (C225) did not prevent the occurrence of secondary tumors and distant metastases. G-protein-coupled receptor ligands; gastrin-releasing peptide (GRP), prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) and bradykinin (BK) have all been reported to activate EGFR in HNSCC via extracellular release of EGFR ligands TGF-a and AR. To improve the efficacy of EGFR inhibition in HNSCC, we investigated the efficacy of targeting common signaling intermediates involved in GPCR-EGFR crosstalk. We previously reported that GRP mediated release of EGFR ligands via phosphoinositide-dependent kinase 1 (PDK1) - dependent phosphorylation of a disintegrin and metalloprotease 17 (ADAM17). We subsequently investigated whether PDK1 mediates EGFR activation downstream of PGE2, BK and LPA pathways and the efficacy of different PDK1 targeting strategies in HNSCC. PGE2, BK and LPA-mediated EGFR phosphorylation was abrogated in PDK1 siRNA-transfected HNSCC cells. PDK1 siRNA also decreased PGE2 and BK-mediated HNSCC growth in vitro. Expression of kinase-dead PDK1 (PDK1M) decreased PGE2 -mediated HNSCC growth. PDK1M HNSCC cells demonstrated reduced proliferation compared to control HNSCC cells. HNSCC cells displayed nanomolar sensitivity to the PDK1 inhibitor OSU-03012 compared to normal mucosal cells. Combined treatment with the EGFR TKIs erlotinib or AG1478, plus OSU-03012 enhanced anti-proliferative effects. We have reported that PGE2 and BK mediated MAPK phosphorylation in the presence of EGFR inhibition, and combined GPCR and EGFR demonstrated additive to synergistic anti-tumor effects. To elucidate the EGFR-independent signaling mediated by GPCRs, we used a forward phase phosphoprotein array to identify potential molecular targets that can potentiate EGFR inhibition. We observed that p70S6K phosphorylation was induced in EGFR siRNA-transfected cells and sustained in cetuximab (C225)-treated cells following PGE2 or BK stimulation. Further investigation showed that p70S6K phosphorylation mediated by EGFR downmodulation was dependent on PDK1 and PKCa expression. Combined targeting of EGFR with cetuximab and p70S6K with the mTOR inhibitor RAD001 decreased GPCR-mediated growth in vitro and in vivo. The results from this study have indicated that targeting the GPCR signaling intermediates PDK1 and p70S6K in conjunction with EGFR may be beneficial therapeutic strategies for the subset of HNSCC patients that respond poorly to cetuximab treatment.


Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) isa non-invasive medical imaging technique which estimates the electrical impedance distribution within tissue. The basic principle of EIT isa mapping of the immittance distribution (tomography) usingthe measurement of some passive electrical properties of tissue named bioimpedance.The study aimed to assess the performance of the EIT system in detectingan anomaly in thorax imaging with varying different frequencies, by analysis of sensitivity distribution. Sensitivity distribution was visualized using COMSOL Multiphysics simulation in a human thorax represented as an elliptic cylinder phantom consisting ofan inhomogeneous medium within and without an anomaly represented by a sphere. Current density distribution was collected for sensitivity analysis using the neighboring method with current injection at 1 mA for each pair of electrodes with frequencies 70, 100, and 130 kHz. Results indicate that the modeled two dimensionalEIT detected changes in the inhomogeneous media with and without anomaly inside the modeled thorax phantom very well. © EuroMediterranean Biomedical Journal 2019


The ongoing expansion of federal influence over education in the United States provides a particularly salient time to consider how education federalism should be structured to achieve the nation's education goals. One of the nation's unfulfilled and yet essential education goals is to ensure that all students receive equal access to an excellent education. A variety of scholars and, most recently, the federal Equity and Excellence Commission have offered proposals for advancing this goal. By building on this growing momentum for reform, I argue that disrupting the nation's longstanding approach to education federalism – which I define as the balance of power between federal, state, and local governments that emphasizes substantial state autonomy over education – is necessary for a successful national effort to achieve this goals. I then provide a foundational theory for strengthening the federal role in education by analyzing the essential elements of a successful reform effort based upon research regarding the strengths of federal education policymaking and upon identification of the missing elements of current reforms. Finally, I respond to many of the potential arguments against disrupting education federalism. For Instance, I argue that National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius continues to provide ample room for Congress to expand the federal role in education in ways that are needed to build a more equitable education system. I also explain that although strengthening the federal role in education will reduce some forms of state and local control over education, it also will provide states and localities new forms of control.


Insurance, nowadays, is no longer a luxury rather a necessity. Government regulations and employment are two very important factors that contribute to the huge overall growth of the insurance industry because they force general public to buy it. The concept behind conventional insurance is contrary to the principles of Islam and socio-ethical perspective. The purpose of Shari'ah is to create and maintain a harmonious social environment by moulding our conducts in all aspects of our ritual and daily life.Takaful industry remains to be relevant even after three decades of its introduction due to the continuous demands from the multiracial and multi-ethnic participants from various backgrounds. The said industry celebrates the contributions of their stakeholders, namely the Takaful operators, Shari'ah advisors and the participants or customers. Additional credit for the progressive development of Takaful industry goes to the consistent guidelines from the regulators. However, one factor that hinders further development of Takaful industry is the lack of awareness of its presence and purpose in Malaysian market. Therefore, this paper was designed to examine the knowledge and awareness of Takaful among Malaysian consumers in Malaysia by collecting primary data through survey questionnaires. Out of the 600 questionnaires that were sent to consumers in greater Malaysia i.e. Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, we received 503 questionnaires. Random selection was used to select the sample from the known population. The findings show that out of the 503 respondents, 124 have no knowledge of Takaful and 45% are not aware that Takaful policy holders share risks mutually. Also, 33.2, %, 38.8% and 37.2% do not know that Takaful is free from gambling, uncertainty, and interest.70.2% respondents, however, think that Takaful products comply with Shari'ah.


Periodic secretion of GnRH from the hypothalamus is the driving force for the release of gonadotropic hormones from the pituitary, but the roles of individual neurons in the context of this pulse generator are not known. In this study we used FM1-43 to monitor the membrane turnover associated with exocytosis in single GT1-7 neurons and found an intrinsic secretory pulsatility (frequency, 1.4 +/- 0.1/h; pulse duration, 17.3 +/- 0.6 min) that, during time in culture, became progressively synchronized among neighboring cells. Voltage-gated calcium channels and gap junctional communication each played a major role in synchronized pulsatility. An L-type calcium channel inhibitor, nimodipine, abolished synchronized pulsatility. In addition, functional gap junction communication among adjacent cells was detected, but only under conditions where pulsatile synchronization was also observed, and the gap junction inhibitor octanol abolished both without affecting pulse frequency or duration. Our results, therefore, provide strong evidence that the GnRH pulse generator in GT1-7 cells arises from a single cell oscillator mechanism that is synchronized through network signaling involving voltage-gated calcium channels and gap junctions.


