Since its introduction in the 1860s, gypsy moth, Lymantria dispar (L.), has periodically defoliated large swaths of forest in the eastern United States. Prior research has suggested that the greatest costs and losses from these outbreaks accrue in residential areas, but these impacts have not been well quantified. We addressed this lacuna with a case study of Baltimore City. Using two urban tree inventories, we estimated potential costs and losses from a range of gypsy moth outbreak scenarios under different environmental and management conditions. We combined outbreak scenarios with urban forest data to model defoliation and mortality and based the costs and losses on the distribution of tree species in different size classes and land uses throughout Baltimore City. In each outbreak, we estimated the costs of public and private suppression, tree removal and replacement, and human medical treatment, as well as the losses associated with reduced pollution uptake, increased carbon emissions and foregone sequestration. Of the approximately 2.3 M trees in Baltimore City, a majority of the basal area was primary or secondary host for gypsy moth. Under the low outbreak scenario, with federal and state suppression efforts, total costs and losses were $5.540 M, much less than the $63.666 M estimated for the high outbreak scenario, in which the local public and private sectors were responsible for substantially greater tree removal and replacement costs. The framework that we created can be used to estimate the impacts of other non-native pests in urban environments. © 2014 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.


Campylobacter spp. are the most frequent agent of human gastroenteritis worldwide, and the spread of multidrug-resistant strains makes the clinical treatment difficult. The current study presents the resistome analysis of 39,798 Campylobacter jejuni and 11,920 Campylobacter coli genomes available in public repositories. Determinants of resistance to β-lactams (Be) and tetracyclines (Te) were the most frequent for both species, with resistance to quinolones (Qu) as the third most important on C. jejuni and to aminoglycosides (Am) on C. coli. Moreover, resistance to Te, Qu, and Am was frequently found in co-occurrence with resistance to other antibiotic families. Geographical differences on clonal complexes distribution were found for C. jejuni and on resistome genotypes for both C. jejuni and C. coli species. Attending to the resistome patterns by isolation source, three main clusters of genomes were found on C. jejuni genomes at antimicrobial resistance gene level. The first cluster was formed by genomes from human, food production animals (e.g., sheep, cow, and chicken), and food (e.g., dairy products) isolates. The higher incidence of tet(O), associated with tetracycline resistance, and the gyrA (T86I) single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), associated with quinolone resistance, among genomes from this cluster could be due to the intense use of these antibiotics in veterinary and human clinical settings. Similarly, a high incidence of tet(O) genes of C. coli genomes from pig, cow, and turkey was found. Moreover, the cluster based on resistome patterns formed by C. jejuni and C. coli genomes of human, turkey, and chicken origin is in agreement with previous observations reporting chicken or poultry-related environments as the main source of human campylobacteriosis infections. Most clonal complexes (CCs) associated with chicken host specialization (e.g., ST-354, ST-573, ST-464, and ST-446) were the CCs with the highest prevalence of determinants of resistance to Be, Qu, and Te. Finally, a clear trend toward an increase in the occurrence of Te and Qu resistance determinants on C. jejuni, linked to the spread of the co-occurrence of the blaOXA–61 and tet(O)-tet(O/W/O) genes and the gyrA (T86I) SNP, was found from 2001 to date in Europe.


Gromiids are large amoeboid protozoans with an organic test and filose pseudopodia, which
protrude through a shell aperture that is surrounded by an oral capsule. The first shallow-water
gromiid, Gromia oviformis, was described by Dujardin in 1835 and is found worldwide. It was
only in 1994, however, that gromiids were found for the first time at bathyal depths in a nonfjord
setting, when the first deep-sea gromiid, G. sphaerica, was recovered from below the
oxygen minimum zone on the continental slope off Oman in the Arabian Sea. The present study
is based on the largest sample set of undescribed deep-sea gromiids thus far. The core of this
thesis is the description of twelve new morphospecies from bathyal and abyssal depths (1180 m
– 4800 m) in the Weddell Sea, Antarctica, using a combination of morphological and molecular
criteria. All species possess a distinct oral capsule and a layer of "honeycomb membranes",
which form the inner part of the organic test wall. Both these features are characteristic of
gromiids. Their identification as gromiids is confirmed by analyses of partial small subunit
ribosomal DNA (SSU rDNA) gene sequences for three of the twelve new species: Gromia
marmorea sp. nov., Gromia melinus sp. nov., and Gromia winnetoui sp. nov. Phylogenetic
analysis using the maximum likelihood method revealed that G. marmorea and G. melinus form
two distinct clades reflecting the morphological differences amongst the Weddell Sea species,
and between deep-water Southern Ocean Gromia and previously described shallow-water
gromiid G. oviformis, as well as gromiids from the deep Arabian Sea. Gromia winnetoui forms a
third clade which branches with one of the Arabian Sea species. Both these species are
morphologically very distinct and therefore the molecular results are inconsistent with the
morphological characteristics. Based solely on morphological criteria, another sixteen
morphospecies from the Northeast Atlantic are described, including specimens from the
Northwest African margin (1320 m), the Porcupine Seabight and the Rockall Trough (1028-
3000 m), the Skagerrak (664 m), and the fjords of More along the western coast of Norway (65-
667 m). Most deep-sea gromiids appear to range in size between 0.1 and 4.0 mm, except for
morphospecies B2 from the Skagerrak as well as most of the Arabian Sea species, which display
a wider size range. The different morphospecies exhibit a variety of shapes, including spherical,
droplet, conical, grape, elongate oval, sausage, bowling pin, vermiform, and irregular. The
results of this thesis support the hypothesis that gromiids occur at depths >200 m in all major
oceans. They are predominantly found along continental margins between 1000 and 3000 m.
This thesis presents the only two records of Gromia (G. melinus and Species 154) from depths
>4000 m in the Weddell Sea. It is hypothesized that further sampling will increase the number of
species and novel morphotypes. Gromiids appear to be found in highest abundances in areas
with elevated fluxes of organic matter. They are likely to play an important role in carbon and
nitrogen cycling, as well as increasing local biodiversity.


This volume presents the work of trailblazing researchers and developers of electronic communities for professional learning. It illuminates the essential work behind the scenes in building successful online communities and scaffolding site interactions, including content selection, creation and management, administrative structures, tools and interactive functionalities, the facilitation of discourse and emergent sub-communities, and the development of online leadership. While each of the authors is knowledgeable about site design, new technologies, and collaborative Web tools, their work is deeply influenced and informed by scholarship which has unfolded over the last three decades about how professional learning takes place, particularly for math and science educators.


We present a framework where different visual notations may be implemented to suit different domains. The major characteristic of DAViLa is that it provides a domain independent framework to programming, adding components of interest for specific domains. A domain adaptation is achieved through implementation of domain specific components, which are added to the framework. The semantics of the framework is based on Combilog, a compositional programming method for relational programs. In Combilog, programming semantically is composition of sets of tuples.


One obstacle to applying reinforcement learning algorithms to real-world problems is the lack of suitable reward functions. Designing such reward functions is difficult in part because the user only has an implicit understanding of the task objective. This gives rise to the agent alignment problem: how do we create agents that behave in accordance with the user's intentions? We outline a high-level research direction to solve the agent alignment problem centered around reward modeling: learning a reward function from interaction with the user and optimizing the learned reward function with reinforcement learning. We discuss the key challenges we expect to face when scaling reward modeling to complex and general domains, concrete approaches to mitigate these challenges, and ways to establish trust in the resulting agents.


Recent reports indicate that more than 300,000 cases of Lyme Background: disease are diagnosed yearly in the USA. Preliminary clinical, epidemiological and immunological studies suggest that infection with the Lyme disease spirochete (Bb) could be transferred from person to person Borrelia burgdorferi via intimate human contact without a tick vector. Detecting viable Borrelia spirochetes in vaginal and seminal secretions would provide evidence to support this hypothesis. Patients with and without a history of Lyme disease were selected Methods: for the study after informed consent was obtained. Serological testing for Bb was performed on all subjects. Semen or vaginal secretions were inoculated into BSK-H medium and cultured for four weeks. Examination of genital cultures and culture concentrates for the presence of spirochetes was performed using light and darkfield microscopy, and spirochete concentrates were subjected to Dieterle silver staining, anti-Bb immunohistochemical staining, molecular hybridization and PCR analysis for further characterization. Immunohistochemical and molecular testing was performed in three independent laboratories. Positive and negative controls were included in all experiments. Control subjects who were asymptomatic and seronegative for Bb Results: had no detectable spirochetes in genital secretions by PCR analysis. In contrast, spirochetes were observed in cultures of genital secretions from 11 of 13 subjects diagnosed with Lyme disease, and motile spirochetes were detected in genital culture concentrates from 12 of 13 Lyme disease patients using light and darkfield microscopy. Morphological features of spirochetes were confirmed by Dieterle silver staining and immunohistochemical staining of culture concentrates. Molecular hybridization and PCR testing confirmed that the spirochetes isolated from semen and vaginal secretions were strains of , and all cultures were negative for treponemal spirochetes. PCR Borrelia sequencing of cultured spirochetes from three couples having unprotected sex indicated that two couples had identical strains of Bb in their sensu stricto semen and vaginal secretions, while the third couple had identical strains of B. detected in their genital secretions. hermsii 1 2 3 3


Placed uniquely at the intersection of common law and civil law, mixed legal systems are today attracting the attention both of scholars of comparative law, and of those concerned with the development of a European private law. Pre-eminent among the mixed legal systems are those of Scotland and South Africa. In South Africa the Roman-Dutch law, brought to the Cape by the Dutch East India Company in 1652 was, from the early nineteenth century onwards, infused with and re-moulded by the common law of the British imperial master. In Scotland a more gradual and elusive process saw the Roman-Scots law of the early modern period fall under the influence of English law after the Act of Union in 1707. The result, in each case, was a system of law which drew from both of the great European traditions whilst containing distinctive elements of its own. This volume sets out to compare the effects of this historical development by assessing whether shared experience has led to shared law. Key topics from the law of property and obligations are examined, collaboratively and comparatively, by teams of leading experts from both jurisdictions. The individual chapters reveal an intricate pattern of similarity and difference, enabling courts and legal writers in Scotland and South Africa to learn from the experience of a kindred jurisdiction. They also, in a number of areas, reveal an emerging and distinctive jurisprudence of mixed systems, and thus suggest viable answers to some of the great questions which must be answered on the path towards a European private law.


