This classic casebook traces the development of contract law in the English and American common law traditions. Like earlier editions, the 8th Edition features authoritative introductions to major topics, carefully selected cases, and well-tailored notes and problems. The casebook is ecumenical in its outlook, presenting a well-balanced approach to the study of contract law without ever losing sight of the importance of doctrine in all its detail. Cases are situated within a variety of disciplines-history, economics, philosophy, and ethics-and present the law in a variety of settings-commercial, familial, employment, and sports and entertainment. The 8th Edition will feel familiar yet fresh to current users and both exciting and comfortable to newcomers to contracts or to this casebook.


PlantRNA database (http://plantrna.ibmp.cnrs.fr/) compiles transfer RNA (tRNA) gene sequences retrieved from fully annotated plant nuclear, plastidial and mitochondrial genomes. The set of annotated tRNA gene sequences has been manually curated for maximum quality and confidence. The novelty of this database resides in the inclusion of biological information relevant to the function of all the tRNAs entered in the library. This includes 5′- and 3′-flanking sequences, A and B box sequences, region of transcription initiation and poly(T) transcription termination stretches, tRNA intron sequences, aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases and enzymes responsible for tRNA maturation and modification. Finally, data on mitochondrial import of nuclear-encoded tRNAs as well as the bibliome for the respective tRNAs and tRNA-binding proteins are also included. The current annotation concerns complete genomes from 11 organisms: five flowering plants (Arabidopsis thaliana, Oryza sativa, Populus trichocarpa, Medicago truncatula and Brachypodium distachyon), a moss (Physcomitrella patens), two green algae (Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and Ostreococcus tauri), one glaucophyte (Cyanophora paradoxa), one brown alga (Ectocarpus siliculosus) and a pennate diatom (Phaeodactylum tricornutum). The database will be regularly updated and implemented with new plant genome annotations so as to provide extensive information on tRNA biology to the research community.


The majority of mediastinal germ cell tumors are teratomas. Placement in the anterior mediastinum of the thorax is common, and placement in other compartments of the mediastinum and parenchyma can be observed as well. The main aim of treatment of mature and immature teratomas is complete removal of the mass without complications. Excision provides cure and its prognosis is very good. In this case, we aimed to disscuss the case of a 22-year-old patient with anterior mediastinal involvement, which was first thought to be an anterior cystic pericardial cyst and was determined to be a mature cystic teratoma during resection.


Common land has considerable environmental significance, and a potentially key role in the delivery of the UK government's overall strategy for improving the environmental quality of wildlife habitats in England and Wales. Common land has a unique legal status. Establishing schemes for the conservation management of sensitive habitats and landscapes on common land is complicated by the unusual nature of property rights in commons. A key objective of the Commons Act 2006 is the establishment of a new management regime for the governance of commons based on a self-regulatory model and statutory commons councils. This is an integral – and important – element not only of the government's strategy for improving the protection of wildlife habitats but also for implementing EC Directives on wildlife, including the Habitats and Species Directive of 1992. This article examines the new law on environmental governance in the 2006 Act and concludes with an appraisal of its likely impact.


The time course of islet cell antibodies (ICA) and serum C-peptides responses (CPRs) to oral glucose tolerance tests (OGTTs) were studied prospectively up to 60 (mean 35) mo in 32 ICA-positive subjects [28 with non-insulin-dependent diabetes (NIDDM) and 4 subjects with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT); mean age 45 yr], 96 matched subjects [56 with NIDDM, 8 with IGT, and 32 normal first-degree relatives of patients with insulin-dependent diabetes (IDDM); mean age 45 yr] who were negative for ICA at the beginning of the study. In addition, the effects of human leukocyte antigens(HLA) on the time course of ICA and (β-cell function were evaluated. In 10 subjects (8 with NIDDM and 2 with IGT) who were ICA positive, ICA became undetectable, even by sensitive ICA assay, 15 ± 2 mo (mean ± SE) after initiation of this study. In these subjects, integrated serum CPR values (σCPR) and 2-h blood glucose values in response to OGTTs improved significantly (P < .05-.01). In contrast, the remaining 22 subjects who were ICA positive were persistently positive for ICA. CPR and blood glucose responses deteriorated progressively in these 22 subjects, and 7 subjects in this group progressed to the insulin-dependent state. Serum CPR and blood glucose responses to OGTTs showed no remarkable changes in 64 patients (56 with NIDDM and 8 with IGT) and 32 normal first-degree relatives of patients with IDDM who remained negative for ICA throughout the study. The frequencies of HLABW54 and HLA-DR4 in 10 subjects who became ICA negative during the follow-up period were lower than those in 22 subjects with ICA throughout the study (uncorrected P < .02). The frequencies of these two antigens were higher in the 22 subjects with persistently positive ICA than in normal controls (uncorrected P < .02), whereas these differences were not observed in 10 subjects who became ICA negative during the study. The reversed β-cell function after negative conversion of ICA observed in our study yields a new insight into the natural history of type I diabetes, especially in late-onset cases. It suggests that HLA-related genetic predisposition is a prerequisite to the slowly progressive β-cell destruction through pancreatic autoimmunity.


This research was conducted to evaluate the investment decision to add fixed assets by PT Hatten Bali using the capital budgeting method. The results of this study are expected to be used as material for evaluating the application of the capital budgeting method in making investment decisions on fixed assets at PT Hatten Bali. The data used for this study were obtained from interviews and documentation and were analyzed using descriptive qualitative research analysis techniques with a case study approach. Based on the results of research using the capital budgeting method which consists of the method of calculating the payback period, net present value, profitability index, internal rate of return and average rate of return, all of which have shown a favorable results. From these results it can be concluded that the investment decision to add fixed assets in the form of distribution vehicles made by PT Hatten Bali can benefit the company in stable sales conditions and the application of capital budgeting methods can reduce the risk of errors or failures in making investment decisions and improve subsequent investment decisions.


The financial sector has grown ever more interested in crypto-currencies and the innovative Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) that underpins them. For central banks, in their role as providers of currency and critical payments infrastructure, a key area of interest is whether DLTs could be used to enhance existing payment processes. This article gives a high-level explanation of how different DLTs can change payments processes. The answer depends on what form the distributed ledger takes. We identify four binary elements that determine the different properties of distributed ledgers and use case studies to evaluate how these elements can improve on, or fall short of, existing payments infrastructure. We find that Blockchain – the most well-known DLT that underpins Bitcoin – brings benefits in terms of the speed of cross-border settlement and improves security by removing the single point of failure, but has drawbacks in terms of slowing the speed and increasing the cost of smaller domestic transactions, and being energy intensive. Some central banks have experimented with other forms of DLTs that try to capture some of the benefits of Blockchain while minimising the costs, but so far these DLTs have tended to mimic existing payment processes and have not demonstrated many additional benefits.


This paper presents the simulator CINSim. It was developed to investigate interconnection network architectures for a wide application range, like networks-on-chip or parallel computers. CINSim allows the simulation of arbitrary network topologies, various traffic distributions in time and space as well as dynamic reconfiguration of the network under investigation. Besides the estimation of mean values for several performance measures, quantiles can be observed.


As VLIW/EPIC processors are increasingly used in realtime, signal-processing, and embedded applications, the importance of. minimizing code size and reducing power is growing. This paper describes a new architectural mechanism, called the Modulo Schedule Buffers, that provides an elegant interface for the execution of modulo scheduled loops. While the performance is similar to that of kernel-only modulo scheduling, this mechanism has a number of advantages, including minimal code expansion. Rather than generating fully-scheduled kernels, the compiler generates a sequential form of the modulo scheduled loop body. Using the sequential form, the hardware internally synthesizes the prologue, kernel, and epilogue. In addition, while loops can be scheduled with fewer constraints and fewer explicit prologues/epilogues than with existing mechanisms. Because the hardware controls loop execution, the burden of modulo schedule loop control is lifted from the predicate register file, allowing for a less rigorous predication implementation. Finally, hardware control limits the interrupt latency when using the EQ explicit latency model to the execution latency of one iteration, rather than the whole loop invocation.


Analyzing molecular determinants of Plasmodium parasite cell death is a promising approach for exploring new avenues in the fight against malaria. Three major forms of cell death (apoptosis, necrosis and autophagic cell death) have been described in multicellular organisms but which cell death processes exist in protozoa is still a matter of debate. Here we suggest that all three types of cell death occur in Plasmodium liver-stage parasites. Whereas typical molecular markers for apoptosis and necrosis have not been found in the genome of Plasmodium parasites, we identified genes coding for putative autophagy-marker proteins and thus concentrated on autophagic cell death. We characterized the Plasmodium berghei homolog of the prominent autophagy marker protein Atg8/LC3 and found that it localized to the apicoplast. A relocalization of PbAtg8 to autophagosome-like vesicles or vacuoles that appear in dying parasites was not, however, observed. This strongly suggests that the function of this protein in liver-stage parasites is restricted to apicoplast biology.


This chapter defends the Duty View of punishment. According to this view, the permissibility of punishing offenders for reasons of general deterrence are grounded in the enforceable duties that offenders incur as a result of their wrongdoing. This view is defended by examining the relationship between self-defence, compensatory harm, and punishment. The chapter aims to demonstrate that the main differences between self-defence and punishment do not provide morally compelling reasons against punishing offenders on defensive grounds. Harming offenders as a means to avert threats posed by others can be justified in virtue of the duties that offenders owe to their victims - duties that they incur by wronging their victims.


