The supply chain management function is currently undergoing a dramatic change: it is adopting an increasingly strategic role. However, this growing financial importance is matched in only a handful of exemplary companies by a greater contribution to environmental protection initiatives in the supply chain. This paper explores some of the obstacles to greater supply chain management involvement in environmental protection and offers suggestions for greener supply. At a personal level, the gap between public opinion on the environment and managerial values needs to be closed, and the support offered by management education and by professional bodies needs to be improved. Within the organisation, the reward structure for supply chain managers needs to move away from narrow economic criteria. Greener supply would also benefit from a larger supply chain management role in corporate strategy making; the function could even be offered a seat on the Board of Management. Changes to the mode of supply chain management, including improvements to the information flow on environmental issues, the decision–making tools used in the face of complex environmental challenges and novel approaches to supply chain management need to receive urgent attention.


The study analyzed text-embedded lexical usage as diagnostic of writing-speech-distinctions in stories and discussions produced in the two modalities by English-speaking grade-school children, middle-school pre-adolescents, high-school adolescents, and adults. We assumed that (1) while children master writing as a notational system by age 9 to 10 years, command of written language as a special style of discourse has a long developmental trajectory, and (2) distinct processing constraints and communicative circumstances combine to affect texts produced in the two modalities. Across the board, written texts scored higher than their spoken counterparts produced by the same participants on all five measures that we applied — Word Length, Register, Density, Diversity, and Abstractness — reflecting a more elevated and carefully monitored style of expression. With regard to development, high school students emerged as distinct from the two younger groups, demonstrating adolescence as a developmental watershed in discourse-embedded lexical usage as in other domains of text construction. When task order (written texts produced before or after spoken ones, respectively) is taken into account, however, a more complex, multi-faceted picture emerges with respect to the variables of age, specific lexical measure, and order effects.


Since the Second World War, congressional parties have been characterized as declining in strength and influence. Research has generally attributed this decline to policy conflicts within parties, to growing electoral independence of members, and to the impact of the congressional reforms of the 1970s. Yet the 1980s witnessed a strong resurgence of parties and party leadership-especially in the House of Representatives. Offering a concise and compelling explanation of the causes of this resurgence, David W. Rohde argues that a realignment of electoral forces led to a reduction of sectional divisions within the parties-particularly between the northern and southern Democrats-and to increased divergence between the parties on many important issues. He challenges previous findings by asserting that congressional reform "contributed" to, rather than restrained, the increase of partisanship. Among the Democrats, reforms siphoned power away from conservative and autocratic committee chairs and put control of those committees in the hands of Democratic committee caucuses, strengthening party leaders and making both party and committee leaders responsible to rank-and-file Democrats. Electoral changes increased the homogeneity of House Democrats while institutional reforms reduced the influence of dissident members on a consensus in the majority party. Rohde's accessible analysis provides a detailed discussion of the goals of the congressional reformers, the increased consensus among Democrats and its reinforcement by their caucus, the Democratic leadership's use of expanded powers to shape the legislative agenda, and the responses of House Republicans. He also addresses the changes in the relationship between the House majority and the president during the Carter and Reagan administrations and analyzes the legislative consequences of the partisan resurgence. A readable, systematic synthesis of the many complex factors that fueled the recent resurgence of partisanship, "Parties and Leaders" in the Postreform House is ideal for course use.


This paper compares the merger of AOL-Time Warner with the LBO of Hertz. AOL was a classic case where a strategic buyer sought to diversify its business following the perennial principal of "bigger is better." The later transaction was structured as a stock purchase transaction where a large portion of the acquisition was funded by securitizing Hertz's US and international car and equipment rental fleet. Securitization, when structured as a true sale, is a process of accelerating future cash flow from illiquid receivables without creating additional liability. Increased familiarity among the issuers and growing popularity among the investors is encouraging potential acquirers to look beyond the traditional sources of fund and engineer acquisition financing through innovative use of structured finance products. Financial engineering is driving both a strategic buyer and a financial buyer to hustle together when it comes to making an acquisition. There seems to be a gradual shift as more acquisitions are being structured in a deal room on Wall Street instead of the corporate board room of a strategic buyer. Given the cost advantage of incorporating securitization in a LBO, the use of asset backed securities is expected to become increasingly prevalent in future. There lies no doubt that during the current and future merger waves financial engineering would play a more significant, if not dominating, role than the age old argument of unraveling synergies.


Laboratories in the United States were first regulated at the federal level in 1967 under the Medicare Act and the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act of 1967 (CLIA'67). Government agencies have modified the regulations to these statutes in an attempt to adapt to changes in testing sites (increase in near-patient testing), technologic advances, and evolving approaches to maintaining quality systems. The last revision, published in the Federal Register on January 24, 2003, does not change the scope or intent for achieving quality in laboratories, but it does contain important changes in the prescriptive aspects of the regulation, e.g., verification of method performance and frequency of performing quality control (QC). The authors provide a practical, informative roadmap for interpretation and insight from their long experiences with CLIA. There are also helpful discussions of where College of American Pathologists (CAP) accreditation and CLIA requirements might differ. References to source material, such as the CMS State Operations Manual and the CAP checklist, enable the reader to access the sources directly. When opinions are offered, they are stated clearly so that the reader understands where there might be uncertainty in an auditor's interpretation. Most valuable are sections at the end of each chapter listing "DOs" and "DON Ts". Readers should be warned that QC is only part of an effective quality system. The authors put too much reliance on the ability of QC to detect errors when, in fact, for stable systems the "unexpected" blunder or mistake will not be detected by any reasonable sampling technique (for destructive testing). The QC techniques emphasize only quantitative test methods, when qualitative testing is growing more rapidly in the near-patient environment (where help would be most beneficial). For method comparison, the authors state that a statistical comparison might be all that is needed to satisfy the inspector (risky), but that "few people know the secrets, . . . that is why [it] is often done so poorly." This is not very helpful advice to meet the needs of the users of the test results. Imprecise terminology is demonstrated by the inappropriate equating of error with variability without regard to the effect on the clinical use of the result, i.e., how much difference is an error? In addition, the reader should be cautious of the authors' casual use of "validation", when the commonly used term in CLIA is "establish and verify". Process and design validations are different tools from verification; they can be used together or independently, but they are not identical. Practical information pertains to QC, but the discussions around quality assurance strategies are far less satisfying. The authors demean the ability of the CLIA regulation to achieve its goal, with their theme that meeting requirements achieves "only" compliance, but not quality. They underplay the fact that all currently used quality systems place responsibility and accountability on senior management for assuring that adequate processes and personnel are in place to meet a facility's quality policy. CLIA has been criticized for being both too prescriptive and too lax. Government agencies have said consistently that it is not possible to have a "one size fits all" approach, particularly with changing needs. The authors suggest other approaches, but the discussion is limited and misleading. For example, understanding user needs is mentioned, but there are no clear suggestions as to how to obtain and to use information on these needs to establish acceptance criteria—an opportunity lost. Six Sigma is discussed (and not adequately cited) only in statistical process control terms, when it is much more: a comprehensive process for achieving quality that uses many other tools that can lead to additional benefits. There appears to be higher regard for ISO quality systems than for CLIA, but the fundamental principles of ISO 15189, Medical Laboratories — Particular Requirements for Quality and Competence, were developed to parallel (harmonize) the CLIA regulation, with substantial contribution from US representatives from government, industry, and the clinical laboratory. The cynicism and lack of understanding of the quality systems that affect medical device manufacturers is illustrated with an admonition that "FDA [US Food and Drug Administration] doesn't require a claim for quality." I doubt that either the FDA or manufacturers that have entertained FDA auditors would agree! Compliance to the Quality System Regulation (21CFR820), which was developed to harmonize with ISO 9000:1996, provides high assurance for delivery of quality medical devices. In conclusion, this book is useful and practical for understanding the latest changes to CLIA. Sections dealing with quality systems raise unfounded concerns without providing guidance. Laboratories need to be alert to opportunities to improve a generally good system, but this book Book, Software, and Web Site Reviews


Approaches to mentoring junior faculty in counselor education departments have received minimal attention in the counseling literature. In this article, the authors describe a successful program based on the 10 principles for good mentoring recommended by Sorcinelli (2000). Application of the principles within a combined formal and informal mentoring approach is described, as are the experiences of junior faculty whose careers have been shaped within this system.


We have investigated a new approach for co-registration of functional PET images with anatomical MR images for breast-cancer detection. This registration is required for multimodality PET-MRI breast image fusion, an approach that could prove useful as an alternative to surgical breast biopsy, following equivocal or difficult-to-interpret mammograms. Our method uses fiducial skin markers placed on the breast that can be observed in PET and MRI. The intermodal geometrical displacements (i.e. differences between PET and MRI marker locations) are estimated from tomographic images. A finite-element-method (FEM) model of breast tissue, based upon an analogy between the orthogonal components of the displacement field and a steady-state heat transfer (SSHT) problem was implemented. This equivalence is valid in that the displacement distribution problem is analogous to the SSHT in solids. The material properties of the breast appear here as coefficients of "thermal conductivity." Our model considers the observed marker displacements as FEM "temperature loads" and distributes them linearly (stepwise) over the entire breast volume. To test the performance of our method, an elastic breast phantom with simulated internal "lesions" and external markers placed on four meridians was imaged with PET and MRI. We estimated fiducial-registration errors and target-registration errors in the PET-MRI co-registration. The effects of the number, location, and distribution of the markers on the accuracy of the procedure were also investigated. We have established that multimodality breast-image co-registration using our SSHT FEM approach with external fiducial markers is accurate to within /spl sim/5 mm.


