The morphological characteristics and distribution patterns of neurons immunoreactive for antisera against six biologically active peptides were examined by indirect immunofluorescence in the human brain. The peptides studied were: met-enkephalin, leu-enkephalin, substance P, somatostatin, cholecystokinin and vasoactive intestinal peptide. The tissue samples for this study were removed, dissected and placed into fixative within 4 h post-mortem. Regional differences throughout the entire neuraxis were observed in the localization of cell bodies, fibers and terminals for the various peptides. The observations reported in this article demonstrate certain distribution patterns for peptide immunoreactivities that appear to be specific to the human brain when compared to other species. These morphologic studies establish a valuable framework for the further analysis of the role of peptide-containing neuronal circuits in normal and diseased human brain.


Recent research reassures that they are safe and effective in the medium term

Topical corticosteroids have been the mainstay of treatment for atopic dermatitis over the past 40 years. Hydrocortisone was the first to be used; some 30 additional corticosteroid compounds have now been licensed for treatment of atopic dermatitis. The recent development of the topical immuno-modulators, tacrolimus and pimecrolimus, has provided alternatives to topical corticosteroids, but these remain expensive and are not effective in every case.1 Atopic dermatitis remains a therapeutic challenge, and topical corticosteroids continue to have an important role.

Topical applications containing corticosteroid compounds vary greatly in potency. In general the more potent ones are associated with the greater risk of adverse effects. When one of the more potent topical corticosteroids is applied for the first time by a patient with atopic dermatitis the benefit is likely to be rapid and striking, often resulting in clearance of the rash within a few days. The snag is that persistent application of a potent preparation will put the patient at risk of unwanted local effects on the skin. These effects vary from barely perceptible, fully reversible thinning, to irreversible telangiectasiae and striae distensae. Worse still, patients find that the initial benefit is generally rather rapidly lost because …


Objective: Representative correlational study of Spanish Ports Authorities (PA), based on analysis of PA economic efficiency, measured using DEA Data Envelopment Analysis, and PA environmental disclosure. Data employed: environmental reports of 20 PAs examined to gain understanding of Environmental Disclosures; economic management reports of individual ports to obtain the economic variables analyzed. The purpose to identify correlations among variables of environmental disclosure and economic efficiency of port management, with consideration of port overheads and profit focused structure. Design/methodology: A three-stage study, comprised of: 1 st Classification of PAs efficiency; 2 nd Analysis of environmental information disclosed, for which an Environmental Disclosure Assessment was defined; 3 rd Cluster Analysis to determine correlations of the economic efficiency findings of stage 1 cross-referenced with environmental disclosures of stage 2. Contributions / findings: The results obtained from the study are: classification of all Spanish PAs, although only 20 PAs are analyzed in stages 2 nd and 3 rd ; snapshot of 2012 information contained in the Environmental Disclosure Assessment defined, and DEA with results of correlations between the PAs´ environmental disclosures and economic efficiency ratings. Among relevant findings, the study shows that Efficient and Marginally Efficient PAs provide best environmental disclosures, as defined by type/frequency of reporting and environmental impact management information disclosed. Note: Efficient PAs provide more detailed information on water and energy management. Limitations: 8 PAs not supplying environmental reports were excluded from stages 2-3, due to which final results do not include 100% of PAs of the Spanish port system.


On the 19th of March 2012, the Suaineadh experiment was launched onboard the sounding rocket REXUS 12 (Rocket Experiments for University Students) from the Swedish launch base ESRANGE in Kiruna. The Suaineadh experiment served as a technology demonstrator for a space web deployed by a spinning assembly. Following launch, the experiment was ejected from the ejection barrel located within the nosecone of the rocket. Centrifugal forces acting upon the space web spinning assembly were used to stabilise the experiment's platform. A specifically designed spinning reaction wheel, with an active control method, was used. Once the experiment's motion was controlled, a 2 m by 2 m space web is released. Four daughter sections situated in the corners of the square web served as masses to stabilise the web due to the centrifugal forces acting on them. The four daughter sections contained inertial measurement units (IMUs). After the launch of REXUS12, the recovery helicopter was unable to locate the ejected experiment, but 22 pictures were received over the wireless connection between the experiment and the rocket. The last received picture was taken at the commencement of web deployment. Inspection of these pictures allowed the assumption that the experiment was fully functional after ejection, but probably through tumbling of either the experiment or the rocket, the wireless connection was interrupted. A recovery mission in the middle of August was only able to find the REXUS12 motor and the payload impact location.


The influence of a systematic survey and follow-up of blood pressure in a population sample assessed by a subsequent survey performed an average of 40 months later. A subsample of 764 men, originally ages 35-57 years, was randomly selected for telephone follow-up, while blood pressure was remeasured in 133 (17% of the subsample). These were drawn from 6779 men who had a diastolic blood pressure DBP) 2 90 mm Hg, the average of the second two measurements of three at the initial survey. Ninety percent of the men in the telephone survey reported they had visited their physician or medical-care source. Of these visits, 70% were for consideration of blood pressure, and in 36% this visit was directly attributed to the screen. At follow-up, 52.8% were taking antihypertensive medication and in 61% of this group medication was started after the initial screen. Follow-up revealed DBP reduced by 8.7% in the group not treated with antihypertensive agents either before or after the initial survey, by 13.4% in the group on treatment before the survey and by 17.7% in the group started on therapy after the survey. Although lack of a suitable comparison group is a limitation, these findings in a population-based cohort strongly suggest that systematic blood pressure screening, combined with effective immediate referral, may be associated with an important effect on blood pressure control in the community.


Organic farming has attracted an increasing attention over the last three decades, because it has been perceived as a solution to the problems currently besetting the agricultural sectors of industrialized countries. Consumers, farmers, environmentalists and policy-makers have been increasingly recognised organic farming for environmental, social and financial sustainability. Therefore, every country has ensured supports for organic farming. A wide range of support measures are now applied in the EU according to increasing consumers' awareness of food safety and environmental concerns. Same parallel developments occurred in Turkey in the mid 80s with the increasing demand from the consumers of the EU countries. In 1999, it was granted to Turkey the status of candidate country for membership of the EU. So, Turkey had to met some obligations. In Turkey and EU, agri-environment programs like organic farming have been recognized as eco-friendly ways to support income of the farmers. Financial supports for organic farming have been given with different rates for both Turkey and EU. It is therefore necessary to compare both Turkey's and EU's payment policies. This study is based on a literature review. The main method is to evaluate, synthesize and establish relationships among the researches from the relevant literature. The objective of this study is to describe fi-nancial support payments to producers of organic farming in Turkey and EU and to compare of policies of Turkey and the EU. According to the results of this research, there are different payment levels for organic farming in Turkey and the EU. Payments in Turkey are particu-larly area-based, on the other hand, there are financial payments according to areabased, quality standards, food crops, non-food crops in the EU.


A magnetic molecularly imprinted polymer (M-MIP) for cyclobarbital (CY) has been prepared by a multi-step swelling and polymerization method using a uniformly-sized magnetic particle as the shape template. Binding experiments and Scatchard analyses revealed that two classes of binding sites, high and low affinity sites, were formed on the M-MIP. The retention and molecular-recognition properties of the M-MIP toward CY, phenobarbital (PB), amobarbital (AM) and phenytoin (PT) were evaluated using a mixture of phosphoric acid and/or sodium phosphate buffer and acetonitrile as a mobile phase by LC. On the M-MIP, retention factors of CY, PB, AM and PT were drastically decreased at mobile phase pH 8.7. This could be ascribable to dissociation of these compounds, whose p K a values are around 8. The imprinting factors were in the order of CY > PB > AM > PT at mobile phase pHs 2.5–6.9, and those are very similar between CY and PB. Furthermore, they were decreased at mobile phase pH 8.7. In addition to shape recognition, hydrogen-bonding and hydrophobic interactions seem to work for the retention and molecular-recognition of CY, PB, AM and PT on the MIP. The M-MIP for CY was applied for the selective extraction of PB in human serum samples.


This working paper explores issues of security integration in a number of external policies of the European Union (EU), and looks at both security policies per se and the security rationale contained in other policy contexts. Following a twin-track approach of presenting both a legal and a political assessment respectively, the contributions have been clustered around three themes: energy security and the EU's relations with neighbouring states, the EU's targeted sanctions policy, and security sector reform pursued by the EU in third countries. The first contribution on energy security seeks to clarify the EU's energy dependency on Russia as a security concern and assesses the EU's response, in particular the Energy Charter Treaty, to Russia's strategic use of its new energy monopoly. The second paper focuses on the countries of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and analyses a number of critiques with respect to energy policy in the context of the ENP. Within the targeted sanctions theme, one contribution discusses the legal complexities with respect to their adoption and implementation in the EU's multilevel structure, whereas the other looks more broadly at their rationale and highlights a number of problems related to their strategic use by the EU and the UN. On the last theme, the notion of Security Sector Reform (SSR), the first contribution raises the issue in the context of the Western Balkans. While acknowledging the potential importance of EU leverage through membership conditionality, it argues that – for reasons both endogenous and exogenous to the EU's SSR approach – accession is not an automatic best case scenario for sustainable reform in these countries. The second contribution looks at the EU's SSR strategy in the light of local ownership and the quest for a holistic approach by examining the reframing of some existing policies and the adoption of new instruments and actions under the SSR agenda.