The present study aimed to develop a hybrid model to predict the rainfall time series of Urmia Lake watershed. For this purpose, a model based on discrete wavelet transform, ARIMAX and least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) (W-S-LSSVM) was developed. The proposed model was designed to handle linear, nonlinear and seasonality of rainfall time series. In the proposed model, time series were decomposed into sub-series (approximation (a) and details (d)). Next, the sub-series were predicted separately. In the proposed model, sub-series were fed into SARIMAX to be predicted. The residual of predicted sub-series (error) of the rainfall time series was then fed into LSSVM to predict the residual components. Then, all predicted values were aggregated to rebuild the predicted time series. In order to compare results, first a classic modeling was performed by LSSVM. Later, wavelet-based LSSVM was used to capture the peak values of rainfall. Results revealed that Daubechies 4 and decomposition level 4 (db(4,4)) led to the best outcome. Due to the performance of db(4,4), it was selected to be applied in the proposed model. Based on results it was observed that the W-S-LSSVM9s performance was improved in comparison to other models.


A number of information technology schemes have been developed in order to provide people with mental health problems the opportunity to acquire skills in micro-computer technology. Even though positive results have been reported a high incidence of dropouts during the beginning of the training have been found. The research is based on the assumption that in order for a computer training method to be effective in fostering computer skills and confidence to adult novice users with mental health problems has to: (a) bridge the gap between the user's capacities, needs, and preferences and the demands of the computer interfaces and their real task applications; (b) consider the ways adult novice users prefer to learn and the skill acquisition theories; (c) facilitate a goal directed interaction with the computer system; (d) maintain an optimal complexity level across training; and (e) allow flexibility of use. Based on the relevant literature, a methodology model and a set of design propositions and construction guidelines have been derived and have been implemented for the development of Goaldirected, optimal complexity, Flexible & Task oriented (GOFT) training materials for adult, novice users with mental health problems. The GOFT training materials were based on three different models, the one for the creation of a goal directed instruction format and the other two for the organisation of the training, and the estimation of the difficulty level of each new computer operation or real task application. Evaluation of use of the GOFT Training Materials by 34 adult, novice users (aged 18-51) with mental health problems revealed positive results. More specifically, the use of the GOFT training materials as compared to traditional methods resulted in a significant increase in the number of participants at the different training stages (85.3% versus 47.2%; and 44.5% versus 22.2% at three and twelve months respectively), in perfect & regular attendance rate ( 44,12% versus 11.11% & 32.35% versus 16.67%) and in the performance level (means of 3.75 versus 2.67) of the users. The subjective evaluation by the users also revealed significant differences between the GOFT and traditional training materials. In their evaluation the GOFT materials were rated significantly higher in terms of systematic arrangement, personal affect, understandability, task relevance, fitness, sense of control, confidence in using the mastered functions and in supporting goal directed learning approach.


Expression of connexin 40 (Cx40) and Cx43 in cardiovascular tissues varies as a function of age, injury, and development with unknown consequences on the selectivity of junctional communication and its acute regulation. We investigated the PKC-dependent regulation of charge selectivity in junctions composed of Cx43, Cx40, or both by simultaneous assessment of junctional permeance rate constants (B(dye)) for dyes of similar size but opposite charge, N,N,N-trimethyl-2-[methyl-(7-nitro-2,1,3-benzoxadiol-4-yl)amino]ethanaminium (NBD-M-TMA; +1) and Alexa 350 (-1). The ratio of dye rate constants (B(NBD-M-TMA)/B(Alexa 350)) indicated that Cx40 junctions are cation selective (10.7 +/- 0.5), whereas Cx43 junction are nonselective (1.22 +/- 0.14). In coexpressing cells, a broad range of junctional selectivities was observed with mean cation selectivity increasing as the Cx40 to Cx43 expression ratio increased. PKC activation reduced or eliminated dye permeability of Cx43 junctions without altering their charge selectivity, had no effect on either permeability or charge selectivity of Cx40 junctions, and significantly increased the cation selectivity of junctions formed by coexpressing cells (approaching charge selectivity of Cx40 junctions). Junctions composed of Cx43 truncated at residue 257 (Cx43tr) were also not charge selective, but when Cx43tr was coexpressed with Cx40, a broad range of junctional selectivities that was unaffected by PKC activation was observed. Thus, whereas the charge selectivities of homomeric/homotypic Cx43 and Cx40 junctions appear invariant, the selectivities of junctions formed by cells coexpressing Cx40 and Cx43 vary considerably, reflecting both their relative expression levels and phosphorylation-dependent regulation. Such regulation could represent a mechanism by which coexpressing cells such as vascular endothelium and atrial cells regulate acutely the selective intercellular communication mediated by their gap junctions.


A permutation $\pi$ of an abelian group $G$ (that is, a bijection from $G$ to itself) will be said to avoid arithmetic progressions if there does not exist any triple $(a,b,c)$ of elements of $G$, not all equal, such that $c-b=b-a$ and $\pi(c)-\pi(b)=\pi(b)- \pi(a)$. The basic question is, which abelian groups possess such a permutation? This and problems of a similar nature will be considered.


The synthesis of new tripodal nitrogen ligands derived from tris(pyrazolyl)methane (TpmR, R = H, tBu, Ph in 3-position) is described. After deprotonation of the parent tris(pyrazolyl)methane TpmR, the carbanion reacts readily with ethylene oxide to yield the 3,3,3-tris(3′-substituted pyrazolyl)propanol ligands[(3-Rpz)3CCH2CH2OH, R = H, tBu, Ph, 1a–c]. These ligands can be easily derivatised at the alcohol function. Microwave-assisted reactions of these ligands and [Re(CO)5Br] yields the complex [(1a)Re(CO)3]Br (4) in the case of ligand 1a, whereas in the case of the substituted ligands 1b and 1c degradation was observed. The degradation products are identified as [(HpzR)2Re(CO)3Br] [R = tBu (7b), Ph (7c)]. These complexes were also prepared directly from [Re(CO)5Br] and the corresponding pyrazoles by microwave-assisted synthesis. The Re(CO)3 complexes 4 and [(1a)Re(CO)3]OTf (5) are water-soluble. The structures of 5·H2O and [{(pz)3CCH2CH3}Re(CO)3]OTf·1.5H2O·1/2CH3CN (6·1.5H2O·1/2CH3CN) as well as the structure of 7b have been elucidated by X-ray crystallography.


The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of price of rice, flour prices, population, income of population and demand of rice for a year earlier on rice demand, demand rice elasticity and rice demand prediction in Jambi Province. This study uses secondary data, including time series data for 22 years from 1988 until 2009. The study used some variables, consist of rice demand (Qdt), the price of rice (Hb), the price of wheat flour (Hg), population (Jp), the income of the population (PDRB) and demand for rice the previous year (Qdt-1). The make of this study are multiple regression and dynamic analysis  a Partial Adjustment Model, where the demand for rice is the dependent variable and the price of rice, flour prices, population, income population and demand of rice last year was the independent variable. Partial Adjustment Model analysis results showed that the effect of changes in prices of rice  and flour are not significant  to  changes in demand for rice. The population and demand of rice the previous year has positive and significant impact on demand for rice, while revenues have negative and significant population of rice demand. Variable price of rice, earning population and the price of flour is inelastic the demand of rice, because rice is not a normal good but as a necessity so that there is no substitution of goods (replacement) of rice with other commodities in Jambi Province. Based on the analysis, it is recommended to the government to be able to control the rate of population increase given the variable number of people as one of the factors that affect demand for rice.It is expected that the  government also began  to  socialize  in a lifestyle  of  non-rice food consumption to control the increasing amount of demand for rice. Last suggestion, the government developed a diversification of staple foods other than rice. Keywords: Demand, Rice, Income Population


Military Spouses Achieving College Education for Survivors Act of 2015 or ACES Act of 2015 This bill amends the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014 to deem any member of the Armed Forces who died between September 11, 2001, and December 31, 2005, to have died on January 1, 2006, in order to make that member's surviving spouse eligible for the Marine Gunnery Sergeant John David Fry scholarship. (Surviving spouses of service members who die in the line of duty after September 11, 2001, are eligible for such assistance until the earlier of the date they remarry or the date that is 15 years after the military spouse's death.) A surviving spouse of a member of the Armed Forces who died between September 11, 2001, and December 31, 2005, who elected before enactment of this Act to receive educational benefits under the Survivors and Dependents Educational Assistance program or the Marine Gunnery Sergeant John David Frye program may revoke such choice. (Such an election is currently irrevocable.)