From the tagging of Atlantic herring in different seasons at 23 localities along the east and southeast coasts of Newfoundland during 1974--81, the tag recoveries indicated substantial intermingling of the local populations of the different bays. This intermingling is mainly due to northward feeding migrations in summer and southward migrations in autumn to over-wintering areas. Movement to spawning grounds occurs in the spring, at which time the populations of the various bays tend to be very discrete. However, the relationships of the populations outside the spawning season are dynamic, with the degree of intermixing being partially dependent on population size. It is concluded that the fisheries for herring along the east and southeast coasts of Newfoundland outside the spawning season could conveniently be managed as four stock complexes in the following areas: White Bay-Notre Dame Bay, Bonavista Bay-Trinity Bay, Conception Bay-Southeast Avalon, and S1. Mary's Bay-Placentia Bay.


This application brief describes the exploratory assessment of a mentoring program between current students and alumni of a leadership studies minor program. We connect leadership education research and practice in two ways: first, we describe a process of qualitative program evaluation to inform program best practices and improvement. In doing so, we also highlight the value of an alumni mentoring program as a strategic component of leadership education. Our findings demonstrate the mentoring program supported students' leadership development in the areas of career transition, personal growth, and application to "real-life." Recommendations are offered for creating formal and informal mentoring opportunities.


This thesis seeks to examine the relationship between the religious and the secular as it pertains to Australian Catholics. The main line of enquiry takes the form of investigating the proposition that sociological approaches to religion that are based on the assumption of secular-religious dualism cannot adequately account for the way practising Australian Catholics live and hold their faith. The central theoretical concern of the thesis relates to the sociological construction of the religious and the secular as derived from a 'this world-other world' dichotomy. The classical sociological argument that rationalism underpins the binary distinction between 'this world' and the 'other world' is challenged in terms of its applicability to Catholicism. Any assumption that a religious sensibility precludes rationality is also challenged. The thesis adopts the perspective of symbolic rationality which is regarded as inclusive of instrumental rationality. From this perspective, there is exploration of the extent to which the Catholic incarnational symbol system can accommodate both this-worldly and other-worldly tendencies. More specifically, there is examination of the proposition that a sacramental sensibility can be associated with the co-existence of apparent opposites - faith / reason, grace / nature, transcendence / immanence. The thesis propositions are tested by analysis of data from the 1996 Catholic Church Life Survey and the 2001 National Church Life Survey. The findings indicate that, for Australian Catholics, orthodoxy of belief is compatible with a sense of paradox and contextuality. Australian Catholics are found to have a tendency to engage humanity in both its 'grace' and its 'sin'. There is no evidence to support any hypothesis of mutual exclusiveness between Catholic religious commitment and openness to the wider 'secular' society.;Indeed, it is found that Catholic openness to the 'secular' appears to be associated with openness to the 'Other' - a central element of the 'Catholic ethic'. Catholicism is presented as an organic religion that has the capacity to engage the multiplicities of the socio-cultural environment. Moreover, it is argued that the organic nature of Catholic engagement in secular society can be inclusive of engagement at the structural level of society. Overall, it is argued that many practising Australian Catholics have the ability to hold apparent opposites together and that the classical sociological construction of the religious and the secular in terms of dichotomy does not fit the reality of their lived faith. The thesis concludes that, in the case of Australian Catholics, there is an overarching organic relationship between the religious and the secular that can be inclusive of instrumental relationships on the institutional level.


The new model of hearing of individual labour disputes and implementation of its operation in practice is discussed in the paper. After reform, which came into effect on January 1st, 2013, hearings of individual labour disputes have been delegated to the specialised quasi-judicial institutions, which are set up under the territorial divisions of the State Labour Inspectorate of the Republic of Lithuania. The article examines problems arising in practice after the changes of the Labour Code. The analysis is supported with practices of State Labour Inspectorate and the Courts of the Republic of Lithuania in employment cases since January 1st, 2013. The most relevant questions, such as competences of commissions of labour disputes, problems of process of appeal and further prospects, are discussed.


Embryonic stem cells can provide an unlimited supply of pluripotent cells for tissue engineering applications. Bone tissue engineering by directly differentiating ES cells (ESCs) into osteoblasts has been unsuccessful so far. Therefore, we investigated an alternative approach, based on the process of endochondral ossification. A cartilage matrix was formed in vitro by mouse ESCs seeded on a scaffold. When these cartilage tissue-engineered constructs (CTECs) were implanted s.c., the cartilage matured, became hypertrophic, calcified, and was ultimately replaced by bone tissue in the course of 21 days. Bone aligning hypertrophic cartilage was observed frequently. Using various chondrogenic differentiation periods in vitro, we demonstrated that a cartilage matrix is required for bone formation by ESCs. Chondrogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells and articular chondrocytes showed that a cartilage matrix alone was not sufficient to drive endochondral bone formation. Moreover, when CTECs were implanted orthotopically into critical-size cranial defects in rats, efficient bone formation was observed. We report previously undescribed ESC-based bone tissue engineering under controlled reproducible conditions. Furthermore, our data indicate that ESCs can also be used as a model system to study endochondral bone formation.


No matter what kind of sub-specialty a coach might have, life coaching is the basic operating system: a whole-person, client-centered approach. Here, Pat Williams, who has been a leader in the life coaching movement, has co-authored another essential book for therapists working as coaches. Becoming a Professional Life Coach draws on the wisdom of years of collective experience that have gone into designing the curriculum for the Institute for Life Coach Training. This curriculum has trained therapists and psychologists around the world to add coaching to their current businesses. This book presents the essential elements of life coach training program in a content-rich form that is equivalent to a graduate-level education in the field.


This paper examines whether the export decision of firms is affected by their ownership structure, specifically it looks at whether family control is an obstacle to entering foreign markets. The underlying assumption is that family firms are risk averse. Risk aversion may be an obstacle to entering foreign markets, as far as these are perceived as more volatile and risky than the domestic one, particularly when such choice entices bearing relatively high sunk costs. We develop an illustrative theoretical model that shows how the combination between high risk aversion and low initial productivity may hinder family firms' decision to enter foreign markets, particularly distant ones. The empirical analysis, based on a detailed panel data set of Italian firms covering the years from 1995 to 2003, confirms such predictions by showing that family controlled firms do indeed export less than other type of companies even after controlling for firm heterogeneity in productivity, size, technology and access to credit.


In 1 Peter 3:5-6 the author of First Peter refers to the holy women of the past who were submissive to their own husbands, and then refers to Sarah who obeyed Abraham and called him master. A socio-historic interpretation of this exhortation to wives in 1 Peter 3:5-6, using Sarah's submissiveness to Abraham as example of submissiveness, is given. This is done in order to approximate the reception of this tradition in First Peter, and the way the letter's first hearers/readers' (specifically the women) understood the author's exhortation, and to establish what the implications of this exhortation are for the role of women in churches today.


During election season, politicians and political campaigns often use pop culture or iconic works, such as viral memes or popular songs, to help convey their political messages — often without authorization from the copyright owners of these works. As politics and politicians become ever more divisive, these unauthorized political uses of copyrighted works can be particularly objectionable to copyright owners. In addition to offending their political or moral inclinations, artists and copyright owners frequently claim that these political uses infringe their copyrights. Politicians and campaigns argue that their right to use copyrighted works for political purposes is protected by the First Amendment, and that such political uses are presumptively fair use. This Article examines unauthorized political uses of copyrighted works under copyright law's fair use doctrine to demonstrate that, in fact, both sides are correct.

Through a series of case studies, this Article identifies a pattern in political fair use decisions: In disputes arising from the unauthorized political uses of copyrighted works, courts appear to implicitly modify their analyses and balancing of the fair use factors under Section 107 of the Copyright Act in order to both accommodate the import of political speech and to respect copyright owners' dignity and rights to control use of their expressive works. Under the courts' political fair use analysis, one determination — the nature of the original copyrighted work — seems to exert an outsized influence on the determination of all four fair use factors, permitting certain unauthorized political uses of copyrighted works to appear presumptively fair. This contradicts the Supreme Court's guidance to courts on not subjecting copyright to independent First Amendment review nor to expand copyright's fair use doctrine in infringement cases involving political or public figures. It also disregards certain copyright owners' right to control use of their work, but permits other copyright owners the right to curtail infringing behavior that causes no market harm. This Article highlights these concerns and explores the normative implications of political fair use on litigation certainty and predictability, incentives to create political expressive works, and the balance between respecting creators' dignity and rights to control use of their expressive works with guaranteeing free and open discussion of politicians and political candidates.


Energy companies trading in derivatives which have a value based on an energy product ('energy trading') are subjected to a fragmented regulatory framework. They are supervised by a multitude of authorities on a national and European level. These authorities cooperate horizontally (between EU agencies or between national regulatory authorities – NRAs) or vertically (between EU agencies and NRAs) and in a formal and informal way. They share information on energy trading to detect market abuse. This article aims to provide insight on the effectiveness of supervisory activities within the energy trading landscape. In doing so, the obligation for energy companies to report fundamental data on the derivatives they trade in is used for illustrative purposes and explained in light of the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR), the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive and Regulation (MiFID II and MiFIR) and the regulation on wholesale energy market integrity and transparency (REMIT). The article finishes with a conclusion which advocates the necessity of information sharing and professional secrecy in the current regulatory landscape and intends to contribute to a discussion on the effectiveness of information sharing within an international context.