The development of fiber-optic chemical sensors (FOCS) has been actively pursued over the last decade, and an exhaustive summary of this work has recently appeared in a two-volume monograph by Wolfbeis. Many FOCSs have utilized fluorescence to sensitively detect analytes of interest. In some fluorescence sensor applications, chromochemical reactions yielding fluorescent products have been slaved to the sensor to circumvent the exclusion of analytes which do not fluoresce. However, there have also been several fiber-optic absorbance sensors reported. In one general type of sensor optical design, the absorbance or fluorescence measurement depends on the ability of a single multimode fiber optic to conduct light to, as well as to transport light from, the sensor tip. In this sensor configuration a coupler/ splitter is required for the separation of the entry and emergent sensor light. Hirschfeld and co-workers first described an effective geometric coupler/splitter to be used with single-fiber-optic sensors. Their coupler/splitter incorporated an angled plane mirror with a centrally bored hole for entry light passage. The Hirschfeld configuration, and variants of it, have subsequently been used extensively with laser sources which are easily coupled with the fiber optic of the sensor. However, when extended (incoherent) sources are used, it becomes difficult to efficiently couple to fiber-optic sensors with the use of the Hirschfeld configuration. In our experience, this difficulty is mainly due to the need to image an extended source near the surface of the small-diameter (typically 100-200 μm) sensor fiber optic with the use of a long-focal-length lens.


In this AFP entry, we provide a formal implementation of a state-merging technique to infer extended finite state machines (EFSMs), complete with output and update functions, from black-box traces. In particular, we define the subsumption in context relation as a means of determining whether one transition is able to account for the behaviour of another. Building on this, we define the direct subsumption relation, which lifts the subsumption in context relation to EFSM level such that we can use it to determine whether it is safe to merge a given pair of transitions. Key proofs include the conditions necessary for subsumption to occur and that subsumption and direct subsumption are preorder relations. We also provide a number of different heuristics which can be used to abstract away concrete values into registers so that more states and transitions can be merged and provide proofs of the various conditions which must hold for these abstractions to subsume their ungeneralised counterparts. A Code Generator setup to create executable Scala code is also defined.


Background: When compared with single shot interscalene nerve blockade (SSISB), continuous interscalene nerve blockade (CISNB) has previously been shown to decrease pain and narcotic requirement following open shoulder surgery including arthroplasty and rotator cuff repair. Advances in surgery have allowed many shoulder operations to be performed arthroscopically or via a "mini open" approach. This study investigates whether continuous nerve blockade provides a difference in recovery parameters sufficient to impact discharge time following surgery when compared with a single dose nerve block . Methods: This was a retrospective case-control series. The hospital records of consecutive arthroscopic or mini open shoulder operation patients were examined and divided into those given CISNB (n = 94) and those given SSISB (n = 77) for post operative analgesia. Groups were compared for time to discharge in a private hospital setting in which strict discharge protocols were not in place. Narcotic use and maximal visual analogue scale (VAS) pain score were also recorded. Results: Length of stay was statistically significantly different between the two groups. Patients in the CISNB group had a median length of stay of 24.5 hours (IQR 20.8-42.0) compared to 23.0 hours (18.8-40.5) in the SSISB group ( p = .03). CISNB group patients had decreased narcotic use. No difference in maximal VAS pain score was identified. Conclusion: With greater emphasis on non-invasive approaches to shoulder surgery, patients are able to be discharged at a time acceptable to both physician and patient regardless of the presence of CISNB. Surprisingly the CISNB group had a longer length of stay (although from a practical sense similar). The advantages of this analgesic technique in terms of improved pain relief and decreased narcotic use do not affect hospital length of stay. Level III evidence.


AIM
To study the association of three common ABCB11 and ABCC2 polymorphisms (ABCB11: 1331T>C --> V444A; ABCC2: 3563T>A --> V1188E and 4544G>A --> C1515Y) with intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (ICP) and contraceptive-induced cholestasis (CIC).

METHODS
ABCB11 and ABCC2 genotyping data were available from four CIC patients and from 42 and 33 ICP patients, respectively. Allele-frequencies of the studied polymorphisms were compared with those in healthy pregnant controls and Caucasian individuals. Furthermore, serum bile acid levels were correlated with the presence or absence of the 1331 C allele.

RESULTS
The ABCB11 1331T>C polymorphism was significantly more frequent in cholestatic patients than in pregnant controls: C allele 76.2% (CI, 58.0-94.4) vs 51.3% (CI 35.8-66.7), respectively (P = 0.0007); and CC allele 57.1% (CI 36.0-78.3) vs 20% (CI 7.6-32.4), respectively (P = 0.0065). All four CIC patients were homozygous carriers of the C allele. In contrast, none of the studied ABCC2 polymorphism was overrepresented in ICP or CIC patients. Higher serum bile acid levels were found in carriers of the 1331CC genotype compared to carriers of the TT genotype.

CONCLUSION
Our data support a role for the ABCB11 1331T>C polymorphism as a susceptibility factor for the development of estrogen-induced cholestasis, whereas no such association was found for ABCC2. Serum bile acid and gamma-glutamyl transferase levels might help to distinguish ABCB4- and ABCB11-related forms of ICP and CIC.


Modelling credit risk is a challenge for any financial institution and in particular any bank need a structured approach to the quantification and management of credit risk. In this paper we intend to describe, as clearly as possible, the structures and models involved. Our point of view is that the 'essentials of credit portfolio management' can be summarized quite easily. We discuss the problem faced by a modern bank when it comes to the pricing of credit risk as well as economic capital computation and allocation.


Cadmium is a ubiquitous trace metal in the environment and a constituent of tobacco smoke. It is sequestered in the placenta, where it accumulates with advancing gestation, potentially inhibiting the synthesis and/or release of hormones produced by the trophoblast. It is also possible that cadmium competes with essential metals for binding to metallothionein, thus interfering with the transport of these micronutrients to the developing fetus. Experiments in our laboratory indicate that the production of p r o g e s t e r o n e by syncytiotrophoblast cells in vitro is inhibited by cadmium and that this inhibition may be due to a decline in low density lipoprotein-receptor transcription. Although syncytiotrophoblastic maturation does not appear to be affected by cadmium exposure, further studies will be needed to determine the metal's potential effect on cytotrophoblastic invasion of the uterine endometrium in early gestation.


In central Europe, the hybridogenetic water frog Rana esculenta is a sexual parasite that only persists in the presence of the parental species, R. lessonae, with which it must mate in order to reproduce. R. esculenta is a superior larval competitor, and adult females are about three times more fecund than R. lessonae. This suggests that, in the absence of some balancing advantage to R. lessonae, R. esculenta should drive the parental species locally extinct, closely followed by itself. We measured annual survival rates over six years at two widely separated ponds using modern capture–mark–recapture methods to test whether differences in adult survival might contribute to the persistence of the water frog system. We marked 856 adult frogs and recovered 182 at least once. The data did not deviate significantly from the assumptions of the Cormack-Jolly-Seber model at either pond. There were no detectable differences in recapture probabilities between taxa, but females were, overall, less likely to be recaptured. Survival was higher for R. esculenta in all but one year. Therefore, some mechanism other than adult survival must be invoked to explain the persistence of this unusual breeding system. There was considerable year-to-year variation in survival, ranging from 6% over the winter of 1996–1997, to 98% over the winter of 1995–1996. Although the two ponds are separated by 35 km, pond identity did not contribute to the minimum models. A composite measure of winter severity constructed from a principal components analysis of weather data during the course of the study had a very close relationship with survival (R. lessonae, r = 0.905; R. esculenta, r = 0.889). Survival was lowest in winters with low minimum temperatures coupled with high and variable maximum temperatures.

Corresponding Editor: B. Sinervo.


Abstract As Joan Wallach Scott warns in The Fantasy of Feminist History, the danger of depositing one's personal papers in an archive is that one's papers then become open to misinterpretation. In this article, Scott's fears are enacted in relation to another feminist theorist's archival collection, that of prominent Canadian scholar Barbara Godard who died before she could complete the process of donating her papers to the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections at York University. Drawing on personal memories and eclectic textual traces, this article attempts to recover Godard's theory of the archive—a theory she never fully articulated in her lifetime, despite dedicating much of her time and energy to collecting and preserving her own words and the words and papers of her students and collaborators.


This paper attempts to develop insights into comparative evaluations of quality determinants for education services provided by higher education (HE) institutions as they are perceived by their graduates in some European countries. Quality in HE, as well as defining a way to measure it, is not a simple issue and there is no commonly accepted definition. Therefore, we based on student's opinions of their academic courses. Customer satisfaction generally is a function of the consumer's satisfaction with the different components comprising the service being provided. Understanding the complexity of the learning experience requires more than knowing the level of satisfaction of the students; it also demands an appreciation of the factors that contribute to student satisfaction. Measuring student satisfaction would help HE institutions to identify both their strengths and the areas that require improvement. For that purpose, we use the REFLEX (Flexible Professional in the Knowledge Society) data set, which allow the comparison among 14 European countries. We start with a brief description of some key characteristics of their study programme, modes of teaching and learning and the study behaviour and motivations reported by graduates. Our preliminary results suggest that demonstrating a relation between programme characteristics and modes of teaching on the one hand, and the level of competencies on the other hand does not necessarily mean that HE provides a sufficient basis to enter the labour market, nor does it necessarily indicate a sufficient basis for the later career.