The simple request for a sick note can disguise important medical, psychologic or social issues. Disability may be influenced by social and cultural factors as well as by patient expectations. Assessment of impairment and subsequent disability is best made on the basis of objective data by use of a biopsychosocial model to ensure that the expression of disability does not mask other unaddressed psychologic or social issues. Enabling prolonged disability in such a situation can be a dysfunctional physician response to a maladaptive process. The physician's role is to treat the condition, to fulfill the appropriate role of patient advocate, to facilitate health (including resumption of activity), to offer proactive advice on the basis of prognosis, to be familiar with the patient's social obligations and resources and to provide education about the therapeutic benefits of returning to optimal function. This factual, medical-based approach offers an effective preventive strategy that will save many patients from unnecessary disability and morbidity.


The potential of different field boundary types in lowland farmland to contribute to arthropod biodiversity and sustainable agriculture was investigated. Field boundaries, categorised according to nationally applicable definitions, were found to represent ecologically differing habitats based on their woody abundance and the frequency of young and mature emergent trees. These habitat characteristics were determining factors in the community structure and composition of overwintering epigeal arthropods. Hedgerows supported the most species rich carabid and staphylinid assemblage. Degraded hedgerow boundaries supported the most equitable carabid community, and provided a refuge for carabid species with poor dispersal power to a greater extent that hedgerows or post and wire fences. The grassy and natural regeneration vegetation associated with post and wire boundaries supported high densities of all taxa particularly overwintering carabid and staphylinid polyphagous predators. A subset of all field boundary types was required for complete species representation, indicating that maximising the heterogeneity of field boundary habitats represented at the farm-scale will enhance arthropod biodiversity in farmland. Carabidae and StaphyHnidae actively selected overwintering sites and the physiological condition of polyphagous predators was generally high. It was concluded that heterogeneous distributions in field boundaries were more likely to be the result of differential microhabitat selection rather than differential survival overwinter. This indicated that favourable overwintering microhabitats occurred in all field boundary types. Generally, overwintering survival did not appear to be a regulating factor in the population dynamics of polyphagous predators. Margins adjacent to pre-existing boundaries may contribute to enhanced densities and physiological condition of some polyphagous predators, both over winter and in early spnng. The results were discussed in relation to field boundary management and agrienvironment policy.


We introduce Phasic Policy Gradient (PPG), a reinforcement learning framework which modifies traditional on-policy actor-critic methods by separating policy and value function training into distinct phases. In prior methods, one must choose between using a shared network or separate networks to represent the policy and value function. Using separate networks avoids interference between objectives, while using a shared network allows useful features to be shared. PPG is able to achieve the best of both worlds by splitting optimization into two phases, one that advances training and one that distills features. PPG also enables the value function to be more aggressively optimized with a higher level of sample reuse. Compared to PPO, we find that PPG significantly improves sample efficiency on the challenging Procgen Benchmark.


Path integral methods provide a rigorous and systematically convergent framework to include the quantum mechanical nature of atomic nuclei in the evaluation of the equilibrium properties of molecules, liquids, or solids at finite temperature. Such nuclear quantum effects are often significant for light nuclei already at room temperature, but become crucial at cryogenic temperatures such as those provided by superfluid helium as a solvent. Unfortunately, the cost of converged path integral simulations increases significantly upon lowering the temperature so that the computational burden of simulating matter at the typical superfluid helium temperatures becomes prohibitive. Here we investigate how accelerated path integral techniques based on colored noise generalized Langevin equations, in particular the so-called path integral generalized Langevin equation thermostat (PIGLET) variant, perform in this extreme quantum regime using as an example the quasi-rigid methane molecule and its highly fluxional protonated cousin, CH5 (+). We show that the PIGLET technique gives a speedup of two orders of magnitude in the evaluation of structural observables and quantum kinetic energy at ultralow temperatures. Moreover, we computed the spatial spread of the quantum nuclei in CH4 to illustrate the limits of using such colored noise thermostats close to the many body quantum ground state.


This paper defines and studies a new, interesting, and challenging benchmark problem that originates in systems biology. The minimal seed-set problem is defined as follows: given a description of the metabolic reactions of an organism, characterize the minimal set of nutrients with which it could synthesize all nutrients it is capable of synthesizing. Current methods used in systems biology yield only approximate solutions. And although it is natural to cast it as a planning problem, current optimal planners are unable to solve it, while non-optimal planners return plans that are very far from optimal. As a planning problem, it is inherently delete-free, has many zero-cost actions, all propositions are landmarks, and many legal permutations of the plan exist. We show how a simple uninformed search algorithm that exploits inherent independence between sub-goals can solve it optimally by reducing the branching factor drastically.


Diagnosis and deciding about diseases in medical fields is facing innate uncertainty which can affect the whole process of treatment. This decision is made based on expert knowledge and the way in which an expert interprets the patient's condition, and the interpretation of the various experts from the patient's condition may be different. Fuzzy logic can provide mathematical modeling for many concepts, variables, and systems that are unclear and ambiguous and also it can provide a framework for reasoning, inference, control, and decision making in conditions of uncertainty. In systems with high uncertainty and high complexity, fuzzy logic is a suitable method for modeling. In this paper, we use type-2 fuzzy logic for uncertainty modeling that is in diagnosis of leukemia. The proposed system uses an indirect-direct approach and consists of two stages: In the first stage, the inference of blood test state is determined. In this step, we use an indirect approach where the rules are extracted automatically by implementing a clustering approach. In the second stage, signs of leukemia, duration of disease until its progress and the output of the first stage are combined and the final diagnosis of the system is obtained. In this stage, the system uses a direct approach and final diagnosis is determined by the expert. The obtained results show that the type-2 fuzzy expert system can diagnose leukemia with the average accuracy about 97%. Keywords—Expert system, leukemia, medical diagnosis, type-2 fuzzy logic.


Two-component systems (TCSs), which contain paired sensor kinase and response regulator proteins, form the primary apparatus for sensing and responding to environmental cues in bacteria. TCSs are thought to be highly specific, displaying minimal cross-talk, primarily due to the co-evolution of the participating proteins. To assess the level of cross-talk between the TCSs of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, we mapped the complete interactome of the M. tuberculosis TCSs using phosphotransfer profiling. Surprisingly, we found extensive cross-talk among the M. tuberculosis TCSs, significantly more than that in the TCSs in Escherichia coli or Caulobacter crescentus, thereby offering an alternate to specificity paradigm in TCS signalling. Nearly half of the interactions we detected were significant novel cross-interactions, unravelling a potentially complex signalling landscape. We classified the TCSs into specific 'one-to-one' and promiscuous 'one-to-many' and 'many-to-one' circuits. Using mathematical modelling, we deduced that the promiscuous signalling observed can explain several currently confounding observations about M. tuberculosis TCSs. Our findings suggest an alternative paradigm of bacterial signalling with significant cross-talk between TCSs yielding potentially complex signalling landscapes.


This paper proposes a multilevel transmission scheme for dimmable visible light communication systems. To provide dimming control of the multilevel modulation, the concatenation of different pulse-amplitude-modulated symbols is used to yield the overall signal with an average amplitude that matches the dimming requirement. This scheme also aims at arbitrary dimming adaptation by adjusting the composition of concatenated differently modulated symbols. To this end, the problem is formulated into linear programming with the objective of maximizing the transmission data rate and satisfying the dimming requirements. We present an achievable data rate of this transmission scheme and demonstrate the error performance under iterative decoding.


During in vitro differentiation, pluripotent stem cells undergo extensive remodeling of their gene expression profile. While studied extensively at the transcriptome level, much less is known about protein dynamics. Here, we measured mRNA and protein levels of 7459 genes during differentiation of embryonic stem cells (ESCs). This comprehensive data set revealed pervasive discordance between mRNA and protein. The high temporal resolution of the data made it possible to determine protein turnover rates genome-wide by fitting a kinetic model. This model further enabled us to systematically identify dynamic post-transcriptional regulation. Moreover, we linked different modes of regulation to the function of specific gene sets. Finally, we showed that the kinetic model can be applied to singlecell transcriptomics data to predict protein levels in differentiated cell types. In conclusion, our comprehensive data set, easily accessible through a web application, is a valuable resource for the discovery of post-transcriptional regulation in ESC differentiation.


College of Agriculture, Engineering and Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal Master of Science in Computer Engineering Facial Expression Recognition using Covariance Matrix Descriptors and Local Texture Patterns by Ashaylin Naidoo Facial expression recognition (FER) is a powerful tool that is emerging rapidly due to increased computational power in current technologies. It has many applications in the fields of humancomputer interaction, psychological behaviour analysis, and image understanding. However, FER presently is not fully realised due to the lack of an effective facial feature descriptor. The covariance matrix as a feature descriptor is popular in object detection and texture recognition. Its innate ability to fuse multiple local features within a domain is proving to be useful in applications such as biometrics. Developing methods also prevalent in pattern recognition are local texture patterns such as Local Binary Pattern (LBP) and Local Directional Pattern (LDP) because of their fast computation and robustness against illumination variations. This study will examine the performance of covariance feature descriptors that incorporate local texture patterns concerning applications in facial expression recognition. The proposed method will focus on generating feature descriptors to extract robust and discriminative features that can aid against extrinsic factors affecting facial expression recognition, such as illumination, pose, scale, rotation and occlusion. The study also explores the influence of using holistic versus componentbased approaches to FER. A novel feature descriptor referred to as Local Directional Covariance Matrices (LDCM) is proposed. The covariance descriptors will consist of fusing features such as location, intensity and filter responses, and include LBP and LDP into the covariance structure. Tests conducted will examine the accuracy of different variations of covariance features and the impact of segmenting the face into equal sized blocks or special landmark regions, i.e. eyes, nose and mouth, for classification. The results on JAFFE, CK+ and ISED facial expression databases establish that the proposed descriptor achieves a high level of performance for FER at a reduced feature size. The effectiveness of using a component-based approach with special landmarks displayed stable results across different datasets and environments.


