Bully victimization has been shown to be associated with a variety of problems in adolescence. Adolescent bully victims endorse higher rates of substance use, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts. One possible explanation is that adolescents who are bullied use substances to cope with victimization and turn to suicidal behaviors when this coping mechanism proves ineffective. Sexual orientation is one variable that is believed to moderate these relationships. Nonheterosexual youth are more likely to be victimized by peers, engage in substance use, and experience suicidality. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between bully victimization, substance use, suicidality, and sexual orientation in a national sample of adolescents. I hypothesized that bully victimization will be positively associated with suicidality and substance use will mediate this relationship. I also predicted sexual orientation would moderate all relationships. Data was drawn from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System survey, a large-scale survey measuring health-risk behaviors contributing to death and disability in youth. The survey contains questions about frequency of bully victimization, engagement in substance use, and prevalence of suicidal behaviors. Participants are also asked about a variety of demographic variables, including sexual orientation. Adolescents in this study completed the survey in 2015. Half of the participants were male, with a mean age of 16. The sample was representative of the U.S. population, with 45.0% identifying as non-Hispanic White, 33.5% as Hispanic, 10.9% as non-Hispanic Black, and 10.7% identifying as Other. A moderated mediation model revealed that the indirect effect of bully victimization through substance use to suicidality was significant for heterosexual (b = .029, SE = .003, CI99 = .022, .038) and sexual BULLYING, SUBSTANCE USE, AND SUICIDALITY ix minority (b = .040, SE = .009, CI99 = .020, .066) adolescents. Sexual orientation moderated the relationships between bully victimization and substance use and bully victimization and suicidality. It did not moderate the relationship between substance use and suicidality. Results suggest that sexual minority youth are at an increased risk for substance use and suicidality when victimized. Results also highlight the importance of addressing bully victimization when providing mental health and substance use services to adolescents.


Numerous compounds stimulate rodent β-cell proliferation; however, translating these findings to human β-cells remains a challenge. To examine human β-cell proliferation in response to such compounds, we developed a medium-throughput in vitro method of quantifying adult human β-cell proliferation markers. This method is based on high-content imaging of dispersed islet cells seeded in 384-well plates and automated cell counting that identifies fluorescently labeled β-cells with high specificity using both nuclear and cytoplasmic markers. β-Cells from each donor were assessed for their function and ability to enter the cell cycle by cotransduction with adenoviruses encoding cell cycle regulators cdk6 and cyclin D3. Using this approach, we tested 12 previously identified mitogens, including neurotransmitters, hormones, growth factors, and molecules, involved in adenosine and Tgf-1β signaling. Each compound was tested in a wide concentration range either in the presence of basal (5 mM) or high (11 mM) glucose. Treatment with the control compound harmine, a Dyrk1a inhibitor, led to a significant increase in Ki-67+ β-cells, whereas treatment with other compounds had limited to no effect on human β-cell proliferation. This new scalable approach reduces the time and effort required for sensitive and specific evaluation of human β-cell proliferation, thus allowing for increased testing of candidate human β-cell mitogens.


Preventing sweeping human rights violations or wars and rebuilding societies in their aftermath require an approach encompassing the perspectives of both human rights advocates and practitioners of conflict resolution. While these two groups work to achieve many of the same goals - notably to end violence and loss of life - they often make different assumptions, apply different methods, and operate under different values and institutional constraints. As a result, they may adopt conflicting or even mutually exclusive approaches to the same problem. Eileen F. Babbitt and Ellen L. Lutz have collected groundbreaking essays exploring the relationship between human rights and conflict resolution. Employing a case study approach, the contributing authors examine three areas of conflict - Sierra Leone, Colombia, and Northern Ireland - from the perspectives of participants in both the peace-making and human rights efforts in each country. By spotlighting the role of activists and reflecting on what was learned in these cases, this volume seeks to push scholars and practitioners of both conflict resolution and human rights to think more creatively about the intersection of these two fields.


ABSTRACT A collection of Majoidea Samouelle, 1819 crabs carried out during the KARUBENTHOS 2012 Expedition to Guadeloupe Island and sorted during an international workshop at Besse-et-Saint-Anastaise in 2013 is reported. A total of 60 species are identified, 30 being new records for Guadeloupe Island. Each species is presented with notes on habitat, geographical distribution and previous records for the Lesser Antilles. A documented list of 42 additional Majoidea species is also proposed for the Lesser Antilles Islands based on a bibliographic research. A total of 102 Majoidea crabs are currently reported from the Lesser Antilles, of which 81 around Guadeloupe Island.


Celluloid Saints looks at fundamental issues in the lives of saints and explores them in ways that are complex and nuanced, yet accessible. Topics such as martyrdom, miracles, evangelism, asceticism, saints in the Holocaust, and saintly mental illness have found diverse treatments in film. This book examines that diversity and explains some of the reasons for it.The book is written with two goals in mind. The first is to give film viewers some background and context for evaluating what they see on screen. By and large, Hollywood is not conversant with theological issues; occasionally, movies reveal an appalling ignorance about religion. More often, however, the approach movies take is simply flat-footed and unsophisticated. Giving readers the tools they need to interpret and critique cinematic portrayals of sanctity is one goal of this book.The second goal is to show students of theology how the ideas that they encounter in often highly technical language might play themselves out on the big screen. Any worthy theology begins in human experience. If a theology cannot be translated into the language of events and emotions, dreams and love, despair and fulfillment, then it has lost its way. Revelation is always revelation to someone. To be meaningful, it has to be able to render itself in a language that people understand. Film is one such language. Used wisely and intelligently, it can be a powerful tool for expressing theological insights.


This study measures the cost of organic milk production, and in particular, the differences in cost of production between organic and conventional milk in California. Results show that the total cost of production on a per cow and a per hundredweight basis is about 10% higher for organic producers than for conventional producers in the surveyed regions, and about 20% higher when compared on a statewide basis. The higher costs appear to be due to reduced milk production, higher feed costs, higher average labor costs, significantly higher herd replacement costs and significant transition costs. The higher costs associated with organic milk production are exacerbated to some extent by lower milk yields, and at the same time, are mitigated by the substitution of lower cost pasture for higher priced roughage and concentrate feeds. The higher prices paid for organic milk may more than offset these higher costs compared to their regional, samesized neighbors.


Abstract. In this study we use a high-quality data set of in situ ozone measurements at a suburban site called Mohali in the state of Punjab to estimate ozone-related crop yield losses for wheat, rice, cotton and maize for Punjab and the neighbouring state Haryana for the years 2011–2013. We intercompare crop yield loss estimates according to different exposure metrics, such as AOT40 (accumulated ozone exposure over a threshold of 40) and M7 (mean 7-hour ozone mixing ratio from 09:00 to 15:59), for the two major crop growing seasons of kharif (June–October) and rabi (November–April) and establish a new crop-yield–exposure relationship for southern Asian wheat, maize and rice cultivars. These are a factor of 2 more sensitive to ozone-induced crop yield losses compared to their European and American counterparts. Relative yield losses based on the AOT40 metrics ranged from 27 to 41 % for wheat, 21 to 26 % for rice, 3 to 5 % for maize and 47 to 58 % for cotton. Crop production losses for wheat amounted to 20.8 ± 10.4 million t in the fiscal year of 2012–2013 and 10.3 ± 4.7 million t in the fiscal year of 2013–2014 for Punjab and Haryana taken together. Crop production losses for rice totalled 5.4 ± 1.2 million t in the fiscal year of 2012–2013 and 3.2 ± 0.8 million t in the year 2013–2014 for Punjab and Haryana taken together. The Indian National Food Security Ordinance entitles ~ 820 million of India's poor to purchase about 60 kg of rice or wheat per person annually at subsidized rates. The scheme requires 27.6 Mt of wheat and 33.6 Mt of rice per year. The mitigation of ozone-related crop production losses in Punjab and Haryana alone could provide > 50 % of the wheat and ~ 10 % of the rice required for the scheme. The total economic cost losses in Punjab and Haryana amounted to USD 6.5 ± 2.2 billion in the fiscal year of 2012–2013 and USD 3.7 ± 1.2 billion in the fiscal year of 2013–2014. This economic loss estimate represents a very conservative lower limit based on the minimum support price of the crop, which is lower than the actual production costs. The upper limit for ozone-related crop yield losses in all of India currently amounts to 3.5–20 % of India's GDP. The mitigation of high surface ozone would require relatively little investment in comparison to the economic losses incurred presently. Therefore, ozone mitigation can yield massive benefits in terms of ensuring food security and boosting the economy. The co-benefits of ozone mitigation also include a decrease in the ozone-related mortality and morbidity and a reduction of the ozone-induced warming in the lower troposphere.