Expedited by the financial crisis and increased stakeholder activism, the demand for reliable and accountable business practices and transparency has gained momentum in the current corporate social responsibility (CSR) debate. Consequently, companies have started to become aware of the increasing importance of conveying increased transparency and accountability to stakeholders, gaining their legitimacy and establishing a positive public image through adequate CSR reporting. Since it is obligatory to disclose information on corporate financial performance and on companies' environmental and social impact in France, this paper addresses how transparent French listed companies of the CAC 40 communicate their CSR engagement externally. To turn the latent construct 'transparency of CSR reporting' into a measurable value, we conduct qualitative content analysis based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines. Assuming mandatory CSR reporting to increase companies' CSR transparency in general, most of the companies communicate their corporate profile, strategy and management broadly. Whereas companies report the environmental dimension most frequently, they refer only marginally to the economic and social dimensions.


A low-cost, high-sensitivity humidity sensor based on a low-loss dielectric thin film waveguide (WG) is presented. The guided mode is produced by coupling laser light into the film by optical tunneling through a solid gap deposited on the base of a semi-cylindrical lens. The light reflected from this optical system carries information about the refractive index of the medium neighboring the WG, and is detected by a low-cost CCD linear sensor and analyzed with a microcontroller or personal computer. The technique presents good sensitivity to relative humidity (RH) changes, especially below 10% RH, linear behavior between 20% and 80% RH, and a response time of a few seconds.


Among the central issues in scholarship on the American jury is the effect of Batson v. Kentucky (1986) on discriminatory empanelment. Empirical legal research has confirmed that despite the promise of the Batson framework, both peremptory strikes and challenges for cause remain tools of racial exclusion. But these studies, based on post-facto interviews, transcript analysis, and quantitative methods offer little insight into Batson's critical impact on real-time decision-making and strategy in voir dire. If we increasingly know what kinds of juries are produced in the post-Batson world, we know very little about how they are produced.

This Article addresses this problem with data derived from a five-year field study of Assistant U.S. Attorneys. Through interviews and participant observation during jury selection proceedings, it provides an unprecedented empirical perspective on how Batson has made race central to the ways prosecutors perceive, pick, and strike jurors. Rather than diminishing race's influence on voir dire, Batson has made it an essential consideration for prosecutors concerned with their in-court performance and professional reputations.

This race-conscious approach to jury selection has arisen in part due to a clear doctrinal shift in courts' analysis of juror questioning and striking. This shift has expanded the scope of judicial inquiry during the adjudication of Batson challenges from scrutiny of individual "neutral" rationales for juror dismissals to a more robust comparative juror analysis. My empirical findings indicate that there is a meaningful connection between this latter approach and the incorporation of anti-discrimination norms into prosecutorial approaches to voir dire. Having identified and described this link, it becomes possible to perform a deeper audit of the Batson framework, and suggest, as this Article does, that with reform and expansion to address well-documented limitations, it may serve to close the gap between juries as they are and juries as the constitution would have them be.


We train a recurrent neural network language model using a distributed, on-device learning framework called federated learning for the purpose of next-word prediction in a virtual keyboard for smartphones. Server-based training using stochastic gradient descent is compared with training on client devices using the Federated Averaging algorithm. The federated algorithm, which enables training on a higher-quality dataset for this use case, is shown to achieve better prediction recall. This work demonstrates the feasibility and benefit of training language models on client devices without exporting sensitive user data to servers. The federated learning environment gives users greater control over the use of their data and simplifies the task of incorporating privacy by default with distributed training and aggregation across a population of client devices.


Common-sense morality implicitly assumes that reasonably clear distinctions can be drawn between the 'full' moral status usually attributed to ordinary adult humans, the partial moral status attributed to non-human animals, and the absence of moral status, usually ascribed to machines and other artefacts. These assumptions were always subject to challenge; but they now come under renewed pressure because there are beings we are now able to create, and beings we may soon be able to create, which blur traditional distinctions between humans, non-human animals, and non-biological beings. Examples are human non-human chimeras, cyborgs, human brain organoids, post-humans, human minds that have been uploaded into computers and onto the internet, and artificial intelligence. It is far from clear what moral status we should attribute to any of these beings. While commonsensical views of moral status have always been questioned, the latest technological developments recast many of the questions and raise additional objections. There are a number of ways we could respond, such as revising our ordinary suppositions about the prerequisites for full moral status. We might also reject the assumption that there is a sharp distinction between full and partial moral status. The present volume provides a forum for philosophical reflection about the usual presuppositions and intuitions about moral status, especially in light of the aforementioned recent and emerging technological advances.


This study uses data on men's track and field and road racing records by age to estimate the rate at which men slow down with age. For most of the running events (400 meters through the half marathon), the slowdown rate per year is estimated to be .80 percent between ages 35 and 51. At age 51 the rate begins to increase. It is 1.04 percent at age 60, 1.46 percent at age 75, and 2.01 percent at age 95. The slowdown rate is smaller for 100 meters. For the events longer than the half marathon, the rate is smaller through about age 60 and then larger after that. The slowdown rate is generally larger at all ages for the field events. Table 2 shows that the age-factors in Masters Age-Graded Tables are excessively variable and biased against older runners. Tables 3 and 5 present the age-factors implied by this study. These tables can be used to estimate one's projected time or distance by age. They can also be used by race officials for age-graded events. A brief comparison of the present results to results in the physiological literature is also presented in this paper. The main estimation technique used is a combination of the polynomialspline method and the frontier-function method. A number of the events have been pooled to provide more efficient estimates.


This article explores civic engagement with the Danish/Swedish crime series The Bridge (Danmarks Radio/Sveriges Television 2011–) based on qualitative interviews with 113 audience members, and drawing on the notion of cultural citizenship. The perspective of cultural citizenship, as understood and operationalized mainly by Hermes, is married with critical perspectives on the crime drama genre and its audiences, along with cultural analysis of the construction of and engagement with the cross-border region in which the drama is set. The analysis shows that civic engagement with the crime series is prompted through the construction of community and allegiances through which audiences feel connected. This argument unfolds in three main analytical sections, detailing how audiences' articulations of community are focused around distinct yet overlapping dimensions of community as (1) a national social ritual, (2) a sense of Nordic community, and finally (3) community as regional identity and sense of belonging to a borderless Öresund utopia – the integrated region between Denmark and Sweden. In so doing, the article offers rich insights into how audiences shape civic identities as members of nation states, of historical and cultural regions and as border-crossers between these geo-cultural entities - in dialogue with popular culture and around the boundary-work of the different communities offered by such texts.


The traditional view of organizational systems and supporting information and knowledge systems is based on the model of a well-oiled machine expected to deliver optimum performance derived from pre-defined parameters and specifications. Such systems consider performance as a derivative of external controls defined by the designers of the systems and have given marginal importance to the self-adaptive and emergent nature of human and organizational systems. These characteristics of human and organizational systems are particularly relevant to their adaptation and survival within dynamically changing business environments. Recently, some management thinkers have attempted to address the human bases of information systems within the framework of information ecology. This characterization, although interesting, needs to be further developed to account for the human sense making processes and self-regulatory nature of the natural ecosystems relevant to new organizational environments. We extend the information ecology framework to a framework of knowledge ecology. The knowledge ecology of organizational systems goes beyond the emphasis on information, to account for action, performance and adaptation of self-regulatory systems.


Objectives. To describe pharmacy students' work experience for pay; examine student attitudes towards work; examine student perceptions of how pharmacist preceptors feel about their jobs; and determine how pharmacy student work environment influences career aspirations and whether or not gender or academic pathway have any influences.
Methods. An electronic survey was administered to third-year doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) students at a Midwestern school of pharmacy over five consecutive years.
Results. Four hundred eighty nine students (response rate = 61.0%) completed the electronic survey instrument. Over 90% reported working in a pharmacy by the time their advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs) began. Of these respondents, 67.4% reported working in a community pharmacy while 23.0% reported working in hospital inpatient pharmacy. Students working for independent pharmacies were most likely to feel that this type of practice site would offer an optimal work schedule and work environment for their career.
Conclusions. Most students are working in community pharmacy practice. Having a fulfilling career and a desirable work schedule was the variable most strongly associated with optimal career choice.
Conflict of Interest
We declare no conflicts of interest or financial interests that the authors or members of their immediate families have in any product or service discussed in the manuscript, including grants (pending or received), employment, gifts, stock holdings or options, honoraria, consultancies, expert testimony, patents and royalties.

Type: Original Research


Abstract The aim of this study was to synthesize and characterize a semi self-doped polyaniline/sulfonated β-cyclodextrin (PANI/SCD) inclusion complex with an optimum electroconductivity and a maximized biocompatibility. In this work, β-cyclodextrin (CD) was sulfonated in which sulfonic acid group on the prepared SCD act as the dopant group. PANI/SCD inclusion complex was synthesized using interfacial oxidative polymerization of aniline in presence of SCD and was characterized by elemental analysis, 1H-NMR, FT-IR, XRD, SEM and EIS analyses. The electrical conductivity of the PANI/SCD inclusion complex was found about 2.23 µS⋅cm−1 in dedoped form and was almost equal to each of HCl doped PANI. Cytotoxicity of the PANI, PANI/CD, and PANI/SCD were studied both in HCl doped and dedoped forms using bone marrow-derived rabbit mesenchymal stem cells (rbMSCs) in compliance with ISO standard. Simultaneous effect of different parameters on cell biocompatibility of the synthesized materials investigated using two-way ANOVA and Tukey's multiple comparison tests. Despite the fact that the PANI/SCD was found to be more cytotoxic than the PANI/CD, but due to its higher electrical conductivity, it can be considered as a material with optimum electroconductivity-biocompatibility balance and a potential use in tissue engineering and/or regenerative medicine as an electroactive scaffold. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT


The extensive use of social media for protest purposes was a distinctive feature of the recent protest events in Spain, Greece, and the United States. Like the Occupy Wall Street protesters in the United States, the indignant activists of Spain and Greece protested against unjust, unequal, and corrupt political and economic institutions marked by the arrogance of those in power. Social media can potentially change or contribute to the political communication, mobilization, and organization of social movements. To what extent did these three movements use social media in such ways? To answer this question a comparative content analysis of tweets sent during the heydays of each of the campaigns is conducted. The results indicate that, although Twitter was used significantly for political discussion and to communicate protest information, calls for participation were not predominant. Only a very small minority of tweets referred to protest organization and coordination issues. Furthermore, comparing the actual content of the Twitter information exchanges reveals similarities as well as differences among the three movements, which can be explained by the different national contexts.