We discuss the development of an embodied conversational agent with Asperger-like communi- cation skills. The agent was developed for use in educational software in a virtual environment specically aimed at autism spectrum disorder software. We describe the design and implementa- tion of the agent, and pay particular attention to the interaction between emotion, personality and social context. A 3D demonstration shows the typical output to conform to Asperger-like answers, with corresponding emotional responses.


Salinity-dependent sieve pore variability in Cyprideis torosa (Jones) is tested and confirmed through a culture experiment investigating valves from a salinity range between 0.6 and 14.8. In contrast to results from a previous study, the proportion of sieve pore shapes shows a slight offset at higher values probably caused by relatively lower calcium concentrations in our microcosms. Besides ion concentration, salinity variability and ion composition are assumed to be driving factors for sieve pore shapes, as for the case of noding in Cyprideis torosa. Despite some limitations in using sieve pore shapes as a proxy in quantitative salinity reconstructions in athalassic water bodies, an application for detecting trends and salinity changes in fossil associations and for quantitative reconstructions in marginal marine waters is feasible and adds a valuable salinity proxy, especially for the oligohaline to mesohaline salinity range.


This guidebook contains science-based principles, processes, and tools necessary to assist with developing adaptation options for national forest lands. The adaptation process is based on partnerships between local resource managers and scientists who work collaboratively to understand potential climate change effects, identify important resource issues, and develop management options that can capitalize on new opportunities and reduce deleterious effects. Because management objectives and sensitivity of resources to climate change differ among national forests, appropriate processes and tools for developing adaptation options may also differ. Regardless of specific processes and tools, the following steps are recommended: (1) become aware of basic climate change science and integrate that understanding with knowledge of local resource conditions and issues (review), (2) evaluate sensitivity of specific natural resources to climate change (rank), (3) develop and implement strategic and tactical options for adapting resources to climate change (resolve), and (4) monitor the effectiveness of adaptation options (observe) and adjust management as needed. Results of recent case studies on adaptation in national forests and national parks can facilitate integration of climate change in resource management and planning and make the adaptation process more efficient. Adaptation to climate change will be successful only if it can be fully implemented in established planning processes and other operational aspects of national forest management.


Voluntary organizations play a vital role in complementing governmental efforts in meeting human needs and in strengthening democracy. This case study documents South Africa's collaborative approach to social development partnerships in a changing national and global context. It also outlines the tensions and challenges facing the state and the voluntary sector in a plural democratic institutional context.


While physical activity (PA) improves functions for activities of daily living, little is known of the association between meeting published PA Guidelines for Americans (PAGA) and meeting published physical function guidelines for maintaining independence. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between meeting the PAGA and meeting independence criteria on the Senior Fitness Tests (SFT). Older adults (N = 265) completed SFTs, assessing cardiorespiratory fitness, lower and upper body strength, mobility, and self-reported aerobic and resistance PA. Chi-square tests and logistic regressions examined associations between meeting PAGA and SFT independence criteria. A significant relationship was found between meeting aerobic PAGA and cardiorespiratory and upper body SFT criteria; a significant relationship was found between meeting resistance PAGA and upper body strength criteria. Although research suggests that PAGA are effective in maintaining fitness in older adults when PA is structured and monitored, mixed results were found for self-reported PA and SFT criteria.


In today's research environment, a wealth of experimental/theoretical structural data is available and the number of therapeutically relevant macromolecular structures is growing rapidly. This, coupled with the huge number of small non-peptide potential drug candidates easily available (over 7 million compounds), highlight the need of using computer-aided techniques for the efficient identification and optimization of novel hit compounds. Virtual (or in silico) ligand screening based on the three-dimensional structure of macromolecular targets (SB-VLS) is firmly established as an important approach to identify chemical entities that have a high likelihood of binding to a target molecule to elicit desired biological responses. A myriad of free applications and services facilitating the drug discovery process have been posted on the Web. In this review, we cite over 350 URLs that are useful for SB-VLS projects and essentially free for academic groups. We attempt to provide links for in silico ADME/tox prediction tools, compound collections, some ligand-based methods, characterization/simulation of 3D targets and homology modeling tools, druggable pocket predictions, active site comparisons, analysis of macromolecular interfaces, protein docking tools to help identify binding pockets and protein-ligand docking/scoring methods. As such, we aim at providing both, methods pertaining to the field of Structural Bioinformatics (defined here as tools to study macromolecules) and methods pertaining to the field of Chemoinformatics (defined here as tools to make better decisions faster in the arena of drug/lead identification and optimization). We also report several recent success stories using these free computer methods. This review should help readers finding free computer tools useful for their projects. Overall, we are confident that these tools will facilitate rapid and cost-effective identification of new hit compounds. The URLs presented in this review will be updated regularly at www.vls3d.com in the coming months, "Links" section.