In this presentation, a new wireless communication scheme "adaptation-to-environment type baseband radio" which realizes a software radio and/or cognitive radio concept is proposed, and a fundamental experiment is performed to confirm the feasibility of the proposed scheme. The baseband radio discussed here means the scheme which generates a radio wave directly by baseband digital signal processing. Although the transmission scheme proposed as an example is similar to OFDM modulation, a major difference is to radiate the baseband signal directly from an antenna as a real number signal without carrying out an up conversion to radio frequencies. A preliminary experiment for transmitting QPSK and 16QAM signals is carried out. The results show that very flexible error-free transmission can be realized based on the proposed baseband radio.


Hands-on, project-based engineering education is alive and well. However, anecdotal evidence indicates that we are seeing fewer undergraduate engineering students who arrive on campus already knowing how to 'use their hands'—having familiarity with tools and mechanical devices, knowing how to connect things, savvy about avoiding leaks in fluid systems, wary of stripping a screw thread or shearing a bolt head—the kinds of things that an archetypal car enthusiast would have learned in high school. For design-build-test project-based engineering educational experiences, having at least one car enthusiast has proven invaluable: more time can be spent on testing and re-designing, rather than getting bogged down in the initial selection of means to satisfy an engineering design function. Also, it seems that the design space can be expanded; students are aware of more ways to satisfy design functions, and less likely to eliminate potential designs due to ignorance of building techniques. Car-enthusiast skills also come in handy during the building process, rather than relying on inexperienced students who may be picking up tools for the first time. Why the decline in these do-it-yourself-ers? Evidence shows that fewer Millennials own and drive cars. This may be affecting their experiences with car maintenance. Millennial culture also includes a type of perfectionism that may be affecting their desire to use their hands, either in fixing things, or in traditional ways of building. The existence of on-board diagnostic computer interfaces is perceived to have an effect, though it is arguable. Many gadgets, especially electronic devices such as mobile phones, PDAs, and gaming systems, are designed and manufactured in ways that make them difficult to open up and repair, but new sites such as iFixit do provide teardowns and repair manuals. I will explore these issues, especially their implications on current undergraduate engineering pedagogy, present 'practical work' experiences from Canterbury and Imperial College, and suggest potential ways of improving beginning engineering students' hands-on skills.


We report on a compact and simple, broadband optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier system that amplifies femtosecond pulses directly from a titanium sapphire oscillator up to 2 TW power. Our system relies on a new technique - time shear - that improves the time overlap between the seed and pump pulses and, thus, improves the efficiency of the power amplification stage pumped with a ns laser. Parametric amplification was achieved in two stages: a multipass, noncollinear geometry preamplifier with a single beta-barium borate crystal, and a power booster stage incorporating three beta-barium borate crystals in the new time-shear design. Both stages were pumped with pulses from a commercial 10 Hz frequency doubled ns Nd:YAG laser. The system delivers 49 mJ pulses with a temporal width of 23 fs and its overall conversion efficiency after pulse compression is 10%.


Remote sensing missions have been conventionally performed by using satellite-onboard optical sensors with extraordinarily high reliability, on huge satellites. On the other hand, small satellites for remote-sensing missions have recently been developed intensely and operated all over the world. This paper gives a Japanese concept of the development of nano-satellites(10kg to 50kg) based on "Hodoyoshi" (Japanese word for "reasonable") reliability engineering aiming at cost-effective design of optical sensors, buses and satellites. The concept is named as "Hodoyoshi" concept. We focus on the philosophy and the key features of the concept. These are conveniently applicable to the development of optical sensors on nano-satellites. As major advantages, the optical sensors based on the "Hodoyoshi" concept are "flexible" in terms of selectability of wavelength bands, adaptability to the required ground sample distance, and optimal performance under a wide range of environmental temperatures. The first and second features mentioned above can be realized by dividing the functions of the optical sensor into modularized functional groups reasonably. The third feature becomes possible by adopting the athermal and apochromatic optics design. By utilizing these features, the development of the optical sensors become possible without exact information on the launcher or the orbit. Furthermore, this philosophy leads to truly quick delivery of nano-satellites for remote-sensing missions. On the basis of the concept, we are now developing nano-satellite technologies and five nano-satellites to realize the concept in a four-year-long governmentally funded project. In this paper, the specification of the optical sensor on the first satellite is also reported.


Now, it is a time for me to take a journey to share my Computer Literacy experience with readers. After extensive reading and hard work, I have discovered new information about Computer Literacy course offered by different institutions. As a result of this study, which focuses on outcomes (competencies) of Computer Literacy course offered by UniSchool, my experience (knowledge & skills) has been developed. Such experience has been developed in terms of outcomes (types), computer hardware & software, computer users, computer language and method of teaching. All these areas are covered in this report. Other areas, which are also covered, are computer viruses, categories of computers, brief history of computers and purpose of the study. The order in which these areas are presented is as follows: The first part (chapter 1) covers the statement of purpose, critical questions, rationale of the study, outcome definitions, other concepts of outcome, research method together with approach and methods of gathering data as well as theoretical framework. The second part (chapter 2) covers computer definitions, history of computer, types of computer, major components of computer (hardware, software & users) and computer literacy. The hardware part covers Input, processing, storage, output and other devices. The software part covers Operating system, application programs, development / programming software and utility software. The third part (chapter 3) covers the methods of teachings The last parts (chapter 4, 5 & 6) cover research methodology, data analysis, conclusion, recommendations and limitations. Therefore, for the details of these parts the readers will simple read each chapter of this report.


During the past decades farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa had been prevented from making more intensive use of their mostly under-utilised production potentials by unattractive prices and market conditions, which in many countries were reinforced by a less than conducive policy environment. At the same time, there were no sufficient opportunities outside agriculture to allow rural families to give up their subsistence production. Now, as agricultural prices tend to rise with a long-term perspective, while natural conditions tend to deteriorate, African farmers (and policies) are facing both incentives and a pressure for intensification of their production systems. However, most small-scale farmers, having been forced to get involved in diversified, multilocational rural-urban livelihood systems, are not well-prepared to respond flexibly to the new conditions. Based on this assessment, this article concludes by emphasising the necessity to support a new, albeit alternative (i.e. context-specific), 'Green Revolution' for Sub-Saharan Africa.


This paper describes the characterization and application of electrically insulated conductive tips mounted on a cantilever for use in an atomic force microscope and operated in liquid. These multifunctional probes were microfabricated and designed for measurements on biological samples in buffer solution, but they can also be employed for electrochemical applications, in particular scanning electrochemical microscopy. The silicon nitride based cantilevers had a spring constant ≤0.1 N m−1 and a conductive tip, which was insulated except at the apex. The conductive core of the tip consisted of a metal, e.g. platinum silicide, and exhibited a typical radius of 15 nm. The mechanical and electrical characterization of the probe is presented and discussed. First measurements on the hexagonally packed intermediate layer of Deinococcus radiodurans demonstrated the possibility to adjust the image contrast by applying a voltage between a support and the conductive tip and to measure variations of less than 1 pA in faradaic current with a lateral resolution of 7.8 nm.


The "replica method" of statistical physics is employed for the large-system analysis of vector precoding for the Gaussian multiple-input multiple-output broadcast channel. The transmitter comprises a linear front-end combined with nonlinear precoding, minimizing transmit energy by means of input alphabet relaxation. For the common discrete lattice-based relaxation, the problem violates replica symmetry and a replica symmetry breaking (RSB) ansatz is taken. The limiting empirical distribution of the precoder's output and the limiting transmit energy are derived for one-step RSB. Particularizing to a "zero-forcing" (ZF) linear front-end, a decoupling result is derived. For discrete lattice-based relaxations, the impact of RSB is demonstrated for the transmit energy. The spectral efficiencies of the aforementioned precoding methods are compared to linear ZF and Tomlinson-Harashima precoding (THP). Focusing on quaternary phase shift-keying (QPSK), significant performance gains of both lattice and convex relaxations are revealed for medium to high signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) when compared to linear ZF precoding. THP is shown to be outperformed as well. Comparing certain lattice-based relaxations for QPSK against a convex counterpart, the latter is found to be superior for low and high SNRs but slightly inferior for medium SNRs in terms of spectral efficiency.


Curcumin, a concentrated extract of the herb, turmeric, is a widely used medicinal agent purported to deliver significant anti-inflammatory and other pharmacological activities. As much as curcumin presents a narrower range of pharmacological activity over the whole herb, the extract is still comprised of multiple curcuminoid constituents that contribute to a polypharmacology. Curcumin has been administered successfully in clinical trials to treat depression; Alzheimer's and other neurological diseases; autoimmune and auto inflammatory disorders; and various types and stages of cancer with reasonable success but also with conflicting reports. Upon meta-analysis of the plethora of curcumin-related research it is evident that the pharmacology of this extract is not fully understood.
The naturally occurring, highly homologous curcuminoid analogues are assumed to partake in similar and additive pharmacological events due to their common structural features. However, a perspective shift is presented to feature their electrochemical and structural differences and highlight the potential for each curcuminoid to also exhibit unique pharmacology that is distinct from the others. This, in part, is shown to help explain curcumin's polypharmcology when administered to treat multiple diseases that manifest with pathological features and symptoms, nevertheless, that are quite diverse.
A full review explains how highly hydrophobic and extremely reactive curcuminoid chemistry can still be administered orally; is bioavailable despite conflicting reports that it is not; and delivers efficacious pharmacology systemically as a direct function of the parent curcuminoid molecules and in an additive manner through the accompanying auto-oxidative degradation by-products of the parent curcuminoids.