Risk is a game in which traditional Artificial-Intelligence methods such as for example iterative deepening and Alpha-Beta pruning can not successfully be applied due to the size of the search space. Distributed problem solving in the form of a multi-agent system might be the solution. This needs to be tested before it is possible to tell if a multi-agent system will be successful at playing Risk or not. In this thesis the development of a multi-agent system that plays Risk is explained. The system places an agent in every country on the board and uses a central agent for organizing communication. An auction mechanism is used for negotiation. The experiments show that a multi-agent solution indeed is a prosperous approach when developing a computer based player for the board game Risk.


Richard Henry Crooks: Analysis Of The XY Spin 1/2 Model In Staggered Field And Networks Of D-Wave Josephson Junctions (Under the Direction of Dmitri Khveshchenko) The study of entanglement in quantum systems is an area of much recent experimental and theoretical work and is of central importance in the implementation of various protocols in quantum information science. The dynamical properties of entanglement are examined in the context of the XY spin 1/2 chain model with a staggered magnetic field. The quality of entangled state transfer is found to be comparable to the uniform field XY spin 1/2 chain in the strong field regime. The effects of anisotropy on state transfer is also considered, as well as the interaction between entanglement waves and the possibility of transmission of multiple bits of quantum information. As an additional system where these quantum entanglement dynamics might play out, a large array of mesoscopic junctions made out of gapless unconventional superconductors is also studied. In this model, the tunneling processes of both particle-hole and Cooper pairs give rise to a strongly retarded effective action which, contrary to the case of conventional superconductors, cannot be readily characterized in terms of a local Josephson energy. This is an action that describes, for example, grain boundary and c-axis junctions in layered high-Tc superconductors. The emergent collective phenomena in this system are obtained, along with the phase diagram and the electrical conductivity of the model.


Abstract We report unprecedented non-Einstein-like viscosity decrease of polymer melts by special low glass transition, Tg, inorganic tin fluorophosphate glass (Pglass) that is remarkably counter to widely accepted dispersions, suspensions, and composites theories. The well dispersed low-Tg Pglass dramatically decrease the polymer melt viscosity while increasing its Young's modulus in the solid state at low loading (<2%) however decreasing with high loading (> 2 %), making the hybrid Pglass/polymer solid material stronger yet easier to process in the liquid state. Disruption of the Nylon 6 melt dynamics, strong physicochemical interactions, and submicrometer nanophase separation (proved by rheometry, FTIR, DSC, SEM, NMR and XRD) are thought to be responsible for this experimental fact. This finding should beneficially impact our ability to prepare lower viscosity, very highly filled Nylon 6 melts from already existing materials and polymer processing methods such as injection molding and extrusion, making the simple strategy potentially widely applicable in a number of applications such as thinner barrier resistant thin films, composites, and membranes for heterogeneous catalysis.


We offer a sceptical examination of a thesis recently advanced in a monograph published by Princeton University Press entitled Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter with Early Buddhism in Central Asia. In this dense and probing work, Christopher I. Beckwith, a professor of Central Eurasian studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, argues that Pyrrho of Elis adopted a form of early Buddhism during his years in Bactria and Gandhāra, and that early Pyrrhonism must be understood as a sect of early Buddhism. In making his case Beckwith claims that virtually all scholars of Greek, Indian, and Chinese philosophy have been operating under flawed assumptions and with flawed methodologies, and so have failed to notice obvious and undeniable correspondences between the philosophical views of the Buddha and of Pyrrho. In this study we take Beckwith's proposal and challenge seriously, and we examine his textual basis and techniques of translation, his methods of examining passages, his construal of problems and his reconstruction of arguments. We find that his presuppositions are contentious and doubtful, his own methods are extremely flawed, and that he draws unreasonable conclusions. Although the result of our study is almost entirely negative, we think it illustrates some important general points about the methodology of comparative philosophy.


Serotonin [5-hydroxy-tryptamine (5-HT)] exerts a number of effects in the mammalian heart: increase in heart rate, increase in force of contraction, fibrosis of cardiac valves, coronary constriction, arrhythmias and thrombosis. These effects are, in part, mediated by 5-HT-receptors, in part, directly by 5-HT action on intracellular proteins. In the begin -ning, 5-HT was thought to be only produced in the gut and then transported into the heart via platelets, because platelets can take up 5-HT in the gut and enter the capillaries and thus the mammalian heart. 5-HT is to a large extent metabolized in the liver and excreted via the urine. Here, we will also overview data that argue for additional path -ways, namely production and degradation of 5-HT in the cells of the heart itself.


This text integrates the microeconomics of trade with concepts from open economy macroeconomics. The emphasis is on the powerful forces of international competition and the limitations of government policy. Economics began with a political debate over tariffs and the politics continue. Domestic industries lobby for protection against foreign competitors and for export subsidies. Government policy makers favor their pet industries in return for lobby money and votes. Meanwhile, other industries lobby for free trade. Governments worldwide tentatively negotiate free trade agreements while international financial markets determine the effectiveness of their fiscal and monetary policies. Wages, capital returns, and national income rise and fall with international commerce. The text covers these issues of international trade and finance. The trade theory is based on partial equilibrium market analysis, constant cost and neoclassical general equilibrium, the factor proportions model, and various theories of industrial organization. The text fully integrates concepts from international finance, and a new chapter for the 2nd edition develops the basic models of open economy macroeconomics. The presentation is centered on graphs that use realistic numerical examples making the theory easier for students to grasp, especially when combined with general algebraic and graphic presentations in the classroom. The text does not assume previous courses in intermediate theory or calculus but the theory is completely developed. Numerous exercises that can be presented by students give them confidence in using the theoretical models and concepts. Over 250 boxed examples illustrate the theory, many with visually descriptive charts and plots, making the text excellent for MBA courses. The text is concise in its presentation style. Students enjoy its clear straightforward style and instructors notice the difference on exams.


Stitching together a post-apocalyptic history from the scraps of fairy tales, war memorials, hunting songs, and disparate scholarship, Jessica Bozek's The Tales traces the violence that humans inflict upon one another. As the central narrative of the Lone Survivor becomes revealed through the mouths of various perspectives, Bozek investigates the language that victims and perpetrators alike use to make sense of (and attempt to forget) the aftermath of violence. From ordinary objects—family photographs, sweaters that unravel, old batteries, and lightbulbs—to the remnants of destroyed art and architecture, an annihilated nation is brought into reality, and the Lone Survivor's story is simultaneously documented and invalidated, becoming "a memorial that will disintegrate over time, gray and fray as most of the dead did not have a chance to."