Abstract. In recent years, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are attracting more and more attention in both the research and industrial communities: indeed, the possibility to use them in a wide range of remote sensing applications makes them a very flexible and attractive solution in both civil and commercial cases (e.g. precision agriculture, security and control, monitoring of sites, exploration of areas difficult to reach). Most of the existing UAV positioning systems rely on the use of the GPS signal. Despite this can be a satisfactory solution in open environments where the GPS signal is available, there are several operating conditions of interest where it is unavailable or unreliable (e.g. close to high buildings, or mountains, in indoor environments). Consequently, a different approach has to be adopted in these cases. This paper considers the use ofWiFi measurements in order to obtain position estimations of the device of interest. More specifically, to limit the costs for the devices involved in the positioning operations, an approach based on radio signal strengths (RSS) measurements is considered. Thanks to the use of a Kalman filter, the proposed approach takes advantage of the temporal dynamic of the device of interest in order to improve the positioning results initially provided by means of maximum likelihood estimations. The considered UAVs are assumed to be provided with communication devices, which can allow them to communicate with each other in order to improve their cooperation abilities. In particular, the collision avoidance problem is examined in this work.


Parmenides of Elea was the most important and influential philosopher before Plato. Patricia Curd here reinterprets Parmenides' views and offers a new account of his relation to his predecessors and successors. In the traditional interpretation, Parmenides argues that generation, destruction, and change are unreal and that only one thing exists. He therefore rejected as impossible the scientific inquiry practised by the earlier Presocratic philosophers. But the philosophers who came after Parmenides attempted to explain natural change and they assumed the reality of a plurality of basic entities. Thus, on the traditional interpretation, the later Presocratics either ignored or contradicted his arguments. In this book, Patricia Curd argues that Parmenides sought to reform rather than to reject scientific inquiry and offers a more coherent account of his influence on the philosophers who came after him. The Legacy of Parmenides provides a detailed examination of Parmenides' arguments, considering his connection to earlier Greek thought and how his account of what-is could serve as model for later philosophers. It then considers the theories of those who came after him, including the Pluralists (Anaxagoras and Empedocles), the Atomists (Leucippus and Democritus), the later Eleatics (Zeno and Melissus), and the later Presocratics (Philolaus of Croton and Diogenes of Apollonia). The book closes with a discussion of the importance of Parmenides' views for the development of Plato's Theory of Forms. This edition includes a new Introduction by the author in which she clarifies her position on the following points: Monism, Internal and External Negations, Locomotion and the Specification of How What-is Is, and Doxa. Also added is a Supplementary Bibliography.


The Sultanate of Oman underwent a tremendous development in all its vitals sectors since 1970. The lag in Oman infrastructure development was mainly due to its very weak economic system. Prior to this date, there was no fundamental education system in Oman, not even dreaming about higher education. After His Majesty Qaboos bin Said took the lead of the country on 18th of November 1970, he started building the infrastructure of the country. He began by strengthening the country economy mainly utilizing the oil treasure in order to build and enhance the country's major systems like health, education, transportation and other vitals sectors. Throughout the past forty-five years, Oman had made a huge leap in the areas of economy, education, as well as higher education. This paper will discuss the development in those areas, while linking economy development to the education and higher education development throughout the above-mentioned period. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Scott D. Gilbert for his valuable guidance and supervision. His outstanding instructions and advice helped me finish this research paper. My dear wife and kids thanks for your kindness, empowerment, and patience. Thanks for accepting me during my good and bad times. Finally, Mom and Dad thanks a lot for your prayers and support.


Deep neural networks have recently achieved state of the art performance thanks to new training algorithms for rapid parameter estimation and new regularization methods to reduce overfitting. However, in practice the network architecture has to be manually set by domain experts, generally by a costly trial and error procedure, which often accounts for a large portion of the final system performance. We view this as a limitation and propose a novel training algorithm that automatically optimizes network architecture, by progressively increasing model complexity and then eliminating model redundancy by selectively removing parameters at training time. For convolutional neural networks, our method relies on iterative split/merge clustering of convolutional kernels interleaved by stochastic gradient descent. We present a training algorithm and experimental results on three different vision tasks, showing improved performance compared to similarly sized hand-crafted architectures.


A collection of more than one thousand samples of dyed wool flannel has been arranged according to the OSA renotations of the Munsell colors. The choice of sample spacing is the same as that of the Munsell Book of Color, consisting of the even chroma steps at values one to eight for forty hues. The samples were measured by means of the Hardy Recording Spectrophotometer and the Automatic Tristimulus Integrator. Trichromatic data were converted to Munsell renotation by means of the charts prepared for the OSA. Tolerances of 0.15 in value, 0.35 in chroma, and 1.0 hue step at 2 chroma, 0.8 at 4 chroma, and 0.5 at higher chroma were allowed. Because of the brightness of the dyes used, many samples having higher chromas than those of the Munsell Book were obtained. There are more samples in low values, though fewer in high values, than in this painted series of papers. Twelve acid dyestuffs chosen primarily for their light-fastness, brightness, and level dyeing properties were selected for dyeing the wool.


A synaptic vesicle protein must be membrane-anchored to stimulate fusion in vitro at physiological Ca2+ concentrations. The synaptic vesicle protein, synaptotagmin 1 (Syt1), acts as the main Ca2+-dependent switch for neurotransmitter release. In vitro studies of the truncated Syt1, which lacks the transmembrane domain, have unveiled the fusion-triggering mechanism of Syt1. However, in vitro approaches using the full-length, membrane-anchored Syt1 have not only failed to recapitulate Ca2+-triggered membrane fusion but could even inhibit vesicle fusion. In contrast, the membrane anchor is conserved across the Syt family, suggesting a critical functional role for the membrane anchor. Now, using a single-vesicle fusion assay, H.-K. Lee et al. show that the membrane anchor is indeed essential for Syt1 to induce physiological rates of Ca2+-induced vesicle fusion on a 100-millisecond time scale. H.-K. Lee, Y. Yang, Z. Su, C. Hyeon, T.-S. Lee, H.-W. Lee, D.-H. Kweon, Y.-K. Shin, T.-Y. Yoon, Dynamic Ca2+-dependent stimulation of vesicle fusion by membrane-anchored synaptotagmin 1. Science 328, 760–763 (2010). [Abstract] [Full Text]


Here we present a machine learning framework and model implementation that can learn to simulate a wide variety of challenging physical domains, involving fluids, rigid solids, and deformable materials interacting with one another. Our framework---which we term "Graph Network-based Simulators" (GNS)---represents the state of a physical system with particles, expressed as nodes in a graph, and computes dynamics via learned message-passing. Our results show that our model can generalize from single-timestep predictions with thousands of particles during training, to different initial conditions, thousands of timesteps, and at least an order of magnitude more particles at test time. Our model was robust to hyperparameter choices across various evaluation metrics: the main determinants of long-term performance were the number of message-passing steps, and mitigating the accumulation of error by corrupting the training data with noise. Our GNS framework advances the state-of-the-art in learned physical simulation, and holds promise for solving a wide range of complex forward and inverse problems.


In this research we specify a dynamic discrete-continuous choice model (DDCCM) of car ownership and usage. This model embeds a discrete-continuous choice model into a dynamic programming (DP) framework. The DDCCM allows to jointly model the transaction type, the annual driving distance, the fuel type, the car ownership status and the car state (i.e. the purchase of a new or second-hand car) relative to each car in a households fleet. Moreover we model these decisions at the household level and for up to two cars per household. In this paper, the methodology is illustrated by an example of application where parameters are postulated.


This article concerns two similar legal phenomena in South Africa: the merging of African customary and common law, on the one hand, and the merging of Roman-Dutch and English law, on the other. Due to the famous bellum juridicum of the last century, the latter interaction is already the subject of detailed study. One might therefore assume that we have something to learn about the prospects of integrating customary and common law. Despite the similarities of subject matter, however, no one has systematically compared the interaction between customary and common law (which produced a so-called "official" customary law) and Roman-Dutch and English law (which produced South African "common" law).


The paper is based on the acknowledgement that properties of markets stemming from features of demand are too frequently overlooked in the economic literature, and a re-balancing is necessary to properly account for theoretical and empirical phenomena. We sustain that one of the most relevant reasons for the neglect of the role of demand is the lack of an adequate representation of consumers. This claim is particu- larly relevant for evolutionary economics since its critique to the mainstream approach stopped at the representation of firms. The standard utility maximization approach to consumers? theory is even less defensible than the related assumption of producers? rationality, given the lack of competitive pressure on consumers. As a contribution to this theoretical gap, the paper presents a model for consumer based on the assumption of bounded rationality and inspired to the literature on experimental psychology. The proposed model can be applied to multi-dimensional products/services and relies on intuitive and potentially observable parameters, allow- ing for a wide range of theoretical and empirical applications. Moreover, the intrinsic structure of the model provides a clear definition of preferences, meant as ex-ante decisional criteria, distinguished from post-hoc justification of any decisional result. Though structurally simple, the proposed model is very flexible and allows for a clear exploration of the impact of specific demand features on the produced results. Several experiments show that the model can be successfully applied both to generate standard results and to implement complex configurations such as those of generated by large markets with heterogeneous products. Among the results presented, the most relevant concerns the identification of two classes of market segmentation, generated by the identical suppliers and demand?s ex- ogenous factors, but different consumers? decisional mechanisms. The results produced are observationally equivalent, but are shown to have radically different properties, and are proposed as initial elements of a taxonomy for the classification demand classes, likely to explain common properties across different markets.