The notion of charitable class bedevils tax law. The IRS has issued no precedential guidance regarding its scope or application. After the 9/11 terrorist attack, Congress enacted special provisions applicable only to victims of that disaster. In response to statements in the legislative history of those provisions, the IRS has changed several of its positions regarding the doctrine of charitable class, changes announced only in a publication on disaster relief. Nonetheless, disaster relief continues to raise difficult issues involving charitable class for Congress as well as the IRS. In the 15 years since 9/11, Congress has enacted special legislation to permit a small group of California firefighters and two New York police offers to be treated as satisfying the charitable class requirements.This article reviews the use of charitable class in tax law, including its relationship to trust law, with particular attention on establishing new charitable purposes and classes. It then discusses disaster relief, both in the case of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and September 11, 2001 terrorist attack. This discussion includes consideration of the roles that crowdfunding and exemption based on lessening the burden of government play in addressing disasters. The next section of the article examines the special legislation that Congress has enacted for two small groups of first responders. The piece concludes by recommending that the IRS both undertake a study of charitable class in general and issue precedential guidance regarding charitable class in the context of disaster relief. It also urges Congress to consider holding hearings and enacting special legislation for first responders.


With a growing feminist movement considered to influence the birth of metrosexual phenomenon. Feminist movement that encourages gender equality has a big contribution to the
development of the market (the product of men). Feminist movement fundamentally changed the way men and women interact in an environment that looks and body care is very important. This is what shows the notion of men have had aqual rights with women. Research on women in adveritising is often done. Stereotypes of women in advertising discourse is often linked with body and sexual objects. In this study, the role of man turns fallen prey to advertisers that indicate a shift in gender. Along with femininity movement that seeks to reverse the marginal
position of women to gain equality with men. This research was conducted to try to uncover the representation of the men in television ads in the ad that is LMen and Gatsby Body Lotions.
Representation is a social process of representing, and the two representations as representing the product of social processes. The first sense refers to a process while the second is a signmaking products that refer to a meaning. Media (the representation) when linked to social reality (real world), allowing a variety of ideological problems in social and cultural life. This question arises when the media referred to as a mirror of reality (the mirror of relity), or the media as a formulator of reality (the mirror of reality) that corresponds to the underlying ideology. Ads in the industrial society that forming tastes and trends of the masses, thus forming public awareness
with the public on how to instill the desire false needs. Thus indirectly penetrated ad in the lifestyle industry, which is advertising a desire to be channel (channel of desire) of human discourse and at the same channel (channel of discourse) about consumption and lifestyle.
Lifestyle industry is the industry's most appearances. Media used to describe a negative self image of men and women. Media not only encourages us to measure ourselves with the standard requirement but rather encourage people to see normal body becomes pathology.
The research method used in textual analysis and semiotics approach using Roland Barthes's semiotic techniques to find out the myths in its advertising was followed by Levi's Staruss semiotic techniques to search for patterns of performance comparison between men and women.
While metonymy an ad if there are meanings that contain analogy and asossiation. Focus research on LMen ad (duration 29 seconds) with units of analysis, five scene images and ads Gatsby Body Lotions (duration 32 seconds) with the unit of analysis there are five scenes ofpicture that the meaning representation of men in television advertising.
The Study show that the figure of male masculinity that men borrow the codes of femininity that has developed in a society with the emergence of the phenomenon of shifting the metrosexual and the classical concept of masculinity. Men are shown as dandy, a man is shown as charmer of
women, and men tend to follow the behavior of women. By doing feminine activities. Men also displayed as sexual objects in which the male body into something enjoyed by women as well as his own man. Men always want to satisfy their need to cover all the flaws in himself. And this
leads to costumer habits, about the need to always update themselves and pay attention to the appearance of the body. Result of the above, can be recommended to further research to more open critical discourse again to sharpen the research about the representation of men in television
advertising. And recommended to the community as a social criticism that people may be more critical of advertising, because advertising construct social reality, so the ad with its ideology can affect society.


The recent election of Mrs. Fatou Bensouda of the Gambia as the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on 12 December 2011 to succeed the current Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo of Argentina who finishes his term in June 2012 and Dr. Chile Eboe-Osuji of Nigeria election as a Judge of the ICC on 16 December 2011 is a remarkable achievement showcasing the quality of legal education in Nigeria given the calibre of Mrs. Bensouda and Dr. Chile Eboe-Osuji, who both studied and had their legal training in Nigeria. This paper is a commentary on the applicability of International law particularly branches of Public International law and the Rome Statute in domestic Nigeria law. This paper further analysis the system of appointment of Judges in Nigeria in light of the election of Dr. Chile Eboe-Osuji as a Judge of the ICC.


The Learning Technology & Innovation (LTI) at the London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) undertook a study on e-assessment practice across Russell Group universities in an effort to better understand the current e-assessment landscape and the various institutional factors affecting the degree of engagement with e-assessment practice. This report details the results of the online survey relating to all Russell Group universities while providing a focused analysis on LSE from a comparative perspective. The findings illustrate a wide degree of technology usage for e-assessment practice. While some universities make extensive use of technology throughout the assessment life-cycle from e-Submission to e-Return, others use it sparingly or have concentrated usage at a specific point in the life-cycle (e.g. early stage or mid-stage). Overall however, there is significant usage of basic platforms such as Moodle (or equivalent Virtual Learning Environments) and Turnitin. Furthermore, the study revealed the use of newer technologies such as table computing and student produced video for both formative and summative assessments, which may be seen to highlight an inclination toward innovative practice in e-assessment. From an institutional perspective, the findings suggest institutional culture and time constraints prove to be critical factors to enabling e-assessment development. While technical feasibility constitutes an important component of driving e-assessment practice, the results affirm the necessary behavioral and organizational change management components of enabling new and innovative process reforms. Most interestingly in this regard, the study suggests non-financial incentives are underexploited in motivating greater engagement with e-assessment. LSE's experience and engagement with e-assessment is not uncommon in relation to other Russell Group universities, particularly with regards to the institutional factors that enable and constrain e-assessment development. However, significant improvements can be made with increasing the number of modules incorporating technology throughout the entire assessment life-cycle; while LSE uses technology throughout the entire assessment life-cycle for approximately 11% of all offered courses, the Russell Group average stands at 43.10%.


Background The SCD-HeFT study demonstrated a benefit of primary prevention implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) implantation in patients with non-ischaemic dilated cardiomyopathy (NIDCM). However, NIDCM may improve spontaneously, even after waiting 6–9 months on optimal medical treatment. Objective To assess the incidence of left ventricular (LV) function improvement in patients receiving primary prevention ICDs for NIDCM. Methods All patients with NIDCM receiving primary prevention ICDs (non-cardiac resynchronisation therapy) from 2005 to the present at our institutions were retrospectively studied. All patients had NIDCM confirmed by a lack of significant stenoses on coronary angiography, a lack of significant valvular abnormalities on echo, and LV dysfunction with ejection fraction (EF) <35%. All patients had to have had a diagnosis of NIDCM for at least 9 months and be receiving optimal medical treatment for at least 3 months before implant according to the guidelines. All patients had at least New York Heart Association (NYHA) II symptoms. Baseline and follow-up EF was documented by quantitative echo and/or multi-gated acquisition scan. Results 332 patients were identified by a database search. Patients were aged 67±11 years, 75% of them were male, NYHA 2.3±0.7, with EF 25±13%, and LV diastolic diameter 61±10 mm. Time from initial NIDCM diagnosis to implant was 11±6 months and duration of medical treatment before implant was 8±5 months. Treatment at the time of implant included ACE inhibitors or ARBs (85%), β blockers (77%), spironolactone (53%), loop diuretic (63%) and digoxin (50%). Repeat EF assessment was available in 309/332 (93%) 8±6 months after implant. EF improved to >35% in 37/309 (12%) patients. Patients who improved had a shorter time from diagnosis to implant (9±3 vs 13±5 months respectively, p=0.03). No other significant predictors were identified for patients with improved EF. Conclusions In spite of following guidelines for implantation of primary prevention ICDs in patients with NIDCM, a substantial number of patients (12%) experience improvement in LV function to levels above those recommended for ICD implant. A shorter time from diagnosis to implant may predict post-implant improvement.