Volume 1: J.G Frazer: His Life and Work R.Ackerman This Volume will Include Robert Ackerman's introduction to The Golden Bough Volume 2: The Making of the Golden Bough R.Fraser Volume 3: Part I: The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings , vol. 1 Volume 4: Part I: The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings , vol. 2 Volume 5: Part II: Taboo and the Perils of the Soul Volume 6: Part III: The Dying God Volume 7: Part IV: Adonis, Attis, Osiris , vol.1 Volume 8: Part IV: Adonis, Attis, Osiris , vol.2 Volume 9: Part V: Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild , vol.1 Volume 10: Part V: Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild , vol.2 Volume 11: Part VI: The Scapegoat Volume 12: Part VII: Balder the Beautiful , vol.1 Volume 13: Part VII: Balder the Beautiful , vol 2 Volume 14: Part VIII: Bibliography and Gener al Index Volume 15: Aftermath: Supplementary Volume


Vaccine development comprises multiple stages, the first of which typically involves cultivating an organism in a microbial fermenter to produce a vaccine product. In order to ensure the optimal synthesis of the vaccine product, it is necessary to maintain adequate control of the dissolved oxygen (DO), which is required for the organism to grow and survive. Our work is concerned with controlling the dissolved oxygen in a biological fermenter using a PID (Proportional-Integral-Derivative) Controller. The product from this fermenter is used to create the immunization for a medical illness. However, the present configuration of the PID Controller is inadequate for maintaining the dissolved oxygen at the desired level of 35% relative to saturation. This inadequacy results in violent DO oscillations which compromise the quality of the product. To solve this issue, we use open-loop experimental data to develop empirical transfer-function models of the control process for dissolved oxygen. Then, we create an optimization algorithm for the PID Controller and apply it to obtain the proportional, integral, and derivative gains that would best regulate the dissolved oxygen in the fermenter. The parameters obtained from this algorithm are applied experimentally to the biological fermenter set-up and the results are used to demonstrate that the PID optimization algorithm provides controller settings which successfully regulate the dissolved oxygen. In addition, we employ our transfer-function models of the DO control process to design and configure a set of Internal Model Controllers and Model Predictive Controllers. The Internal Model and Model Predictive Controllers are subsequently optimized to handle external disturbances and robustly regulate the dissolved oxygen levels. This optimization is performed by varying the tuning parameters of the controllers and selecting the parameters which best maintain the dissolved oxygen levels at their desired values, minimize the effect of external disturbances, and minimize the effect of errors in process modelling. Finally, a non-linear model of the DO control process is developed and utilized to successfully obtain a set of gain-scheduled PID tuning parameters.


The St. Landry Massacre is representative of the pervasive violence and intimidation in the South during the 1868 presidential canvass and represented the deadliest incident of racial violence during the Reconstruction Era. Southern conservatives used large scale collective violence in 1868 as a method to gain political control and restore the antebellum racial hierarchy. From 1865-1868, these Southerners struggled against the federal government, carpetbaggers, and Southern black populations to gain this control, but had largely failed in their attempts. After the First Reconstruction Act of March, 1867 forced Southern governments to accept universal male suffrage, Southern conservatives utilized violence and intimidation to achieve their goals, which escalated as the 1868 presidential election neared. Violence was nearly omnipresent in Louisiana during the presidential canvass and was the primary reason behind the Democratic victory in the state. This violence not only succeeded in its initial goal of securing a victory for the Democratic Party during the 1868 presidential election, but long term consequences also arose. Louisiana responded to the violence with a series of election laws, one creating the Returning Board on Elections, a potentially corrupt committee that could decide elections in the state by invalidating votes it deemed to be obtained by fraud. Nationally, the First Enforcement Act protected black voters and rights granted by previous reconstruction legislation. St. Landry Parish illustrates the local shift of power after 1868, where an instance of conservative boss rule occurred and the parish Republican Party was unable to fully recover for the remainder of Reconstruction. By 1874, conservative Democratic control was so complete in St. Landry that it became home to Louisiana's first White League. Although 1868 was the peak of Reconstruction Era violence, conservative Democrats resorted to force when other attempts at regional control failed for the remainder of the period.


We present a class of efficient models called MobileNets for mobile and embedded vision applications. MobileNets are based on a streamlined architecture that uses depth-wise separable convolutions to build light weight deep neural networks. We introduce two simple global hyper-parameters that efficiently trade off between latency and accuracy. These hyper-parameters allow the model builder to choose the right sized model for their application based on the constraints of the problem. We present extensive experiments on resource and accuracy tradeoffs and show strong performance compared to other popular models on ImageNet classification. We then demonstrate the effectiveness of MobileNets across a wide range of applications and use cases including object detection, finegrain classification, face attributes and large scale geo-localization.


The relationship between integrated media noise power and linear density in heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) is discussed. A noise plateau for intermediate recording density has been observed in HAMR, similar to that found in perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR). Here, we show, by changing the temperature profile of the heat spot in HAMR, that we can tune the noise plateau regions to different recording densities. The heat spot with sharp temperature gradient favors a plateau at high recording density, while the heat spot with gradual temperature gradient favors a plateau at low recording density. This effect is argued to be a consequence of the competition between transition noise and remanence noise in HAMR.


In January 1954, the Iranian émigré poet living in the Soviet Union, Abulqasim Lahuti, was summoned before the Central Committee in Moscow to discuss the publication of a fraudulent Persian-language autobiography that reflected unfavorably on his experiences in the Soviet Union. This autobiography was the result of a 1953 CIA operation in Iran launched by Donald Wilber after he had become convinced that in case of a Soviet takeover Lahuti would be the one most likely put forward as leader. To preempt this threat, the CIA published the counterfeit autobiography. Unlike Mosaddeq and other CIA targets, however, Lahuti's position as a cultural mediator between the Soviet Union, Soviet Tajikistan, and Iran made the consequences of this operation more complex than the CIA had imagined. This paper explores its aftermath using recently declassified Soviet archival documents and interviews. It argues that this operation transformed Lahuti's professional and social standing in Moscow, empowered him to challenge his long-time enemy Bobojon Ghafurov on the issue of Tajik ethnogenesis, and helped change the official Stalinist line on Persian literary culture. Lastly, this operation politicized Lahuti's biography in ways that are relevant to the present day.


The presence of endocrine disruptor chemicals (EDCs) in treated wastewater lately, is
alarming. Chlorophenols, an endocrine disruptor chemical compound is hardly
eliminated in water using conventional treatment. In this study, contaminated water
containing 2-Chlorophenol was treated using the Advanced Oxidation Processes
(AOPs) reactor (anolyte solution/ozone/UV) and anolyte solution alone. Various
conditions such as initial pH values, ozone dosages, reaction time and initial 2-
Chlorophenol concentrations were tested to achieve the optimum degradation of 2-
Chlorophenol. Possible intermediates and by-products in each treatment effluents were
investigated. Results showed that almost 90% of 2-Chlorophenol (5mgIL) degraded in
water with initial alkaline pH values (11-12) using AOPs reactor (anolyte solution
(O.4L)/Ozone 50% (0.5 1 mg/L)/UV). Complete (1 00%) degradation of 2-Chlorophenol in \i.ater was achieved when initial concentration of 2-Chlorophenol was 0.04 mg/L in
neutral pH condition. On the other hand, at least 70% of the ZChlorophenol degraded
when treated with anolyte solution in all initial pH values and initial 2-Chlorophenol
concentrations. Complete (100%) degradation of 2-Chlorophenol occurred when the
initial concentration of 2-Chlorophenol was 1.0 mg/L in original pH condition. All
effluent samples had acidic pH value except those 2-Chlorophenol solutions with initial
alkaline pH values. Comparison between two treatments showed that anolyte solution
was more effective to degrade 2-Chlorophenol than AOPs reactor at original and neutral
pH conditions. The degradation of 2-Chlorophenol compounds in water was achieved
up to 100% using anolyte solution compared to the AOPs reactor at higher 2-
Chlorophenol concentration in most cases. The 2-Chlorophenol degraded intermediates
and by-products using AOPs reactor and anolyte solution were mainly alkenes, alkanes,
carboxylic acid, ketones and ether functional group compounds.


General anesthesia is the administration of certain anesthetics that enable a patient to tolerate surgical conditions. This study was aimed to better explain effects of sevoflurane, and desflurane, inhaled anesthetics, on liver and kidney functions by determining postoperative changes of some biochemical parameters. In this study, 35 patients suited physical status of American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) I-II groups were included. Patients with normal renal and hepatic functions were randomly allocated into two groups according to the inhalation agents used. These groups are group of sevoflurane (group S) and group of desflurane (group D). In all groups, general anesthesia was induced with thiopentone and cisatracurium and maintained with 50 % N2O - 50 % oxygen and one of the two volatile agents (desflurane, and sevoflurane). Levels of serum BUN, Urea, Creatinine, AST, ALT were determined in blood samples. Levels of AST in group S and group D increased in post-operation. While there was no significant difference in group D, there was statistically significant difference in group S. The primary effects of volatile anesthetics were on the biochemical parameters of liver postoperatively. Especially, in people with liver disease, it may be considered that desflurane can be a good alternative to sevoflurane in general anesthesia.