Improving System Reliability for Cyber-Physical Systems Leon Li Wu Cyber-physical systems (CPS) are systems featuring a tight combination of, and coordination between, the system's computational and physical elements. Cyber-physical systems include systems ranging from critical infrastructure such as a power grid and transportation system to health and biomedical devices. System reliability, i.e., the ability of a system to perform its intended function under a given set of environmental and operational conditions for a given period of time, is a fundamental requirement of cyber-physical systems. An unreliable system often leads to disruption of service, financial cost and even loss of human life. An important and prevalent type of cyber-physical system meets the following criteria: processing large amounts of data; employing software as a system component; running online continuously; having operator-in-the-loop because of human judgment and an accountability requirement for safety critical systems. This thesis aims to improve system reliability for this type of cyber-physical system. To improve system reliability for this type of cyber-physical system, I present a system evaluation approach entitled automated online evaluation (AOE), which is a data-centric runtime monitoring and reliability evaluation approach that works in parallel with the cyber-physical system to conduct automated evaluation along the workflow of the system continuously using computational intelligence and self-tuning techniques and provide operator-in-the-loop feedback on reliability improvement. For example, abnormal input and output data at or between the multiple stages of the system can be detected and flagged through data quality analysis. As a result, alerts can be sent to the operator-in-the-loop. The operator can then take actions and make changes to the system based on the alerts in order to achieve minimal system downtime and increased system reliability. One technique used by the approach is data quality analysis using computational intelligence, which applies computational intelligence in evaluating data quality in an automated and efficient way in order to make sure the running system perform reliably as expected. Another technique used by the approach is self-tuning which automatically self-manages and self-configures the evaluation system to ensure that it adapts itself based on the changes in the system and feedback from the operator. To implement the proposed approach, I further present a system architecture called autonomic reliability improvement system (ARIS). This thesis investigates three hypotheses. First, I claim that the automated online evaluation empowered by data quality analysis using computational intelligence can effectively improve system reliability for cyber-physical systems in the domain of interest as indicated above. In order to prove this hypothesis, a prototype system needs to be developed and deployed in various cyber-physical systems while certain reliability metrics are required to measure the system reliability improvement quantitatively. Second, I claim that the self-tuning can effectively self-manage and self-configure the evaluation system based on the changes in the system and feedback from the operator-in-the-loop to improve system reliability. Third, I claim that the approach is efficient. It should not have a large impact on the overall system performance and introduce only minimal extra overhead to the cyberphysical system. Some performance metrics should be used to measure the efficiency and added overhead quantitatively. Additionally, in order to conduct efficient and cost-effective automated online evaluation for data-intensive CPS, which requires large volumes of data and devotes much of its processing time to I/O and data manipulation, this thesis presents COBRA, a cloud-based reliability assurance framework. COBRA provides automated multi-stage runtime reliability evaluation along the CPS workflow using data relocation services, a cloud data store, data quality analysis and process scheduling with self-tuning to achieve scalability, elasticity and efficiency. Finally, in order to provide a generic way to compare and benchmark system reliability for CPS and to extend the approach described above, this thesis presents FARE, a reliability benchmark framework that employs a CPS reliability model, a set of methods and metrics on evaluation environment selection, failure analysis, and reliability estimation. The main contributions of this thesis include validation of the above hypotheses and empirical studies of ARIS automated online evaluation system, COBRA cloud-based reliability assurance framework for data-intensive CPS, and FARE framework for benchmarking reliability of cyber-physical systems. This work has advanced the state of the art in the CPS reliability research, expanded the body of knowledge in this field, and provided some useful studies for further research.


Ultrahigh-pressure ( UHP ) materials ( e.g. , diamond, high-pressure polymorph of chromite) and super-reduced (SuR) phases ( e.g. , carbides, nitrides, silicides and native metals) have been identified in chromitites and peridotites of the Tibetan and Polar-Urals ophiolites. These unusual assemblages suggest previously unrecognized fluid- or melt-related processes in the Earth's mantle. However, the origin of the SuR phases, and in particular their relationships with the UHP materials in the ophiolites, are still enigmatic. Studies of a recently recognized SuR mineral system from Cretaceous volcanics on Mt Carmel, Israel, suggest an alternative genesis for the ophiolitic SuR phases. The Mt Carmel SuR mineral system (associated with Ti-rich corundum xenocrysts) appears to reflect the local interaction of mantle-derived CH 4 ± H 2 fluids with basaltic magmas in the shallow lithosphere (depths of ∼30–100 km). These interactions produced desilication of the magma, supersaturation in Al 2 O 3 leading to rapid growth of corundum, and phase assemblages requiring local oxygen fugacity ( f O 2 ) gradually dropping to ∼11 log units below the iron–wustite (IW) buffer. The strong similarities between this system and the SuR phases and associated Ti-rich corundum in the Tibetan and Polar-Urals ophiolites suggest that the ophiolitic SuR suite probably formed by local influx of CH 4 ± H 2 fluids within previously subducted peridotites (and included chromitites) during their rapid exhumation from the deep upper mantle to lithospheric levels. In the final stages of their ascent, the recycled peridotites and chromitites were overprinted by a shallow magmatic system similar to that observed at Mt Carmel, producing most of the SuR phases and eventually preserving them within the Tibetan and Polar-Urals ophiolites.


by Chris Brown It is crucial that a scholarly journal develop over time to adapt to the advancing needs and demands of its readers. Every change, though not always drastic, should be an attempt to improve the quality of information provided and expand on research already published. Physics of Thin Films is a highly technical journal that publishes in-depth research in the field of physics, and as with most technical journals, it has experienced many alterations from its original volume in 1963. The overall objective behind the changes in the articles is to provide a clearer and more effective layout, thus giving the audience a better understanding of the information provided.


OBJECTIVE Nontraumatic major lower extremity amputations (LEAs) have been reported to be declining nationally; however, trends in Texas have been less well described. We evaluated demographic and clinical risk factors and revascularization associations for LEAs by using inpatient hospital discharge data in Texas from 2005 to 2014. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Inpatient hospital discharge data were obtained from the Texas Center for Health Statistics. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to evaluate clinical, ethnic, and socioeconomic risk factors associated with LEA. The impact of revascularization (surgical and/or endovascular) on LEA was analyzed. RESULTS Between 2005 and 2014, of 19,939,716 admissions, 46,627 were for nontraumatic major LEAs. Over time, LEAs were constant, and revascularization rates during index admission declined. The majority of LEAs occurred in males and in individuals aged 60–79 years. Risk factors associated with LEA included diabetes, peripheral arterial disease, chronic kidney disease, and male sex (P < 0.001). Insurance status, hyperlipidemia, coronary artery disease, and stroke/transient ischemic attack were associated with lower odds of amputation (P < 0.001). Hispanic (odds ratio [OR] 1.51 [95% CI 1.48, 1.55], P < 0.001) and black (OR 1.97 [95% CI 1.92, 2.02], P < 0.001) ethnicities were associated with a higher risk for amputation when compared with non-Hispanic whites. Revascularization, either surgical or endovascular (OR 0.52 [95% CI 0.5, 0.54], P < 0.001), was also associated with lower odds for amputation. CONCLUSIONS Amputation rates in Texas have remained constant, whereas revascularization rates are declining. A higher risk for LEA was seen in minorities, including Hispanic ethnicity, which is the fastest growing demographic in Texas. Revascularization and having insurance were associated with lower odds for amputation.


In dynamic network loading and dynamic traffic assignment for networks, the link travel time is often taken as a function of the number of vehicles x(t) on the link at time t of entry to the link, that is, τ(t) = f(x(t)), which implies that the performance of the link is invariant (homogeneous) over time. Here we let this relationship vary over time, letting the travel time depend directly on the time of day, thus τ(t) = f(x(t), t). Various authors have investigated the properties of the previous (homogeneous) model, including conditions sufficient to ensure that it satisfies first-in-first-out (FIFO). Here we extend these results to the inhomogeneous model, and find that the new sufficient conditions have a natural interpretation. We find that the results derived by several previous authors continue to hold if we introduce one additional condition, namely that the rate of change of f(x(t), t) with respect to the second parameter has a certain (negative) lower bound. As a prelude, we discuss the equivalence of equations for flow propagation equations and for intertemporal conservation of flows, and argue that neither these equations nor the travel-time model are physically meaningful if FIFO is not satisfied. In §7 we provide some examples of time-dependent travel times and some numerical illustrations of when these will or will not adhere to FIFO.


Interleukin (IL)-21 is the most recently recognized of the cytokines that share the common cytokine receptor γ chain (γc), which is mutated in humans with X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency. We now report that IL-21 synergistically acts with IL-15 to potently promote the proliferation of both memory (CD44high) and naive (CD44low) phenotype CD8+ T cells and augment interferon-γ production in vitro. IL-21 also cooperated, albeit more weakly, with IL-7, but not with IL-2. Correspondingly, the expansion and cytotoxicity of CD8+ T cells were impaired in IL-21R−/− mice. Moreover, in vivo administration of IL-21 in combination with IL-15 boosted antigen-specific CD8+ T cell numbers and resulted in a cooperative effect on tumor regression, with apparent cures of large, established B16 melanomas. Thus, our studies reveal that IL-21 potently regulates CD8+ T cell expansion and effector function, primarily in a synergistic context with IL-15.