This book addresses one of the most important challenges in contemporary human rights law and practice: the linkage between public finance, particularly budget decisions, and the realisation (or not) of economic and social rights (ESR). While much academic work and debate on economic and social rights implementation has focussed on the role of the courts, this work places the spotlight squarely on those organs of government that have the primary responsibility, and the greatest capacity, for giving effect to such rights: namely, the elected branches of government and public administration. All human rights undoubtedly potentially have implications for budgetary allocations and public finance generally. However, this collection's focus on economic and social rights is of particular significance given the strong linkage between the realisation of ESR and resource allocation, as well as the fact that the evaluation of budget allocations and the actual expenditure of allocated resources plays a key role in the assessment of states' compliance with their obligations to progressively realise such rights to the maximum of their available resources. In considering how public finance decisions can – and should – affect the effective implementation of such rights, this book plays a key role in informing a wider academic and popular debate on budgets, economic policy and human rights.The contributions to this book are particularly timely given the impact of the 2007-2008 global financial and economic crises Post 2008, budget cutbacks and reallocations have resulted in the domestic realisation of ESR being slowed and, in some cases, reversed. Common adjustment policies that both developed and developing countries have adopted to achieve expenditure consolidation in the face of severely (and sometimes not-so-severely) constrained resources include cutting or capping the public sector wage bill, phasing out or removing subsidies on goods such as fuel and other basic goods and services, cuts to social protection programmes, the reform of old-age pensions and regressive taxation such as increased consumption taxes on basic goods. All of these measures are issues of public finance. All of them affect ESR enjoyment. A key concern of many of the chapters in this volume is thus how to 'fight back' when faced with public finance decisions that impact negatively and disproportionately on the ESR of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in society. The work is also part of a sustained scholarly trend of exploring how human rights, including economic and social rights, might be more effectively mainstreamed in law, policy, and practice. The major actors considered in this book are politicians, public servants and civil society, with their role in realising economic and social rights the work's key focus. As such, the book seeks to assist in deepening knowledge on the part of both those who have responsibility for implementing economic and social rights obligations (state actors/public servants) and those that monitor such implementation (academics/activists).


The major purpose of the present study was to determine if reader-generated illustrations are as effective as experimenter-provided illustrations in providing students with the ability to understand scientific explanations. In addition, the authors were interested in replicating work by R. E. Mayer and colleagues (e.g., R. E. Mayer & R. B. Anderson, 1991; R. E. Mayer & J. K. Gallini, 1990) using different texts. The authors found that students with text and illustrations and students who generated their own illustrations performed better on a problem-solving test than students with text only and that there were no significant differences in performance between the former 2 groups.


Sound recordings made before 1972 are governed by a confusing array of state-law protections, the most notable of these being common law copyright. Although frequently treated as a pre-publication version of statutory copyright, common law copyright has less in common with statutory copyright than is generally assumed, and these differences have real effects on copyright holders and broadcasters. This piece aims to take the measure of common-law copyright and demonstrate that it is a substantially broader doctrine than statutory copyright in terms of what rights it grants to creators. Particular attention is paid to the right of public performance at common-law, which does not obey statutory limitations but instead offers blanket protection to rights holders.


Seismological studies on ultraslow-spreading mid-ocean ridges are not numerous due to the fact that the most prominent members of these ridges are located in polar regions. Investigations on Gakkel Ridge in the ice-covered Arctic Ocean and Lena Trough located in the Fram Strait between Greenland and Spitsbergen require special logistics and techniques. Above the latitude of 80°N ice floes endanger the deployment and recovery of ocean-bottom seismometers even during Arctic summer. DFG funded Emmy Noether group 'Mid-Ocean Volcanoes and Earthquakes' located at Alfred-Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research is carrying out seismological studies on arctic mid-ocean ridges and developed adequate techniques to record local seismicity in ice-covered oceans. We are using small-aperture seismic arrays equipped with Guralp broadband sensors which are deployed on drifting ice floes by helicopters operating from icebreakers such as RV Polarstern or RV Oden. Due to limited transport capacity and difficult weather conditions the station's weight and the ability to install them fast are important factors. The sensor needs to be isolated well against the strong solar radiation during the Arctic summer. An array consists of three to four single stations installed on one ice floe with a minimal diameter of one kilometer. During a time span of up to two weeks the stations are drifting several tens of kilometers according to local swell and wind direction and speed. The broadband sensors record a wide variety of signals, for which we identified different sources. Those can be colliding ice floes, helicopters or ice breaking ships, seismic blasts from the ship during seismic profiling, earthquakes within local, regional or even teleseismic distances and sometimes even curious wildlife.


The influence of flexoelectric coupling on the internal structure of neutral domain walls in the tetragonal phase of perovskite ferroelectrics is studied. The effect is shown to lower the symmetry of 180 degrees walls which are oblique with respect to the cubic crystallographic axes, while {100} and {110} walls stay "untouched." Being of the Ising type in the absence of the flexoelectric interaction, the oblique domain walls acquire a new polarization component with a structure qualitatively different from the classical Bloch-wall structure. In contrast to the Bloch-type walls, where the polarization vector draws a helix on passing from one domain to the other, in the flexoeffect-affected wall, the polarization rotates in opposite directions on the two sides of the wall and passes through zero in its center. Since the resulting polarization profile is invariant upon inversion with respect to the wall center, it does not break the wall symmetry, in contrast to the classical Bloch-type walls. The flexoelectric coupling lowers the domain wall energy and gives rise to its additional anisotropy, which is comparable to that conditioned by elastic anisotropy. The atomic order-of-magnitude estimates shows that the new polarization component P-2 may be comparable with spontaneous polarization P-s, thus suggesting that, in general, it is mandatory to include the flexoelectric coupling in domain wall simulations in ferroelectrics. Calculations performed for barium titanate yield the maximal value of P-2, which is much smaller than that of the spontaneous polarization. This smallness is attributed to an anomalously small value of a component of the "strain-polarization" electrostrictive tensor in this material.


Abstract Hydration reactions are known to affect rock or aggregate stability in construction; laumontite is not usually considered to be a 'problem-mineral' though drill cores from the very low-grade metamorphic altered andesites and volcanoclastic rocks from Central Chile showed detachments of shotcrete in a tunnel exposed to periodic water flow, with expandable clay phases presumed to be responsible for the observed failure. Abundant laumontite detected in the cores may also be responsible for the detachment, however, resulting from the structural expansion and contraction in response to hydration and drying. Clay reactivity in construction projects is often tested on site by 30 days of ethylene glycol exposure, but adequate monitoring options for laumontite are not deployed. Options for laumontite characterization involving a combination of water immersion and slaking and modified oedometer-based expansibility tests were used here to observe the response to laumontite expansion pressure. All tests were formulated considering minimal implementation efforts for building sites or the easy availability of analytical and testing facilities. Laumontite was identified by optical microscopy, semiquantitative X-ray diffraction, and automated mineralogical analysis. A combination of the latter two methods provided reliable information about the presence of sub-microscopic laumontite and a visual impression of the textural arrangement of the zeolite in the rock. A slaking test based on four cycles of immersion followed by drying and final application of weight (simulated overburden) is best suited to indirect detection and for demonstrating rock reactivity due to the presence of laumontite. Rocks with laumontite show expansion when crushed, recompacted and fitted into an oedometer, but mineralogical information is required for adequate interpretation of the results.


Multiple sclerosis, also called multiple sclerosis, is a chronic demyelinating disease that affects the central nervous system. It is shown, in the subjects with multiple sclerosis that in addition to the codified rehabilitation programs, it is possible to combine various sports activities, obviously adapted to the patient's disability. In addition, alongside physical activity and sport, the motor image can be associated to improve the disability and quality of life of these patients. In sports research, the use of images by the athlete was evaluated with interest during rehabilitation after an accident or during and after a period of training. Scientific studies have reported positive effects of the images regarding the cognitive, motivational and healing intentions of the athletes. On the basis of these premises we have evaluated the effects of the application of the motor image to subjects with multiple sclerosis affected by motor disorders, who practiced or did not practice sports. The data reported in this study suggest that there is potential for the application of motor image in physical therapy, especially for the im- provement of balance in individuals with multiple sclerosis.


The first gold record in Italy obtained exclusively through streaming playings is Andiamo a comandare by Fabio Rovazzi, a young youtuber extremely popular among teenagers. The fact that a youtuber and not a singer received such an award is a signal of the new ways in which Italian teenagers perceive and consume music today: video streaming affects music consumption as much as audio streaming. This essay aims to analyze the three songs Rovazzi has released so far, considering the three elements that contribute to his success: music, lyrics, and video. While the songs themselves rely heavily on Electronic Dance Music (EDM), rap, references to the internet, social networks and slang used by youngsters, the videos seem to create a subtler connection with the viewers who know social networks well and enjoy an active 'second' life with their help. Moreover, the videos complete the songs' meaning, almost as if the songs had been written to fit the videos and not vice versa.