The question of the relationship between Freud and philosophy has been raised and explored in seminal ways through the linguistic account of Freudian psychoanalysis given by Jacques Lacan, and by the hermeneutic criticism of Freud's works by Paul Ricoeur. In each case, Freudian theory is employed as a method by which symbolic representation is placed under interrogation, and is critically appropriated into a system of signs for Lacan, and a theory of symbolic representation for Ricoeur.' The critical value of Freudian psychoanalytic theory for an understanding of the work of phenomenology in these contexts emerges from the radical critique of consciousness which is at the heart of Freud's project. In the case of Ricoeur, which is my major concern in this essay, Freud reveals the unspoken meaning of Husserlian phenomenology, by recovering the unconscious as the unreflected source of intentionality, thereby linking the method of phenomenological reduction with "an epoch in reverse" that serves to establish the relation between consciousness and the unconscious.2 Ricoeur's analysis of Freud in relation to Husserl recovers the bodily element which is present to intentionality, but which is initially by-passed in the reduction of consciousness secured through the phenomenological attitude. In this, Freudian psychoanalysis links with the phenomenological method as modes of analysis which recover meaning through acts of interpretation: Phenomenology attempts to approach the real history of desire obliquely; starting from a perceptual model of the unconscious, it gradually generalizes that model to embrace all lived or embodied meanings, meanings that are at the same time enacted in the element of language. Psychoanalysis plunges directly into the history of desire, thanks to that history's partial expression in the derealized field of transference. (390; emphasis in original) For Ricoeur, Freudian psychoanalysis recovers the materiality of consciousness which is forgotten in the reduction of the ego to the field of the phenomenological epoche. The present essay returns to these forgotten origins of consciousness in the body by way of an analysis that links Freud to an earlier thinker on dreams: the English poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The justification for this linkage will be established through the course of a dialectical analysis of the accounts given by Coleridge and Freud on the interpretation of the meaning of dreams. Let it suffice to say at this point that at key points in their analyses, Coleridge and Freud share a common ground concerning the origin, phenomenal form, and narrative structure of dreams, and in such a way that sheds light on the nature of consciousness itself, albeit in diametrically opposed ways for each. It is this common point of origin of dreams established by both Coleridge and Freud that allows for their differences on the meaning of dreams as a form of conscious activity to shed light on the economy of symbolic representation within the context of the exchange between subject and object. In this regard, Ricoeur's account of the importance of dreams for an understanding of Freud's critique of consciousness establishes the groundwork for my study: "By making dreams not only the first object of his investigation but a model . . . of all the disguised, substitutive, and fictive expressions of human wishing or desire, Freud invites us to look to dreams themselves for the various relations between desire and language" (5). However, in replacing Husserl in relation to Freud with Coleridge according to Ricoeur's model in the present study, my argument will amplify Ricoeur's claim concerning dreams as a model for Freudian interpretative analysis, to show that Freud's use of dreams as the model for an interpretation of desire reduces all modes of consciousness to fiction, thereby reducing all acts of representation by consciousness to illusion. In doing so, my confrontation of Coleridge with Freud on dreams will suggest a problem with the Husserlian notion of intentionality itself, a problem which Ricoeur's analysis, for all its subtlety and rigor, fails to address. …


Previous research investigated what aspects of their memories general audiences of people in memory-improvement seminars most wanted to improve. This research examined the same question among college students in memory-skills classes. Students rated the importance of each of 12 aspects of memory. The most important aspects were schoolwork, remembering what they read, remembering facts and details, and remembering people's names. The ratings showed few relationships with gender, grade point average, or year in school, suggesting that there might be more similarities than differences among different kinds of students in their memory concerns. The ratings also showed several similarities with the general audiences. ********** Many studies have investigated the aspects of their memories for which people report failures and problems; this is usually done by measuring the reported frequency of occurrence of specified memory problems (cf., Gilewski & Zelinski, 1986). Higbee (2003) took a different approach to studying people's memory concerns, by investigating what aspects of memory were most important to people. A general audience of people attending a memory-improvement seminar responded to an open-ended question on what aspects of memory they most wanted to improve, and another general audience answered a questionnaire developed from those responses. The most important aspect was remembering people's names, and there were some gender and age differences in other aspects of memory. Other research has investigated what kinds of remembering are important to more-limited populations, such as the elderly (e.g., Leirer, Morrow, Sheikh, & Pariante, 1990; Reese, Cherry, & Norris, 1999). The purpose of the present research was to examine the same question among college students, and to see how the responses of students compare with those of the general audiences. In a pilot study, 41 students in a memory-skills course answered the following question at the beginning of the course--"What are the main benefits you hope to get from taking a memory-improvement class? (That is, what are the memory questions or problems that you most want to have answered or solved?)." The answers to this question were categorized and tallied. The four categories with the most frequent answers were schoolwork (e.g., study skills, specific course material) = 51%, people's names and faces # = 24%, everyday tasks (e.g., things to do, where I put something) = 15%, and what I read = 10%. Chi-square comparisons between sub-groups found no significant differences between males and females, between low-GPA and high-GPA students, or among years in school. The findings of no statistically significant differences among subgroups in the pilot study might have some practical significance, suggesting the possibility that there might be more similarities than differences in memory concerns among different kinds of students. However, another possible explanation might be the lack of statistical power in the comparisons, which led to the present study. This study was conducted to further investigate what aspects of their memories college students most want to improve, using interval-level data that would allow more-powerful statistical analyses than the chi-square tests used on the nominal data in the pilot study. Method Like the pilot study, the present study was a quasi-experiment. The participants were college students who were enrolled in another section of the memory-skills course at the same university. The course was taught by the author and is described elsewhere (Higbee, 1999). The 36 participants included 23 males and 13 females, ages 17-26 (M = 21.4, SD = 2.3), with 17 Psychology majors and the other 19 students representing 13 other majors. Years in school included 3 freshmen, 6 sophomores, 10 juniors, and 17 seniors. At the beginning of the course, all participants completed the Memory Improvement Questionnaire (MIQ), which was developed from the categories of responses that had been given to the open-ended question that students had answered in the pilot study (as well as responses by the general audience of Higbee, 2003, Experiment 1). …


The mutagenic and carcinogenic effects of simple alkylating agents are mainly due to O(6)-alkylation of guanine in DNA. This lesion results in transition mutations. In both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, repair is effected by direct reversal of the damage by a suicide protein, O(6)-alkylguanine-DNA alkyltransferase. The alkyltransferase removes the alkyl group to one of its own cysteine residues. However, this mechanism for preserving genomic integrity limits the effectiveness of certain alkylating anticancer agents. A high level of the alkyltransferase in many tumour cells renders them resistant to such drugs. Here we report the X-ray structure of the human alkyltransferase solved using the technique of multiple wavelength anomalous dispersion. This structure explains the markedly different specificities towards various O(6)-alkyl lesions and inhibitors when compared with the Escherichia coli protein (for which the structure has already been determined). It is also used to interpret the behaviour of certain mutant alkyltransferases to enhance biochemical understanding of the protein. Further examination of the various models proposed for DNA binding is also permitted. This structure may be useful for the design and refinement of drugs as chemoenhancers of alkylating agent chemotherapy.


In "Freedom," Osho outlines three stages of freedom. The first is "freedom from," which is a freedom that comes from breaking out of what he calls the "psychological slavery" imposed by outside forces such as parents, society, or religion. The next stage is "freedom for," a positive freedom that comes from embracing and creating something---a fulfilling relationship, for example, or an artistic or humanitarian vision. And lastly there is "just freedom," the highest and ultimate freedom. This last freedom is more than being for or against something; it is the freedom of simply being oneself and responding truthfully to each moment.The Insights for a New Way of Living series aims to shine light on beliefs and attitudes that prevent individuals from being their true selves. The text is an artful mix of compassion and humor, and readers are encouraged to confront what they would most like to avoid, which in turn provides the key to true insight and power."Freedom "helps readers to identify the obstacles to their freedom, both circumstantial and self-imposed, to choose their battles wisely, and to find the courage to be true to themselves.