This paper on artificial intelligence in education (AIEd) has two aims. The first: to explain to a non-specialist, interested, reader what AIEd is: its goals, how it is built, and how it works. The second: to set out the argument for what AIEd can offer teaching and learning, both now and in the future, with an eye towards improving learning and life outcomes for all. Computer systems that are artificially intelligent interact with the world using capabilities (such as speech recognition) and intelligent behaviours (such as using available information to take the most sensible actions toward a stated goal) that we would think of as essentially human. At the heart of artificial intelligence in education is the scientific goal to make knowledge, which is often left implicit, computationally precise and explicit. In other words, in addition to being the engine behind much 'smart' ed tech, AIEd is also designed to be a powerful tool to open up what is sometimes called the 'black box of learning,' giving us more fine-grained understandings of how learning actually happens. Although some might find the concept of AIEd alienating, the algorithms and models that underpin ed tech powered by AIEd form the basis of an essentially human endeavor. Using AIEd, teachers will be able to offer learners educational experiences that are more personalised, flexible, inclusive and engaging. Crucially, we do not see a future in which AIEd replaces teachers. What we do see is a future in which the extraordinary expertise of teachers is better leveraged and augmented through the thoughtful deployment of well designed AIEd. We have available, right now, AIEd tools that could support student learning at a scale previously unimaginable by providing one-on-one tutoring to every student, in every subject. Existing technologies also have the capacity to provide intelligent support to learners working in a group, and to create authentic virtual learning environments where students have the right support, at the right time, to tackle real-life problems and puzzles. In the near future, we expect that teaching and learning will increasingly be supported by the thoughtful application of AIEd tools. For example, by lifelong learning companions powered by AI that can accompany and support individual learners throughout their studies - in and beyond school - and new forms of assessment that measure learning while it is taking place, shaping the learning experience in real time. If we are ultimately successful, we predict that AIEd will help us address some of the most intractable problems in education, including achievement gaps and teacher retention. AIEd will also help us respond to the most significant social challenge that AI has already brought - the steady replacement of jobs and occupations with clever algorithms and robots. It is our view that this provides a new innovation imperative in education, which can be expressed simply: as humans live and work alongside increasingly smart machines, our education systems will need to achieve at levels that none have managed to date. True progress will require the development of an AIEd infrastructure. This will not, however, be a single monolithic AIEd system. Instead, it will resemble the marketplace that has developed for smartphone apps: hundreds and then thousands of individual AIEd components, developed in collaboration with educators, conformed to uniform international data standards, and shared with researchers and developers worldwide. These standards will also enable system-level data collation and analysis that will help us to learn much more about learning itself – and how to improve it. Moving forward, we will need to pay close attention to three powerful forces as we map the future of artificial intelligence in education, namely pedagogy, technology, and system change. Paying attention to the pedagogy will mean that the design of new edtech should always start with what we know about learning. It also means that the system for funding this work must be simultaneously opened up and refocused, moving away from isolated pockets of R&D and toward collaborative enterprises that prioritise areas known to make a real difference to teaching and learning. Paying attention to the technology will mean creating smarter demand for commercial grade AIEd products that work. It also means the development of a robust, component-based AIEd infrastructure, similar to the smartphone app marketplace, where researchers and developers can access standardised components that have been developed in collaboration with educators. Paying attention to system change will mean involving teachers, students, and parents in co-designing new tools, so that AIEd will appropriately address the inherent "messiness" of real classroom, university, and workplace learning environments. It also means the development of data standards that promote the safe and ethical use of data. Said succinctly, we need intelligent technologies that embody what we know about great teaching and learning, embodied in enticing consumer grade products, which are then used effectively in real-life settings that combine the best of human and machine. We do not underestimate the new-thinking, inevitable wrong-turns, and effort required to realise these recommendations. However, if we are to properly unleash the intelligence of AIEd, we must do things differently - via new collaborations, sensible funding, and (always) a keen eye on the pedagogy. The potential prize is too great to act otherwise.


Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a pathology characterized by a sudden decrease in kidney function that results in the accumulation of nitrogenous waste products and alteration of the regulation of extracellular fluid volume, electrolytes, and acid-base homeostasis. Previously known as acute renal failure (ARF), in the most recent classifications the term "failure" is used only in conditions requiring renal replacement therapy, peritoneal dialysis or hemodialysis. The diagnosis and therapy of AKI, especially in the neonatal period, still present great difficulties and are the subject of ongoing research in the attempt to improve the prognosis of a pathology still featuring high rates of morbidity and mortality. Proceedings of the International Course on Perinatal Pathology (part of the 10 th International Workshop on Neonatology · October 22 nd -25 th , 2014) · Cagliari (Italy) · October 25 th , 2014 ·  The role of the clinical pathological dialogue in problem solving Guest Editors: Gavino Faa, Vassilios Fanos, Peter Van Eyken


We present experimental observations of diffusely scattered second-harmonic light from a silver surface with weak random roughness. The roughness provides coupling of the incident wave to counterpropagating surface plasmon polaritons in the second harmonic. Rather than observing enhancement in the backscattering direction, a distinct minimum in the angular distribution is seen.


We aim to develop REBCO coil systems for high-magnetic-field whole-body magnetic resonance imaging and medical cyclotron for cancer therapy. These applications require high temporal stability and spatial uniformity of the generated magnetic field. Although the magnetic field generated during excitation changes very slowly, a screening-current-induced magnetic field (SCIF) is generated, which affects the required accuracy of the magnetic field. To reduce the SCIF, we focus on two methods: 1) a current control method, and 2) the use of striated coated conductors. When adopting a striated coated conductor, it is necessary to plate copper onto it in order to maintain its thermal stability and mechanical strength. However, in the copper-plated layer, changes in the magnetic field induce a coupling current, which flows between the filaments of the REBCO coated conductor. In this study, we apply the overshoot method with a plateau as a current control to eliminate the effect of coupling currents in the copper plating layer. We numerically analyzed the effectiveness of this overshoot method by visualizing the changes in the current distributions in a model pancake coil wound with a REBCO-coated conductor separated into two filaments. For that purpose, we used a three-dimensional nonlinear transient electromagnetic field computation in which the spiral arrangement of the pancake coil windings is appropriately considered.


This Note examines the relation between the market for unprovenanced antiquities and Congress' allowance of tax deductions for donations of in-kind gifts to nonprofit organizations. Part I lays out the current rules on charitable deductions. Part II surveys the antiquities market, arguing that the majority of unprovenanced antiquities sold in the American market during the last few decades were looted and illegally exported from their countries of origin in order to feed this market. Part III begins with a discussion of several cases of donated antiquities and then moves to a general suggestion that the current charitable deduction rules, at best, fail to reduce looting and, at worst, encourage the purchase of looted antiquities. The Note concludes with a proposal for conditioning the availability of a deduction on the presence of satisfactory provenance information and a discussion of the impact this reduction in the availability of deductions might have on the market for antiquities, scholarship and the fate of antiquities themselves


Accurate simulation of rolling-tyre vibrations, and the associated noise, requires knowledge of roadsurface topology. Full scans of the surface types in common use are, however, not widely available, and are likely to remain so. Ways of producing simulated surfaces from incomplete starting information are thus needed. In this paper, a simulation methodology based solely on line measurements is developed, and validated against a full two-dimensional height map of a real asphalt surface. First the tribological characteristics—asperity height, curvature and nearest-neighbour distributions—of the real surface are analysed. It is then shown that a standard simulation technique, which matches the (isotropic) spectrum and the probability distribution of the height measurements, is unable to reproduce these characteristics satisfactorily. A modification, whereby the inherent granularity of the surface is enforced at the initialisation stage, is introduced, and found to produce simulations whose tribological characteristics are in excellent agreement with the measurements. This method will thus make high-fidelity tyre-vibration calculations feasible for researchers with access to line-scan data only. In addition, the approach to surface tribological characterisation set out here provides a template for efficient cataloguing of road textures, as long as the resulting information can subsequently be used to produce sample realisations. A third simulation algorithm, which successfully addresses this requirement, is therefore also presented.


We present the cryptographic hash function BLAKE2, an improved version of the SHA-3 finalist BLAKE optimized for speed in software. Target applications include cloud storage, intrusion detection, or version control systems. BLAKE2 comes in two main flavors: BLAKE2b is optimized for 64-bit platforms, and BLAKE2s for smaller architectures. On 64-bit platforms, BLAKE2 is often faster than MD5, yet provides security similar to that of SHA-3. We specify parallel versions BLAKE2bp and BLAKE2sp that are up to 4 and 8 times faster, by taking advantage of SIMD and/or multiple cores. BLAKE2 has more benefits than just speed: BLAKE2 uses up to 32% less RAM than BLAKE, and comes with a comprehensive tree-hashing mode as well as an efficient MAC mode.


This project develops a quantitative method to evaluate the seismic risk for portable GSE at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Using the latest probability data available from the USGS, risk thresholds are defined for portable GSE having the potential to cause a catastrophic event. Additionally, an example tool for design engineers was developed from the seismic codes showing the tipping hazard case can be simplified into strict geometrical terms. The misinterpretation and confusion regarding the Range Safety 24 Hour Rule exemption can be avoided by assessing seismic risk for portable GSE. By using the methods herein to quantify and understand seismic risk, more informed risk decisions can be made by engineering and management. The seismic codes and requirements used and referenced throughout include but are not limited to IBC, ASCE 7, EWR 127-1, and AFSPCMAN 91-710.