This is a collection of complete comic book stories from the legendary team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, covering every genre in which they made their mark. From the very beginning in the late 1930s, Simon and Kirby produced the finest stories around, creating dramatic new super heroes ("Captain America", "Blue Bolt", "Fighting American", and "The Fly"), western action ("Boy's Ranch"), gruesome horror ("Black Magic"), explosive detective fiction ("Justice Traps the Guilty"), and the very first romance comics ("Young Romance"). They were the dream team. This is the only edition authorised by both Joe Simon and the estate of Jack Kirby; each story is hand-picked by Joe Simon himself.


In this article, we consider the setting of graph-structured data that evolves as a result of operations carried out by users or applications. We study different reasoning problems, which range from deciding whether a given sequence of actions preserves the satisfaction of a given set of integrity constraints, for every possible initial data instance, to deciding the (non)existence of a sequence of actions that would take the data to an (un)desirable state, starting either from a specific data instance or from an incomplete description of it. For describing states of the data instances and expressing integrity constraints on them, we use description logics (DLs) closely related to the two-variable fragment of first-order logic with counting quantifiers. The updates are defined as actions in a simple yet flexible language, as finite sequences of conditional insertions and deletions, which allow one to use complex DL formulas to select the (pairs of) nodes for which (node or arc) labels are added or deleted. We formalize the preceding data management problems as a static verification problem and several planning problems and show that, due to the adequate choice of formalisms for describing actions and states of the data, most of these data management problems can be effectively reduced to the (un)satisfiability of suitable formulas in decidable logical formalisms. Leveraging this, we provide algorithms and tight complexity bounds for the formalized problems, both for expressive DLs and for a variant of the popular DL-Lite, advocated for data management in recent years.


I. INTRODUCTION The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Barclays Bank PLC v. Franchise Tax Board;' involved California's right to apply a unitary2 or apportionments income taxation method to foreign-owned corporations doing business within the state. The outcome of Barclays Bank PLC was a billion dollar question for California,4 but of even greater consequence than the specific result is the reasoning the Supreme Court applied to reach its conclusion. This reasoning continues to have far-reaching implications for states' rights. Application of unitary or apportionment taxes to a U.S.-owned multinational corporation was challenged on constitutional grounds in Container Corp. of America v. Franchise Tax BoardS in 1983. In that case the U.S. Supreme Court held6 that California's apportionment tax did not violate the Due Process Clause, the Commerce Clause, or the Foreign Commerce Clause.7 Container Corp., however, left open the question whether a unitary taxation method could be applied constitutionally to a foreign-owned multinational corporation.8 Barclays Bank PLC represents a scenario placing the states against the executive branch in a battle between international trade alliances and state financial independence.9 The U.S. Constitution gives Congress exclusive power over both interstate and international commerce10 and provides the executive branch with control over foreign affairs.ll Though there is some natural overlap between foreign commerce and foreign affairs, Congress may give states the authority to "impinge" on commerce, whether foreign or domestic.l2 The question in Barclays Bank PLC was whether Congress impliedly gave permission to the states to use unitary or apportionment taxation as demonstrated by repeated congressional resistance to any limitations advocated by the executive branch or by U.S. trading partners.lg This Note analyzes the Foreign Commerce Clause portion of the Court's holding in Container Corp. and Barclays Bank PLC as well as other U.S. Supreme Court rulings on the Foreign Commerce Clause, arguing that the Court should have dispensed with the "one-voice" element of the dormant Foreign Commerce Clause analysis because it allows the executive branch veto power over congressional control of foreign commerce.14 II. DISCUSSION A. The Methods of Income Taxation Corporations doing business in more than one state or both inside and outside the United States present a special challenge for states employing a state income tax.15 The Commerce and Due Process Clauses of the U.S. Constitution dictate that "a State may not tax value earned outside its borders."16 To tax the income of corporations operating in more than one jurisdiction, states must have adequate methods of quantifying the portion of taxable value rationally and reasonably attributable to the corporation's activities in the state.17 Two basic models exist that "have long competed for supremacy in identifying the required division of multijurisdictional income."l8 These two models-arm's length/separate accounting and unitary business/formula apportionment-are discussed below. 1. The Arm's Length/Separate Accounting Method The first model is the arm's length/separate accounting (AL/ SA) method, which treats a corporation's business operations within the state "separately and distinctly from its business outside the state, and net income for income tax purposes is computed as if the corporation's activities were confined solely to that state."19 The AL/SA model is the dominant method employed by corporations both in the United States and internationally.20 It is also the internationally accepted standard for income taxation by nationstates.21 In Barclays Bank PLC, the petitioner argued that California should be required to use the AL/SA tax method to conform to international standards.22 Two sets of rules are paramount to the international AL/SA standard: " (1 ) those defining a permanent establishment, such as a branch or subsidiary corporation, that can be taxed by the host country; and (2) those specifying the procedures to be used to account for transactions between related parties in measuring the income of a permanent establishment. …


ABSTRACT Obtaining oral communication competency is an important skill for engineering students to prepare them for interacting and working in any professional setting. For engineers, it is also important to be able to present technical information to non-technical audiences. To ensure oral competency, a non-graded formative assessment approach using video with self- and peer assessment was introduced into a final-year engineering thesis course. A low workload approach was used due to growing student numbers and higher pressures on academic staff. A quasi-experimental design was used to investigate the differences between traditional delivery, self-assessment and combined self-assessment with peer feedback. The study found that the formative models were seen by students to help develop their presentation skills. However, the results showed no significant improvement compared to the traditional method. This could be due to previous presentation practice within the degree or more probable, the lack of incentive for weaker students to engage and improve due to the ungraded nature of the activity.


2,6-Xylidine is a chemical intermediate used principally in the production of dyes. It is also a component of tobacco smoke, a degradation product of aniline-based pesticides, and a metabolite of certain drugs, particularly the xylide group of local anesthetics. The National Toxicology Program (NTP) sponsored single-administration, 2-week, and 13-week studies of 2,6-xylidine by gavage in F344/N rats. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sponsored short-term gavage studies and 10-week range-finding studies in Charles River CD rats (a Sprague Dawley-derived strain). A carcinogenesis study of 2,6-xylidine was initiated by the EPA, which designed and monitored the study during the 2-year exposure period. The NTP then assumed responsibility for the study, conducting terminal kill, necropsy, histopathologic evaluation, data analysis, and report preparation. Oral LD50 values of 1.2-1.3 g/kg were calculated for F344/N and Charles River CD rats administered single doses of 2,6-xylidine. Marginally toxic effects occurred in the hepatic, renal, and hematopoietic systems of dosed rats in the single-administration, 2-week, 10-week, and 13-week studies. The 56 male and 56 female Charles River CD rats used in the 104-week carcinogenesis studies were the offspring of animals fed diets containing 0, 300, 1,000, or 3,000 ppm 2,6-xylidine before breeding, during pregnancy, and through the lactation period. The concentrations of 2,6-xylidine offered to animals in the 104-week studies were the same as those given to their parents. During most of the 2-year studies, high dose male and female rats showed a reduction (greater than 10%) in body weight gain. Survival in the high dose male rats was significantly reduced (P<0.001) relative to that in controls. Survival also was reduced in the 1,000-ppm group. There was no significant relationship between concentration and mortality in female rats, but mortality was high for all groups of female rats during the second year of the study. The epithelium of the nasal cavity was the primary site of compound-related neoplastic and nonneoplastic lesions. The incidences of both papillomas and carcinomas of the nasal cavity were significantly increased in high dose male and female rats. Carcinomas or adenocarcinomas (combined) occurred in 28/56 high dose males, 24/56 high dose females, and 1/56 mid dose females. Papillary adenomas occurred in 10/56 high dose males, 2/56 mid dose males, and 6/56 high dose females. None occurred in the other groups. The carcinomas were highly invasive and frequently destroyed the nasal turbinates and nasal septum. Metastasis to the brain was present in 5/56 male and 7/56 females high dose rats. Malignant mesenchymal tumors were observed in the nasal cavity. Rhabdomyosarcomas occurred in two high dose male rats and two high dose female rats. These rare malignant tumors have not been previously reported at this site in Sprague Dawley rats. Malignant mixed tumors having features of adenocarcinomas and rhabdomyosarcomas were reported in one high dose male and one high dose female rat. One undifferentiated sarcoma was seen in a high dose female rat. The nonneoplastic lesions observed in the nasal cavity included acute inflammation, epithelial hyperplasia, and squamous metaplasia. The incidences of subcutaneous tissue fibromas were increased in high dose male and female rats (male: control, 0/56; low dose, 1/56; mid dose, 2/56; high dose, 4/56; female: 0/56; 2/56; 1/56; 4/56) and were dose related. Subcutaneous fibrosarcomas were observed in three high dose females, one high dose male, one mid dose female, one low dose male, and one control female. A significant dose-related increase occurred in the incidence of female rats with neoplastic nodules of the liver (0/56; 1/56; 2/56; 4/55). This increase was significant in the high dose group by the incidental tumor test. Conclusions: Under the conditions of these 2-year feed studies, 2,6-xylidine was clearly carcinogenic for male and female Charles River CD rats, causing significant increases in the incidences of adenomas aadenomas and carcinomas of the nasal cavity. A rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare tumor of the nasal cavity, was observed in dosed rats of each sex. In addition, the increased incidences of subcutaneous fibromas and fibrosarcomas in male and female rats and the increased incidence of neoplastic nodules of the liver in female rats may have been related to the administration of 2,6-xylidine. Levels of Evidence of Carcinogenicity: Male Rats: Positive Female Rats: Positive Synonym: 2,6-Dimethylaniline


Determinantal Point Processes (DPPs) are elegant probabilistic models of repulsion and diversity over discrete sets of items. But their applicability to large sets is hindered by expensive cubic-complexity matrix operations for basic tasks such as sampling. In light of this, we propose a new method for approximate sampling from discrete $k$-DPPs. Our method takes advantage of the diversity property of subsets sampled from a DPP, and proceeds in two stages: first it constructs coresets for the ground set of items; thereafter, it efficiently samples subsets based on the constructed coresets. As opposed to previous approaches, our algorithm aims to minimize the total variation distance to the original distribution. Experiments on both synthetic and real datasets indicate that our sampling algorithm works efficiently on large data sets, and yields more accurate samples than previous approaches.