We report the first measurement study of 802.11n power consumption in smartphones. Using a popular 802.11n-enabled smartphone and an 802.11n wireless testbed, we evaluate the power and energy consumption on the phone for a variety of configurations including different MAC bitrates, frame sizes, and channel conditions. We contrast our results against recent studies using 802.11n wireless cards for desktop/laptop computers. Our findings have significant implications in the design of energy efficient rate adaptation algorithms for the next generation of 802.11n-enabled smartphones.


Introduction: At least four techniques or approaches to minimize the risk of injury have been introduced. The correlation between techniques and the complication rate is controversial. The objective of the study is to report the incidence of laparoscopic entry associated injury, in relation to the used technique. Material and Methods: A retrospective study was conducted at the Hospital Espa? ol, in a 12-month period (2013). The medical records of all patients who underwent laparoscopic surgery were reviewed. Demographic and surgical variables were analyzed, comparing the results statistically through an analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results: A total of 792 cases were analyzed. The surgeries performed were: cholecystectomies (42%), appendectomies (26%), diagnostic laparoscopies (20%), ventral or inguinal hernioplasty (9%) and fundoplications (3%). The preferred approach was Hasson's (79%) and Veres's needle technique (14%), followed by classic closed (14%) and Palmer technique (2%). We documented six cases of laparoscopic entry associated injury (0.76%), four associated with the Hasson technique, one with Veress's needle technique and one with direct approach technique were reported. The statistical analysis was performed considering the different techniques and their relation with the injuries. Analysis of variance did not reach statistical significance (p = 0.31). Conclusions: Among our data, the number of laparoscopic entry associated injuries, was less than 1%, and has a similar frequency to the reported literature. We did not find significant differences between the four laparoscopic entry techniques. There remains no clear evidence as to the optimal form of laparoscopic entry in the low-risk patient.


This paper re-examines the sources of inequality in Vietnam, a transitional economy with large reductions in poverty from recent and dramatic economic growth, but vastly unequal gains across ethnic groups. Using a decomposition approach to disentangle factor endowments and returns by ethnic group, we draw four key conclusions. First, removing language barriers would significantly reduce inequality among ethnic groups, narrowing the ethnic gap, and especially so through enhancing the gains earned by minorities from education. Second, variations in returns to education exist in favor of the majority in mixed communes, suggesting that either the special needs of minority children have not been adequately addressed in the classroom, or unequal treatment in favor of the majority exists in the labor market. Third, in contrast to recent literature, there is no difference in the benefits drawn from enhanced infrastructure at the commune level across ethnic groups. Finally, we find little evidence to support the established views that the ethnic gap is attributed largely to differences in the returns to endowments. Overall, our research highlights the importance of considering language barriers and the availability of infrastructure for ethnic inequality.


Topoisomerase IB controls DNA topology by cleaving DNA transiently. This property is used by inhibitors, such as camptothecin, that stabilize, by inhibiting the religation step, the cleavage complex, in which the enzyme is covalently attached to the 3'-phosphate of the cleaved DNA strand. These drugs are used in clinics as antitumor agents. Because three-dimensional structural studies have shown that camptothecin derivatives act as base pair mimics and intercalate between two base pairs in the ternary DNA-topoisomerase-inhibitor complex, we hypothesized that base pairs mimics could act like campthotecin and inhibit the religation reaction after the formation of the topoisomerase I-DNA cleavage complex. We show here that three base pair mimics, nucleobases analogues of the aminophenyl-thiazole family, once targeted specifically to a DNA sequence were potent topoisomerase IB inhibitors. The targeting was achieved through covalent linkage to a sequence-specific DNA ligand, a triplex-forming oligonucleotide, and was necessary to position and keep the nucleobase analogue in the cleavage complex. In the absence of triplex formation, only a weak binding to the DNA and topoisomerase I-mediated DNA cleavage was observed. The three compounds were equally active once conjugated, implying that the intercalation of the nucleobase upon triplex formation is the essential feature for the inhibition activity.


The case for investing in fusion energy has never been greater, given increasing global energy demand, high annual carbon dioxide output, and technological limitations for wind and solar power. Nevertheless, financing for fusion companies through traditional means has proven challenging. While fusion startups have an unparalleled upside, their high upfront costs, lengthy delay in payoff, and high risk of commercial failure have historically restricted funding interest to a niche set of investors. Drawing on insights from investor interviews and case studies of public–private partnerships, we propose a megafund structure in which a large number of projects are securitized into a single holding company funded through various debt and equity tranches, with first loss capital guarantees from governments and philanthropic partners. The megafund exploits many of the core properties of the fusion industry: the diversity of approaches to engender fusion reactions, the ability to create revenue-generating divestitures in related fields, and the breadth of auxiliary technologies needed to support a functioning power plant. The model expands the pool of available capital by creating tranches with different risk–return tradeoffs and providing a diversified "fusion index" that can be viewed as a long hedge against fossil fuels. Simulations of a fusion megafund demonstrate positive returns on equity (ROE) and low default rates for the capital raised using debt.


The number of adolescents with Crohn's disease (CD) is rising, with one third of cases diagnosed before turning 21 years old. Evidence shows that long-term medical intervention, school absence and the physical toll of CD on the growing adolescent also have a psychological effect on patients. In addition, poorly defined transition pathways are extending these problems into adulthood. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines are important in shaping service delivery and distribution. However, analysis of the full 2012 NICE CD management guidelines indicates they fall short of providing adequate recommendations for holistic management of the disease in young populations. An update in 2016 added a new clinical recommendation to the guidelines, but no further exploration of the psychosocial aspects of the impact of the disease. The authors of this article used a critical review of literature and concluded that service provision for adolescents with CD could be made better by improving CD support networks, involving young people in the development of policy centred on their care, as well as incorporating other (non-NICE) well-researched CD guidelines in national policy. These changes would improve quality of life for this vulnerable population.


Ubiquitination is a post-translational modification process that has been implicated in the regulation of innate and adaptive immune responses. There is increasing evidence that both ubiquitination and its reversal, deubiquitination, play crucial roles not only during the development of the immune system but also in the orchestration of an immune response by ensuring the proper functioning of the different cell types that constitute the immune system. Here, we provide an overview of the latest discoveries in this field and discuss how they impact our understanding of the ubiquitin system in host defence mechanisms as well as self-tolerance.


Abstract. We investigate energy fluxes and small, kilometre-scale Birkeland currents in the magnetospheric cusp at a 1–3 Earth radii altitude and in the ionosphere using satellites when they were, according to the Tsyganenko model, in magnetic conjunction within 50–60 km and up to 15 min apart. We use Cluster and CHAMP satellites, and study three conjunction events that occurred in 2008 and 2009, when the Cluster spacecraft were crossing the cusps at only a few Earth radii altitude. Our goal is to understand better the influence of processes in the magnetospheric cusp on the upper thermosphere and its upwelling which was usually observed by the CHAMP satellite passing the cusp. Three studied events occurred under relatively quiet and steady magnetospheric and ionospheric conditions, which explains why observed thermospheric density enhancements were rather low. Our findings point out that for each studied event soft electron precipitation influences thermospheric density enhancements in a way that stronger electron precipitation produces stronger thermospheric upwelling. Therefore, in the case of these weak events, soft electron precipitation seems to be more important cause of the observed, thermospheric density enhancements than is the Joule heating.


There is currently great interest in monitoring the microbiological quality of bathing waters and ensuring the safety of users. The European Bathing Water Directive 2006/7/EC which came into place in 2011 sets strict new standards for the classification of bathing waters. Ability to rapidly test microbiological quality of bathing waters is a powerful tool for meeting water quality standards and guidelines, risk assessment and management systems. Real-time and on-line monitoring are key factors for consideration in current method developments for continuous indicator organism assessment to meet early warning requirements and water safety plans. The aim of this work is to address the need for tests capable of rapid on-site and in-situ assessment of microbiological water quality. To achieve an active management of bathing areas and to reduce the risk associated with the presence of faecal pollution, such tests are essential.

In the 1st part of this thesis, commercial in-situ sensors are used to collect continuous high frequency water quality data for a period of 7 months in Dublin Port. These data are used to identify pollution hot-spots at the site and coupled with data collected from discrete samples it is shown that continuous monitoring can be used as a decision support tool.

In the 2nd part, the thesis looks at developing a rationale for monitoring water for biological contamination and follows by establishing a proposed sensor technology based on a bacterial marker enzyme and fluorescence optical detection. A novel protocol for the recovery and detection of faecal pollution indicator bacteria, E. coli, using β-glucuronidase (GUS) activity is developed. The developed protocol involves two main steps: sample preparation and GUS activity measurement and has a time–toresult of less than 75 min.