We present broad and narrow bandwidth imaging of three southern elliptical galaxies which have flat-spectrum active radio cores (NGC 1052, IC 1459 and NGC 6958). All three contain dust and extended low excitation optical line emission, particularly extensive in the case of NGC 1052 which has a large H, + [NII] luminosity. Both NGC 1052 and IC 1459 have a spiral morphology in emission-line images. All three display independent strong evidence that a merger or infall event has recently occurred, Le., extensive and infalling HI gas in NGC 1052, a counter-rotating core in IC 1459 and Malin-Carter shells in NGC 6958. This infall event is the most likely origin for the emission-line gas and dust, and we a currently investigating possible excitation mechanisms (Sparks et al. 1990). INTRODUCTION Optical line emission, radio emission, nuclear activity and the presence of X-ray emitting coronal halos often occur together in elliptical galaxies (e.g., Baum et al. 1988). There is good evidence to link optical line emission with mergers, or infall events, when in the presence of counter-rotating cores, dust lanes, discrete stellar components and Malin-Carter shells for example. Sparks et al. (1989) proposed that the cooler infalling gas can significantly modify the properties of the ambient hot medium via thermal conduction, and that the large mass deposition rates inferred from X-ray observations are not present (see also Sparks 1989, this meeting). Here we present CCD continuum and emission-line imaging obtained using EFOSC on the ESO 3.6-m telescope at La Silla, Chile. We investigate three nearby active elliptical galaxies which show independent evidence that infall has recently occurred; namely NGC 1052, IC 1459 and NGC 6958. All three objects were known to have flat-spectrum radio-core emission (Sparks et al. 1984) and dust features (Sparks et al. 1985). Thomas et al. (1986) present and interpret X-ray observations of two of these galaxies in terms of a 'standard' cooling-flow model. Our observations taken together with data already available lead us to conclude that the most likely origin for the extensive emission-line filament systems and dust patches which we find, is an


The installation of offshore wind turbines involves the driving of a cylindrical steel monopile into the sea bed. The presence of the monopile in the water column causes changes in the local flow and turbulence field resulting in increased flow velocity, turbulence and bed shear stress. This causes a scour hole to develop around the base of the monopile, adversely affecting its stability. An extensive laboratory campaign was run to study how tidal currents may change the flow, turbulence, bed shear stress amplification, scour time development and scour depth around a scaled cylinder representing the monopile. The experiments yielded detailed results showing a highly three-dimensional flow field whose characteristics vary significantly with changes in velocity and water depth. The scour hole resulting from reversing time/depth-varying currents was symmetrical in shape and its time development was slower than in unidirectional currents. The results implied this scour depth to be lower than unidirectional current scour depth. The possibility of reducing scour by attaching collars and helical strakes to the cylinder was investigated. The flow and turbulence field around was found to be markedly different to that around the regular cylinders, exhibiting large horizontal-axis rotation in the downstream wake. For the collared cylinder, these differences translated to a lower scour depth during the early stages of the reversing time/depth-varying current in comparison to that of a steady unidirectional current. However, the scour depth at the end of the test was the same for both the smooth and collared cylinders. From the presentation and discussion of the model results, it is suggested that prototype tidal variation in flow depth and velocity does not simplify to unidirectional currents and that the continued use of unidirectional current based prediction methods may overestimate scour in tidal conditions and lead to unnecessary scour protection and resource expenditure.


Display advertising is one important online advertising type where banner advertisements (shortly ad) on websites are usually measured by how many times they are viewed by online users. There are two major channels to sell ad views. They can be auctioned off in real time or be directly sold through guaranteed contracts in advance. The former is also known as real-time bidding (RTB), in which media buyers come to a common marketplace to compete for a single ad view and this inventory will be allocated to a buyer in milliseconds by an auction model. Unlike RTB, buying and selling guaranteed contracts are not usually programmatic but through private negotiations as advertisers would like to customise their requests and purchase ad views in bulk. In this paper, we propose a simple model that facilitates the automation of direct sales. In our model, a media seller puts future ad views on sale and receives buy requests sequentially over time until the future delivery period. The seller maintains a hidden yet dynamically changing reserve price in order to decide whether to accept a buy request or not. The future supply and demand are assumed to be well estimated and static, and the model's revenue management is using inventory control theory where each computed reverse price is based on the updated supply and demand, and the unsold future ad views will be auctioned off in RTB to the meet the unfulfilled demand. The model has several desirable properties. First, it is not limited to the demand arrival assumption. Second, it will not affect the current equilibrium between RTB and direct sales as there are no posted guaranteed prices. Third, the model uses the expected revenue from RTB as a lower bound for inventory control and we show that a publisher can receive expected total revenue greater than or equal to those from only RTB if she uses the computed dynamic reserves prices for direct sales.


Aim To evaluate whether performing ventral hernia repairs using the Ethicon Physiomesh™ Open Flexible Composite Mesh Device in conjunction with the Ethicon Securestrap® Open Absorbable Strap Fixation Device reduces surgical time and surgeon stress levels, compared with traditional surgical repair methods. Methods To repair a simulated ventral incisional hernia, two surgeries were performed by eight experienced surgeons using a live porcine model. One procedure involved traditional suture methods and a flat mesh, and the other procedure involved a mechanical fixation device and a skirted flexible composite mesh. A Surgery Task Load Index questionnaire was administered before and after the procedure to establish the surgeons' perceived stress levels, and saliva samples were collected before, during, and after the surgical procedures to assess the biologically expressed stress (cortisol and salivary alpha amylase) levels. Results For mechanical fixation using the Ethicon Physiomesh Open Flexible Composite Mesh Device in conjunction with the Ethicon Securestrap Open Absorbable Strap Fixation Device, surgeons reported a 46.2% reduction in perceived workload stress. There was also a lower physiological reactivity to the intraoperative experience and the total surgical procedure time was reduced by 60.3%. Conclusions This study provides preliminary findings suggesting that the combined use of a mechanical fixation device and a skirted flexible composite mesh in an open intraperitoneal onlay mesh repair has the potential to reduce surgeon stress. Additional studies are needed to determine whether a reduction in stress is observed in a clinical setting and, if so, confirm that this results in improved clinical outcomes.


Using a unique dataset of 227 convicted UK-based terrorists, this report fills a large gap in the existing literature. Using descriptive statistics, we first outline the degree to which various online activities related to radicalisation were present within the sample. The results illustrate the variance in behaviours often attributed to 'online radicalisation'. Second, we conducted a smallest-space analysis to illustrate two clusters of commonly co-occurring behaviours that delineate behaviours from those directly associated with attack planning. Third, we conduct a series of bivariate and multivariate analyses to question whether those who interact virtually with like-minded individuals or learn online, exhibit markedly different experiences (e.g. radicalisation, event preparation, attack outcomes) than those who do not.


The Syrian crisis is one of the worst crisis in the world. It has dramatically affected many aspects of life and civilization. It imposed millions of emigration to many countries, and negatively affected the national economy including international companies operating in Syria, and also local. It imposed on its economic sides the exit of many institutions and companies from the market, and also led to the adoption of different types of retrenchment strategies by companies that could not exit or those who wanted to stay challenged and motivated by the management of its operations and activities in an exceptional manner commensurate with the crisis continues to the present. Before the Syrian crisis, banking industry (Traditional and Islamic) in Syria was growing rapidly and in a stable pace. The crisis situation has resulted an unexpected conditions that banks were have to deal with. This research highlights the negative effects of the crisis on Islamic and traditional banks operated in Syria, it also indicates some of the responses the banks has employed in order to mitigate or eliminate the crisis bad effects. The applied research has been modified to explore implementation of crisis management literature in Syrian banks (Traditional and Islamic) and the role of that implementation in supporting contingency planning. The study found three main results. First, there is a positive and significant correlation between the crisis management and contingency planning. Second, the Syrian employees believe that Syrian banks has adapted crisis management practices. Finally, the study indicated that banks' employee believe that their work conditions and job environment was negatively affected by the crisis situation.


Often, when classifying multispectral data, only one class or crop is of interest, such as wheat in the Large Area Crop Inventory Experiment (LACIE). Usual procedures for designing a Bayes classifier require that labeled training samples and therefore ground truth be available for the 'class of interest' plus all confusion classes defined by the multispectral data. This paper will consider the problem of designing a two-class Bayes classifier which will classify data into the 'class of interest' or the 'other' classes but will require only labeled training samples from the 'class of interest' to design the classifier. Thus, this classifier minimizes the need for ground truth. For these reasons, the classifier is referred to as a single-class classifier. A procedure for evaluating the overall performance of the single-class classifier in terms of the probability of error will be discussed.


Abstract The propagation of a premixed flame inside of a confining vessel filled with combustible fluid is determined using large-activation-energy asymptotics. The flame structure is analysed assuming that spatial and temporal variations in the transverse direction are weak compared to those in the direction normal to the flame surface. The analysis considers weak pressure rise from confinement and also allows for mixtures that are both near and removed from stoichiometry, non-unity reaction orders, temperature-dependent transport coefficients, and general Lewis numbers. The resulting equations for flame propagation speed are expressed in a coordinate-free form and describe the evolution of an arbitrary shaped flame in a general confining flow. These expressions are specifically applied to the case of a spherical flame propagating inside a spherical chamber. The radius at which the confining vessel influences the flame propagation is determined and the various mechanisms influencing flame behaviour are discussed. The results give rise to a simplified asymptotic relationship that provides an improved equation that may be used to more accurately extrapolate unstretched laminar flame speeds from experimental measurements.