Abstract In functional logic programs, rules are applicable independently of textual order, i.e., any rule can potentially be used to evaluate an expression. This is similar to logic languages and contrary to functional languages, e.g., Haskell enforces a strict sequential interpretation of rules. However, in some situations it is convenient to express alternatives by means of compact default rules. Although default rules are often used in functional programs, the non-deterministic nature of functional logic programs does not allow to directly transfer this concept from functional to functional logic languages in a meaningful way. In this paper, we propose a new concept of default rules for Curry that supports a programming style similar to functional programming while preserving the core properties of functional logic programming, i.e., completeness, non-determinism, and logic-oriented use of functions. We discuss the basic concept and propose an implementation which exploits advanced features of functional logic languages.


The American family is changing. Divorce, single parents, and stepfamilies are redefining the ways we live together and raise our children. Many "experts" feel these seemingly inevitable changes should be celebrated; they claim that the "new" families, which often lack a strong father, are actually healthier than traditional two-parent families -- or, at the very least, do children no harm. But as renowned family sociologist David Popenoe shows in "Life Without Father, " this optimistic view is severely misguided. Examining evidence from social and behavioral science, history, and evolutionary biology, Popenoe shows why fathers today are deserting their families in record numbers. The disintegration of the child-centered, two-parent family -- especially in the inner cities, where as many as two in three children are growing up without their fathers -- and the weakening commitment of fathers to their children that more and more follows divorce, are central causes of many of our worst individual and social problems. Juvenile delinquency, drug and alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy, welfare dependency, and child poverty can be directly traced to fathers' lack of involvement in their children's lives. Our situation will only get worse, Popenoe warns, unless men are willing to renew their commitment to their marriages and to their children. Yet he is not just an alarmist. In "Life Without Father, " he suggests concrete policies, and new ways of thinking and acting, that will help all fathers improve their marriages and family lives, and tells us what we as individuals and as a society can do to support and strengthen the most important thing a man can do.


Pessimistic accounts of women's lives in post-communist Poland view women as powerless and passive victims of the transformation process. In contrast, this article argues that while political change and the restructuring of the economy have closed down some spaces of articulation and organisation, others have opened up. The article focuses on the way in which women in their spheres of work are shaping and actively resisting change through new organisations and individual and collective actions, which are in some ways a break with the past, but in other ways build on previous forms of activity. The work draws on qualitative research conducted over the last decade across Poland. This has coupled extensive interviews with women workers, national and regional trade union leaders, activists and feminists in a number of major Polish cities with reviews of Polish media and policy. We examine the economic and ideological context in which these new articulations are taking place, against the background of Poland's post-war communism and the rise of opposition movements. We look at the neoliberal restructuring of the economy and the implications for women within the labour market and in their domestic lives. In particular, we examine initiatives from below in workplace organisation, by focusing on new unions and new actions in the public sector, and the beginnings of organisation in the new areas of the economy such as supermarkets. Finally, we look at how women are articulating their interests beyond formal workplaces. We conclude that we should be optimistic about these new spaces of activism. While some are well established, others are embryonic but provide a strong foundation on which women can increase their participation in spaces that promote their varied interests.


Unconscious countertransference disclosures (UCDs) are a unique kind of self-disclosure explored peripherally in the current literature. This exploratory study placed UCDs in the context of self-disclosure and countertransference as they have evolved conceptually over time. Thirteen participants, recruited through snowball sampling, responded to the focusing question: How do clinicians make meaning of unconscious countertransference disclosure? During a one-hour face to face interview participants responded to this question from the point of view of clinician and client. Consistent with what one might expect, participants attributed clients knowing what they had not consciously been told on a spectrum from the concrete (non-verbal cues) to the more metaphysical (spiritual or unconscious communications). Though it makes sense, it was an unexpected finding to hear participants consistently describe the type of client with which they were working, specifically clients with a trauma history, as a way to explain UCDs. This study also surfaced how challenging it can be for clinicians to work with UCDs as they can be "terrifying." Finally, research of clinical pairs (client and clinician) could further the understanding of the impact UCD's have on the therapeutic process and therapeutic outcomes. An Investigation of Unconscious Countertransference Disclosure A project based upon an independent investigation, submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Social Work. Dina M. Pasalis Smith School for Social Work Northampton, MA 01063


: Seventy-seven patients with chronic ischemic heart disease were treated in single-seater oxygen hyperbaric chambers; 52 patients had angina pectoris of effort or angina of effort and at rest while 25 patients with macrofocal postinfarction cardiosclerosis had insufficiency of pulmonary or systemic circulation. Treatment consisted of 12--15 procedures. The use of hyperbaric oxygenation in a complex with drug therapy makes it possible to alleviate or arrest the attack of angina pectoris and relieve considerably the symptoms of cardiac decompensation. The initial condition of central hemodynamics affects greatly the results of barotherapy. Normal parameters of hemodynamics hardly change after treatment. At the same time, in patients with markedly reduced myocardial contractility hyperbaric oxygenation causes evident positive changes in hemodynamics. The combination of hyperbaric oxygenation with drug therapy improves the effect of treatment significantly.


This research analyzed the interactive media platforms and surveyed communications professionals in six Colorado public school districts to identify the mechanisms used to effectively foster a sense of community and engagement among their constituents. Ultimately, the researcher gained an understanding of the specific process by which individuals connect in a meaningful way through digital communication with educational organizations. Through the application of engagement theory, this study examined how interactive technologies are employed to build support of a public education system and identified multi-faceted communication, empowerment, transparency, actionable information and culture of participation as the key strategic recommendations to educational entities from which to build community engagement strategies that work.


The magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that struck northeast Japan on March 11, 2011, were unavoidable natural disasters, but we consider the subsequent breakdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plants to be a catastrophe created not only by nuclear engineering systems but also by avoidable organizational errors – principally, neglect of nuclear safety issues without the necessary regulation both within the electric companies' management and from the level of governmental policy making. The present paper reviews, firstly, a complete re-thinking of the non-rational locations of atomic power stations, secondly, an analysis of the irrational decision-making of safety management and nuclear policy, finally, a rational proposal concerning the fade-out of nuclear power throughout the world. These proposals are made with a view to obtain sustainable decision-making for the future, not simply in light of the supply and demand of electrical power, but also in consideration of environmental aspects including the social system and the ecosystem. This article is not criticism against the electric company and their government.


OBJECTIVE
Osteopontin (OPN) is thought to play an important role in rheumatoid synovitis. We investigated the expression of OPN in rheumatoid synovial fluid mononuclear cells (SFMC) and its potential association with genetic polymorphism of the OPN gene and joint inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

METHODS
1. The expression of OPN mRNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) and SFMC of patients with RA was analyzed quantitatively by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Results were analyzed in paired PBMC and SFMC and control PBMC. 2. Six single nuclear acid polymorphisms of the OPN gene were genotyped in a cohort of 192 Chinese patients with RA and controls (n = 288) by restriction fragment length polymorphism PCR or direct DNA sequencing. 3. SF derived from RA patients was examined for the stimulating effect on mRNA expression of the OPN gene in PBMC.

RESULTS
The expression of OPN gene was significantly increased in SFMC and, to a lesser degree, in PBMC of patients with RA compared to control PBMC (p < 0.01). However, the prevalence of OPN genotype and allele frequencies at the selected positions did not differ significantly between RA patients and the control group (p > 0.05). Further characterization indicated that SF known to contain a variety of proinflammatory factors significantly stimulated mRNA expression of OPN in PBMC obtained from RA patients or healthy controls.

CONCLUSION
Overexpression of OPN mRNA in SFMC is associated with proinflammatory factors produced in inflamed joints, but not with OPN genetic polymorphisms. OPN gene polymorphisms do not correlate with susceptibility to RA.


"Recommended for anyone who enjoys reading about state politics. Strongly recommended for anyone who hopes to understand New Jersey politics. Absolutely essential for anyone who wants to participate in politics and government in New Jersey."-Alan Rosenthal, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University "New Jersey Politics and Government continues to be the best book on the Garden State and a model study of the nation's state politics. This new edition maintains the authors' notable heritage of insight, knowledge, and effective writing."-Gerald Pomper, professor emeritus, political science, Rutgers University As the United States moves toward becoming a nation of suburbs, New Jersey-its most suburban state-is a place more Americans should get to know. Its volatile, candidate-centered elections are decided by politically independent suburbanites. New Jersey's experience provides lessons as other states seek to protect the environment, improve the quality of life, and accommodate a multicultural society while sustaining growth and opportunity. Written by two of the most respected political analysts in the state, this is the only book available that provides a comprehensive overview of politics and government in New Jersey. This thoroughly revised third edition, published for the first time by Rutgers University Press, also highlights recent scandals within the government and the high profile of the governorship. Barbara G. Salmore has served as dean and professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson-Madison (2000-2006) and as associate dean and professor at Drew University. Stephen A. Salmore was a political consultant and professor emeritus of political science at Rutgers University.