Abstract: Seed dispersal is a pivotal ecological process but remains poorly understood on Madagascar, where lemurs are key dispersers. The black-and-white ruffed lemur (Varecia variegata) possesses many behavioural and ecological attributes potentially conducive to effective seed dispersal, but no studies have investigated dispersal patterns in this species. This 3-mo study quantified aspects of the primary seed dispersal patterns generated by two Varecia variegata groups (7 individuals). Feeding and ranging behaviour was quantified using behavioural observation (345.6 h), dispersal quantity and seed identity was determined by faecal analysis, and 10-wk germination trials tested effects of gut passage on germination of four species. Individual lemurs dispersed an estimated 104 seeds d−1, of 40 species. Most seeds were large (>10 mm); the largest was 42 mm long. Gut passage was rapid (mean 4.4 h) and generally increased germination speed and success. Mean and maximum inferred dispersal distances were 180 and 506 m respectively; low compared with many anthropoids, but possibly typical of lemurs. Though limited by a short study period, results suggest that the ruffed lemur is an effective disperser of seeds and possibly a critical disperser of large-seeded species which other frugivores cannot swallow. Loss of large-bodied seed dispersers such as Varecia variegata may have far-reaching ecological consequences including impacts on forest structure and dynamics.


A novel mechanism for J- and H-aggregate formation is presented on the basis of wave function overlap (WFO) coupling between neighboring chromophores which supplements the usual through-space (Coulombic) coupling. In cases where the latter is relatively small compared to the former, as might arise for excitons based on molecular transitions with low oscillator strengths, J- vs H-aggregation is determined by the sign of the product D(e)D(h), where D(e) (D(h)) is the coupling between a neutral Frenkel exciton and the charge transfer exciton created through the transfer of an electron (hole) to a neighboring chromophore. Adapting a sign convention based on translational symmetry in a linear array of chromophores, a positive (negative) sign for D(e)D(h) places the bright exciton on the bottom (top) of the exciton band, consistent with J- (H-) aggregation. The J- (H-) aggregates so formed behave as direct (indirect) bandgap semiconductors with vibronic signatures in absorption and photoluminescence that are identical to those displayed by conventional Coulomb coupled aggregates. WFO coupling leading to the mixing of intrachain Frenkel excitons and polaron pairs may be important in conjugated polymer aggregates where the Coulomb coupling practically vanishes with the (conjugation) length of the polymer. Calculations based on octathiophene (8T) dimers show that the eclipsed geometry yields a WFO coupling favoring H-aggregate behavior, although a longitudinal (long-axis) displacement by only 1.5 Å is enough to change the sign of the coupling, leading to J-aggregate behavior. Hence, it should be possible to design thiophene-based polymers which act as J-aggregates with respect to the interchain coupling.


In the 1960s and 1970s, brilliant students in physics and molecular biology were drawn to the nervous system as a field for study. Here attractive problems were galore, just waiting to be tackled: from molecules to memory, from channels to consciousness. In contrast, molecular biology and physics were becoming highly competitive and seemed to have reached a temporary plateau. Students searching for problems realized that they could make major contributions, technical and conceptual, in neurobiology. Most neurobiologists knew little about molecular or optical techniques and disciplines or how they could be applied to the brain. To find out how they should go about it, students from other disciplines flocked to introductory courses on neurobiology in Cold Spring Harbor and the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole.

An early entrant was Larry. He took Stephen Kuffler's "Nerve Muscle Program" at Woods Hole in 1966. The name of the course gives the game away: in those early days, the word "neurobiology" had only just been coined by Kuffler. Most of the best work was being done on neurons and skeletal muscle fibers. The revolutionary experiments by Hubel and Wiesel were for the first time opening up the brain, but apart from that marvelous work, there was relatively little being done on the cerebral cortex and its relation to perception. Certainly, there was nothing comparable to the experiments of Hodgkin, Huxley, and Katz, who were carrying cellular neurobiology to a new and exciting level. The Nerve Muscle Program, taught by Kuffler with Ed Furshpan and David Potter, allowed students to do experiments every day with their own hands on modern equipment. At the end, they would be able to set up their own laboratories for measuring the electrical properties of nerve cells. Equally important were intensive critical discussions of the literature. A student would choose a key paper on impulse conduction or synaptic transmission, say by Fatt and Katz, and critically present the data and conclusions. Not Larry.

As original then as he is today (actually, not quite as original, as he had not yet started to wear red shirts, red socks, and red underpants), Larry chose a new paper that purported to describe learning at the cellular level in a mollusk. He presented the experiments and their significance in detail. In principle, his talk would have taken 30 min or so, but it lasted for a couple of hours because Ed and Dave interrupted every other sentence. Every tiny flaw in the work and unsupported conclusion was challenged. But Larry plowed on unfazed, because he thought the work was interesting. (The circle was completed more than 20 years later when he himself demonstrated drastic flaws in the work he had first discussed as a student).

What made Larry so special was that he already had a clear idea of what research problem he should work on in neurobiology. From the start, he saw that the beautiful experiments of Hubel and Wiesel were possible only because of their extraordinary imagination, brilliance, and dedication. To study the properties and organization of neurons in the visual cortex and their relation to perception by recording from them one by one seemed an impractical approach. A better technique was needed (and is still needed today). As David Hubel said later, it was like trying to mow the lawn with a pair of nail scissors. A method that would allow one to record from not just a single nerve cell but hundreds or thousands at once could surely be done if one developed suitable optical recording techniques (not thought of at that time).

To this end, he went to work with Richard Keynes in Cambridge to try to record action potentials without electrodes. This experience, too, shows a key aspect of Larry Cohen's character, his loyalty: Keynes could be prickly but Larry recognized his great virtues and maintained a deep friendship and admiration for him until his death in 2010. (A now famous colleague who worked with Larry and Keynes was Bertil Hille). After this introductory period, Larry set up his own laboratory and devoted himself to two key problems: finding the dyes that would best light up during activity and developing the best methods for recording optical signals. He moved up from single axons, to groups of nerve cells in invertebrates, and then to an important biological problem: the organization of olfactory processing that gives rise to the sense of smell. This progression took many years but Larry never swerved from his aim: to observe how tens, or hundreds or thousands of nerve cells process information in real time. Always doing experiments at the bench with his own hands, and always keeping up with the most recent advances in microscopy, he worked in a way that is no longer fashionable. He did not get his results from a large group or rely on teams of students and postdoctoral fellows to execute his ideas. The result was a small group, four or perhaps five people who worked and often lived together in harmony. On occasions when funding for salaries ran out, Larry would pay for the students' support out of his own pocket.

One fringe benefit for me of having Larry as a friend and colleague was that I knew where to send brilliant students who were looking for a new laboratory. At the end of a course at Cold Spring or Woods Hole or elsewhere around the world, a really bright young person like Brian Salzberg or Bill Ross or Amiram Grinvald or Chun Bleau would ask me "Where should I go for a post-doc? I'd like a lab where the person is doing first-rate work, where I could use my experience and at the same time do something really interesting." If they were exceptionally gifted and dedicated I would send them to Larry.

I believe that, as this issue shows, everyone who has worked with Larry, me included, loves him. (Another side of Larry, his sense of humor, is described in "Pioneers of Neurobiology: my brilliant eccentric heroes" J. Nicholls, Sinauer Associates, 2014.)


In terms of social networks, split graphs correspond to the variety of interpersonal and intergroup relations. In this paper we analyse the interaction between the cliques (socially strong and trusty groups) and the independent sets (fragmented and non-connected groups of people) as the basic components of any split graph. Based on the Semi-Lagrangean relaxation for the k-cardinality assignment problem, we show the way of minimizing the socially risky interactions between the cliques and the independent sets within the social network.


The ability to measure six degrees of freedom (6 DOF) head kinematics in motor vehicle crash conditions is important for assessing head-neck loads as well as brain injuries. A method for obtaining accurate 6 DOF head kinematics in short duration impact conditions is proposed and validated in this study. The proposed methodology utilizes six accelerometers and three angular rate sensors (6aω configuration) such that an algebraic equation is used to determine angular acceleration with respect to the body-fixed coordinate system, and angular velocity is measured directly rather than numerically integrating the angular acceleration. Head impact tests to validate the method were conducted using the internal nine accelerometer head of the Hybrid III dummy and the proposed 6aω scheme in both low (2.3 m/s) and high (4.0 m/s) speed impact conditions. The 6aω method was compared with a nine accelerometer array sensor package (NAP) as well as a configuration of three accelerometers and three angular rate sensors (3aω), both of which have been commonly used to measure 6 DOF kinematics of the head for assessment of brain and neck injuries. The ability of each of the three methods (6aω, 3aω, and NAP) to accurately measure 6 DOF head kinematics was quantified by calculating the normalized root mean squared deviation (NRMSD), which provides an average percent error over time. Results from the head impact tests indicate that the proposed 6aω scheme is capable of producing angular accelerations and linear accelerations transformed to a remote location that are comparable to that determined from the NAP scheme in both low and high speed impact conditions. The 3aω scheme was found to be unable to provide accurate angular accelerations or linear accelerations transformed to a remote location in the high speed head impact condition due to the required numerical differentiation. Both the 6aω and 3aω schemes were capable of measuring accurate angular displacement while the NAP instrumentation was unable to produce accurate angular displacement due to double numerical integration. The proposed 6aω scheme appears to be capable of measuring accurate 6 DOF kinematics of the head in any severity of impact conditions.