The authors describe HSTS, an integrated planning and scheduling architecture that has been applied to the problem of generating observation schedules for the Hubble Space Telescope. HSTS deals with the problem of the interaction of resource allocation and auxiliary task expansion during schedule development by viewing planning and scheduling as two complementary aspects in the construction of the behavior of a system. The authors first describe how HSTS specifies the dynamics of a system, how it represents schedules at multiple levels of abstraction, and the specific problem solving machinery it provides. An example of the use of the architecture in the Hubble Space Telescope domain is given. Performance results that indicate the practicality of the HSTS approach are presented.<<ETX>>


A circumstellar disk has been observed optically around the fourth-magnitude star β Pictoris. First detected in the infrared by the Infrared Astronomy Satellite last year, the disk is seen to extend to more than 400 astronomical units from the star, or more than twice the distance measured in the infrared by the Infrared Astronomy Satellite. The β Pictoris disk is presented to Earth almost edgeon and is composed of solid particles in nearly coplanar orbits. The observed change in surface brightness with distance from the star implies that the mass density of the disk falls off with approximately the third power of the radius. Because the circumstellar material is in the form of a highly flattened disk rather than a spherical shell, it is presumed to be associated with planet formation. It seems likely that the system is relatively young and that planet formation either is occurring now around β Pictoris or has recently been completed.


Public trust in agricultural biotechnology organizations that produce so-called 'genetically-modified organisms' (GMOs) is affected by misinformed attacks on GM technology and worry that producers' concern for profits overrides concern for the public good. In an experiment, we found that reporting that the industry engages in open and transparent research practices increased the perceived trustworthiness of university and corporate organizations involved with GMOs. Universities were considered more trustworthy than corporations overall, supporting prior findings in other technology domains. The results suggest that commitment to, and communication of, open and transparent research practices should be part of the process of implementing agricultural biotechnologies.


The National Cancer Institute and National Toxicology Program have performed 2-year toxicology and carcinogenesis studies with a number of ethanes substituted with chlorine or bromine. A review of the results of studies with these halogenated ethanes has revealed several consistencies between the pattern of halogen substitution and neoplastic responses in some affected organs. One of these consistencies was the finding of a modest increase in the incidence of renal tubule cell neoplasms in male rats administered penta- or hexachloroethane. Certain aspects of the nephropathy also noted in these studies resembled what is now recognized as a distinct hyaline droplet nephropathy typically associated with the accumulation of alpha[alpha]2&mgr;-globulin in renal tubule cells. In an attempt to determine some of the structure activity relationships involved in the induction of hyaline droplet nephropathy by halogenated ethanes, a series of commercially available ethanes substituted with three or more chlorines, four or more bromines, or a combination of chlorines and fluorines was studied in a short-term renal toxicity assessment in male F344/N rats. All chemicals were administered by gavage in corn oil to groups of five male rats once daily for 21 days. The doses selected for study, 0.62 and 1.24 mmol/kg per day, were based on those used in the 2-year pentachloroethane studies. The following chemicals were evaluated: 1,1,1,2- and 1,1,2,2-tetrachloroethane; pentachloroethane; 1,1,2,2-tetrachloro1,2-difluoroethane; 1,1,1-trichloro-2,2,2-trifluoroethane; 1,2-dichloro-1,1-difluoroethane; 1,1,1-trichloroethane; hexachloroethane; 1,1,1,2-and 1,1,2,2-tetrabromoethane; and pentabromoethane. Evaluations included survival, mean body weight gains, clinical signs, organ weights, urinalysis, and histopathologic examination of the right kidney and liver. The kidneys of rats that showed a difference in renal protein droplet accumulation compared to the controls were evaluated for replicative DNA synthesis by staining for proliferating cell nuclear antigen. For most groups, survival was not affected by chemical treatment; however, all rats administered either dose of 1,1,2,2-tetrabromoethane died by Day 11, and all rats administered 1.24 mmol/kg pentabromoethane, 1,1,1,2-tetrabromoethane, or 1,1,2,2-tetrachloroethane died before the end of the study. Rats receiving 0.62 mmol/kg pentabromoethane gained less weight than the controls, and rats in the 0.62 mmol/kg 1,1,1,2-tetrabromoethane group lost weight during the study. Increased kidney weights and signs of renal toxicity, indicated by urinalysis results, were noted in rats in many of the groups administered halogenated ethanes, but these observations were not always coincident with a diagnosis of hyaline droplet nephropathy. Hyaline droplet nephropathy was observed only in rats receiving penta-, hexa-, or 1,1,1,2-tetrachloroethane. The renal tubule cell labeling index was increased, indicating replicative DNA synthesis, in male rats receiving chemicals that induced hyaline droplet nephropathy as well as in males receiving pentabromoethane or 1,1,2,2-tetrachloroethane and in female negative control rats administered pentachloroethane; thus some of the halogenated ethanes appeared to cause significant renal toxicity not associated with hyaline droplet nephropathy. In summary, of the halogenated ethanes studied, the capacity to induce hyaline droplet nephropathy in male rats was restricted to ethanes containing four or more halogens, and only the chlorinated ethanes were active. If the ability to induce hyaline droplet nephropathy is the determining factor in the induction of renal tubule cell neoplasms by halogenated ethanes, then an absence of kidney neoplasms in male rats would be predicted in the event that 2-year studies were performed with the bromo- or chlorofluoroethanes.