Although cross‐laminated timber (CLT) plates are increasingly used in high‐performance building structures, a tailored composition of them or, at least, a performance‐based classification scheme is not available. Especially, the influence of the quality of the 'raw' material (wooden boards) on the load carrying capacity of CLT elements is hardly investigated yet. For this reason, within this work, bending tests on 24 CLT plates consisting of wooden boards from three different strength classes have been carried out. The global mechanical response as well as the formation of failure mechanisms were investigated, including a full‐field deformation measurement system, which allowed for a qualitatively as well as quantitatively identification of board failure modes. Interestingly, no influence of the board strength class on the elastic limit load of the CLT plates was observed, but the situation was different for the load displacement history beyond the elastic regime, where basically, two different global failure mechanisms could be distinguished. The obtained knowledge about the 'post‐elastic' behaviour of CLT plates may serve as a basis for the optimisation of CLT products and the development or improvement of design concepts, respectively. Moreover, the obtained large 'post‐elastic' capacity reserve of CLT consisting of high quality boards could lead to a better utilisation of the raw material.


. GridPix is a gas-filled detector with an aluminium mesh stretched 50 µ m above the Timepix CMOS pixel chip. This defines a high electric field where gas amplification occurs. A feasibility study is ongoing at Nikhef for the application of the GridPix technology as a charge sensitive device in a dual phase noble gas Time Projection Chamber (TPC), within the framework of the DARWIN design study for next generation dark matter experiments. The smallness of the device and well defined materials allow for high radio-purity and low outgassing. The high granularity of a pixel readout and the high detection efficiency of single electrons of GridPix bring benefits especially in terms of energy resolution for small energy deposits. This feature is interesting also for the measurement of the scintillation yield and the ionisation yield of noble liquids. The accurate measurements of such quantities have a direct impact on the data interpretation of dark matter experiments. The application in dual phase argon or xenon TPCs implies several technological challenges, such as the survival of the device at cryogenic temperature as well as the operation in a pure noble gas atmosphere without discharges. We describe here the recent developments of the project.


Indian economy in the post-liberalisation era has witnessed increasing awareness of the need for introduction of various risk management products to enable hedging against market risk in a cost effective way. This industry-wide, cross-sectional study concentrates on recent foreign exchange risk management practices and derivatives product usage by large nonbanking Indian-based firms. The study is exploratory in nature and aims at an understanding the risk appetite and FERM (Foreign Exchange Risk Management) practices of Indian corporate enterprises. This study focuses on the activity of end-users of financial derivatives and is confined to 501 non-banking corporate enterprises. A combination of simple random and judgement sampling was used for selecting the corporate enterprises and the major statistical tools used were Correlation and Factor analysis. The factor analysis finds that there are three derived factors of non-usage of derivative products namely, Perceptual Issues, Technical & policy factor and Pricing & Cost considerations. Further, the correlation analysis reveals positive relation between the nine variables representing the reasons as nonusage of derivatives by Indian corporates. The study finds wide usage of derivative products for risk management and the prime reason of hedging is reduction in volatility of cash flows. VAR (Value-at-Risk) technique was found to be the preferred method of risk evaluation by maximum number of Indian corporate. Further, in terms of the external techniques for risk hedging, the preference is mostly in favour of forward contracts, followed by swaps and cross-currency options This article throws light on various concerns of Indian firms regarding derivative usage and reasons for non-usage, apart form techniques of risk hedging, risk evaluation methods adopted, risk management policy and types of derivatives used.


As demonstrations under the banner of #BlackLivesMatter continue to erupt around the United States against state-sponsored violence, and as state, local, and federal officials continue to eschew fundamental social change, families and protesters have begun to explore alternative international forums in the search for justice. The Ferguson to Geneva delegation represents a significant event in this internationalist turn. The delegation, consisting of the parents of Mike Brown, Jr. and young Black leaders from Ferguson, chose to air their grievances before the United Nations Committee Against Torture in the fall of 2014. This article reproduces the delegation's "shadow report," which laid the groundwork for its testimony, and further describes delegation members' subsequent efforts to leverage the outcome of the United Nations Committee review process to bolster domestic advocacy. It concludes finally that international human rights law and its formal accountability mechanisms should not encompass the totality of what people perceive as the potential and depth of the human rights discourse; instead, these should be considered nothing more than tools that can be strategically employed to support a broader process of organizing and grassroots resistance.


Three forms of medical writing are of special importance, because each may be written by any doctor—teacher, consultant or general practitioner. They are (1) the report of research; (2) the case report; and (3) the M.D. thesis. Experience shows that both papers and theses are hard to write, however able the writer may be from the professional or scientific point of view. It may therefore be helpful to discuss the different aims and structure of papers and theses and the best ways of tackling them. It should be easy to apply the general principles to other forms of medical writing, such as annotations and book reviews; although short, these are no less hard to write.
Writing a paper or thesis is the last stage of a research or study of some kind, and the value of the report will depend partly on the work itself, partly on the way it is presented.


ABSTRACT Our study assesses whether high school science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses provide non-college bound youth with the skills and training necessary to successfully transition from high school into the STEM economy. Specifically, our study estimates the effects that advanced math, advanced science, engineering, and computer science courses in high school have on the probability that non-college bound youth will obtain employment in the STEM economy and on wages within two years of graduating from high school. Our findings indicate that STEM coursework is unrelated with the probability of securing a job in the STEM economy and is unrelated with wages two years post high school graduation.


In this paper the basic principles in operational modal testing and analysis are presented and discussed. A brief review of the techniques for operational modal testing and identification is presented, and it is argued, that there is now a wide range of techniques for effective identification of modal parameters of practical interest – including the mode shape scaling factor – with a high degree of accuracy. It is also argued that the operational technology offers the user a number of advantages over traditional modal testing. The operational modal technology allows the user to perform a modal analysis in an easier way and in many cases more effectively than traditional modal analysis methods. It can be applied for modal testing and analysis on a wide range of structures and not only for problems generally investigated using traditional modal analysis, but also for those requiring load estimation, vibration level estimation and fatigue analysis.


In 2000, Russian scientist Zhores Alferov shared the Nobel Prize for Physics for his discovery of the heterojunction, a semiconductor device the practical applications of which include LEDs, rapid transistors, and the microchip. The Prize was the culmination of a career in Soviet science that spanned the eras of Stalin, Khrushchev, and Gorbachev--and continues today in the postcommunist Russia of Putin and Medvedev. In Lenin's Laureate, historian Paul Josephson tells the story of Alferov's life and work and examines the bureaucratic, economic, and ideological obstacles to doing state-sponsored scientific research in the Soviet Union. Lenin and the Bolsheviks built strong institutions for scientific research, rectifying years of neglect under the Czars. Later generations of scientists, including Alferov and his colleagues, reaped the benefits, achieving important breakthroughs: the first nuclear reactor for civilian energy, an early fusion device, and, of course, the Sputnik satellite. Josephson's account of Alferov's career reveals the strengths and weaknesses of Soviet science--a schizophrenic environment of cutting-edge research and political interference. Alferov, born into a family of Communist loyalists, joined the party in 1967. He supported Gorbachev's reforms in the 1980s, but later became frustrated by the recession-plagued postcommunist state's failure to fund scientific research adequately. An elected member of the Russian parliament since 1995, he uses his prestige as a Nobel laureate to protect Russian science from further cutbacks. Drawing on extensive archival research and the author's own discussions with Alferov, Lenin's Laureate offers a unique account of Soviet science, presented against the backdrop of the USSR's turbulent history from the revolution through perestroika.


The aim of this research is to show how social networks can be used for marketing purposes. This is implemented with the assistance of learning algorithms. The method proposed in this research is based on the analysis of "Support Vector Machines", which facilitates analysis of all information gathered from the social websites. It differs from other methods currently being used by social networking websites, which do not take advantage of classification.