During the project seven standard operating procedures (SOP) were developed for the four data domains (zoonoses, chemical contaminant, pesticide residues and veterinary medical products residues). The SOPs describe 1) How the national governance of risk assessment data is organised, 2) how data are collected and validated before delivering to EFSA covering all four domains, 3) How data is transferred to EFSA, 4) how to respond to EFSA request for clarification, update and confirmation of data, and 5) how to respond to EFSA request for additional data including PAD requests. Ten enhancements have been developed and implemented in the national reporting system to improve the process of collating and validating data before uploading data to the EFSA DCF. These developments improve the data quality and ensure a higher consistency on the metadata information provided with a data line. The project also included the development of data quality objectives for the four domains. This development was a facilitated by EFSA and carried out as 12 teleconferences. © National Food Institute, Technical University of Denmark, 2018


The North Atlantic oscillation (NAO) is under current climate conditions the leading mode of atmospheric circulation variability over the North Atlantic region. While the pattern is present during the entire year, it is most important during winter, explaining a large part of the variability of the large‐scale pressure field, being thus largely determinant for the weather conditions over the North Atlantic basin and over Western Europe. In this study, a review of recent literature on the basic understanding of the NAO, its variability on different time scales and driving physical mechanisms is presented. In particular, the observed NAO variations and long‐term trends are put into a long term perspective by considering paleo‐proxy evidence. A representative number of recently released NAO reconstructions are discussed. While the reconstructions agree reasonably well with observations during the instrumental overlapping period, there is a rather high uncertainty between the different reconstructions for the pre‐instrumental period, which leads to partially incoherent results, that is, periods where the NAO reconstructions do not agree even in sign. Finally, we highlight the future need of a broader definition of the NAO, the assessment of the stability of the teleconnection centers over time, the analysis of the relations to other relevant variables like temperature and precipitation, as well as on the relevant processes involved. WIREs Clim Change 2012, 3:79–90. doi: 10.1002/wcc.150


This paper describes the demonstration of a novel method for detecting optical duobinary signals. Oversampling in combination with maximum-likelihood estimation-based data processing of the optical-to-electronic converted signal results in a record sensitivity for an optically preamplified receiver. The concept is investigated at 10 Gb/s and allows data recovery at bit-error rates of 1/spl times/10/sup -9/ and 1/spl times/10/sup -3/ with a receiver sensitivity of better than -39.5 dBm and an optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) of only 7.8 dB, respectively.


A Mueller-matrix polarimeter in transmission mode using two electronically controlled liquid-crystal variable retarders has been developed. Its design, theory and calibration are described. Although liquid crystals have been proposed earlier, this paper is focused on the process of the calculation of the Mueller matrix by a matrix-inversion method, oriented to static systems and in vitro samples. By driving the retarders with appropriate voltages, nine independent pairs of polarization states can be produced (incomplete polarimetry), while the other additional seven pairs are obtained by placing two quarter-wave plates (in the input and output optical paths respectively). This configuration allows extraction of 16 independent measurements of intensity. The Mueller matrix of the sample is calculated from them. The results of Mueller matrices for air, a linear polarizer and a quarter-wave plate are presented. Additional polarization parameters such as retardation, ellipticity or degree of polarization were also computed and some applications of the system are proposed.


After 9/11, Congress, federal agencies, and scholars exposed the devastating results of the national security agencies' failure to coordinate. The financial crisis has been linked to similar coordination failures in the context of interagency banking regulation, with jurisdictional gaps and blind spots resulting in failure to prevent a global recession. But despite Gilded Age-levels of inequality, little attention has focused on the failures of interagency coordination to secure Americans' access to economic opportunity through work—whether through securing higher wages and higher union density, coordinating government enforcement to achieve redistributive goals and combat consolidation of employer buyer power, or overcoming systemic abuses in employers' wage theft, discrimination, and worker mistreatment. The crippling spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic demands that now, more than ever, agencies coordinate in their regulation of labor markets to accomplish micro- and macroeconomic policy outcomes.

This Essay is a component of a larger project that seeks to document federal agencies' selective coordination along six core policy vectors that impact work- or income-based avenues towards equality—macroeconomic, microeconomic, institution-building, industry-specific, anti-subordination, and democratic/expressive policy. It presents the results of a novel data set collecting and systematizing existing Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) authorized by the core agencies involved in labor market regulation: the Department of Labor (DOL), its sub-agencies, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Department of Justice-Antitrust Division, and the Federal Trade Commission. By reviewing and hand-coding the 113 discoverable MOUs from the 1950s to the present, the Essay highlights which labor agencies coordinate most and least, what MOUs historically facilitate as a substantive and administrative matter, best practices of interagency coordination through MOUs, the network of existing institutional relationships for mobilization along the six policy vectors previously identified, and the broad scope and areas of labor market regulation on which coordination has not yet occurred. It concludes by arguing that the federal government lacks a coherent, aligned vision on labor market regulation and economic mobility through work, and proposes next steps for integrating agency coordination.


When two researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) announced in April that they had successfully simulated a 45-qubit quantum circuit, the science community took notice: it was the largest ever simulation of a quantum computer, and another step closer to simulating "quantum supremacy"—the point at which quantum computers become more powerful than ordinary computers. [26]


Transition-metal doping leads to dramatic structural changes and results in novel bonding patterns in small boron clusters. Based on the experimentally derived mono-ring planar C9v Ta©B92- (1) and extensive first-principles theory calculations, we present herein the possibility of high-symmetry double-ring tubular D9d Ta@B183- (2) and C9v Ta2@B18 (3) and triple-ring tubular D9h Ta2@B27+ (4), which may serve as embryos of single-walled metalloboronanotube α-Ta3@B48(3,0) (5) wrapped up from the recently observed most stable free-standing boron α-sheet on a Ag(111) substrate with a transition-metal wire (-Ta-Ta-) coordinated inside. Detailed bonding analyses indicate that, with an effective dz2-dz2 overlap on the Ta-Ta dimer along the C9 molecular axis, both Ta2@B18 (3) and Ta2@B27+ (4) follow the universal bonding pattern of σ + π double delocalization with each Ta center conforming to the 18-electron rule, providing tubular aromaticity to these Ta-doped boron complexes with magnetically induced ring currents. The IR, Raman, and UV-vis spectra of 3 and 4 are computationally simulated to facilitate their future experimental characterization.


In graph sparsification, the goal has almost always been of global nature: compress a graph into a smaller subgraph (sparsifier) that maintains certain features of the original graph.
Algorithms can then run on the sparsifier, which in many cases leads to improvements in the overall runtime and memory.
This paper studies sparsifiers that have bounded (maximum) degree, and are thus locally sparse, aiming to improve local measures of runtime and memory. To improve those local measures, it is important to be able to compute such sparsifiers locally.

We initiate the study of local algorithms for bounded degree sparsifiers in unweighted sparse graphs, focusing on the problems of vertex cover, matching, and independent set. Let \eps > 0 be a slack parameter and \alpha \ge 1 be a density parameter.
We devise local algorithms for computing:
1. A (1+\eps)-vertex cover sparsifier of degree O(\alpha / \eps), for any graph of arboricity \alpha.\footnote{In a graph of arboricity \alpha the average degree of any induced subgraph is at most 2\alpha.}
2. A (1+\eps)-maximum matching sparsifier and also a (1+\eps)-maximal matching sparsifier of degree O(\alpha / \eps, for any graph of arboricity \alpha.
3. A (1+\eps)-independent set sparsifier of degree O(\alpha^2 / \eps), for any graph of average degree \alpha.

Our algorithms require only a single communication round in the standard message passing model of distributed computing,
and moreover, they can be simulated locally in a trivial way.
As an immediate application we can extend results from distributed computing and local computation algorithms that apply to graphs of degree bounded by d to graphs of arboricity O(d / \eps) or average degree O(d^2 / \eps), at the expense of increasing the approximation guarantee by a factor of (1+\eps). In particular, we can extend the plethora of recent local computation algorithms for approximate maximum and maximal matching from bounded degree graphs to bounded arboricity graphs with a negligible loss in the approximation guarantee.

The inherently local behavior of our algorithms can be used to amplify the approximation guarantee of any sparsifier in time roughly linear in its size,
which has immediate applications in the area of dynamic graph algorithms. In particular, the state-of-the-art algorithm for
maintaining (2-\eps)-vertex cover (VC) is at least linear in the graph size, even in dynamic forests. We provide a reduction from the dynamic to the static case, showing that if a t-VC can be computed from scratch in time T(n) in any (sub)family of graphs with arboricity bounded by \alpha, for an arbitrary t \ge 1,
then a (t+\eps)-VC can be maintained with update time \frac{T(n)}{O((n / \alpha) \cdot \eps^2)}, for any \eps > 0. For planar graphs this yields an algorithm for maintaining a (1+\eps)-VC with constant update time for any constant \eps > 0.


Abstract Research suggests that since the 1980s, both the United States and Europe have experienced a simultaneous expansion in social entrepreneurship. In the early 2000s, a new breed of social entrepreneurship emerged in Japan. A careful reflection on the movement will reveal that there were many manifestations of social entrepreneurship in premodern Japan as well. This paper analyzes the historical perspective and the current trends in social entrepreneurship in Japan. In particular, the paper presents what we call a 'three-generation model' of the primary drivers of social entrepreneurship in Japan, and a theoretical model of innovation to answer the following questions: (i) How has Japanese social entrepreneurship been developed and who are the primary drivers in the process of development? (ii) What are the characteristics of Japanese social entrepreneurship as compared with those in the United States and Europe, and what are the social contexts generating the differences? (iii) What are the characteristics of the innovation aspect of Japanese social entrepreneurship, and why is innovation particularly important in the institutional context of Japanese society?