Nonprofit organizations are a critical part of society as well as a growing sector of the economy. For funders there is an increasing and pressing need to ensure that society reaps the most social benefit for their money while also developing the nonprofit sector as a whole. By routinely scrutinizing nonprofit reports in an effort to deduce whether a nonprofit organization is efficient, funders may believe that they are, in fact, giving responsibly. However, we find that these nonprofit reports are unreliable, supporting a myriad of empirical research and revealing that report-based funding methods do not facilitate efficient allocation of funds. In response, we develop audit contracts that put funders in a position to enact change. Auditing, perhaps obviously, supports funders; however, we find that it also benefits the population of nonprofits. Moreover, auditing results in improved efficiency for the nonprofit sector overall. Indeed, our conclusions indicate that nonprofits may want to work with funders to increase the use of auditing, consequently increasing efficiency for the sector overall and impacting society as a whole.


The objective of the 'Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy' (STARD) initiative is to improve the reporting of studies of diagnostic accuracy, so as to allow readers to assess the potential for bias in a study and to evaluate the generalibility of its results. The group searched the literature to identify publications on the appropriate conduct and reporting of diagnostic studies. This was used to draw up a list of potential items. During a consensus meeting, a group of researchers, medical journal editors, and members of professional organisations reduced this list to a usable checklist. Wherever possible, evidence from the literature was used to justify the decisions made. The search for published guidelines about diagnostic research yielded 33 previously published checklists, from which a list of 75 potential items was extracted. At the consensus meeting, participants shortened the list to a 25-item checklist. A generic flow diagram was drawn up to provide guidance on the method for including patients, the order in which tests were to be conducted and the number of patients to undergo the test being evaluated, the reference standard, or both. A scientific publication can only be assessed when the reporting is both correct and complete. Use of the checklist and flow diagram will improve the quality of reports produced, to the advantage of clinicians, researchers, reviewers, journal editors and other interested parties.


When Congress created the Federal Circuit in 1982, it thought it was creating a court of appeals. Little did it know that it was also creating a quasi-administrative agency that would engage in substantive rulemaking and set policy in a manner substantially similar to administrative agencies. In this Article, I examine the Federal Circuit's practices when it orders a case to be heard en banc and illustrate how these practices cause the Federal Circuit to look very much like an administrative agency engaging in substantive rulemaking. The number and breadth of questions the Federal Circuit agrees to hear en banc and the means by which it hears them goes beyond the limited role of a court – to decide the case before it. Instead of exercising restraint and addressing only what it must, the Federal Circuit raises wide-ranging questions and makes broad pronouncements of law that sets or changes patent policy. This role has traditionally been delegated to administrative agencies that must comply with the Administrative Procedure Act, particularly the notice and comment provisions. Despite being an appellate court and not being subject to the notice and comment requirements, the Federal Circuit seems to comply with these requirements when it orders cases to be heard en banc. And although there are strong objections as to why the en banc Federal Circuit should refrain from acting like an administrative agency by engaging in substantive rulemaking and policy setting, I argue that the Federal Circuit is probably in the best position to do so, although other governmental bodies can or should play a larger role in shaping patent policy.


The American labor movement seemed poised on the threshold of unparalleled success at the beginning of the post-World War II era. Fourteen million strong in 1946, unions represented thirty five percent of non-agricultural workers. Why then did the gains made between the 1930s and the end of the war produce so few results by the 1960s?This collection addresses the history of labor in the postwar years by exploring the impact of the global contest between the United States and the Soviet Union on American workers and labor unions. The essays focus on the actual behavior of Americans in their diverse workplaces and communities during the Cold War. Where previous scholarship on labor and the Cold War has overemphasized the importance of the Communist Party, the automobile industry, and Hollywood, this book focuses on politically moderate, conservative workers and union leaders, the medium-sized cities that housed the majority of the population, and the Roman Catholic Church. These are all original essays that draw upon extensive archival research and some upon oral history sources.


This essay examines the politics of de-notation through an application of some of the basic principles of Deconstruction to an early Grotian text. Originally an unpublished manuscript, the Text under consideration is almost universally referred to by Historians and legal scholars as On the Law of the Prize and Booty (De Iure Praedae), despite Grotius' repeated references to it as On the Affairs of the [East]Indies (De rebus Indicis). The ascendancy of the former Title over the latter originated from an editorial insertion performed in the mid-nineteenth century and re-iterated in the present. Apart from critically reconsidering the inherently problematic relationship between Author and Title as self-grounding signs of meaning, a topic ripe for deconstructive technique, this paper makes a broader claim: that the former Title is more compatible with the discourse of mainstream legal scholarship by implicitly depoliticising the Text, a sub rosa reaffirmation of orthodoxy's demarcation between Law and Politics. Substituting De Indis for De Iure Praedae, which signifies the discursive shift of the Text from the judicial to the extra-judicial, tremendously widens the scope for the practical application of Critical Theory and Post-Colonialism to the early history of International Law: the text may now be readily perceived as being suffused by the Presence of Colonialism. De Indis may be legitimately classified as a protocolonialist text in at least two senses: (i) the discursive, the Text implicitly resting upon the supplement of the expropriating logic of other more explicitly colonialist texts such as Vitoria's De Indis; (ii) the historical, the Text positioned within the contours of the equally heterogenous logic of the early Capitalist World-Economy. The strategic but hierarchically organized rhetorical linkages between ius naturale, mare liberum and bellum iustum establish the contours of the textual re-presentation of the preliminary stage of the Capitalist World-Economy. The re-formulation of maritime imperium and dominium through the mediating device of mare liberum permits the untrammelled operation of ius naturale as the foundational principle of bellum iustum, signified by the seizure of the Prize within juridically free - or empty - oceanic spaces, ultimately resolving the problem Concerning the Indians/Indies.


In a six-year program started in 2014 July, the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) will conduct novel cosmological observations using the BOSS spectrograph at Apache Point Observatory. These observations will be conducted simultaneously with the Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS) designed for variability studies and the Spectroscopic Identification of eROSITA Sources (SPIDERS) program designed for studies of X-ray sources. In particular, eBOSS will measure with percent-level precision the distance-redshift relation with baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) in the clustering of matter. eBOSS will use four different tracers of the underlying matter density field to vastly expand the volume covered by BOSS and map the large-scale-structures over the relatively unconstrained redshift range 0.6 < z < 2.2. Using more than 250,000 new, spectroscopically confirmed luminous red galaxies at a median redshift z = 0.72, we project that eBOSS will yield measurements of the angular diameter distance dA(z) to an accuracy of 1.2% and measurements of H(z) to 2.1% when combined with the z > 0.6 sample of BOSS galaxies. With ∼195,000 new emission line galaxy redshifts, we expect BAO measurements of dA(z) to an accuracy of 3.1% and H(z) to 4.7% at an effective redshift of z = 0.87. A sample of more than 500,000 spectroscopically confirmed quasars will provide the first BAO distance measurements over the redshift range 0.9 < z < 2.2, with expected precision of 2.8% and 4.2% on dA(z) and H(z), respectively. Finally, with 60,000 new quasars and re-observation of 60,000 BOSS quasars, we will obtain new Lyα forest measurements at redshifts z > 2.1; these new data will enhance the precision of dA(z) and H(z) at z > 2.1 by a factor of 1.44 relative to BOSS. Furthermore, eBOSS will provide improved tests of General Relativity on cosmological scales through redshift-space distortion measurements, improved tests for non-Gaussianity in the primordial density field, and new constraints on the summed mass of all neutrino species. Here, we provide an overview of the cosmological goals, spectroscopic target sample, demonstration of spectral quality from early data, and projected cosmological constraints from eBOSS.


We have designed and synthesized two new ligands based on N-heteroleptic/phenyl carbene (NH-phenyl C) i.e., 1-benzyl-2-(3,5-bis(trifluoromethyl)phenyl)-1H-benzo[d]imidazole (L1) and 3-(1-benzyl-1H-benzol-2-yl)-10-hexyl-10-H-phenothiazene (L2), used as ancillary ligands to heteroleptic Ru(II) complexes for dye-sensitized solar cells. Both NCS groups of the N719 sensitizer are replaced with L1 (TC-1) and L2 (TC-3) to obtain cyclometalated Ru(II) complexes and one of 4,4′-dicarboxylato-2,2′-bipyridine (dcbpy) with L1 to obtain a heteroleptic Ru(II) complex (TC-2). The presence of two trifluoromethyl groups of the L1 ligand stabilizes the HOMO level of Ru(II) complexes and the presence of a phenothiazine moiety of the L2 ligand alters the absorption properties of the TC-3 complex. Both the ligands and the heteroleptic Ru(II) complexes are characterized by elemental analyses, ESI-MS, 1H NMR, absorption and emission spectroscopy as well as electrochemical methods. The absorption spectra of TC-1 and TC-3 are blue shifted, when compared to the standard N719 sensitizer. The assessment of these newly designed cyclometalated and heteroleptic Ru(II) complexes has revealed that TC-2 exhibits an efficiency of 7.63%, whereas TC-1 has an efficiency of 6.39% using an I−/I3− redox couple. DFT and nanosecond transient absorption kinetic studies have been adopted to understand the low efficiency of the TC-3 complex.