Total order multicast algorithms constitute an important class of problems in distributed systems, especially in the context of fault-tolerance. In short, the problem of total order multicast consists in sending messages to a set of processes, in such a way that all messages are delivered by all correct destinations in the same order. However, the huge amount of literature on the subject and the plethora of solutions proposed so far make it difficult for practitioners to select a solution adapted to their specific problem. As a result, naive olutions are often used while better solutions are ignored. This paper proposes a classification of total order multicast algorithms based on the ordering mechanism of the algorithms, and describes a set of common characteristics (e.g., assumptions, properties) with which to evaluate them. In this classification, more than fifty total order broadcast and multicast algorithms are surveyed. The presentation includes asynchronous algorithms as well as algorithms based on the more restrictive synchronous model. Fault-tolerance issues are also considered as the paper studies the properties and behavior of the different algorithms with respect to failures. KEYWORDS: Distributed systems, agreement problems, message passing, total ordering, global ordering, atomic multicast, atomic broadcast, classification, taxonomy


New England has undergone significant change in its employment and labor force over the past three decades. Employment in the region has shifted from manufacturing into services at a faster rate than it has in the United States as a whole. Within manufacturing the trend has been away from nondurable goods into high value-added, high-tech industries. In this transition, both income and productivity have increased more rapidly in the region than in the nation. ; Recent trends in population, labor force, and college degrees awarded pose threats to New England's long-term prosperity, however. Growth in the region's high-tech sector has lagged the nation's in recent years. Slow labor force growth has contributed to low unemployment rates, but it has also limited the pool of available workers. The region has also lost share in producing college graduates. The authors highlight both the opportunities and the challenges facing the region as the twenty-first century approaches.


The recent phenomenon of rising outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) flows has raised serious policy concerns about its effects on the domestic investment and capital formation in the source countries. Does OFDI stimulate domestic investment or does it crowd it out? The concern arises because OFDI activities could shift not only some of the production activities from home to foreign destinations but also could possibly threaten the availability of scarce financial resources at home by allocating resources abroad. All this have the potential to reduce domestic investment, thus lowering the long run economic growth and employment of the home economies. The central goal of this paper is to empirically explore the evidence of the macroeconomic relationship between OFDI and levels of domestic capital formation in the BRIC economies. Our study reveals that OFDI has both short run and long run positive causality with domestic investment and thus figures out to be a significant factor affecting domestic investment in the BRIC nations. It becomes imperative, therefore, that the BRIC countries make special effort to promote their OFDI through the designing of appropriate OFDI policies that would help stimulate their domestic investment and economic growth now and in the future.


Efficient regional development policies require detailed assessment of the socio-economic development level of the regions within countries. Unfortunately, official surveys used to asses the living conditions of people have many times insufficient sample size to cover adequately all the regions within a country. Small area estimation techniques increase the effective sample size of the small areas by using auxiliary information through regression models. The most popular small area estimation approaches for poverty mapping will be revised, including several variants of the basic methods. Their properties, advantages and disadvantages will be discussed and open questions will be outlined. Results from an application with Spanish living conditions data will be shown.


Applications of Brain-Machine-Interfaces typically estimate user intent based on biological signals that are under voluntary control. For example, we might want to estimate how a patient with a paralyzed arm wants to move based on residual muscle activity. To solve such problems it is necessary to integrate obtained information over time. To do so, state of the art approaches typically use a probabilistic model of how the state, e.g. position and velocity of the arm, evolves over time - a so-called trajectory model. We wanted to further develop this approach using two intuitive insights: (1) At any given point of time there may be a small set of likely movement targets, potentially identified by the location of objects in the workspace or by gaze information from the user. (2) The user may want to produce movements at varying speeds. We thus use a generative model with a trajectory model incorporating these insights. Approximate inference on that generative model is implemented using a mixture of extended Kalman filters. We find that the resulting algorithm allows us to decode arm movements dramatically better than when we use a trajectory model with linear dynamics.


Paleozoic continental margin strata in the western Foreland Belt of the Canadian Cordillera are characterized in part by alkaline volcanic sequences, carbonatite intrusions, coarse clastic sedimentary units, and erosional unconformities. These strata also contain a record of mid-Paleozoic contractional deformation unseen in coeval passive margin strata in the eastern Foreland Belt. In order to test potential genetic links between Paleozoic alkaline igneous activity, active margin sedimentation, and deformation in the western Foreland Belt, and better understand their implications for the evolution of the Foreland Belt as a whole, we have undertaken a detailed mapping and structural study of the Aley carbonatite intrusion and its host strata in the western Foreland Belt of NE British Columbia. Our work demonstrates that carbonatite emplacement was coeval with a Late Devonian contractional nappe-forming tectonic event. Interpreting tectonism as associated with continental collision along a long-lived active margin provides the best explanation for our structural and stratigraphic observations, and suggests that the western Foreland Belt is far-travelled and exotic relative to coeval passive margin strata in the eastern Foreland Belt. Deformed alkaline-carbonatite intrusions that characterize continental suture zones in Africa may provide an analogue for the Aley carbonatite and correlative alkaline-carbonatite complexes in the western Foreland Belt.


Mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) (MPB) outbreaks are increasingly prevalent in western North America, causing considerable ecological change in pine (Pinus spp.) forests with important implications for wildlife. We reviewed studies examining wildlife responses to MPB outbreaks and postoutbreak salvage logging to inform forest management and guide future research. Our review included 16 studies describing MPB outbreak relationships with 89 bird species and 6 studies describing relationships with 11 mammalian species, but no studies of reptiles or amphibians. We included studies that compared wildlife response metrics temporally (before versus after the outbreak) and spatially (across sites that varied in severity of outbreak) in relation to beetle outbreaks. Outbreaks ranged in size from 20,600 to 107 ha and studies occurred 1-30 years after the peak MPB outbreak, but most studies were conducted over the short-term (i.e., 6 years after the peak of MPB-induced tree mortality). Birds were the only taxa studied frequently; however, high variability existed among those studies to allow many inferences, although some patterns were evident. Avian studies concluded that cavity-nesting species responded more favorably to beetle-killed forests than species with open-cup nests, and species nesting in the shrub layer favored outbreak forests compared with ground and open-cup canopy nesters that generally showed mixed relationships. Bark-drilling species as a group clearly demonstrated a positive short-term association with MPB epidemics compared with that of other foraging assemblages. Cavity-nesting birds that do not consume bark beetles (i.e., secondary cavity-nesting species and nonbark-drilling woodpeckers) also exhibited some positive responses to MPB outbreaks, although not as pronounced or consistent as those of bark-drilling woodpeckers. Mammalian responses to MPB outbreaks were mixed. Studies consistently reported negative effects of MPB outbreaks on red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus). However, there is evidence that red squirrels can persist after an outbreak under some conditions, e.g., when nonhost tree species are present. For small mammal species associated with forest understories, responses may be most pronounced during the postepidemic period ( 6 years after the peak of beetle-induced tree mortality) when snags fall to produce coarse woody debris. Postoutbreak salvage logging studies (n = 6) reported results that lacked consensus. Postoutbreak salvage logging may have an impact on fewer wildlife species than postfire salvage logging, probably because only host-specific tree species are removed after beetle outbreaks.


The rise of shale gas and tight oil development has triggered a major debate about hydraulic fracturing (HF). In an effort to mitigate risks from HF in unconventional development, many U.S. states have introduced disclosure mandates for HF fluids. In this paper, we study the effects of this important regulatory initiative on HF activity and its environmental impact. We find significant improvements in water quality, examining salts that are considered signatures for HF impact, after the disclosure mandates are introduced. We document effects along the extensive margin (less HF activity) and the intensive margin (less per-HF well impact). Most of the improvement comes from the intensive margin. Supporting this interpretation, we find that, after the introduction of disclosure, operators pollute less per unit of production, use fewer toxic chemicals, and that there are fewer spills related to the handling of HF fluids and wastewater. We also explore possible mechanisms through which disclosure regulation can be effective and find that public pressure likely plays an important role. Taken together, our empirical assessment of a major regulatory initiative for HF provides novel evidence on how disclosure mandates can help to internalize negative and fairly widespread external effects. JEL classification: D62, G38, K22, K32, L71, L72, M41, M48, Q53


We design and implement optimal foreign exchange portfolio allocations. An optimal allocation maximizes the expected return subject to a Value-at-Risk (VaR) constraint. Based on intradaily data, the optimization procedure is carried out at regular time intervals. For the estimation of the conditional variance from which the VaR is computed, we use univariate and multivariate GARCH models. The result for each model is given by the best intradaily investment recommendations in terms of the optimal weights of the currencies in the risky portfolio.


We present the results of searches for gravitational waves from a large selection of pulsars using data from the most recent science runs (S6, VSR2 and VSR4) of the initial generation of interferometric gravitational wave detectors LIGO (Laser Interferometric Gravitational-wave Observatory) and Virgo. We do not see evidence for gravitational wave emission from any of the targeted sources but produce upper limits on the emission amplitude. We highlight the results from seven young pulsars with large spin-down luminosities. We reach within a factor of five of the canonical spin-down limit for all seven of these, whilst for the Crab and Vela pulsars we further surpass their spin-down limits. We present new or updated limits for 172 other pulsars (including both young and millisecond pulsars). Now that the detectors are undergoing major upgrades, and, for completeness, we bring together all of the most up-to-date results from all pulsars searched for during the operations of the first-generation LIGO, Virgo and GEO600 detectors. This gives a total of 195 pulsars including the most recent results described in this paper.