By using public information from social networks, a dataset was formed. It comprised of a thousand users and seven features. The examined features were location, age, gender, occupation, relationship status, and average travel time/year. In this research, the dataset will be examined twice: first using a regular SVM; and next by using "Weighted Feature Support Vector Machines". For the latter, to assign weights, a method called "Pairwise Comparison" will be used to rank the importance of features.


Understanding the sources of sediment in catchment surface waters is essential to remediate
sediment-related water quality problems and meet water quality guidelines and legislation such as the EU Water Framework Directive. At present, intensively managed grasslands have been largely overlooked as a potential source of sediments, despite their extensive coverage. Bilotta et al. (2008) provided the first field-scale evidence
of the rates of erosion and sediment yields from intensively managed grasslands.
However, the propensity of grasslands to erode and act as a source of sediments and sorbed contaminants is likely to be dependent upon the intensity of grazing (i.e. the stocking density). Here, work is presented from a field-based, plot-scale experiment which investigated the influence of grazing at a range of simulated stocking densities (0, 2, 4, 6 LSU ha −1 ) on the properties of soil, vegetation, and the concentrations and yields of suspended solids (SS), volatile organic matter (VOM), total phosphorus (TP), total carbon (TC), and total nitrogen (TN) in surface runoff. Results show that concentrations and yields of SS, VOM, and TP increase with increasing stocking density. If the concentrations of SS observed in surface runoff from these plots were observed in streams and rivers, then only the concentrations (mean of 7-10 mg L −1 ) in runoff from the 0 LSU ha −1 stocking density (i.e. ungrazed) would meet the EU Freshwater Fisheries Directive guidelines (25 mg L −1 ). The concentrations of TP observed in surface runoff from all of the stocking densities, including the 0 LSU ha −1 , are in excess of those reported to cause serious eutrophication problems in both rivers and lakes (35-100 μg L −1 ).(OECD, 1982). This is a likely consequence of the high residual levels of TP in the soils (mean pre-grazing level of 1052 mg kg −1 ). The implications of this are that whilst lowering the stocking density of grassland may reduce sediment-related water quality problems, it may not solve phosphorus-related water quality problems if there are high residual levels of phosphorus in the soil. Interestingly, from an agronomic perspective, an abrupt decline in herbage dry matter yield as
stocking density increases beyond 2 LSU ha −1 was also observed. Therefore, as well as having negative environmental impacts, high stocking densities may be detrimental
to the productivity of livestock farming.


This paper presents details regarding implementation of a novel algorithm for reprojection of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Level 1B imagery. The method is based on a simultaneous 2-D search in latitude and longitude geolocation fields by using their local gradients. Due to the segmented structure of MODIS imagery caused by the instrument whiskbroom electrooptical design, the gradient search is realized in the following two steps: intersegment and intrasegment search. This approach resolves the discontinuity of the latitude/longitude geolocation fields caused by overlap between consecutively scanned MODIS multidetector image segments. The structure of the algorithm allows equal efficiency with nearest neighbor and bilinear interpolation. A special procedure that combines analytical and numerical schemes is designed for reprojecting imagery near the polar region, where the standard gradient search may become unstable. The performance of the method was validated by comparison of reprojected MODIS/Terra and MODIS/Aqua images with georectified Landsat-7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus imagery over Canada. It was found that the proposed method preserves the absolute geolocation accuracy of MODIS pixels determined by the MODIS geolocation team. The method was implemented to reproject MODIS Level 1B imagery over Canada, North America, and Arctic circumpolar zone in the following four popular geographic projections: Plate Care (cylindrical equidistant), Lambert Conic Conformal, Universal Transverse Mercator, and Lambert Azimuthal Equal-Area. It was also found to be efficient for reprojection of Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer and Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer satellite images and general-type meteorological fields, such as the North American Regional Reanalysis data sets.


A theoretical study of the linear and multiple approximation in a series of complexes formed by molecules with electron-rich hydrogen atoms has been carried out. The interaction energy (taking into account the zero-point energy and the basis set superposition error), the atomic charges, and the electron density of the monomers and complexes have been evaluated at the MP2/6-311++G** level. The linear complexes, which show a strong similarity to the standard hydrogen bonds except for the reverse direction of the electron transfer, could be defined as inverse hydrogen bonds.


This study provides an insight into the goods flows of (raw) poultry meat within - and, in particular, to - the Netherlands, and into the associated zoonosis risks. The study offers input for an inspection policy that will be required to enforce the intended prohibition on the marketing of raw poultry meat infected with Campylobacter and Salmonella. The Netherlands is an important poultry-meat trading country, and consequently the interviewees endorsed the importance of the reduction of zoonosis; they were also of the opinion that good Salmonella and Campylobacter control measures are in place in the Netherlands. In addition, it was also concluded that the retail sale of poultry meat that is free of Campylobacter and Salmonella is not currently a feasible proposition in the Netherlands.


In the present paper we aimed at presenting the new secondary school curriculum for Physical Education and Sport in Romanian education and the changes proposed by it in relation to the previous curriculum. The new curriculum was developed in 2017 while the previous document regulated PE practical activities since 2009. For this we performed the conceptual comparative analysis of the content elements and of the assessment system. From a conceptual point of view, the general competencies formulated in the new curriculum still focus on using physical exercise as a means of maintaining health. The content elements are mostly represented by specific skills in sports disciplines. The content elements do not have a different connection to conceptual objectives. Content requirements are fully taken from the previous curriculum. The new curriculum proposes a new assessment system. It is based on the testing of general competence and is in line with the conceptual objectives. The new assessment system relies on the previous performance-based assessment system, although performance scales have not been developed. This makes it difficult to apply the new assessment system. The new curriculum proposes as a total novelty element the use of the PE textbook as a support for the theoretical notions that can be found in the practical activity.


Develop the skills you need to deliver presentations that sell. This unique resource focusing on the visual design and presentation skills of the interior designer, offers thorough, process-oriented coverage on the planning, layout, and design of interior building spaces, complete with a broad range of real-world examples. The author's accessible, how-to approach guides you through a variety of techniques for executing creative and successful design graphics, models, and presentations. She includes the latest information on CAD and digital portfolios, as well as Web page design. Dozens of high-quality, full-color illustrations highlight step-by-step instructions detailing techniques and approaches. This is the only book to follow FIDER accredited course requirements, covering all three required subjects. Order your copy today.


As acidification changes from chronic to more episodic in nature, study focus shifts from lakes, where the basin moderates acidity, to streams where acid episodes occur. To assess the effects of acid stress, several macroinvertebrate indices have been used in Scandinavia and elsewhere, based on the presence or absence of species. Benthic diatoms are strongly linked to water quality with small spatial influence, and display a broad spectrum of species. An acidity index for streams based on benthic diatoms could refine assessment resolution, which is required as the acidification declines. During the autumns of 2004 and 2005, 99 benthic diatom samples were collected from 75 humic streams in Sweden that were monitored by monthly water sampling. The relationships between benthic diatoms and measured environmental variables were explored using canonical correspondence analysis. Acidity was the principal factor influencing the diatoms, with the highest eigenvalues noted for pH, alkalinity, and inorganic aluminium. Several weighted averaging (WA) models were developed to infer stream pH, both using 50 streams from 2004 as a calibration dataset cross-validated with 49 streams from 2005 as an independent dataset, and by modeling all 99 streams. The predictive power of the WA models was good. The model with all streams showed a high correlation for mean pH (r2 = 0.85) and minimum pH (r2 = 0.74) values. An acidity index for diatoms, ACID, was proposed. The correlations to mean and minimum pH values were strong, at r2 = 0.85 and 0.77, respectively. Our results confirmed a strong link between benthic diatoms and water quality, particularly acidity. By employing different approaches we demonstrated that diatoms are excellent acidity indicators. The proposed ACID index can be used to assess the acidity state of a stream. ACID is more convenient to use than a WA model for pH and has equal precision.


fib Bulletin 67 is a practically oriented guide to reduce the environmental impact of concrete structures throughout their full life-cycle has been elaborated. It is intended to inspire and support concrete structure designers by providing practical tools, suggestions and recommendations that can be fully or partially applied, depending on regional limitations. Even though the process of designing green concrete structures is subjected to constantly evolving knowledge, standards, regulations and regional levels of technologies, a common willingness to make a significant improvement must be adopted. Focus is placed on CO2 as an environmental indicator. However, other indicators, such as N2O and methane are also major contributors to the greenhouse effect, although to a significantly lower extent. CO2 accounts for 55% of the total greenhouse effect, whilst methane and N2O account for 20% and 4%, respectively. The definition of "green concrete structure" by the Nordic concrete network has been implemented in the guideline, and is applied throughout all phases of the life-cycle of a concrete structure, from pre-construction to demolition and reuse/recycling, once the relevant functional units and the environmental parameters have been defined. Bulletin 67 provides an overview of selected available green concrete technologies, followed by suggestions on how the environmental impact can be accounted for. These accounting techniques can then be used to optimize concrete structures in terms of their environmental impact. At the end of the bulletin, benchmark data is provided, and several examples of how the guide, or parts of it, can be used to account for and optimize the environmental impact of concrete structures.