American youth culture, the demographic legacy of World War II, began to exert its economic influence during the late 1950s. The mass media responded swiftly. Age-targeted motion pictures and television programs sought to attract the discretionary dollars of teenage consumers. Horror imagery thrived. Gothic fiction by Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Edgar Allan Poe was available for adaptation; characters of monstrous proportion and frightful visage were stock-piled in film footage featuring Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, Jr., Bela Lugosi, and King Kong. The popular culture foundation for burgeoning youth interest in classic monsters and horror settings was also readily available. Commercial recordings also emerged as primary reflections of adolescent interests and opinions. Youthful fascination with the characters, situations, and sounds of the horror genre were translated into audio formats. However, a metamorphosis from terror to comedy occurred. Rock 'n' roll music-from "I Put a Spell on You" (1956) by Screamin' Jay Hawkins to "The Addams Groove" (1991) by Hammer-illustrates that laughter rather than shock has been the result of youthful adaptation of horror themes. Youthful Fascination With Horror From the Wicked Witch who sought to fatten Hansel and Gretel before devouring them, to the Terrible Troll that dwelt beneath the bridge in "The Three Billy Goats Gruff", horror has been a staple of childhood fantasy. The annual October charade of Halloween reinforces joyful fright. Ghosts prowl from house to house threatening make-believe mayhem; skeletons dance gleefully on elementary school walls; and adult neighbors sport fiendish masks and rubber hands designed to unnerve even experienced trick-ortreaters. Newsstands bristle with Tales From the Crypt comics and Famous Monsters of Filmland magazines. Bookstores abound with the scary volumes of R.L. Stein and Stephen King. Adolescent TV film viewing runs the gamut from monster classics like King Kong (1933), Frankenstein (1931), Dracula (1931), and The Wolf Man (1941) to more recent horror flicks including Halloween (1978), Alien (1979), Amityville Horror (1979), Friday the 13th (1980), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), and The Addams Family (1991). Home Box Office (HBO) has capitalized on youthful interest in ghouls, goblins, and vampires to make weekend programming a collage of Friday the 13th, insane asylums, Halloween, graveyards, and sinister laboratories where mad scientists concoct lethal potions and create bizarre beings. Even local newspapers feature sardonic observations from macabre characters of Olson and Kelso's "Horrorscope" and Gary Larson's "Far Side" in their daily comic pages. Many hypotheses have been advanced to explain youthful fascination with horror (Cawelti, 1976; Cooper, 1992; Dickstein, 1980; Doherty, 1988; Evans, 1975). Few scholars acknowledge the most uncomplicated reason, though. It's fun to be frightened for a moment. An unsettling instance is a magnificent, electric jolt from the predictable present. Harmless fantasies of confronting a one-eyed creature, of being captured by a gigantic demon, or of opening the tomb of a cursed mummy constitute marvelous childhood escapes from daily chores and repetitive schoolwork. American popular culture has made horror a universally acceptable feature of childhood (Cooper, 1989; Feiffer, 1965; Heller, 1987; Kawin, 1972; King, 1981; Lurie, 1990). True to the nature of its youthful audience, popular recordings that utilize horror genre are typically brief, lively, animated, humorous, absurd, disrespectful toward adult authority, multi-media in sources of characterization, and totally devoid of redeeming aesthetic or social value. To the adult listener, these discs are at best silly novelty songs and at worst mindless nonsense. Nevertheless, the ubiquity of horror themes in popular recordings over the past four decades is undeniable (Cooper 1992). Roots of Rock 'N' Horror Recordings Between 1931 and 1956, horror was primarily a field of adult entertainment. …


Spanish missions in North America were once viewed as confining and stagnant communities, with native peoples on the margins of the colonial enterprise. Recent archaeological and ethnohistorical research challenges that notion." Indigenous Landscapes and Spanish Missions "considers how native peoples actively incorporated the mission system into their own dynamic existence. The book, written by diverse scholars and edited by Lee M. Panich and Tsim D. Schneider, covers missions in the Spanish borderlands from California to Texas to Georgia. Offering thoughtful arguments and innovative perspectives, the editors organized the book around three interrelated themes. The first section explores power, politics, and belief, recognizing that Spanish missions were established within indigenous landscapes with preexisting tensions, alliances, and belief systems. The second part, addressing missions from the perspective of indigenous inhabitants, focuses on their social, economic, and historical connections to the surrounding landscapes. The final section considers the varied connections between mission communities and the world beyond the mission walls, including examinations of how mission neophytes, missionaries, and colonial elites vied for land and natural resources. I"ndigenous Landscapes and Spanish Missions "offers a holistic view on the consequences of missionization and the active negotiation of missions by indigenous peoples, revealing cross-cutting perspectives into the complex and contested histories of the Spanish borderlands. This volume challenges readers to examine deeply the ways in which native peoples negotiated colonialism not just inside the missions themselves but also within broader indigenous landscapes. This book will be of interest to archaeologists, historians, tribal scholars, and anyone interested in indigenous encounters with colonial institutions.


The propagation of surface waves along spatially dispersive graphene-based 2-D waveguides is investigated in detail. Graphene is characterized using a full-kρ conductivity model under the relaxation-time approximation, which allows to obtain analytical and closed-formed expressions for the wavenumber of plasmons supported by sheets and parallel plate waveguides, respectively. Per unit length equivalent circuits are introduced to accurately characterize the propagation in different waveguides, and analytical relations between the effective TM-mode circuit lumped elements and graphene conductivity are derived. The proposed circuits allow identifying the different mechanisms involved in spatially dispersive plasmon propagation, explaining their connection with the intrinsic properties of graphene. Results demonstrate that spatial dispersion, which significantly decreases the confinement and the losses of slow surface plasmons, must be accurately assessed in the design of graphene-based plasmonic components at millimeter-waves and low terahertz frequencies.


The import and export of tree seed carries with it risks of inadvertent introduction of pests and pathogens to hitherto unaffected regions. Although trade in seed of specified trees is regulated, phytosanitary requirements for most tree species are minimal, even those related to the most important forest tree species in a given region. A better understanding of the microbiome associated with seed intended for commercial production or ornamental use, and their potential risk with the transport from the source origin of distributors, will help regulatory agencies implement measures to safeguard seed health and avoid trade-related spread of potentially harmful pathogens. In this study we used high-throughput sequencing to show that highly diverse fungal communities were associated with seed of 14 different Pinus species obtained from seed banks (seed orchards) and retail sources (online distributors) in North America and Europe. Fungal diversity differed among the 23 seedlots tested. Community composition did not relate to the species of Pinus nor the country of origin. Assigned potential functions based on sequence identity using FUNGuild provided an overall understanding of the likely life strategies of fungal operational taxonomic units (OTUs). Of those sequences classified to a trophic level, 453 were plant pathogens, with the Dothideomycetes having the highest prevalence. The most common plant pathogens included Sydowia polyspora, Lasiodiplodia theobromae, Diplodia intermedia and Diplodia sapinea that were detected from the majority of Pinus species. The evidence presented here illustrates an urgent need for plant protection authorities, practitioners and the general public to recognize the potential risk of introducing harmful pathogens through innocent transport of seed.