Guava is a phytotherapic plant used in folk medicine and it is having active constituents that help to treat and manage various conditions like malaria, vomiting, diarrhea and inflamed gums etc. Present study is aimed to evaluate the anti-microbial activity of quercetin isolated from the P. guajava leaves, against Escherichia coli (Gram negative) and Bacillus subtilis (Gram positive) which can cause foodborne infection and damage. Dried guava leaves were extracted with 70% methanol, followed by washing of the dried extract with chloroform. Quercetin was isolated by column chromatography from the ethyl acetate layer, which was obtained after partitioning of the initial extract. The efficacy of quercetin was tested by well diffusion and MIC methods where 50 �L solution per well and zone of inhibition was calculated after 72 hrs of incubation. Quercetin has shown anti-bacterial activity in both bacteria with a mean zone of inhibition of 16.5 mm and 13.75 against B. subtilis and E. coli, respectively. The claimed uses of leaves of guava in the traditional system of medicine to treat various infectious disease caused by the microbes was justified by the present study. Still, to evaluate the potential effectiveness of quercetin as a antimicrobial agent further studies are needed.


Abstract The practice of mindfulness adapts Buddhist meditation to everyday life. It seems effective at managing depression and anxiety, and is taught in schools to boost resilience and grades. Mostly, this prioritises calm. Students learn to focus on themselves, without Buddhist teachings on ethics or interdependence. This limits the scope for transformation. Whilst it can help to share techniques to cope with stress, it would be more insightful to target its causes not just symptoms. Instead, a fixation on self gets reinforced, which serves the prevailing market system. The onus is on individuals to be more resilient, instead of changing how things work. Widening inequality and a volatile climate are communal expressions of the roots of suffering, identified by Buddhists as greed, hatred and delusion. If mindfulness in schools were to cultivate 'moral and civic virtues', as British members of parliament argue it should, it could foster compassionate 'pro-social' action.


Participation in sports and recreational activities can significantly effect an individual's well-being and overall quality of life. A regular exercise program strengthens the musculoskeletal system, improves cardiovascular function, and helps prevent and treat medical conditions such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and obesity [1-3]. Participation in sports also decreases symptoms of mild depression, promotes well-being, and improves social skills [4]. Within the disabled veteran community, the benefits of sports and exercise may be exponential. By improving physical condition, function, and psychological well-being, intensive sports and exercise may greatly improve the long-term prognosis for patients with disabilities. Healthcare practitioners should be aware of the opportunities for sports and recreational activities available to their patients. Today, numerous opportunities exist for individuals with disabilities, although many are still hampered by barriers such as limited access and lack of awareness. The National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic is one example of an event that has been successful in breaking down these barriers, thanks to its numerous public and private supporters and the leadership of its organizer Santo "Sandy" Trombetta (pictured below). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic is currently the largest rehabilitative program of its kind in the world and includes adapted physical activities as well as workshops and educational sessions that aid in the rehabilitation of severely disabled veterans. Activities such as Alpine and Nordic skiing, snowmobiling, scuba diving, fly-fishing, wheelchair golf, wheelchair self-defense, rock wall climbing, sled hockey, trapshooting, blues harmonica instruction, dogsledding, goal ball for the visually impaired, wheelchair fencing, and amputee volleyball are only a small number of the adapted sports and activities that have been offered over the past 20 years. Set in recent years in Snow Mass, Colorado, near Aspen, the clinic targets disabled veterans with spinal cord injuries, amputations, neurological disorders, and visual impairments to improve physical well-being, mental health, and self-esteem with the ultimate goal of enabling veterans with profound disabilities to rediscover life after disability. The National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic helps veterans achieve higher levels of self-actualization and empowers them to live a happier, healthier, and more productive lifestyle. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It is no wonder that the program has such a beneficial effect on its participants. Many studies have demonstrated the benefits of exercise on patients with disabilities and have found associated improvements in physical and psychological wellness. For example, one study of individuals with multiple sclerosis found a direct correlation between improvement in exercise ability and psychological wellbeing [5]. While determining what aspect of exercise may be causing these improvements is difficult, some researchers have postulated that they are directly related to improvements in chronic pain and fatigue [6]. In a comparison study of wheelchair athletes and nonathletes, athletes scored far lower than nonathletes in depression when administered a Profile of Mood States [7]. Patients who exercise may also experience positive influences from the environment created through cooperative sports. Being surrounded by their peers, interacting with others, and witnessing their own improvement in abilities may all play a vital role. In addition, patients are often uplifted when they are able to return to activities that they participated in prior to their injury or illness. No matter what the reason, sports and recreation are clearly a vital part of the lives of many persons with disabilities [8]. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Despite the apparent evidence that sports and exercise can help improve the lives of individuals with disabilities, the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic was not readily accepted by conventional healthcare philosophy when it was introduced in 1987. …


Though she died penniless and forgotten, Zora Neale Hurston is now recognized as a major figure in African American literature. Best known for her 1937 novel, "Their Eyes Were Watching God", she also published numerous short stories and essays, three other novels, and two books on black folklore.Even avid readers of Hurston's prose, however, may be surprised to know that she was also a serious and ambitious playwright throughout her career. Although several of her plays were produced during her lifetime - and some to public acclaim - they have languished in obscurity for years. Even now, most critics and historians gloss over these texts, treating them as supplementary material for understanding her novels. Yet, Hurston's dramatic works stand on their own merits and independently of her fiction.Now, eleven of these forgotten dramatic writings are being published together for the first time in this carefully edited and annotated volume. Filled with lively characters, vibrant images of rural and city life, biblical and folk tales, voodoo, and, most importantly, the blues, readers will discover a "real Negro theater" that embraces all the richness of black life.


Using new archival evidence, this book examines the links between Morocco and Gibraltar, focusing on the period around 1750-1850. It shows how these connections challenge existing assumptions about the perceived division between opposite sides of the Strait of Gibraltar.


In the June, 2005 Aviation and Space Law newsletter, Thad T. Dameris and his associate Kent A. Radford discuss the ethical considerations that corporate lawyers face when investigations lead to conversations with current and former company employees. Imagine representing an airline or aircraft manufacturer whose aircraft was just involved in a crash. Plaintiffs' lawyers are attempting to talk to current and former company employees about the crash and the events leading up to the crash. Is opposing counsel prohibited from engaging in this behavior? The ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct speak to this situation. In representing a client, a lawyer shall not communicate about the subject matter of the representation with a person the lawyer knows to be represented by another lawyer in this matter, unless the lawyer has the consent of the other lawyer or is authorized to do so by law or a court order. [ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 4.2 (2002).] The purpose of the rule is to provide the represented person with protection against overreaching by adverse counsel, to prevent interference into the attorney-client relationship by adverse counsel, and to reduce the likelihood a represented person will inadvertently disclose confidential information or other information that may harm his or the company's interest. See ABA Formal Op. 95-396. Comment 7 explains how this rule applies to organizations. The "anti-contact" rule applies to all employees who supervise or direct the company's lawyers. The rule also applies to employees who regularly consult with the company's lawyers about the matter at issue and to employees whose acts or omissions can be imputed to the company for criminal or civil liability purposes. See Rule 4.2, Comment 7. The ABA has explained that when a company "is known to be represented with respect to a particular matter, the bar applies only to communications with those employees who have managerial responsibility, those whose acts or omissions may be imputed to the organization, and those whose statements may constitute admissions by the organization with respect to the matter in question." ABA Formal Op. 95-396. This interpretation makes clear that a broad spectrum of company employees are covered. Notably, the "anti-contact" rule does not prohibit communications with former employees of the company. See ABA Formal Op. 91-359; ABA Formal Op. 95-396; see also H.B.A. Management v. Estate of Schwartz, 693 So.2d 541, 545-46 (Fla. 1997). While there are limits to the "anti-contact" rule, it provides strong protections to those covered. For example, the rule applies even if a covered employee initiates the contact. The rule also applies if a covered employee consents to an improper communication initiated by opposing counsel, but his counsel has not consented. …


Purpose: The aim of the paper was to present the results of the discussion on the threats generated by innovative information and cognitive technologies for the purposes of socially responsible design and development of organization and management systems. Design/Methodology/Approach: The sense of implementing information and cognitive technologies in modern enterprises was justified. Research reports were presented, which made it possible to formulate the effects of implementing these technologies include, first, striving to minimize companies' unit costs. It was justified that the main barriers to the implementation of those technologies, apart from the necessity to invest high financial resources, are the low level of necessary support from the management of enterprises. Findings: As a result of the discussion, it was stated that the guiding principle for rational changes in enterprises in which information and cognitive technologies are implemented may be the assumptions and principles of the SMART Organization model. The company's strategy, which is created, developed and disseminated among employees in the organization, are managers – leaders. It is a strategy which in its characteristics is a strategy called entrepreneurial strategy. Positive Organization Theory, which is a platform for a system of moral and organizational values in an enterprise, is a platform for a new organizational culture as well as the principles and application of management instruments. Practical Implications: In sectors such as health, banking and education, information and cognitive technologies significantly enhance their positive functions. In industrial organizations, the functions that contribute to the increase in the efficiency of mass production and the increase in the flexibility of production processes for individual customer needs are verified. The criteria for applying the technologies that have been called the "Industry 4.0" revolution will be "rethought". Originality/value: The paper presents an in-depth discussion of the threats generated by innovative information and cognitive technologies for the socially responsible design and development of organization and management systems in enterprises.