Abstract:This essay takes the last pages of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time at its word: at the moment the narrator achieves a definitive conception of the work he intends to write, he sees society composed, not of people of flesh and blood, but of monsters fit for a museum of natural history. As the novel culminates in images and concepts that are essentially nonhuman, inhuman, or posthuman in character, it demonstrates an exacting knowledge of what the present is only now beginning to realize: after two world wars and humanity's recent entry into what is called the age of the Anthropocene, certain fundamental relations (between subject and object, between nature and history, between past, present, and future) must be rethought to account for both the eclipse of the human as well as nature's ultimate survival. This essay seeks to develop a philosophical form that would approximate the novel's discovery of this posthuman natural history.


List of Scheduled castes and scheduled Tribes (Amendment act, Hisotry and scope of district Census handbook, Village Directory, Alphabetical list of villages of jirapur C. D Block, C. D blockwise Abstract of Eductional, Medical and other Amenities, Town Directory, Status and Growth History, Physical aspects and location of town, Municipal finance, Medical, Educational, Recreational and Banking, Facilities, Town Showing their out-growth with population, Places of Tourist intersest in the towns of the district, Primary Census Abstract.


Hyperoxia is an essential aid to life support in patients with severe respiratory failure. However, it is recognised as a contributor to the pathological consequences of oxidative stress including oxidative tissue damage, inflammation and cell death resulting in acute or chronic lung injury. The specific mechanisms behind this type of injury are still not completely understood. This study was undertaken with two main aims. Firstly, to evaluate the adverse effects of hyperoxia on the ciliary coverage using a novel large animal model. For the first time, an in vitro bronchus bovine tissue culture model was developed and used to quantify ciliary coverage loss over time. The protection role of antioxidant supplementation with α-tocopherol and ascorbate was also investigated. Secondly, the importance of the tight junction protein ZO-1 in hyperoxia-induced monolayer permeability was investigated using a human bronchial cell line (16HBE14o-) and the potential inflammation effects on bronchial tightness. Additionally studies were carried out in order to find out if antioxidant vitamin treatment can protect against or reduce these effects. Scanning electronic microscopy indicated that hyperoxia caused a time dependent decline (t1⁄2 = 3.4 d compared to 37.1 d under normoxia) in ciliary coverage (P < 0.0001). This was associated with an increase in the number of sloughed cells, many apparently intact, into the medium (p < 0.05). Several biochemical parameters were assessed to obtain evidence of oxidative stress iii caused by hyperoxia in this model including tissue damage (lactate dehydrogenase, LDH, in the medium), lipid peroxidation (thiobarbituric acid reactive substances, TBARS), DNA damage (comet assay used for the first time with primary bronchus culture), protein oxidation (OxyBlot kit) and antioxidant status (total glutathione). Antioxidant vitamins had a significant protective effect on the hyperoxia-induced reduction in percentage ciliary coverage (P < 0.05). Moreover, an increase in the bronchial permeability was shown characterised by a significant decrease (P < 0.05) in transepithelial electrical resistance (TER) under hyperoxic conditions. The reduction of ZO-1 associated fluorescence (P < 0.01) is in compatible with the downregulation of ZO-1 expression assessed by RT-PCR. Levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-8, IL-6 and TNF-α concentration in the medium, as measured by ELISA, increased significantly (P < 0.001) under hyperoxia, and this was accompanied with a marked increase in the cytokine expression. However, the antioxidant vitamins E and C, partially reduced the impact effects of hyperoxia, both individually and in combination, whilst increases in ZO-1 expression and fluorescence intensity (P < 0.05), as well as the suppression of cytokine secretion and gene expression was modest. Use of these vitamins was not enough to reduce the epithelial permeability significantly compared to normoxia. The data implies that hyperoxia-induced damage to cultured bovine bronchial epithelium and the denudation of cilia over time with increased permeability was due, at least in part, to the decline in TJ protein expression and associated fluorescence intensity. The antioxidant vitamins vitamin E and C had partial protective effects against hyperoxia damage. However, additional studies are called for in order to further understand the possible associations between oxidative stress and inflammation caused by hyperoxia and tight junction iv proteins, also response to treatment with antioxidant individually or in


Immunization is one of the most effective essential public health interventions and cost effective strategies to reduce child morbidity and mortality. Reducing U5 child mortality is one among the eight Millennium Development Goals by the target date of 2015. However, there are three countries that are still reeling under the heavy burden of the poliovirus transmission. Nigeria, one among the three, has remained a reservoir for the re-introduction of polio into 25 previously polio-free countries. This calls for huge resources that have to be mobilized to mount a responsive immunization in these countries, primarily because poliovirus transmission could not be controlled in Nigeria, which is a source. This is because of the poor routine immunization coverage in the country coupled with low quality immunization campaigns - outcome influenced by religious opposition to OPV by Muslim groups, insurgency, militants, and poor health systems, hard to reach areas, poor commitment of voluntary workers hired for campaigns, official corruption, and other factors. In response to this disturbing trend, the Nigerian government initiated an emergency operations center to monitor the immunization campaigns and rolled out a nation-wide emergency action plan aimed at achieving full eradication of polio. In order to strengthen routine immunization the government along with international partners developed the National Routine Immunization Strategic Plan 2012-15, which clearly lays out the key goals, challenges, objectives, and strategies to strengthen Nigeria's Routine Immunization (RI) system along with a monitoring and evaluation plan. For this plan to be successful, there has to be a reliable and fast way to collect and transmit immunization data so that corrective actions can be initiated. Currently the paper based system of transmitting the routine immunization data to higher levels takes too long to initiate corrective actions that can make a meaningful impact. By collaborating with healthcare professionals currently working for RI in Nigeria and ongoing interviews with health care officers, the author has been able to understand better the real-time difficulties on the ground. This proposal presents a strategy that addresses this critical problem. The use of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology in gathering first hand information from the health workers at grass root level will provide sufficient and timely high quality data. The time lag will be reduced from the current 45 days to less than a week. Information on the proportion of planned immunization sessions conducted, number of immunization sessions cancelled, reasons for the cancellation of sessions, availability of vaccines and logistics, and provision of funding for transportation of health care workers to remote villages to conduct outreach sessions will be captured by the IVR system. Data will be collected through automated phone calls to the health care workers on the day of immunization soon after the session is completed. This data will be collected, collated, analyzed and trend graphs will be generated and shared with health care authorities at Local, State, and National levels, through the fastest possible channels - SMS, email, phone calls, etc. for corrective new actions. This exercise will require development and customization of the readily available software technology, crucial advocacy by the Ministry of Health in Nigeria for buy in, collection of critical information on immunization micro plans, collection of mobile numbers of health care workers, MOU's with the mobile service providers, training of health care workers, and supportive supervision. The project will also incorporate evaluation systems at regular intervals to ensure that the program is on track to achieve its objectives of capturing real-time data, reducing cancellation of scheduled sessions, and increasing immunization coverage. The successful interruption of polio transmission will undoubtedly rely on a sustained focus on the primary objective of achieving full eradication through effective and timely response to outbreaks, sustained surveillance measures, and increased routine immunization.


Research Data Management (RDM) has become a major issue for universities over the last decade. This case study outlines the review of RDM services carried out at the University of Oxford in partnership with external consultants between November 2019 and November 2020. It aims to describe and discuss the processes in undertaking a university-wide review of services supporting RDM and developing a future road map for them, with a strong emphasis on the design processes, methodological approaches and infographics used. The future road map developed is a live document, which the consulting team handed over to the University at the end of the consultation process. It provides a suggested RDM action plan for the University that will continue to evolve and be iterated in the light of additional internal costings, available resources and reprioritization in the budget cycle for each academic year. It is hoped that the contents of this case study will be useful to other research-intensive universities with an interest in developing and planning RDM services to support their researchers.


The author analyzes a loan-level dataset of 1,528 defaults in California that led to sale of the property as "real estate owned" during the period from 2005 to 2017. In 898 cases (59%), lenders lost 43% of the initial loan ($89,877) on average, per foreclosure. In 942 cases (62%), borrowers lost 30% of the initial price of their home ($147,077), on average. The borrowers who ended up with a profit were those who increased their debt the most after the first purchase loan. Moreover, one in four borrowers generated an average profit of $115,856, while their lenders incurred an average loss of $93,114 precisely because excessive equity extraction transfered the downside risk to the lender. Two-thirds of all ARM borrowers defaulted within the first 3 years of the loan, implying underqualified borrowers at origination. This is an indication of predatory lending/borrowing practices that fueled the wave of foreclosures. The author finds that foreclosure discounts on REO sales in California were 35%, on average, with the highest discount appearing in 2009. Measures that prevent or limit cash-outs during a housing boom, and incentives to default during a housing bust, could help reduce foreclosures and their costs. TOPICS: MBS and residential mortgage loans, legal and regulatory issues for structured finance, financial crises and financial market history Key Findings • An analysis of 1,528 foreclosures in California shows that lenders lost $89,877 and borrowers lost $147,027, on average, per foreclosure during the 2008 mortgage crisis. One in four defaulting borrowers generated a profit, while their lenders incurred a loss due to excessive equity extraction. • ARM borrowers defaulted within the first 3 years of the loan, indicating that these borrowers were underqualified at origination. FRM borrowers defaulted later but used cash-outs more aggressively, leading to negative equity that motivated defaults during the crisis. • Foreclosure discounts were 35% in California, on average, with the worst discount occurring in 2009. Despite the volatility of HPI, every period of 12 years or longer since 1975 led to price appreciation, indicating that foreclosure should be avoided, as the recovery of the market always leads to capital gains.