Abstract This article summarizes the major findings of a longitudinal study that traced the developmental paths of a multiracial cohort of children who had been exposed to perinatal stress, chronic poverty, and a family environment troubled by chronic discord and parental psychopathology. Individuals are members of the Kauai Longitudinal Study, which followed all children born in 1955 on a Hawaiian island from the perinatal period to ages 1, 2, 10, 18, and 32 years. Several clusters of protective factors and processes were identified that enabled most of these high-risk individuals to become competent and caring adults. Implications of the findings for developmental theory and social action programs are discussed, and issues for future research are identified.


When, some months ago, Prof. Dekeyser invited me to talk about the tendency to abandon Italian, as well as other European languages, in favour of the English language in the scientific periodicals sector, he obliged me to gather information on a sector different to the one in which I normally work. Indeed, since its beginnings, more than forty years ago, the raison d'etre of Casalini Libri, the promotion and diffusion of Italian publications to libraries throughout the world, has always privileged the humanities, social sciences, history and art which reflect the prevalent character of Italian publishing. In order to have a sufficiently reliable picture of the situation, we have contacted a sample group of publishers of scholarly scientific periodicals of various types, obtaining information on the quantity of journals published, the languages used, possible total or partial changes in the choice of language over time, and the utilisation, present or future, of electronic resources. Subdividing the contacted publishers into 4 groups in order to illustrate certain lines of conduct indicates the results of this enquiry [1]. A separate section will then be dedicated to the developments in electronic publishing, with particular regard to the choice of language. The 4 groups are: · Academies · Small specialised scientific publishers · Large specialised scientific publishers · University Presses


Quality training in pediatric gastroenterology, hepatology, and nutrition is essential for the future of our specialty from advancing the science through research to providing clinical care for children with gastrointestinal, hepatic and nutritional disorders. As educational theory has developed, both the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP) and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) have commissioned projects to better define training including core competencies, and milestones with the goal of competency-based assessment. Seeking to provide a clinical context for these competencies and milestones, the ABP commissioned a project for each pediatric subspecialty to develop entrustable professional activities (EPA) while at the same time developing EPAs that are common to all pediatric subspecialties. NASPGHAN commissioned an EPA Task Force to develop the pediatric gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition EPAs.This document serves as an introduction to EPAs, including their historical background, underlying educational theory and the process used to develop the pediatric gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition EPAs in the United States of America.


This paper shows that shape simplification is a tool useful in Non-Photorealistic rendering from photographs, because it permits a level of abstraction otherwise unreachable. A variety of simple shapes (e.g. circles, triangles, squares, superellipses and so on) are optimally fitted to each region within a segmented photograph. The system automatically chooses the shape that best represents the region; the choice is made via a supervised classifier so the 'best shape' depends on the subjectivity of a user. The whole process is fully automatic, aside from the setting of two user variables to control the number of regions in a pair of segmentations - and even these can be left fixed for many images. A gallery of results shows how this work reaches towards the art of later Matisse, of Kandinsky, and other artists who favored shape simplification in their paintings.


The article builds upon a study where students' relations to science are related to their worldviews and the kind of worldviews they associate with science. The aim of the study is to deepen our knowledge of how worldview and students' ways to handle conflicts between their own worldview and the worldview they associate with science, can add to our understanding of students' relations to science. Data consists of students' responses to a questionnaire (N = 47) and to interviews (N = 26). The study shows that for students who have a high ability in science, those who have taken science-intense programmes in upper secondary school to a higher extent than others have worldviews in accordance with the worldviews they associate with science. This indicates that students who embrace a worldview different from the one they associate with science tend to exclude themselves from science/technology programmes in Swedish upper secondary school. In the article the results are presented through case studies of single individuals. Those students' reasoning is related to the results for the whole student group. Implications for science teaching and for further research are discussed.


Since the dawn of the twenty-first century the technological tools at the disposal of teachers have improved exponentially. In the current education environment, the History teacher can reach far beyond the confines of a classroom, and is able to engage with the content of a study of human behaviour in a way that touches the humanity of students. A teacher in a single classroom can challenge students' ability across an array of platforms and over an internet which both allows for the dissemination of ideas and the acquisition of information at a speed and with a reach heretofore unknown and unavailable to the pedagogue. In a rapidly changing and increasingly less predictable political, economic and cultural milieu, it is incumbent on the History specialist to instil in those who engage with the past, present and future, a humanity which transcends simplistic political demagoguery and narrow bigotry which is gaining traction internationally. The skills of discernment and thoughtful analysis of fact, opinion and belief that is the forte of an historian can counterbalance intolerance and a disturbing resurgence of inhumanity. The teaching of History can influence a generation to build a more caring and humane society and modern technology can enhance the ability of a teacher to engage with learners beyond the confines of their classroom.


The process of educating our youth for citizenship in public schools is not confined to books, the curriculum, and the civics class; schools must teach by example the shared values of a civilized social order .... The schools, as instruments of the state, may determine that the essential lessons of civil, mature conduct cannot be conveyed in a school that tolerates lewd, indecent, or offensive speech and conduct ....1 I. INTRODUCTION In the field of competition we know as scholastic sports, each school,2 as is the custom among sports teams, represents itself with a name accompanied by a logo, image, and often, a mascot. These names, images, and mascots are used to generate enthusiasm and evoke feelings of loyalty among followers; for they create a sense of unity and cohesion with which athletic boosters and even non-fans identify.3 Some team names and images, in addition to generating support, also inspire dissention and hostility outside of the sports arena.4 Some people fight against the continued use of Indian mascots5 by sports teams, while fans and school officials fend off those challenges with arguments for the continued use of their beloved Indian mascots. IMAGE FORMULA6 Native Americans6 and others have sought to terminate the use of Indian mascots in a number of ways.7 They have sought remedies against Indian-mascoted schools and sports teams in courts of law;8 they have IMAGE FORMULA8 demonstrated against the use of such mascots;9 and they have petitioned teams to stop misappropriating their names through inaccurate logos and mascot decor and behavior.10 IMAGE FORMULA10 Likewise, schools have dealt with the issue in a variety of ways. Some schools have refused to replace their Indian mascots with less controversial ones11 while others have replaced Indian mascots with ones that are not controversial.12 Still others have sought to reach a middle ground.13 Some schools have taken a more affirmative stance.14 IMAGE FORMULA12 This article will outline arguments for and against the continued use of Indian mascots. It will then discuss aspects of seeking legal remedies against Indian-mascoted schools. The article will conclude with the suggestion that, because schools have a heightened responsibility to teach students academically as well as behaviorally, it is therefore inappropriate for schools to continue to use Indian names and mascots because they promote acceptability of racial stereotyping, a practice that runs counter to our educational ideals and societal morals. IMAGE FORMULA14 II. ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST THE USE OF INDIAN MASCOTS A. Arguments of Opposers and Responses of Supporters Opposers make a number of arguments in support of their position that the use of Indian mascots is inappropriate and should be terminated. They argue that such uses are stereotypical in that they promote misconceptions of Native Americans and their ways.15 This is harmful, Opposers claim, because it erodes tribal efforts to accurately preserve their culture.16 Opposers also insist that such uses are dehumanizing because they remove humane characteristics from Native Americans, depicting them instead as objects, cartoon characters, and savages.17 This has the detrimental affect of creating a perception of Native Americans as mythical ornaments, relegating them to an archaic, nonhuman, beastly status.18 "The Illiniwek19 exhibition is tantamount to someone putting on a parody of a Catholic Mass," said Norma Linton, an anthropology lecturer visiting the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.20 Opposers also believe that these teams are wrongly appropriating a people's identity and image for their own purposes.21 Supporters counter opposers' arguments with a number of responses intended to justify the continued use of Indian mascots. …