Metallic tubes have been extensively studied for their crashworthiness as they closely resemble automotive crash rails. Recently, the demand to produce lighter weight, yet safer vehicles has led to the need to understand the crash behaviour of novel materials, such as fibre reinforced polymer composites, metallic foams and sandwich structures. This paper discusses the static indentation response of Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) tubes. The side impact on a CFRP tube involves various failure mechanisms. This paper highlights these mechanisms and compares the energy absorption of CFRP tubes with similar Aluminium tubes. The response of the CFRP tubes during bending was modelled using ABAQUS finite element software with a composite fabric material model. The material inputs were given based on standard tension and compression test results and the in-plane damage was defined based on cyclic shear tests. The failure modes and energy absorption observed during the tests were well represented by the finite element model.


1. The structure of the campaniform sensillae occurring on the wing-bases of the adult worker bee is described.

2. The essential features in their later developmental phases in the pupa have been followed.

3. The observations described lend no support to those of MacIndoo, that the actual termination of the nerve-fibre is exposed to the outside air.

4. The wing-base organs, as described by other workers in different insects, are discussed, with special reference to the identity of the cellular elements composing these structures.

5. The paper concludes with a short discussion of the position of the sensory neuron and a brief review of the supposed function of the campaniform sensillae.


The increasing demand for high-data rate communications in the connected world imposes various challenges in analog and radio frequency (RF) circuits. Although continued scaling in advanced processes offers faster devices, it is accompanied by increasing complexity in circuit design and layout strategy, resulting in diminishing benefits for analog/RF circuits. In order to enable new breakthroughs in speed, cost, and power efficiency, simplifying analog/RF circuits with the assistance of signal processing is becoming a clear trend. This paper provides an overview of this trend by reviewing the signal processing algorithms commonly deployed in wireless communications, data converters, and wired data links. The discussion covers design considerations, as well as algorithms used to compensate for circuit imperfections, so as to demonstrate the cross-discipline interactions between signal processing and analog/RF circuit design.


In Nicaragua, the production of dairy and beef is the most important source of household income for many smallholder producers. However, erratic volumes and quality of milk limit the participation of small- and medium-scale cattle farmers into higher-value dairy value chains. This research uses a system dynamics (SD) approach to analyze the Matiguas dairy value chain in Nicaragua. The paper presents the conceptual framework of the model and highlights the dynamic processes in the value chain, with a focus on improving feeding systems to achieve higher milk productivity and increased income for producers. The model was developed using a participatory group model building (GMB) technique to jointly conceptualize and validate the model with stakeholders.


Life expectancies at older ages continue to increase in most developed countries. But how these additonal years will be divided between those with and without severe question is important for a variety of issues including the ability of people to continue working in the labor market at ever older ages and forecasting the growth of health care expenditures.

We use the harmonized data on severe activity limitations from the Survey of Income and Living Conditons (SILC) and predicted life tables from the United Nations to produce forecasts of demographic quatities that take the prevalence of severe activity limitations into account. For developed countres, we provide forecasts of (1) age-specific proportions of remaining lifetimes at age 65 spent without severe activity limitations, (2) the proportions of populations 60+ years old with severe activity limitations, and (3) a new dependency ratio called the Genuine Adult Dependency Ratio (GADR) that takes severe activity limitations into account.

We show that, on average, life expectancies without severe activity limitations at age 65 in high income OECD countries are likely to increase by around 2.7 years between 2005-2010 and 2045-2050. Proportions of 60+ populations with severe activity limitations are likely to be only marginally higher in 2045-2050 than in 2005-2010. We also show that the speed of increase of the Genuine Adult Dependency Ratio is around one-fifth as fast as the conventional old age dependency ratio.


This paper tests the effectiveness of an entertainment education television series, MTV Shuga, aimed at providing information and changing attitudes and behaviors related to HIV/AIDS. Using a simple model, the paper shows that "edutainment" can work through an individual or a social channel. This study is a randomized controlled trial conducted in urban Nigeria, where young viewers were exposed to MTV Shuga or a placebo television series. Among those exposed to MTV Shuga, the trial created additional variation in the social messages they received and the people with whom they watched the show. The study finds significant improvements in knowledge and attitudes toward HIV and risky sexual behavior. Treated subjects are twice as likely to get tested for HIV eight months after the intervention. The study also finds reductions in sexually transmitted diseases among women. These effects are stronger for viewers who reported being more involved with the narrative, consistent with the psychological underpinnings of edutainment. The trial's experimental manipulations of the social norm component did not produce significantly different results from the main treatment. The individual effect of edutainment thus seems to have prevailed in the context of this study.


Genetic diversity, population genetic structure and isolation by distance (IBD) were assessed in a viviparous coastal shark (the lemon shark Negaprion brevirostris) across 8 western Atlantic samples spaced between ~150 and 7000 km apart. Juveniles (N = 325) were sequenced at 2 mitochondrial loci (1729 bp) and typed at 9 nuclear encoded microsatellite loci. Analysis of mito- chondrial sequences revealed higher diversity at low-latitude island samples compared to high- latitude continental samples, consistent with an equatorial center-of-origin for this species. There were 5 distinct groups across our sampling areas (Brazil, Louisiana, Cape Canaveral, Gullivan Bay and the Florida Keys/Bahamas/Virgin Islands; pairwise ΦST = 0.07�0.87) and all but one pair of the 8 samples also exhibited significantly different haplotype frequencies (pairwise FST = 0.10�0.51). Bayesian analysis indicated that the Brazil and Louisiana samples were generally isolated from the others, but most of the rest were diverged although still connected or recently connected by migration. In contrast, structure was only detected between the most distant sample (Brazil) and all of the others using the microsatellite markers (pairwise FST = 0.03�0.06). There was a signifi- cant pattern of IBD for all markers and measures of genetic differentiation (r 2 = 0.65�0.81, p < 0.05� 0.01), but not after removing the Brazil sample. There was evidence that glacial and post-glacial historical processes and sex-specific differences in philopatry affected IBD. Because of the rela- tively fine-scale population structure of this and other large coastal shark species more attention should be paid to local processes in the conservation and fisheries management of these species.


Academic libraries have continually looked for technological solutions to low circulation statistics, under-usage by students and faculty, and what is perceived as a crisis in relevance, seeing themselves in competition with Google and Wikipedia. Academic libraries, however, are as relevant as they have been historically, as their primary functions within their university missions have not changed, but merely evolved. Going beyond the Gate Count argues that the problem is not relevance, but marketing and articulation. This book offers theoretical reasoning and practical advice to directors on how to better market the function of the library within and beyond the home institution. The aim of this text is to help directors, and ultimately, their librarians and staff get students and faculty back into the library, as a result of better articulation of the library's importance. The first chapter explores the promotion of academic libraries and their function as educational systems. The next two chapters focus on the importance of the role social media and virtual presence in the academic library, and engaging and encouraging students to use the library through a variety of methods, such as visually oriented special collections. Remaining chapters discuss collaboration and collegiality, formalized reporting and marketing. * Offers clear, concise writing, with thoughtful discussions of the problems facing academic libraries * Demonstrates comprehensive and thoughtful research that informs theoretical approaches to realistic outcomes that address these problems* Provides helpful tables, illustrations, and photographs that evidence the collaborative nature of contemporary academic libraries* Provides practical examples from actual experiences that can be adapted by readers


In mammals, the total number of female germ cells is already established by the time of birth, meaning that no mitosis will take place in oogonias thereafter. Their cryostorage, therefore, depends on ovarian tissue manipulation. As an alternative to mature oocyte cryopreservation, the maintenance of inactive preantral follicles is a remarkable option because (i) their availability in the ovary is greater; (ii) as inactive and small structures, they show less sensitivity to cryoinjury and the toxic effects of cryoprotectants; and (iii) they are present in the gonads at all ages, allowing their retrieval from prepubertal individuals or even immediately postmortem. Nevertheless, some difficulties remain regarding their in vitro activation and development to the ovulatory stage. For this reason, the best option for their total development is transplantation back to the donor or between species, promoting follicle activation and development. This technique has proved its efficiency and le... Abstract In mammals, the total number of female germ cells is already established by the time of birth, meaning that no mitosis will take place in oogonias thereafter. Their cryostorage, therefore, depends on ovarian tissue manipulation. As an alternative to mature oocyte cryopreservation, the maintenance of inactive preantral follicles is a remarkable option because (i) their availability in the ovary is greater; (ii) as inactive and small structures, they show less sensitivity to cryoinjury and the toxic effects of cryoprotectants; and (iii) they are present in the gonads at all ages, allowing their retrieval from prepubertal individuals or even immediately postmortem. Nevertheless, some difficulties remain regard ing their in vitro activation and development to the ovulatory stage. For this reason, the best option for their total development is transplantation back to the donor or between species, promoting follicle activation and development. This technique has proved its efficiency and led to several live births in both animals and humans. Since each species has its own particularities in terms of ovarian tissue composition, a number of protocols have been documented, which may be used for either isolated or in situ preantral follicles.


The firewall was introduced into black hole evaporation scenarios as a deus ex machina designed to break entanglements and preserve unitarity (Almheiri et.al., 2013). Here we show that the firewall actually exists and does break entanglements, but only in the context of a virtual reality for observers stationed near the horizon, who are following the long-term evolution of the hole. These observers are heated by acceleration radiation at the Unruh temperature and see pair creation at the horizon as a high-energy phenomenon. The objective reality is very different. We argue that Hawking pair creation is entirely a low-energy process in which entanglements never arise. The Hawking particles materialize as low-energy excitations with typical wavelength considerably larger than the black hole radius. They thus emerge into a very non-uniform environment inimical to entanglement-formation.