This paper presents an intraorganizational ecological perspective on strategy making, and examines how internal selection may combine with external selection to explain organizational change and survival. The perspective serves to illuminate data from a field study of the evolution of Intel Corporation's corporate strategy. The data, in turn, are used to refine and deepen the conceptual framework. Relationships between induced and autonomous strategic processes and four modes of organizational adaptation are discussed. Apparent paradoxes associated with structural inertia and strategic reorientation arguments are elucidated and several new propositions derived. The paper proposes that consistently successful organizations are characterized by top managements who spend efforts on building the induced and autonomous strategic processes, as well as concerning themselves with the content of strategy; that such organizations simultaneously exercise induced and autonomous processes; and that successful reorientations in organizations are likely to have been preceded by internal experimentation and selection processes effected through the autonomous process.


Strategy is in trouble: noted shortcomings include a failure to anticipate the fi nancial crisis, exposed defi ciencies in its economic heritage, and once lauded companies succumbing to complacency and inertia (e.g. Nokia and Kodak). In addition, the language of strategy (mission, vision, objectives, etc.) has become increasingly empty, promoting convergence and similarity as opposed to divergence and uniqueness. According to Rumelt, the real problem is not that companies are getting strategy wrong but that they 'aren't getting it all' (Hill, 2011). With a 40-year track record and McKinsey's designation as 'strategy's strategist', Rumelt commands attention when discussing issues of strategy. His contributions are not known for their regularity (there is a 37-year interval since his last strategy text) but, critically, they are known for their impact. Conceptually, Rumelt's (1979) work unpacking the dynamics of strategy evaluation is still a classic. Empirically, Rumelt (1982) was one of the fi rst to demonstrate a relationship between corporate strategy and profi tability. His 1991 paper 'How Much Does Industry Matter?' provided the much needed empirical impetus for the resource-based view of the fi rm, indicating that the characteristics of individual fi rms were actually more predictive of profi tability than traditionally assumed industry characteristics (Rumelt, 1991). The implication was that being good at what you do mattered a lot more than what industry you were in. This theme is transferred to Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, and here it is clear that 'good strategy' is the exception, while its antithesis is the rule. So how does the distinction between good and bad strategy play out?


[The] recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. - United Nations, 1948 So begins the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first multinational agreement specifying basic rights to which all people are entitled. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration by the United Nations General Assembly. For social workers, this anniversary provides an opportunity to reflect on the meaning and significance of human rights for their work. In the aftermath of the horrors of World War II, the international community was motivated to make a statement and adopt a platform that would express their collective repugnance at these atrocities and to forge an agreement that might prevent such tragedies in the future. Under the leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt and with considerable urging and support from nongovernment organizations, the United Nations convened representatives of various member states to draft a document that would enumerate the rights and freedoms of all people. After three years of work, revisions, and debates - the final one lasting until the call for a predawn vote - the Declaration was adopted without dissent on December 10, 1948 (National Coordinating Committee for UDHR50, 1998). In the 50 years since its adoption, and despite several other agreements and covenants, the world has seen, and continues to see, numerous new offenses inflicted on humanity. Yet despite its inability to eliminate abuses to life and basic dignities, the Declaration remains a significant document. Its articulation of the idea of universal rights, its recognition that such rights cannot be divorced from social and economic arrangements (Gil, 1994), and its inclusion of human rights in international discourse have had a beneficial impact on the lives of countless people. The precepts and values embedded in the Declaration are familiar and central to our professional identity. They include "existential" statements about humanity, such as "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." They include "positive rights" such as the right to life, liberty, and security of person; to recognition as a person before the law with equal protection; to a nationality; to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion and "negative rights" such as protection from slavery or servitude, arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile. They also include the economic, social, and cultural rights indispensable for dignity and development; the right to work, including equal pay for equal work; and the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being, including food, clothing, housing, medical care, and necessary social services (United Nations Center for Human Rights, 1992). These statements express social work's most basic values and vision for humanity, a point well understood by our international colleagues: "Human rights are inseparable from social work theory, values and ethics, and practice. Rights corresponding to human needs have to be upheld and fostered, and they embody the justification and motivation for social work action. Advocacy of such rights must therefore be an integral part of social work" (United Nations Center for Human Rights, 1992, p. 10). In the United States these commitments to human rights appear less visible and integrated with social work practice and research. In my view, this is the result of our emphases on individual change, psychological explanation, and conventional science. Our human rights stance also is influenced by our (that is, Western) view of ourselves as the center of the universe and the representation of good (Galtung, 1994). This perspective is reinforced by a capitalist, political economy whose myths tend to obscure rights issues while claiming to champion them. But the problems that social workers confront cannot be divorced from the human rights struggles within and beyond our borders. …


In this work we present a novel concept for affective entertainment, which we call Emotional Journey. It provides a dynamic and adaptive story path based on a player's emotional responses and yields improved accurate recognition of the player's emotions. We conducted a case study with 25 players to evaluate our concept using our cycling exercise machine. We evaluated three different journey types and two of the three types were recognized reliably by the participants. We introduce a real time multimodal analysis method for facial expressions and electrodermal activity (EDA) measurements. This method results in significantly more robust emotion recognition rates. Therefore our exergaming system is able to provoke emotions and adapt the game play to individual emotional reactions.


By means of two- and three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we investigate the process of driven magnetic reconnection at the termination shock of relativistic striped flows. In pulsar winds and in magnetar-powered relativistic jets, the flow consists of stripes of alternating magnetic field polarity, separated by current sheets of hot plasma. At the wind termination shock, the flow compresses and the alternating fields annihilate by driven magnetic reconnection. Irrespective of the stripe wavelength ? or the wind magnetization ? (in the regime ????1 of magnetically dominated flows), shock-driven reconnection transfers all the magnetic energy of alternating fields to the particles, whose average Lorentz factor increases by a factor of ? with respect to the pre-shock value. In the limit ?/(rL?)???1, where rL is the relativistic Larmor radius in the wind, the post-shock particle spectrum approaches a flat power-law tail with slope around ?1.5, populated by particles accelerated by the reconnection electric field. The presence of a current-aligned ?guide? magnetic field suppresses the acceleration of particles only when the guide field is stronger than the alternating component. Our findings place important constraints on the models of non-thermal radiation from Pulsar Wind Nebulae and relativistic jets.


Examining a database of 2,856 festivals in Australia and survey results from 480 festival organizers, we consider how nonmetropolitan cultural festivals provide constraints as well as opportunities for economic planners. Cultural festivals are ubiquitous, impressively diverse, and strongly connected to local communities through employment, volunteerism, and participation. Despite cultural festivals being mostly small-scale, economically modest affairs, geared around community goals, the regional proliferation of cultural festivals produces enormous direct and indirect economic benefits. Amidst debates over cultural and political issues (such as identity, exclusion, and elitism), links between cultural festivals and economic development planning are explored.