Properties, victims, and locations previously targeted by offenders have an increased risk of being targeted again within a short time period. It has been suggested that often the same offenders are involved in these repeated events and, thus, that offenders' prior crime location choices influence their subsequent crime location choices. This article examines repeated crime location choices, testing the hypothesis that offenders are more likely to commit a crime in an area they previously targeted than in areas they did not target before. Unique data from four different data sources are used to study the crime location choices of 3,666 offenders who committed 12,639 offenses. The results indicate that prior crime locations strongly influence subsequent crime location choices. The effects of prior crime locations are larger if the crimes are frequent, if they are recent, if they are nearby, and if they are the same type of crime.


In this tutorial overview, the principles, advantages, challenges, and practical requirements of optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based optical access are presented, with an emphasis on orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) for application in next-generation passive optical networks (PON). General OFDM principles, including orthogonality, cyclic prefix use, frequency-domain equalization, and multiuser OFDMA are summarized, followed by an overview of various optical OFDM(A) transceiver architectures for next-generation PON. Functional requirements are outlined for high-speed digital signal processors (DSP) and data converters in OFDMA-PON. A techno-economic outlook for such a "software-defined," DSP-based optical access platform is also provided.


The concept of reflection in geometry is quite difficult to teach and so teachers often leave this concept out and move on to the next concept. This happens because the teachers are not capable of using creative teaching-learning techniques to promote the understanding of mathematics by students. Conceptually understanding reflections is one of the concepts in Mathematics which students are expected to master. It is likely that students, who understand a concept completely will show comprehension regarding the concept, be able to explain interrelat ion on concept and able to apply the concept or algorithm flexibly, accurately and efficiently for solving problems. GeoGebra is an IT program that can facilitate learning by students in order to lessen their difficulties in studying mathematics. This research was done with the purpose of studying the use of the GeoGebra Software for teaching-learning the concept of Reflection by students from grade XI at a Senior High School in Aceh. Based on the results from one-meeting where this software was used, it can be conclude that students' understanding about Reflections collectively averaged 88 % points, which is in the category of very good and individually some students scored 90 to 95 % points which is in the very good or excellent category. Meanwhile, based on the results from the questionnaire, 82.8% of the students were pleased to use the GeoGebra software program for studying the subject of Matrix Transformation or Reflections. However, from the group discussions many students still found it difficult to conclude and note down the characteristics of Reflections which showed a lack of ability to communicate about mathematics.


It is a commonplace that the problems of African rural development are becoming increasingly complex--that is, they have grown more numerous, interrelated, and varied. This complexity has generated a multitude of development scenarios. Such scenarios encourage decision making along rigid and narrow patterns that ignore the diversity of local situations and national cultures. Among these is the doomsday scenario, applied to every nation on the continent, best captured in the phrase "Everything worksAexcept in Africa." Emery Roe argues that crisis scenarios generated by an expert (usually non-African) elite are self-serving and counterproductive. Despite this, they go largely unchallenged, even when they fail to explain or predict. "Except-Africa" takes up the challenge of devising development scenarios that do justice to the continent's variegated reality. The book begins by defining what the author means by a development narrative. The subsequent chapters provide alternate scenarios to such dominant models. Chapter 2 sketches four counter-narratives to the tragedy of the common argument, while chapter 3 constructs the most innovative challenge to conventional ways of thinking about Sub-Saharan pastoralism in decades. Chapter 4 develops an alternative scenario of expatriate advising in Africa, while chapter 5 devises a counter-narrative to the all-too-common views about government budgeting in Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana. Chapter 6 presents a case study and counter-narrative from Zimbabwe of a complex local government reform. The book concludes by moving beyond case material and specific situations to answer the most imperative question in African studies and rural development: What would a politics of complexity look like in Africa if complexity were seriously engaged? Contemporary African studies are dominated by narratives about power. Yet in African rural development, power interests are by no means always clear. Development issues are frequently contingent and provisional. Surviving the tangled fusion of narrative and reality requires a politics of complexity. "Except-Africa" will be an essential work in meeting that challenge.


The sensitivity to two different emission inventories, injection altitude and temporal variations of anthropogenic emissions in aerosol modelling is studied, using the two way nested global transport chemistry model TM5 focussing on Europe in June and December 2000. The simulations of gas and aerosol concentrations and aerosol optical depth (AOD) with the EMEP and AEROCOM emission inventories are compared with EMEP gas and aerosol surface based measurements, AERONET sun photometers retrievals and MODIS satellite data. For the aerosol precursor gases SO2 and NOx in both months the model results calculated with the EMEP inventory agree better (overestimated by a factor 1.3 for both SO2 and NOx) with the EMEP measurements than the simulation with the AEROCOM inventory (overestimated by a factor 2.4 and 1.9 respectively). Besides the differences in total emissions between the two inventories, an important role is also played by the vertical distribution of SO2 and NOx emissions in understanding the differences between the EMEP and AEROCOM inventories. In December NOx and SO2 from both simulations agree within 50 % with observations. In June SO4 evaluated with the EMEP emission inventory agrees slightly better with surface observations than the AEROCOM simulation, whereas in December the use of both inventories results in an underestimate of SO4 with a factor 2. Nitrate aerosol measured in summer is not reliable, however in December nitrate aerosol calculations with the EMEP and AEROCOM emissions agree with 30%, and 60 %, respectively with the filter measurements. Differences are caused by the total emissions and the temporal distribution of the aerosol precursor gases NOx and NH3. Despite these differences, we show that the column integrated AOD is less sensitive to the underlying emission inventories. Calculated AOD values with both emission inventories underestimate the observed AERONET AOD values by 20 30%, whereas a case study using MODIS data shows a high spatial agreement. Our evaluation of the role of temporal distribution of anthropogenic emissions on aerosol calculations shows that the daily and weekly temporal distributions of the emissions are only important for NOx, NH3 and aerosol nitrate. However, for all aerosol species SO4, NH4, POM, BC, as well as for AOD, the seasonal temporal variations used in the emission inventory are important. Our study shows the value of including at least seasonal information on anthropogenic emissions, although from a comparison with a range of measurements it is often difficult to firmly identify the superiority of specific emission inventories, since other modelling uncertainties, e.g. related to transport, aerosol removal, water uptake, and model resolution, play a dominant role.


Background: Education is positively associated with completed fertility rate (CFR) among men in Nordic countries, but the age patterns of fertility by educational level are poorly documented. Moreover, it is not known what parities contribute to the higher CFR among more highly educated men. Objective: To describe men's fertility by age, parity, and education in Finland. Methods: The study is based on register data covering the male cohort born in 1940‒1950 (N=38,838). Education was measured at ages 30‒34 and classified as basic, lower secondary, upper secondary, and tertiary. Fertility was measured until ages 59‒69. We calculated completed and age-specific fertility rates, and decomposed the educational gradient in CFR into parity-specific contributions. Results: The more highly educated men had more children (CFR: basic 1.71 and tertiary 2.06), had them later (mean age at having the first child: basic 26.1 and tertiary 28.1), and had them within a shorter interval (interquartile range of age at having the first child: basic 5.8 and tertiary 5.2). The educational gradient in the cumulative fertility rate was negative at young ages but turned positive by the early thirties. High levels of childlessness among those with a basic education explained three-quarters of the CFR difference between the lowest and highest educational groups. Fertility at ages above 45 was low and did not widen the educational gradient in CFR. Conclusions: The fact that highly educated men have more children than their counterparts with less education is largely attributable to higher fertility levels at older ages and the lower probability of remaining childless. Variation in fertility timing and quantity is wider among men with a low level of education.


In this paper, it is a question of identification of the parameters in the equation ofRichards modelling the flow in unsaturated porous medium. The mixed formulation pressure head-moisture content has been used. The direct problem was solved using Multiquadratic Radial Basis Function ( RBF-MQ ) method which is a meshless method. The Newton-Raphson's method was used to linearize the equation. The function cost used is built by using the infiltration. The optimization method used is a meta-heuristic called Modified hybrid Grey Wolf Optimizer -Genetic Algorithm (HmGWOGA). A test on experimental data has been carried. We compared the results with genetic algorithms. The results showed that this new method was better than genetic algorithms.


Neural networks tend to achieve better accuracy with training if they are larger -- even if the resulting models are overparameterized. Nevertheless, carefully removing such excess parameters before, during, or after training may also produce models with similar or even improved accuracy. In many cases, that can be curiously achieved by heuristics as simple as removing a percentage of the weights with the smallest absolute value -- even though magnitude is not a perfect proxy for weight relevance. With the premise that obtaining significantly better performance from pruning depends on accounting for the combined effect of removing multiple weights, we revisit one of the classic approaches for impact-based pruning: the Optimal Brain Surgeon(OBS). We propose a tractable heuristic for solving the combinatorial extension of OBS, in which we select weights for simultaneous removal, as well as a systematic update of the remaining weights. Our selection method outperforms other methods under high sparsity, and the weight update is advantageous even when combined with the other methods.