This website provides information on recommended locations, mainly in protected areas, suited for the establishment of genetic reserves for Avena, Beta, Brassica and Prunus targeted crop wild relative taxa across Europe, in the context of the AEGRO project . Available information includes ecogeographical data as well as an inventory of crop wild relatives belonging to the four target genera occurring at each location. The selection of these sites follows the principles established in the crop-genepool methodology for the identification of genetic reserve sites developed in Workpackage 2 of the AEGRO project. The AEGRO project focuses on the development of conservation strategies for both crop wild relatives that occur in natural or semi-natural habitats and landraces that are often found in traditional farming systems.


This work proposes a biometric identification system that works together with a palm vein reader sensor and a hand-clenching support, designed to perform the capture the back of the hand. Several processing steps were performed: extraction of the region of interest, binarization, dilation, noise filtering, skeletonization, as well as extraction and verification of patterns based on the measurment of coincidence of vertical and horizontal displacements of skeletonized and dilated images. The proposed method achieved the following results: processing time post capture of 1.8 seconds, FRR of 0.47% and FAR of 0,00%, with a referential database of 50 people from a total of 1500 random captures.


The SEC is poised to take action in the face of compelling evidence that corporate insiders are availing themselves of rule-sanctioned Trading Plans to beat the market. These Trading Plans allow insiders to trade while aware of material nonpublic information. Since the market advantage insiders have enjoyed from Plan trading can be traced to loopholes in the current regulatory scheme, increased enforcement of the existing rules cannot address the issue. But simply tweaking the existing rule structure to close these loopholes would not work either. This is because the SEC adopted the current rule as a part of a delicate compromise with the courts in the "use versus possession" debate over the proper test of scienter for insider trading liability. The current rule reflects the SEC's preferred test (mere "awareness"), but it provides for Trading Plans as an affirmative defense in order to pass judicial scrutiny. Thus, any attempt to simply close the loopholes in Trading Plans while maintaining the awareness test would upset this delicate compromise. Only a comprehensive change to the current insider trading enforcement regime can address the issue.The reform proposed here begins with the recognition that Plan trading is generally done with the firm's awareness and consent. Such trading is therefore a form of Non-Promissory Insider Trading. Since there are strong arguments that there is no moral wrong or economic harm done by Non-Promissory Insider Trading, the regulatory regime should openly embrace it as a permissible form of compensation through firm-sanctioned Modified Trading Plans, so long as there is adequate disclosure. Though such liberalization would represent a radical departure from the current enforcement regime, it would be within the SEC's rulemaking authority and would be consistent with Supreme Court precedent. Most importantly, it would dramatically improve the current enforcement regime in terms of justice, clarity, efficiency and coherence.It is sometimes said there is nothing like a good crisis for effecting much needed change. The current media attention and public scrutiny over corporate insiders' exploitation of rule-sanction Trading Plans may be just the crisis to spur the SEC to adopt a more rational and just approach to insider trading enforcement. The outline for such reform has been proposed here.


The Hippo pathway suppresses tumorigenesis by promoting cycle arrest in tetraploid cells. Cancer cells frequently exhibit tetraploidy, a doubling of the genome that can result from defects in cell division that usually should result in cell death. In nontransformed cells, tetraploidy triggers cell cycle arrest through the tumor suppressor protein p53. Ganem et al. found that the Hippo pathway is activated by tetraploidy and promotes p53 stability (see Zhao and Guan). An RNA interference (RNAi) screen in tetraploid RPE1, a retinal epithelial cell line, identified p53, the cell cycle inhibitor protein p21, and the Hippo pathway kinase LATS2 as proteins that restricted proliferation. Loss of LATS2 expression was observed in a small subpopulation of cells that exhibited spontaneous recovery of cell cycling. The abundance of p53 and the phosphorylation of LATS2 and its substrate, the transcriptional regulator Yes-associated protein (YAP), were greater in tetraploid than in diploid RPE1 cells. In the tetraploid cells, the proportion of cells with cytoplasmic YAP was also greater than in diploid cells, and the abundance of the transcriptional coactivator TAZ and the expression of YAP/TAZ target genes were decreased. Overexpression of nonphosphorylatable, but not of wild-type, YAP increased the proliferation of tetraploid cells. Consistent with the known function of LATS2 to inhibit the E3 ubiquitin ligase MDM2, which targets p53 for degradation, knocking down LATS2 decreased the abundance of p53 to an amount similar to that in diploid cells. HA-tagged LATS2 coimmunoprecipitated with endogenous MDM2 in tetraploid but not diploid RPE1 cells. To understand how the Hippo pathway and LATS2 may be activated in tetraploid cells, the authors examined the cells for changes in the cytoskeleton and contractility, which are known to regulate the Hippo pathway. Tetraploid cells exhibited decreased contractile force and had decreased activation of the contractility-associated proteins myosin light chain and RhoA, coincident with increased activation of Rac1, which inhibits RhoA in response to extra centrosomes. Proliferation of tetraploid cells was increased, and the abundance of p53 and phosphorylated LATS2 and YAP was decreased, by activating or overexpressing RhoA or by knocking down or inhibiting Rac1. Inducing extra centrosomes in diploid RPE-1 cells increased LATS2 phosphorylation, as well as YAP phosphorylation and p53 abundance in a LATS2-dependent manner. Hepatocytes in mice spontaneously become tetraploid with age. Knocking out p53 or expressing a liver-specific, constitutively active YAP enhanced the proliferation of tetraploid hepatocytes in vivo. The findings suggest that loss of Hippo signaling in cancer enables the propagation of tetraploid cells. N. J. Ganem, H. Cornils, S.-Y. Chiu, K. P. O'Rourke, J. Arnaud, D. Yimlamai, M. Théry, F. D. Camargo, D. Pellman, Cytokinesis failure triggers Hippos tumor suppressor pathway activation. Cell 158, 833–848 (2014). [PubMed] B. Zhao, K.-L. Guan, Hippo pathway key to ploidy checkpoint. Cell 158, 695–696 (2014). [PubMed]


A desirable content-based image retrieval (CBIR) system would classify extracted image features to support some form of semantic retrieval. The Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications, an intramural R&D division of the National Library for Medicine (NLM), maintains an archive of digitized X-rays of the cervical and lumbar spine taken as part of the second national health and nutrition examination survey (NHANES II). It is our goal to provide shape-based access to digitized X-rays including retrieval on automatically detected and classified pathology, e.g., anterior osteophytes. This is done using radius of curvature analysis along the anterior portion, and morphological analysis for quantifying protrusion regions along the vertebra boundary. Experimental results are presented for the classification of 704 cervical spine vertebrae by evaluating the features using a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) based approach. In this paper, we describe the design and current status of the content-based image retrieval (CBIR) system and the role of neural networks in the design of an effective multimedia information retrieval system.


We have developed a new Monte Carlo sampling method for simulating flow and transport in unsaturated porous media, characterized by van Genuchten–Mualem constitutive relations. Instead of sampling each individual soil parameter from its probability space and then running Monte Carlo simulations using realizations of rock parameters directly, we calculate retention curves from realizations of rock parameters, take subsamples from these retention curves, and run simulations using parameter realizations corresponding to these selected retention curves. The retention curve subsampling methodology was applied to three‐dimensional simulations of conservative tracer transport beneath Material Disposal Area G at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Convergence of the proposed sampling method was assessed by comparing statistics of breakthrough curves observed at a compliance boundary with those obtained using between 25 and 1000 Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) Monte Carlo simulations. Our example shows that 25 model runs based on selected retention curves could adequately approximate the results from our assumed truth (1000 LHS Monte Carlo simulations), while LHS alone required in excess of 50 realizations to achieve the same quality result. Another finding from this work is that the median of the breakthrough curves was more meaningful than the arithmetic mean of curves, and the former was nearly identical to the breakthrough curve derived from mean rock properties.


Glioblastoma is the most common and lethal malignant brain tumor with a survival rate of 14.6 months and a tumor recurrence rate of ninety percent. Two key causes for glioblastomas grim outcome derive from the lack of applicable prognostic markers and effective therapeutic targets. By employing a loss of function RNAi screen in glioblastoma cells we found a list of 20 kinases that can be considered glioblastoma survival kinases. These survival kinases which we term as survival kinase genes, (SKGs) were investigated to find prognostic markers as well as therapeutic targets for glioblastoma. Analyzing these survival kinases in The Cancer Genome Atlas patient database, we found that CDCP1, CDKL5, CSNK1, IRAK3, LATS2, PRKAA1, STK3, TBRG4, and ULK4 genes could be used as prognostic markers for glioblastoma with or without temozolomide chemotherapeutic treatment as a covariate. For the first time, we found that patients with increased levels of NEK9 and PIK3C mRNA expression had a higher probability of recurrent tumors. We also discovered that expression of CDCP1, IGF2R, IRAK3, LATS2, PIK3C, ULK4, or VRK1 in primary glioblastoma tumors was associated with tumor recurrence prognosis. To note, of these recurrent prognostic candidates, PIK3C expression in recurrent tumor tissue had much higher expression compared to primary tissue. Further investigation in the PI3K pathway showed a strong correlation with recurrence rate, days to recurrence and survival emphasizing the role of PIK3C in tumor recurrence in glioblastoma. In efforts to find effective therapeutic targets for glioblastoma we used SKGs as potential candidates. We chose the serine/threonine kinase, Casein Kinase 1 Epsilon (CSNK1) as a target for glioblastoma because multiple shRNAs targeted this gene in our loss of function screen and multiple commercially available inhibitors of this gene are available. Casein kinase 1 epsilon protein and mRNA expression were investigated using computational tools. It was revealed that CSNK1 expression has higher expression in glioblastoma than normal tissue. To further examine this gene we knocked down (KD) or inhibited CSNK1 in glioblastoma cells lines and noticed a significant increase in cell death without any significant effect on normal cell lines. KD and inhibition of CSNK1 in cancer stem cells, a culprit of tumor recurrence, also revealed limited self-renewal and proliferation in cancer stem cells and a significant decrease in cell survival without affecting normal stem cells. Further analysis of downstream effects of CSNK1 knockdown and inhibition indicate a significant increase in the protein expression of β-catenin (CTNNB1). We found that CSNK1 KD activated β-catenin, which increased GBM cell death, but can be rescued using CTNNB1 shRNA. Our survival kinase screen, computational analyses, patient database analyses and experimental methods contributed to the discovery of novel prognostic markers and therapeutic targets for glioblastoma. Novel Prognostic Markers and Therapeutic Targets for Glioblastoma