Copyright misuse is a common law defense to copyright infringement. In contrast with defenses addressing the nature of copyrighted material or the defendant's conduct, copyright misuse focuses on the plaintiff's conduct and determines whether the plaintiff is entitled to enforce her rights. This alternative focus orients misuse differently. Copyright misuse regulates copyright owners' use of their rights, polices the boundaries set by Congress in the copyright statute, and protects important public interests. This chapter explores the defense of copyright misuse in a manner calculated to expose the theoretical underpinnings of the doctrine as well as to provide practical guidance on future doctrinal development. The chapter is organized as follows. Part II provides a brief introduction to the (potential) jurisprudential functions of the copyright misuse doctrine. It first develops a schematic model for understanding the jurisprudential relationship between the copyright misuse doctrine and copyright, patent, and antitrust laws. Next, it considers two approaches to formulating and applying misuse principles: per se rules and the rule of reason. Part III analyzes the case law in the Supreme Court and the federal courts of appeals. Part III.A examines four foundational Supreme Court cases. Part III.B covers circuit precedents, and Part III.C covers other influential case law. Part III.D provides a brief overview of district court litigation. In Part IV, we distill a set of guiding principles for evaluating copyright misuse. We conclude that courts ask first whether a challenged action amounts to per se misuse by looking to the facts for evidence of blatantly egregious conduct. Two sets of per se rules may be fashioned by the courts. The first type identifies misuse violating the antitrust laws while the second type identifies misuse violating an important public policy behind the intellectual property grant. We discuss both types of per se rules. If a challenged action does not fit within either set of per se rules, courts may engage in a rule of reason analysis. Again, two approaches are possible. The first approach, which coincides with patent and antitrust analysis, weighs the anticompetitive and procompetitive effects of the challenged action. The second approach is broader in scope and balances policy interests reflected in the intellectual property system. We evaluate these approaches to identifying misuse and conclude that courts should apply both types of per se rules - antitrust-based and policy-based - and should only apply a competition-based balancing approach. We remain skeptical about the advisability of a policy balancing test - e.g., a test that weighs pro-expressive against anti-expressive effects on a case-by-case basis - for doctrinal as well as pragmatic reasons.


Build effective user interfaces with Windows Presentation Foundation Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is included with the Windows operating system and provides a programming model for building applications that provide a clear separation between the UI and business logic. Written by a leading expert on Microsoft graphics programming, this richly illustrated book provides an introduction to WPF development and explains fundamental WPF concepts. Packed with helpful examples, this reference progresses through a range of topics that gradually increase in their complexity. Youll quickly start building applications while you learn how to use both Expression Blend and Visual Studio to build UIs. In addition, the book addresses the needs of programmer who write the code behind the UI and shows you how operations can be performed using both XAML and C#. Topics Covered: Overview of WPF WPF in Visual Studio Expression Blend Common Properties Content Controls Layout Controls User Interaction Controls Two-Dimensional Drawing Controls Properties Pens and Brushes Events and Code-Behind Resources Styles and Property Triggers Event Triggers and Animation Templates Themes and Skins Printing Data Binding Commanding Transformations and Effects Documents Navigation-Based Applications Three-Dimensional Drawing Silverlight Even if you only have a minimal amount of experience, by the end of the book, you will be able to build dynamic and responsive user interfaces with WPF. Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.


This work presents a first attempt to apply the RECAT-EU (European Wake Turbulence Categorisation and Separation Minima) methodology of fixed-wing aircraft separation to helicopters. The approach is based on a classification of helicopters in categories using their rotor diameter and weight combined with wake comparisons between different classes of fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. Where necessary the upset caused by a wake encounter to a simple helicopter model is used to establish safe separation distances. The work is based on a very limited amount of data for wake strengths but shows that the principles of the RECAT-EU methodology are directly applicable to helicopters at least for landing and take-off. This research calls for further measurements of helicopter wakes with modern methods so that the suggested separation distances can be further ascertained and ultimately refined allowing for better and safer integration of fixed and rotary-wing traffic at airports.


This article aims to systematize the profile of cocaine and crack users in Brazil. The study adopted a literature review of the MEDLINE, LILACS, Cochrane Library databases and CAPES thesis/dissertation database. Data were grouped in thematic categories: national household surveys, surveys of specific population groups, profile of patients that seek treatment, and mortality and morbidity. Within each category the principal findings from the Brazilian literature were described and then discussed. The article concludes that the information on cocaine and crack consumption in Brazil is still incipient, but that the scientific community can already draw on a relevant theoretical corpus that can be used to update current public policies on this issue.


Recent research has indicated that although security systems are developing, illegal intrusion to computers is on the rise. The research conducted here illustrates that improving intrusion detection and prevention methods is fundamental for improving the overall security of systems.
This research includes the design of a novel Intrusion Detection System (IDS) which identifies four levels of visibility of attacks. Two major areas of security concern were identified: speed and volume of attacks; and complexity of multistage attacks. Hence, the Multistage Intrusion Detection and Prevention System (MIDaPS) that is designed here is made of two fundamental elements: a multistage attack engine that heavily depends on attack trees and a Denial of Service Engine. MIDaPS were tested and found to improve current intrusion detection and processing performances.
After an intensive literature review, over 25 GB of data was collected on honeynets. This was then used to analyse the complexity of attacks in a series of experiments. Statistical and analytic methods were used to design the novel MIDaPS.
Key findings indicate that an attack needs to be protected at 4 different levels. Hence, MIDaPS is built with 4 levels of protection. As, recent attack vectors use legitimate actions, MIDaPS uses a novel approach of attack trees to trace the attacker's actions. MIDaPS was tested and results suggest an improvement to current system performance by 84% whilst detecting DDOS attacks within 10 minutes.


Unequal error protection (UEP) is essential when different portions of the source data do not contribute evenly to the overall duality of the decoded information. Conventional techniques achieve UEP by independent coding of the bit streams or by adopting conventional unequal error-protection codes. In this paper, we propose a practical alternative to the QPSK-based transmission systems with explicit UEP, such as GSM or IS-54 wireless transmission standards. In this scheme, the task of providing unequal protection is divided between the channel encoder and a nonuniform signal set, which discriminates in favor of the more important bits. The new approach allows for a simpler convolutional encoder and, hence, a less complex decoding procedure. Specifically, a reduction by more than half in the number of encoder states can easily be achieved using our scheme. Countering the degradation of the less important bits, we propose to adopt a high-rate punctured convolutional code to minimize the incurred transmission rate penalty. We also discuss a pilot sequence transmission scheme which realizes a coherent reception. Decentralizing the bit protection culminates in an extra degree of freedom which, in turn, introduces more flexibility into the system design.


This study aims to determine the effect of the use of RQA-based learning model of the practicum on the learning outcomes in the material world of plants. Data retrieval conducted in February 2017. The method used in this research is the Quasi Experiment method. This research conducted at three State Madrasah Aliyah (MAN) of Banda Aceh city that is MAN 1 class X IPA 3 as experiment class and X IPA 4 as control class, MAN 2 class X MIA 3 as experiment class and X MIA 1 as control class, MAN 3 class X MIA 1 as experiment class and X MIA 2 as control class. The instruments used were the test of learning outcomes using multiple choice test questions. Data analysis is using variance analysis (ANAVA) at significant level 0,05. The result of variance analysis shows that F count > F table is for learning outcomes was 182,04>2,26. The conclusion of the RQA learning model based on the Practicum influenced the learning outcomes of learners on the material world of plants in MAN Kota Banda Aceh. Keywords: Reading Questioning and Answering, Practicum and Learning Outcomes.


The Covid-19 pandemic and the implementation of national lockdowns has generated significant changes in the citizenry's material realities. Although the efficacy of lockdown is yet to be determined, emerging evidence points to a rise in unintended harms, such as increased child abuse and neglect. Indeed, reported incidences of child abuse in many countries across the world have increased as at-risk children are confined to their dwelling for significant periods of time with a violent perpetrator. Drawing on recently developed theories that indicate a mediated causal link between childhood trauma and a commitment to violent behaviour in later life, particularly in young men, this article claims lockdown may be an unintended 'violence generating mechanism' that might potentially manifest itself in increased violent outbursts in the future. First, the article briefly outlines how lockdowns have impacted upon societies. It then explores the statistical upsurge in child abuse and neglect, including afar as Croatia, South Africa, New Zealand, China, Uganda, Nepal and the United Kingdom. The paper closes with a discussion of the empirical evidence that demonstrates a link between childhood trauma and violence in later life, concluding that lockdowns may act as a ticking time bomb of future harm.


The 4th of August regime in Greece under Ioannis Metaxas has long been treated by theories of 'generic fascism' as a minor example of authoritarianism or at most a case of failed fascism. This derives from the ideas that the Metaxas dictatorship did not originate from any original mass 'fascist' movement, lacked a genuinely fascist revolutionary ideological core and its figurehead came from a deeply conservative-military background. In addition, the regime balanced the introduction 'from above' of certain 'fascist' elements (inspired by the regimes in Germany, Italy and Portugal) with a pro-British foreign policy and a strong deference to both the Crown and the church/religion. Nevertheless, in this chapter, I argue that the 4th of August regime should be relocated firmly within the terrain of fascism studies. The establishment and consolidation of the regime in Greece reflected a much wider process of political and ideological convergence and hybridisation between anti-democratic/anti-liberal/anti-socialist conservative forces, on the one hand, and radical rightwing/fascist politics, on the other. It proved highly receptive to specific fascist themes and experiments (such as the single youth organisation, called EON), which it transplanted enthusiastically into its own hybrid of 'radicalised' conservatism. Although far less ideologically 'revolutionary' compared to Italian Fascism or German National Socialism, the 4th of August regime's radicalisation between 1936 and 1941 marked a fundamental departure from conventional conservative-authoritarian politics in a direction charted by the broader fascist experience in Europe.