Introduction Obesity is an important, global, public health problem. To promote prevention, more research is needed to understand exactly how shared environments impact obesogenic behaviours. Identifying spatial clusters of obesity is the first step towards a better understanding of its environmental drivers, and can immediately inform public health practice. To date, research has overlooked lower-income contexts, where obesity is emergent and environments are changing at an unprecedented pace. Methods Using data from a cohort of young adult Filipinos (21.5 y; n=1808), we used the Kulldorff spatial scan statistic to detect areas in Metropolitan Cebu with a high sample prevalence of obesity. Cluster locations were then compared to the urbanicity of constituent neighbourhoods. We also tested whether clusters were explained by the spatial distribution of household-assets scores in the study participants. Results Significantly unusual clusters (rejection of H0: complete spatial randomness, at p<0.05) of overweight and obesity were detected for males and females. Clusters were primarily located in urban areas, but typically extended into peri-urban and even rural neighbourhoods. The exact location of clusters varied as a function of both sex and measure of obesity used. Clusters in males, but not females, were explained by the spatial distribution of socioeconomic status. Conclusions Where a young adult lives is a strong predictor of obesity risk in Cebu. Environmental drivers of obesity among young adults in Cebu may vary by gender. Using simple urban-rural classifications to contextualise obesity in lower income countries may be overly simple, and misdirect public health efforts.


[Abstract]: Transferring images and video over wireless channels is becoming more of an intended use of the medium as personal media move away from the restrictions of cables and transmission standards allow higher transmission speeds. The wireless medium however is not very reliable in the way that it adds unwanted components and noise to the wireless transmission. This paper will examine the performance of the JPWL standard in protecting images from this unwanted noise.

JPEG2000 is the latest JPEG image standard created to replace the popular original JPEG standard. The new standard uses wavelet based compression rather than the block based discrete cosine transform (DCT). The JPWL extension for the wireless transmission of JPEG2000 images was finalised as a standard in 2007. As a result of the recent release of the standard, no papers could be found that utilised or tested it. Due to the time difference between the JPEG2000 standard being released in the year 2000 and the JPWL standard 7 years later, there are several papers proposing protection methods for the standard. Some of these papers show early work into what eventually became the final standard.

The ISO/IEC 15444-11 standard (JPWL) has been written to allow quite a bit of flexibility with regards to specific implementations of the standard. The only real normative (required) parts of the standard include header protection for the main header and packet headers. In the event of a bad header, the whole image will fail decoding whereas bad image data will merely reduce quality. The JPWL standard has numerous informative (optional) sections to add protection to the image codestream. There are several protections available. One of the primary requirements of the standard is that any JPWL codestream can still be read and decoded by any standard JPEG2000 decoder.

The wireless channel used for the testing phase is known as a grey channel. This is a Rayleigh Fading channel with Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) added as a noise component. This channel was used over several Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) to provide similar error rates as those found in some of the previous studies.

The JPWL standard was found to perform very well in protecting the images against quality degradation during transmission over wireless channels. The strength of the protection plays a large part in the protection of the image and should be chosen to suit the particular channel in use. The Default Protection also provides very strong protection for the user who does not wish to choose their own setting. The JPEG and JPEG2000 standards were also tested to show how they suffered from losses incurred in wireless channels.


This chapter examines a European policy, Justice and Home Affairs (JHA), and its transformation into the Area of Freedom, Security, and Justice (AFSJ). The AFSJ, one of the newest additions to the European Union mandate, seeks to engage the EU in the areas of immigration and asylum policy as well as police and judicial cooperation. Cooperation in the AFSJ has evolved into a fully fledged and vibrant EU policy. The chapter first considers the early years of cooperation in the AFSJ and the Schengen Agreement before discussing the procedural steps taken by the Maastricht Treaty (1993), Amsterdam Treaty (1999), and Lisbon Treaty. It then turns to policy output, taking into account the Tampere European Council meeting, the Hague Programme, and the Stockholm Programme. It concludes with an overview of various challenges specific to AFSJ cooperation, with a particular focus on the EU's post-2014 migration crisis. cooperation


Computer scientists have recently undermined our faith in the privacy-protecting power of anonymization, the name for techniques for protecting the privacy of individuals in large databases by deleting information like names and social security numbers. These scientists have demonstrated they can often 'reidentify' or 'deanonymize' individuals hidden in anonymized data with astonishing ease. By understanding this research, we will realize we have made a mistake, labored beneath a fundamental misunderstanding, which has assured us much less privacy than we have assumed. This mistake pervades nearly every information privacy law, regulation, and debate, yet regulators and legal scholars have paid it scant attention. We must respond to the surprising failure of anonymization, and this Article provides the tools to do so.


Spermatological characters of the liver fluke Mediogonimus jourdanei Mas-Coma et Rocamora, 1978 were studied by means of transmission and scanning electron microscopy. Spermiogenesis begins with the formation of the differentiation zone containing two centrioles associated with striated rootlets and an intercentriolar body. These two centrioles originate two free flagella that undergo a 90 degrees rotation before fusing with the median cytoplasmic process. Both nuclear and mitochondrial migrations toward the median cytoplasmic process occur before the proximodistal fusion of flagella. Finally, the constriction of the ring of arched membranes gives rise to the young spermatozoon. The mature sperm of M. jourdanei measures about 260 microm and presents two axonemes of different lengths with the typical pattern of the Trepaxonemata, two bundles of parallel cortical microtubules, one mitochondrion, a nucleus and granules of glycogen. An analysis of all the microphalloidean species studied to date emphasised some differences in certain characters found in Maritrema linguilla Jägerskiöld, 1908 and Ganeo tigrinum Mehra et Negi, 1928 in comparison to those in the remaining microphalloideans. The presence and variability of such ultrastructural characters according to family, superfamily or order have led several authors to propose their use in the analysis of trematode relationships and phylogeny. Therefore, apart from producing new data on the family Prosthogonimidae, the present study also compares the spermatological organization of M jourdanei with other available ultrastructural studies focusing on the Microphalloidea.


The recent decision to convert the Benedictine Dormitory in Monreale into an exhibition site offers the opportunity to enjoy the whole monumental complex where the wonderful cloister is the core attraction. It is on this site that the Norman Cathedral stands, brightly decorated with golden mosaics. The new exhibition has gathered together the artworks from the ruined abbey of Santa Maria del Bosco in Calatamauro and added them to the artefacts already exhibited at the Diocesan Museum. They include marble gravestones from the 16th-17th century church and those dating to the 18th century; one stone is in polychrome marble of the family of the canons, Candes and Donato; another was used for the burial of the monks from the period of the Olivetan refoundation, characterized by the Order's coat of arms and attributed to Girolamo Musca. There are also majolica tiles from the chapels in cornu evangelij (left side of the altar) adorned with large vegetal-shaped decorations, provided by Palermitan manufacturers in the mid-eighteenth century. They are found next to the remnants of the majolica tiles still in situ, executed in 1762 by the potters from Burgio, in Sicily. Rosario Rosso (also Russo) and Giuseppe Virgadamo. Also commissioned after the refoundation of the holy temple are the four artworks by the painter Ippolito Ferrante, three of which, Sacrificio di Isacco, Melchisedec and Giale e Sisar, are on exhibition in the prestigious museum. Alongside these artworks are noteworthy textile artefacts made between the second half of the 16th and second half of the 18th centuries some of which are linked to the munificent figures of archbishops such as Ludovico II Torres and Francesco Testa.


In this paper, we minimized efficiency droop by varying barrier thickness for InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells (MWQs) featuring narrow quantum barriers (NQBs). The external quantum efficiency (EQE) for a light-emitting diode (LED) possessing NQBs improved by 18% at a current density of 200 A·cm-2, compared to that of a conventional LED incorporating a 12-nm-thick barrier. The enhanced carrier distribution resulting from the presence of NQBs was practically approved from another experimental design in this study. We suggest that the NQBs displayed uniform carrier distribution in active layer and decreased the carrier density in the active layer at a critical current density.


This work investigates the correlation of the reaction conditions (temperature and steam-to-carbon ratio (S/C)) and the reaction medium composition with the deactivation behavior of a Ni/La2O3-αAl2O3 catalyst used in steam reforming of bio-oil, aiming at sustainable hydrogen production from lignocellulosic biomass. The reaction was performed in an in-line two-step system consisting of thermal treatment of bio-oil at 500 °C for retaining the thermal pyrolytic lignin and in-line steam reforming of the remaining oxygenates in a fluidized bed catalytic reactor. The reforming step was conducted at 550 and 700 °C and S/C ratios of 1.5 and 6. Fresh and deactivated catalyst samples were characterized using XRD, SEM, TEM, TPO, XPS, Raman and FTIR spectroscopy. The catalyst deactivation was mainly due to the amorphous and encapsulating coke deposition whose formation is attenuated when both the temperature and S/C ratio are increased. Although the highest catalyst stability is attained at 700 °C and/or an S/C ratio of 6, Ni sintering is noticeable under these conditions. The encapsulating coke is highly oxygenated, in contrast with the more aromatic and condensed nature of filamentous coke. Based on the correlation between the composition of the coke and the reaction medium, it was established that bio-oil oxygenates are the precursors of the encapsulating coke, particularly phenols and alcohols, whereas CO and CH4 are the possible precursors of the coke fraction made of filaments whose contribution to catalyst deactivation is hardly significant.


This paper reports on the "CEO's-eye-view" of the 1990 commercial real estate crisis at Citibank using unique data from CEO John Reed's private archives. This qualitative analysis sheds light on questions that have perennially plagued executives and intrigued scholars: How do organizations change routines in order to overcome inertia in the face of radical change in the environment? And, specifically, what is the role of the CEO in this process? Inertial behavior in such circumstances has been attributed to ingrained routines that are based on cognitive and motivational truces. Routines are performed because organizational participants find them to cohere to a particular cognitive frame about what should be done (the cognitive dimension) and to resolve conflicts about what gets rewarded or sanctioned (the motivational dimension). The notion of a "truce" explains how routines are "routinely" activated. Routines are inertial because the dissolution of the truce would be inconsistent with frames held by organizational participants and fraught with the risk of unleashing unmanageable conflict among interests in the organization. Thus, the challenge for the CEO in making intended change is both to break the existing truce and to remake a new one. In this study, I uncover how the existing organizational truce led to the crisis at Citibank, why Reed's initial attempts to respond failed, and how he ultimately found ways to break out of the old truce and establish new routines that helped the bank survive. These findings offer insight into the cognitive and motivational microfoundations of macro theories about organizational response to radical change.