We use space geodetic data to investigate coseismic and postseismic deformation due to the 2015 Mw 7.8 Gorkha earthquake that occurred along the central Himalayan arc. Because the earthquake area is characterized by strong variations in surface relief and material properties, we developed finite element models that explicitly account for topography and 3‐D elastic structure. We computed the line‐of‐sight displacement histories from three tracks of the Sentinel‐1A/B Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) satellites, using persistent scatter method. InSAR observations reveal an uplift of up to ∼70 mm over ∼20 months after the main shock, concentrated primarily at the downdip edge of the ruptured asperity. GPS observations also show uplift, as well as southward movement in the epicentral area, qualitatively similar to the coseismic deformation pattern. Kinematic inversions of GPS and InSAR data and forward models of stress‐driven creep suggest that the observed postseismic transient is dominated by afterslip on a downdip extension of the seismic rupture. A poroelastic rebound may have contributed to the observed uplift and southward motion, but the predicted surface displacements are small. We also tested a wide range of viscoelastic relaxation models, including 1‐D and 3‐D variations in the viscosity structure. Models of a low‐viscosity channel previously invoked to explain the long‐term uplift and variations in topography at the plateau margins predict opposite signs of horizontal and vertical displacements compared to those observed. Our results do not preclude a possibility of deep‐seated viscoelastic response beneath southern Tibet with a characteristic relaxation time greater than the observation period (2 years).


This research investigates the dynamic interplay of contractual and relational governance mechanisms in long-term supply arrangements. The thesis contributes to an emerging debate that examines the combination of contractual and relational governance in inter-organisational exchanges. Contractual and relational governance mechanisms have been positioned as precluding mechanisms, which may result in destructive effects if combined for governing inter-organisational relationships. Previous research studies have increasingly acknowledged that the use of contractual mechanisms does not exclude the use of relational mechanisms and vice-versa. However, the recent literature offers limited insights into the dynamic interaction of both inter-organisational governance mechanisms and their impact on overall performance. The analysis in this research utilises a conceptual framework and a number of theoretical lenses through which the dynamic interplay of contractual and relational governance mechanisms is explained. Based on empirical case analysis of six public-private supply arrangements across three sectors: healthcare, waste management and emergency services, the research explores the dynamic interplay of both governance mechanisms and their impact on overall performance. Retrospective case study data was collected deploying semi-structured interviews and the critical incident technique was used to investigate the governance interplay over time. The contribution to knowledge is a conceptual framework that refines contractual and relational governance components in supply relationships over time. The findings indicate the importance of the interplay between inter-personal and inter-organisational trust in combination with complex contracts and intermediate contractual agreements. From this the conclusion is drawn that organisations entering into long-term supply relationships need to deploy both contractual and relational governance mechanisms in combination in order to achieve better overall performance.


The geographical distribution of the population of the city of Santiago, Chile, has changed significantly in recent years. In spite of this fact, the location of the fire stations has remained unchanged. We propose a model for the optimal location of the fire stations and a fleet assignment for the Santiago Fire Department (SFD), aimed at maximising the number of events attended to with a predefined standard response. The results of the model are compared with respect to the current location of fire stations and fleet assignment in the SFD. There are different types of resources (stations and vehicles), and different types of events in which the same types of vehicles are used. We analyse various possible current and future scenarios, using a forecast based on historical data. Our results show that by optimally reallocating the resources a 10–30% increase can be achieved in the number of emergency calls that are attended to with an adequate response in time and number of vehicles, without the need for additional fire stations or vehicles. Thus our contribution is empirical and relies on the real world application which is being considered by Chilean government.


A mathematical model for the solution of a set of chemical equilibrium equations in a multi-species and multiphase chemical system is described. The computer-aid solution of model is achieved by means of a Newton–Raphson method enhanced with a line-search scheme, which deals with the non-negative constrains. The residual function, representing the distance to the equilibrium, is defined from the chemical potential (or Gibbs energy) of the chemical system. Local minimums are potentially avoided by the prioritization of the aqueous reactions with respect to the heterogeneous reactions. The formation and release of gas bubbles is taken into account in the model, limiting the concentration of volatile aqueous species to a maximum value, given by the gas solubility constant. The reaction extents are used as state variables for the numerical method. As a result, the accepted solution satisfies the charge and mass balance equations and the model is fully compatible with general reactive transport models.


High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) optimize UMTS for packet data services in the downlink and uplink, respectively. Together, they are referred to as High Speed Packet Access (HSPA). Within 3GPP Release 7, 8, 9 and 10, further improvements to HSPA have been specified in the context of HSPA+ or HSPA evolution. This Application Note describes how HSPA+ features can be tested using Rohde & Schwarz instruments.


Massive MIMO (mMIMO) antenna array and Grid of Beams (GoB) are one of the key components for 5G to achieve high spectral efficiency and coverage. System level simulations are necessary to optimally intergrate the components of 5G system. Simulations with mMIMO antenna array involve handling large matrices, which results in increased simulation time typically upto several days depending on the size of the antenna array. However, GoB are fixed wideband beams and the receiver sees only the effective channel which is a combination of the channel and the GoB. Therefore, for system level simulations it is sufficient to general only the effective channel. In this paper, we propose a simulation model to directly generate the effective channel based on the 3GPP 3D channel model. It is shown that for the simulation of urban macro cells scenario specified in TR 38.913, the computational effort can be reduced by a factor of 1000. Furthermore, simulations show that very high SINR and user throughput values are achievable through GoB.