The sequestration in soil of organic carbon (SOC) derived from atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) by replacing arable crops with leys, has been measured over 70 years on a sandy loam soil. The experiment was designed initially to test the effect of leys on the yields of arable crops. A 3‐year grazed grass with clover (grass + clover) ley in a 5‐year rotation with arable crops increased percentage organic carbon (%OC) in the top 25 cm of the soil from 0.98 to 1.23 in 28 years, but with little further increase during the next 40 years with all‐grass leys given fertilizer nitrogen (N). In this second period, OC inputs were balanced by losses, suggesting that about 1.3% OC might be near the equilibrium content for this rotation. Including 3‐year lucerne (Medicago sativa) leys had little effect on %OC over 28 years, but after changing to grass + clover leys, %OC increased to 1.24 during the next 40 years. Eight‐year leys (all grass with N or grass + clover) in 10‐year rotations with arable crops were started in the 1970s, and after three rotations %OC had increased to ca. 1.40 in 2000–2009. Over 70 years, %OC declined from 0.98 to 0.94 in an all‐arable rotation with mainly cereals and to 0.82 with more root crops. Applications of 38 t ha−1 farmyard manure (FYM) every fifth year increased %OC by 0.13% by the mid‐1960s when applications ceased. Soil treated with FYM still contained 0.10% more OC in 2000–2009. Changes in the amount of OC have been modelled with RothC‐26.3 and estimated inputs of C for selected rotations. Little of the OC input during the 70 years has been retained; most was retained in the grazed ley rotation, but 9 t ha−1 only of a total input of 189 t ha−1. In other rotations more than 98% of the total OC input was lost. Despite large losses of C, annual increases in OC of 4‰ are possible on this soil type with the inclusion of grass or grass + clover leys or the application of FYM, but only for a limited period. Such increases in SOC might help to limit increases in atmospheric CO2.


Abstract. Recent studies have called for a new unifying hydrological theory at the hillslope and watershed scale, emphasizing the importance of coupled process understanding of the interactions between hydrology, ecology, pedology, geochemistry and geomorphology. The Biosphere 2 Hillslope Experiment is aimed at tackling this challenge and exploring how climate, soil and vegetation interact and drive the evolution of the hydrologic hillslope behavior. A set of three large-scale hillslopes (18 m by 33 m each) will be built in the climate-controlled experimental biome of the Biosphere 2 facility near Tucson, Arizona, USA. By minimizing the initial physical complexity of these hillslopes, the spontaneous formation of flow pathways, soil spatial heterogeneity, surface morphology and vegetation patterns can be observed over time. This paper documents the hydrologic design process for the Biosphere 2 Hillslope Experiment, which was based on design principles agreed upon among the Biosphere 2 science community. Main design principles were that the hillslopes should promote spatiotemporal variability of hydrological states and fluxes, facilitate transient lateral subsurface flow without inducing overland flow and be capable of supporting vegetation. Hydrologic modeling was used to identify a hillslope configuration (geometry, soil texture, soil depth) that meets the design objectives. The recommended design for the hillslopes consists of a zero-order basin shape with a 10 degree overall slope, a uniform soil depth of 1 m and a loamy sand soil texture. The sensitivity of the hydrologic response of this design to different semi-arid climate scenarios was subsequently tested. Our modeling showed that the timing of rainfall in relation to the timing of radiation input controls the spatiotemporal variability of moisture within the hillslope and the generation of lateral subsurface flow. The Biosphere 2 Hillslope Experiment will provide an excellent opportunity to test hypotheses, observe emergent patterns and advance the understanding of interactions.


BACKGROUND
Research in Western countries has shown most centenarians to be survivors with multiple comorbidities. However, Japanese centenarians' morbidity and its relationship to functional status has yet to be elucidated. The aim of this study is to clarify the association of morbidity with the physical and cognitive function of centenarians. We examined Tokyo-area centenarians to determine their kinds of morbidity profiles and how such morbidity related to their functional status.

METHODS
We studied 302 centenarians living in Tokyo (101.2+/-1.8 years; 65 men, 237 women), and assessed their physical status, morbidity, and use of medication. Activities of daily living and cognitive function were also assessed using the Barthel Index and the Clinical Dementia Rating.

RESULTS
More than 95% of the centenarians had chronic diseases. Both the physical and cognitive functions were significantly higher in men. The present and previous illnesses most frequently included hypertension, heart disease, stroke, fractures, and cataracts. Fractures were observed significantly more frequently in women. Diabetes mellitus was uncommon. The physical and cognitive function of centenarians with a history of stroke or fracture were particularly poor, whereas those centenarians with hypertension tended to show a high level of physical and cognitive function.

CONCLUSIONS
Almost all centenarians had chronic diseases. Stroke and fracture were correlated with poorer function; therefore, we hypothesize that prevention of stroke and fracture might improve functional status in the oldest-old.


Recent research on COVID-19 suggests that CT imaging provides useful information to assess disease progression and assist diagnosis, in addition to help understanding the disease. There is an increasing number of studies that propose to use deep learning to provide fast and accurate quantification of COVID-19 using chest CT scans. The main tasks of interest are the automatic segmentation of lung and lung lesions in chest CT scans of confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients. In this study, we compare twelve deep learning algorithms using a multi-center dataset, including both open-source and in-house developed algorithms. Results show that ensembling different methods can boost the overall test set performance for lung segmentation, binary lesion segmentation and multiclass lesion segmentation, resulting in mean Dice scores of 0.982, 0.724 and 0.469, respectively. The resulting binary lesions were segmented with a mean absolute volume error of 91.3 ml. In general, the task of distinguishing different lesion types was more difficult, with a mean absolute volume difference of 152 ml and mean Dice scores of 0.369 and 0.523 for consolidation and ground glass opacity, respectively. All methods perform binary lesion segmentation with an average volume error that is better than visual assessment by human raters, suggesting these methods are mature enough for a large-scale evaluation for use in clinical practice.


This paper presents a best-practice model for the redesign of virtual learning environments (VLEs) within creative arts to augment blended learning. In considering a blended learning best-practice model, three factors should be considered: the conscious and active human intervention, good learning design and pedagogical input, and the sensitive handling of the process by trained professionals. This study is based on a comprehensive VLE content analysis conducted across two academic schools within the creative arts at one Post-92 higher education (HE) institution. It was found that four main barriers affect the use of the VLE within creative arts: lack of flexibility in relation to navigation and interface, time in developing resources, competency level of tutors (confidence in developing online resources balanced against other flexible open resources) and factors affecting the engagement of 'digital residents'. The experimental approach adopted in this study involved a partnership between the learning technology advisor and academic staff, which resulted in a VLE best-practice model that focused directly on improving aesthetics and navigation. The approach adopted in this study allowed a purposive sample of academic staff to engage as participants, stepping back cognitively from their routine practices in relation to their use of the VLE and questioning approaches to how they embed the VLE to support teaching and learning. The model presented in this paper identified a potential solution to overcome the challenges of integrating the VLE within creative arts. The findings of this study demonstrate positive impact on staff and student experience and provide a sustainable model of good practice for the redesign of the VLE within creative disciplines.


The emergence of market-based instruments (MBIs) in the field of ecosystem services has been spectacular but still lacks a clear conceptualization. Terms are overused and abused in discourses, and contrasted policy instruments are referred to as market-oriented albeit with few characteristics in common. Realities on the ground differ substantially from attractive yet misleading propositions supported by public and private discourses. Both advocates and opponents to these approaches thus propose arguments poorly relying on facts and fueling confusion. Payments for environmental services (PES) have flourished and constitute the emblematic and perfect example of a policy instrument that proves more complex and polymorphous than usually acknowledged. Born from the promises of spontaneous agreements between beneficiaries and providers of services for their mutual interest, it has been viewed by most analysts as a popular MBI. We challenge this view by confronting 73 peer-reviewed articles to a typology of MBIs.


Gordon Brown's book offers insight into the events that led to the fiscal downward spiral and the reactions of world leaders as they took steps to avoid further disaster. The book also offers measures Brown believes the world should adopt to regain fiscal stability. Long admired for his grasp of economic issues, Brown's book is a work of paramount interest during these uncertain financial times and attracted intense media coverage. The book offers a unique perspective on the financial crisis as well as innovative ideas that will help create a sound economic future and will help readers understand what really has happened to our economy. Mr Brown has this to say: 'We now live in a world of global trade, global financial flows, global movements of people and instant global communications. Our economies are connected as never before, and I believe that global economic problems require global solutions and global institutions. In writing my analysis of the financial crisis, I wanted to help explain how we got here, but more importantly to offer some recommendations as to how the next stage of globalisation can be managed so that the economy works for people and not the other way around'