We consider conformally flat hypersurfaces in four dimensional space forms with their associated Guichard nets and Lam e's system of equations. We show that the symmetry group of the Lam e's system, satisfying Guichard condition, is given by translations and dilations in the independent variables and dilations in the dependents variables. We obtain the solutions which are invariant under the action of the 2-dimensional subgroups of the symmetry group. For the solutions which are invariant under translations, we obtain the corresponding conformally flat hypersurfaces and we describe the corresponding Guichard nets. We show that the coordinate surfaces of the Guichard nets have constant Gaussian curvature, and the sum of the three curvatures is equal to zero. Moreover, the Guichard nets are foliated by flat surfaces with constant mean curvature. We prove that there are solutions of the Lam e's system, given in terms of Jacobi elliptic functions, which are invariant under translations, that correspond to a new class of conformally flat hypersurfaces.


Three draught horse breeds are maintained in the Czech Republic: the Silesian Noriker (SN), the Noriker (N), and the Czech-Moravian Belgian (CMB). Because the SN and CMB populations are currently closed to outside breeding and are endangered (Genetic Resources), the loss of the genetic variation these horses represent is concerning. Genetic diversity within and between these three breeds and their population structures was analyzed based on pedigree information. Our goal was to identify and quantify factors that affected their genetic variability. The effective population size was analyzed in each breed. The numbers of generations were 22, 32, and 32 for the SN, N, and CMB breeds, respectively, with average equivalent known generations of 9.81, 8.45, and 8.91, respectively. The effective numbers of founders and ancestors contributing to the current genetic pool were, respectively, 69.42 and 22.32 for the SN breed, 98.48 and 42.20 for the N breed, and 43.33 and 23.32 for the CMB breed. The average inbreeding coefficients were 4.6%, 2%, and 4% for the SN, N, and CMB breeds, respectively, and the average inbreeding rate was 0.5% for the SN and CMB breeds and 0.2% for the N breed. The corresponding estimates of effective population size were 95, 195, and 101 for the SN, N, and CMB breeds, respectively. These statistics suggest that the genetic variability has decreased, and without changes in breeding strategy the genetic variability might continue to decline. Using genealogical F-statistics, small genetic differences were identified between the analyzed populations (FST = 0.02).


Charles Bordogna. The Discerning Eye: African Art from the Collection of Carl and Wilma Zabel. Tenafly, NJ.: The African Art Museum of the SMA Fathers, 2005. 36 pp. Photographs. Map. Bibliography. $15.00. Paper. Donna Page. Artists and Patrons in Traditional African Cultures: African Sculpture from the Gary Schulze Collection. Bayside, N.Y.: Queensborough Community College, the City University of New York, 2005. 84 pp. Photographs. Endnotes. Bibliography. $30.00. Paper. Major exhibitions of African art in the United States were once confined primarily to leading museums in large metropolitan centers. There were always exceptions to this pattern, such as the exhibition at the African Art Museum of the SMA Fathers (AAMSMA) in Tenafly, New Jersey, which was established in 1980, and the permanent exhibition of more than three hundred objects of African art at the Martin and Osa Johnson Safari Museum, which opened in Chanute, Kansas, in 1974. The AAMSMA is a unique repository of African art whose original holdings were collected over the years by an order of missionaries in Africa that historically has valorized the arts of the peoples of Africa and viewed the museum as a bridge between cultures and peoples. AAMSMA's successive directors have actively and selectively enhanced the collection and fostered important temporary exhibitions of extremely high quality. Placing a great emphasis on education, the museum's exhibitions are generally accompanied by scholarly monographs or catalogs that reach large audiences worldwide. Robert J. Koenig Jr., who has directed the museum for the past decade, has not only sponsored exceptional exhibitions, but also has greatly enlarged the museum's permanent collections and attracted a large cadre of supporters from the greater metropolitan New York region. The Discerning Eye, his latest exhibition, ran from October 2, 2005, to April 2, 2006. The exhibition focused on the collection of Carl and Wilma Zabel. As Holland Cotter, the art critic of the New York Times, observed, the Zabels "chose to lavish their attention on a type of art often overlooked or dismissed, namely East African sculpture.... Some [objects] depart audaciously from preconceived standards of sculptural beauty. In doing so, they automatically extend the way beauty can be defined" (November 25, 2005). The catalog essay by Charles Bordogna explores in detail the impressive diversity of sculpture from Tanzania as well as from Kenya and Madagascar. While objects from other areas of Africa are also discussed and illustrated, it is the Tanzanian objects that are at the heart of the volume. The excellent examples of Makonde, Pare, Shambaa, Zigua, Zaramo, Nyamwezi, Fipa, Luguru, and Sukuma art provide a window on the superb range of sculptural forms created by the peoples of modern-day Tanzania. The excellent essay and the lengthy text entries for the fifty objects illustrated make for an easy understanding of their cultural contexts and symbolic meanings. The Discerning Eye represents a valuable and unique contribution to our understanding of East African artistic traditions. It reflects the scholarship of the author, the dedication of Carl and Wilma Zabel in assembling so impressive a collection over many years, the vision of the AAMSMA's director, and the noble endeavor of the SMA Fathers. QUEENSBOROUGH COMMUNITY COLLEGE (QCC) of the City University of New York reopened its Art Gallery in 2004 after a multi-million-dollar renovation. Located in the Oakland Building, the oldest structure on the campus, the gallery is currently equipped with up-to-date security and environmental controls, high-quality exhibition space, a theater, and an art research library. Under the dynamic directorship of Faustino Quintanilla and reflecting the broad vision of QCC President EduardoJ. Marti, the gallery not only hosts major temporary shows, but also has a splendid permanent exhibition of African art. …


Hundreds of distinct epilepsy-causing genes have been identified.1 The vitamin B6-dependent epilepsies are a heterogeneous group of genetic disorders due to incomplete formation, transport, or inactivation of pyridoxal 5′-phosphate (PLP).2 The ALDH7A1, PNPO, ALPL, ALDH4A1, and more recently PLPBP genes have been implicated.3 Characteristic presentation of vitamin B6-dependent epilepsies includes neonatal onset of encephalopathy and seizures refractory to first-line antiseizure medications (ASMs) followed by cessation or dramatic improvement of seizures after administration of pyridoxine or PLP. Because initiation of proper treatment is essential for seizure control, timely diagnosis is critical to optimizing clinical outcome. We describe the case of a 3-year-old boy who presented with progressively worsening refractory seizures starting at 14 months of age and was subsequently diagnosed with pyridoxal phosphate homeostasis protein (PLPHP) deficiency via rapid genome sequencing during a critical care hospitalization for status epilepticus. He was started on pyridoxine with immediate cessation of seizure activity and has remained seizure-free. We review the diagnosis, management, and outcome of PLPHP deficiency, as well as implications for use of rapid genetic testing in the acute care setting.


Providing multiple meanings in a single piece of art has always been intriguing to both artists and observers. We present Purkinje images, which have different interpretations depending on the luminance adaptation of the observer. Finding such images is an optimization that minimizes the sum of the distance to one reference image in photopic conditions and the distance to another reference image in scotopic conditions. To model the shift of image perception between day and night vision, we decompose the input images into a Laplacian pyramid. Distances under different observation conditions in this representation are independent between pyramid levels and pixel positions and become matrix multiplications. The optimal pixel colour can be found by inverting a small, per‐pixel linear system in real time on a GPU. Finally, two user studies analyze our results in terms of the recognition performance and fidelity with respect to the reference images.


The thesis examines two central themes in the thought of L.N. Gumilev (1912- 92): the theory of ethnogenesis and Eurasianism. A biographic survey of Gumilev's life sets his work in a historical context. Gumilev's background, his personal interests in nomadic history, and the tragic experiences of his life emerge as important factors for understanding his thought. The three principal concepts of the theory of ethnogenesis are then examined; passionarnost', ethnos, and phases of ethnogenesis. It is argued that the theory of ethnogenesis at its core is a behaviourist concept of ethnic history. A comparison with the theories of history of Arnold Toynbee and N.Ia. Danilevskii shows that despite similarities such as a shared anti cosmopolitan view of history, there are also important differences. In particular, the distinction between social and ethnic history and the emphasis on behavioural, long-term changes distinguish Gumilev's theory from those of Toynbee and Danilevskii. Gumilev's account of Russian history focused on a distinction between Kievan Rus and Muscovite Russia, the role of the Mongols in the formation of the Russian ethnos, and the interpretation of Russian history in terms of phases of ethnogenesis. His views are dominated by a strong anti-Western bias and are not always compatible with the theory of ethnogenesis. Finally, there is a crucial distinction between Eurasianism and the theory of ethnogenesis. In his works on Russian history, Gumilev developed various aspects of Eurasianism. The theory of ethnogenesis is, however, a radical departure from Eurasian views. It should be seen as a separate theory which stresses non-voluntaristic, behaviourist motives in ethnic history.