AT THE 2002 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FINANCING FOR DEVELopment, the United States pledged an increase in foreign assistance to developing countries for the first time in several decades. This policy shift reflects a trend of international engagement that has pervaded the economic, political, and health sectors of American life in the past year. Recent health threats of international origin have raised concerns about the implications of globalization for US public health. Threats of bioterrorism and surges in the incidence of emerging pathogens such as West Nile virus have helped underscore the domestic dangers of diseases from abroad. Prior to this new swell of attention on health problems of global reach, however, industrialized nations were already allocating resources toward the control of pandemics such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. The urgency with which the commitments were made came in response to the devastation wrought by these diseases. The impact of HIV, in particular, is reflected by the grim fact that a 15-year-old living in a country with a 15% prevalence of HIV infection has a one-third lifetime risk of dying of AIDS. Although statistics such as these have made the mandate for global collaborations in international health clear, the path to stabilizing and improving the health of the world's populations remains obscured. In order to engage in the ongoing debates about US involvement in global health initiatives, it is necessary first to understand the reasons and aims for international health endeavors. This issue of MSJAMA examines the purpose, value, and challenges of conducting research and practicing medicine across continents. Robert Luo discusses the destabilizing influence of the HIV/AIDS pandemic on national infrastructures as well as family units. Paula Braveman addresses the inadequacy of current health statistics to gauge and ultimately eliminate health inequities both between and within nations. Jeffrey Greenberg and Rebecca Mazar argue for more international training opportunities for US medical students in order to meet the increasing demand for global health professionals. Jennifer Singler and Paul Farmer describe a sustainable program to provide HIV treatment in Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere. Policymakers recently met in Johannesburg for the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development. Leaders in medicine, politics, and economics all echoed previous calls for affluent nations to make good on their past declarations to implement plans to improve the livelihood of all members of the global community. Action requires political will and financial commitment. But comprehension of the rationale for and barriers to the control of disease at an international level will be equally vital to the improvement of global health and stability.


Background: Damage to left inferior temporal cortex has been associated with naming deficits resulting either from impaired access to phonological word forms (pure anomia) or from degraded semantic knowledge (semantic anomia). Neuropsychological evidence indicates that pure anomia may follow damage to posterior inferior temporal cortex (BA 37), whereas semantic anomia is associated with damage to more anterior temporal lobe regions (BA 20, 21, 38). By contrast, some investigators have suggested that it is the overall severity of anomia, rather than the nature of the underlying cognitive impairment, that is affected by the anterior extent of the lesion. Aims: To examine the naming performance of patients with left inferior temporal lobe damage and determine whether anterior extension of the lesion influences the nature and/or the severity of the naming impairment. Methods & Procedures: Eight participants with focal damage to left inferior temporal cortex completed a battery of language measures that included confrontation naming, semantic processing, and single‐word reading and spelling. Degree and type of anomia was examined relative to anterior lesion extension using both visual inspection and statistical analyses. Outcomes & Results: Naming performance ranged from unimpaired to severely defective, with only two participants demonstrating an additional mild impairment of semantic knowledge. The underlying mechanism of anomia seemed to be degraded access to phonological word forms in all participants, regardless of lesion configuration. The severity of the naming impairment was positively correlated with anterior extension of the lesion towards the temporal pole, although additional analyses suggested that these findings were significantly influenced by participant age. Naming was not correlated with performance on the nonverbal semantic task or any other demographic variable. Conclusions: The behavioural and neuroanatomical findings provide modest support for the hypothesis that a relationship exists between anterior lesion extension and the severity of concomitant anomia in patients with left inferior temporal lobe damage. The data suggest that such lesions may disconnect relatively preserved semantic knowledge from regions critical for access to phonological word forms. However, additional research is needed to discern to what extent age and individual variability temper these effects.


(a) The Commission may obtain an injunction or other court order to prevent a violation of the provisions of— (1) The Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended; (2) Title II of the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, as amended; or (3) A regulation or order issued pursuant to those Acts. (b) The Commission may obtain a court order for the payment of a civil penalty imposed under section 234 of the Atomic Energy Act: (1) For violations of— (i) Sections 53, 57, 62, 63, 81, 82, 101, 103, 104, 107, or 109 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended; (ii) Section 206 of the Energy Reorganization Act; (iii) Any rule, regulation, or order issued pursuant to the sections specified in paragraph (b)(1)(i) of this section; (iv) Any term, condition, or limitation of any license issued under the sections specified in paragraph (b)(1)(i) of this section. (2) For any violation for which a license may be revoked under section 186 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended.


Up to this point, the literature on the issuance of convertible bonds has neglected financial institutions. Contrary to firms, banks not only can issue convertible bonds but also, after the subprime crises, contingent convertible (CoCo) bonds emerged as an alternative. Hence, the purpose of this study is threefold: first, we expand the literature on the motivation to issue convertible bonds in the banking sector; second, we introduce a new proxy (Loans-Deposits Flow) to measure the reinvestment in this sector; and third, we analyze the differences in the motivation for issuing CoCo bonds when compared to convertible bonds. Our results show that the theory of sequential financing is not confirmed for CoCo bonds in the banking sector. Additionally, we provide evidence that banks issue CoCo bonds for regulatory purposes (to increase their capital), while convertibles are issued to allow banks to expand their investments and loan portfolios. The results are robust to several specifications including a propensity-score matching and a difference-in-difference analysis.


This text of the inaugural lecture for the A.B. Chettle, Jr. Chair in Dispute Resolution and Civil Procedure at Georgetown University Law Center presents an intellectual outline (theory and practice) for a house of justice built on the foundations of Lon Fuller, the Legal Process school, Jurgen Habermas' and Stuart Hampshire's social philosophy about democratic processes, the floors of comparative processes, drawing on the work of political theorist Jon Elster and empirical work on legal and political processes and the ceilings of new processes, like consensus building fora, truth and reconciliation commissions and other combinations of legal and political processes. A model of different modes of human conflict resolution is outlined with differentiations of different forms of process (open/closed; plenary/committees; expert/naturalistic; constitutive/permanent/ad hoc). The article suggests a broadened view of what should be taught as legal process - beyond conventional civil procedure to many more forms of human legal and political processes. If process is the human bridge between justice and peace then we much teach about both kinds of processes - those seeking justice and those seeking peace; hopefully they can both be accomplished.


On January 28-30, 1994, a group of international human rights experts gathered at the De Burght Conference at Berkenrode, Heemstede, the Netherlands to assess the state of religious liberty in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR or,"Russia"). The Conference was convened by Dr. Yuri Rozenbaum of the Institute of State and Law in Moscow and Mr. Ernst van Eeghen of the Foundation "De Burght" for the Rights of Minorities in Heemstede. The conference participants reviewed the remarkable development of the RSFSR Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religion, passed by the Supreme Soviet of Russia on October 25, 1990 (the "1990 Law"). The group then analyzed in detail the sharp curtailment of the 1990 Law in various recent amendments, most notably the Introduction of Amendments and Supplements to the RSFSR Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religion, passed by the Supreme Soviet on August 27,1993, but not signed by President Boris Yeltsin prior to the dissolution of the Supreme Soviet on September 21, 1993 (the "August 27 Amendment"). The August 27 Amendment remains a matter of serious concern, because President Yeltsin's dissolution decree provided that certain legislation (including this Amendment) would be held in abeyance and considered by the new parliament after the December elections. It is the considered opinion of the De Burght Conference participants, as well as of the numerous other experts who have since reviewed a draft of this Report, that the August 27 Amendment constitutes both a significant reduction of the religious liberty rights guaranteed by the 1990 Law and a grave affront to fundamental and widely recognized principles of human rights laws that are vital to the healthy development of a democratic society. This is not the time in Russia's history to revert to oppressive patterns of the past. The most serious infraction of the August 27 Amendment concerns various restrictions and regulations of "foreign" and "non-traditional" religious organizations. Moreover, the law weakens guarantees that all believers and religious communities will be treated equally. It guarantees fundamental human rights protection only to citizens. It expands opportunities for inappropriate state regulation of religious affairs. It appears to single out the Russian Orthodox Church for special privileges and protections that go beyond legitimate recognition of its unique role in Russian history, culture, and society. In general, the August 27 Amendment: (1) violates the letter and the spirit of Russian obligations under applicable international treaties and other internationally recognized norms of religious liberty and human rights; (2) conflicts with the norms of the Constitution of the Russian Federation approved on December 12,1993; and (3) contains many ambiguous, vague, and contradictory provisions and is legally flawed in many respects. While the August 27 Amendment does not totally dismantle the regime of religious freedom established by the 1990 Law, the changes reflect a clear effort to utilize the levers of state power to discriminate against noncitizens, to increase state control of religious organizations, and to restrict access of Russian citizens to religious orientations other than those already dominant in Russian society. They clearly disadvantage those who belong to religious communities with foreign ties. In the last analysis, they constitute an entering wedge that ultimately jeopardizes the religious liberty of all inhabitants of the Russian Federation, including that of the Russian Orthodox Church and its members. The August 27 Amendment cannot be squared with fundamental international and constitutional principles of equal treatment and religious freedom. Whatever genuine problems the legislation may be attempting to address, the actual provisions are inexcusably overbroad and intrusive in religious affairs and should be opposed by everyone committed to the highest principles of human rights and religious liberty. This Report weighs the August 27 Amendment against the Russian Constitution and applicable international law, as more particularly described below. Part I of this Report recounts the recent history of religious liberty law in Russia. Part II rehearses the religious rights provisions of applicable international instruments and of the new Russian Constitution. Part III provides a topical and article-by-article commentary on the August 27 Amendment in light of these international and constitutional instruments.