Debates and controversies about the democratic legitimacy of the EU have of course accompanied the Union from the very beginning. The "democratic paradox" of the EU exists because while committing itself to promote and scrutinize democracy in its member states, in candidate states, and in third states with whom it enters into contact, it does not display equivalent democratic features in its own functioning. Some commentators tried to define the problem out of existence; by pointing out that the EU is not a state-like polity, they argued that state-specific criteria of legitimacy, such as representative, participatory or deliberative democracy, do not apply. They postulated outcome-based or, at best, public reasons based, conceptions of legitimacy as applicable to the EU, and concluded that it satisfies those standards. But this argument is based on a non sequitur: from the statement that the EU is not a state (not even a quasi-federation or federation in statu nascendi) it does not follow that it should not be judged by the standards of democratic legitimacy. The EU is a complex, untidy polity which amalgamates inter-governmental and supranational elements in its constitution, and therefore this article postulates a bifurcated approach to democratic legitimacy. In so far as the EU contains inter-governmental elements, indirect legitimacy is all that is required, i.e., democratic legitimacy of governments representing their respective states in the Council. The second face of the EU – its supranational character – calls for democratic legitimation of its institutions, in particular, in accordance with the promise contained in Article 10 TEU, proclaiming representative democracy in the institutional setup of the EU. This requires changes to the electoral system of the EP in order to provide incentives for a more trans-European electoral process; strengthening of the supervisory role of the EP over the Commission; the strengthening of the role of the EP with regard to legislation, and endowing it with the competence of legislative initiative. Overall, the idea is for the institutional setup to resemble a canonical model of separation of powers and inter-institutional accountability, with the EP in a dominant position. Additionally, the first gesture towards direct democracy in the EU, the European Citizens' Initiative, should be strengthened, both by upgrading the status of successful initiatives and by lowering thresholds and administrative requirements.


Behavioural tasks produce changes in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF), the result of increased local neural activity. These changes can be measured with positron emission tomography (PET). Language activation studies by means of PET are being used to relate regional patterns of cerebral activation to information-processing models of speech and reading. Significant activation confined to both superior temporal gyri has been observed when normal subjects hear words played backwards, listen to non-words, and perform category judgements on pairs of heard real words. Prestriate cortex is activated by seeing strings of letter-like symbols, consonant strings, pronounceable non-words and real words, with additional activation in left medial prestriate cortex in response to the non-words and real words. Left posterior superior temporal gyrus (PSTG), left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and supplementary motor area (SMA) are engaged when subjects retrieve verbs from memory to match nouns. Finally, primary sensorimotor cortex is activated during articulation. There is particular interest at present in the precise roles of left PSTG and DLPFC in single-word comprehension and generation, and interpretation of the results depends critically on the design of the single-word tasks used for behavioural activation.


Abstract The Guadalupe Mountains of the southwestern U.S. (New Mexico–West Texas) expose the shelf edge of the Permian Delaware Basin, which formed near the western edge of the Central Pangean suture in equatorial Pangea. Voluminous siliciclastic strata filled this basin in mid-Permian time, and compose the Delaware Mountain Group (Brushy Canyon, Cherry Canyon, and Bell Canyon formations). These units have long been recognized to record ultimate deepwater deposition of siliciclastic sediments that were pre-sorted via eolian transport as they progressed toward the shelf edge of the Delaware Basin in Permian time. The generally arkosic mineralogy led most previous researchers to identify crystalline basement uplifts of the Ancestral Rocky Mountains (ARM) of the western U.S. as the primary source for the large volumes of Permian siliciclastic material that fill this basin. New provenance data combining modal mineralogy with detrital-zircon geochronology, however, refute this interpretation. Rather than an ARM basement source, indicated by Paleoproterozoic ages, the predominant age populations, comprising 70–80% of the grains, reflect contributions from Paleozoic, Neoproterozoic, and Mesoproterozoic (Grenvillian) age basement. The combined (arkosic–subarkosic) mineralogy and provenance spectra of the siliciclastic strata from the Delaware Mountain Group, together with comparisons with coeval strata and available paleocurrent data indicate sources in the Ouachita system, including recycled Appalachian detritus, and terranes accreted and uplifted south of the Ouachita suture, now in Mexico and Central America. Dispersal pathways likely involved a component of fluvial transport draining the piedmont region of the Ouachita orogenic belt, and ultimate eolian deflation of these fluvial systems within an easterly to southeasterly and seasonal westerly to northwesterly atmospheric circulation. Monsoonal transport, especially northern excursions of the ITCZ during northern hemisphere summers, would have facilitated transport from terranes south of the Ouachita–Marathon suture in present-day Mexico and Central America. Source locations predominantly south-southeast of the study region potentially obviate the need to call upon transcontinental fluvial transport directly from the Appalachian orogen to the southwestern edge of Pangea, at least for this time period. Furthermore, these results place new constrains on the final docking, major uplift, and consequent erosion of the Yucatan–Maya terrane south of the Ouachita orogenic belt, which provided significant siliciclastic detritus to depocenters in the western U.S. during middle Permian time. In contrast, the uplifts of the ARM were either covered, or greatly diminished as sources by this time.


We develop an experimental methodology that values "free" digital content through the lens of a production account and is consistent with the framework of the national accounts. We build upon the work in Nakamura, et al. (2016) by combining marketing‐ and advertising‐supported content and find that the impact of "free" digital content on U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) has accelerated in recent years, particularly since 2005. However, the explosion in "free" digital content is partially offset by a decrease in "free" print content like newspapers. Including these, real GDP growth would grow at 1.53 percent a year from 2005 to 2015 rather than the official growth rate of 1.42 percent, a tenth of a percent faster. Thus, there is a substantive impact on 2005 to 2015 real growth, even when we do not measure the full consumer surplus benefits of free goods. In addition, from 1995 to 2005, real GDP growth, including "free" content, would grow 0.07 percentage point faster, and in the earlier period, from 1929 to 1995, 0.01 percentage point faster. We further find that the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) and core PCE deflators would have risen about 0.1 percentage point slower from 2005 to 2015. To analyze the impact of "free" content on measured private business total factor productivity (TFP) growth, we account for inputs of "free" content used in production. We find that TFP would grow faster by 0.07 percentage point per year from 2005 to 2014 and faster by 0.07 percentage point from 1995 to 2005.