This study, as a first of its kind, examines relationships between principals' time use and national contexts. Specifically, this paper explores cross-national variance in the amount of hours principals spend for their main duties and investigates how the amount of hours they spend is influenced by key national contexts—i.e. economic development, societal culture, and educational system. Furthermore, this paper seeks to illuminate how the three national-level contexts influence principals' time allocation for their major realms of responsibility such as curriculum/pedagogy development, administration, and relationships with parent/community when key organizational-level contexts are controlled for. For the current research, the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2006 was used. The final analysis using a twolevel hierarchical linear model (HLM) included 5,297 principals from 34 societies. There were four major findings. First, there was substantial cross-nation variance in the amount of hours principals spend for their schools. More importantly, a substantive portion of variance in the amount of hours principal spend was explained by the level of economic development; the more developed societies are, the more hours principals spend for their schools. Second, the level of national economy was, however, negatively associated with principals' time allocation for curriculum/pedagogy development. Third, national cultures influenced principals' time allocation for curriculum and pedagogy development, and relationships with parent/community. Specifically, the more hierarchical societies are, the less time principals spend for curriculum/pedagogy development and relationships with parent/community. Finally, principals in highly standardized schooling systems in terms of the presence of national exam, national textbooks, and national curriculum tended to spend less time for administrative duties than their counterparts in less standardized schooling systems. Implications for research are briefly discussed.


Errors in operational forecasts of return flow events (RFEs) over the Gulf of Mexico have dictated the search for sources of these errors. Based on earlier studies, likely candidates for these errors are: incorrect parameterization of turbulent transfer processes at the air-sea interface, uncertain vertical motion above the mixed layer, and incorrect initial conditions. We investigate these possible sources of error by performing numerical experiments with a Monte Carlo ensemble prediction model applied to a well-observed case in February 1988. In essence, we examine uncertainty in prediction due to uncertainty in the model's elements of control. A mixed-layer model with roughly 50 elements of control is used to determine forecast uncertainty due to initial conditions alone, boundary conditions alone, parameterization alone, as well as the full complement of uncertainty in these elements of control. The uncertainty is calculated at points along a predetermined outflow trajectory that originates over shelf waters in the northeastern Gulf, passes north of the Yucatan Peninsula, and terminates in the west-central Gulf-all points along the trajectory are characterized by convective heating at the sea-air interface. Results from the numerical experiments led to the following results: 1) parameterization of physical processes exerts the greatest influence on forecast uncertainty, and 2) the water-vapor mass in the mixed-layer column is uncertain by a factor of two at the trajectory's terminal point. The latter result confirms forecasters' long-held view that vapor return is the most suspect product in operational prediction of RFEs. In addition to these numerical experiments with the 1988 case, a recent RFE is examined in the context of operational model performance at the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). The paper ends with discussion of steps to be taken that hold promise for improved operational prediction of RFEs over the Gulf of Mexico.


Non-participant observation is a data collection method in which the researcher observes events, activities and interactions with the aim of gaining a direct understanding of a phenomenon in its context (Liu & Maitlis, 2010). It is different from participant observational methods because the researcher has no contact with the informant, but rather records a situation involving real individual reactions and behaviors (Giannelloni & Vernette, 2001). Since subjects are seldom able to fully explain their actions and intentions (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000), they provide a different kind and quality of data compared to that collected through interviews or self-reports (Liu & Mitlis, 2010).
However, non-participant observation has mainly been used as a method for observing offline
behaviors although online behaviors differ significantly. Moreover, the Internet offers a different type of data that helps analyzing individual behaviors more deeply. Therefore, this paper introduces a non-participant observation approach to collect and analyze online behaviors of individuals in a qualitative fashion.


What really happens in service-learning, particularly when it is utilized in conjunction with a multicultural education course for preservice teachers? In this paper, we investigate the extent to which service-learning provides the kind of experiences preservice teachers need to become multicultural people and educators. According to Nieto (1996), most prospective teachers, regardless of cultural or social backgrounds, were raised and educated in pervasively monocultural, Eurocentric, English-speaking environments. Often, they know little about (and hold biases against) the primary constituents for multicultural education: people marginalized in U.S. society, "parents and children of color and/or of low-income backgrounds, children who are disabled, gay or lesbian, and their parents or adult supporters, and girls" (Sleeter, 1996, p. 231). Multicultural education seeks to prepare teachers as educational allies and advocates for youth from these groups. Nieto argues that "becoming a multicultural teacher, means first becoming a multicultural person" (p. 353) and that this process depends upon self-reflection and re-education. Preservice teachers need to question their own racism and biases, learn more about cultural diversity and pluralism, and grapple with realities from multiple perspectives. Otherwise, their approach to multicultural education will be shallow and superficial. Community-based learning, or learning experiences situated within diverse and low-income neighborhoods and organizations, can prod preservice teachers to step outside their life experiences, identify children as community members, regard communities as educational resources, and adapt learning to children's life experiences (e.g., Mahan, Fortney, & Garcia, 1983; Sleeter, 2000). Yet, community-based experiences are rarely part of teacher education programs (Zeichner & Melnick, 1996). A "field" experience usually refers to placement in a school, not in a neighborhood context. Even if the school has a culturally diverse and/or low-income student population, it does not follow that preservice teachers become attuned to community views and concerns. Unless preservice teachers work with teachers and principals who view communities as educational resources--as significant learning places for youth--school experiences alone are unlikely to foster cultural awareness, or support alliance and advocacy (e.g., Tellez, Hlebowitsh, Cohen, & Norwood, 1995; Zeichner, 1992). Service-learning pedagogy, with its real-world focus, emphasis on critical reflection, and impetus for reciprocity, can structure community-based learning. Good service-learning balances service with learning: it deepens academic curriculum, responds to real community needs, and equally benefits all participants (Sigmon, 1994). This framework offers a viable, affirmative way to connect teacher educators and prospective teachers with youth and families from constituent groups for multicultural education. Service-learning can provide experiences that inform preservice teachers about communities--their issues, strengths, problems, and resources--and that empower community people as participants in teacher education. For parents and communities who often feel distanced from schools, service-learning can offer opportunities to help shape future teachers for their children. For teacher educators and preservice teachers, involvement in real-life, everyday circumstances characterized by cultural diversity, poverty, and inequity can prompt and undergird classroom-based inquiries about race, culture, and power (O'Grady & Chappell, 2000). A small body of literature indicates that the utilization of service-learning, as an aspect of multicultural or social foundation courses, assists preservice teachers' processes of self-reflection and re-education. Most of this literature describes approaches to service-learning in education courses, not actual encounters during service-learning, and relies upon self reports (i. …


All‐organic active matrix addressed displays based on electrochemical smart pixels made on flexible substrates are reported. Each individual smart pixel device combines an electrochemical transistor with an electrochromic display cell, thus resulting in a low‐voltage operating and robust display technology. Poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) doped with poly(styrenesulfonate) (PSS) served as the active material in the electrochemical smart pixels, as well as the conducting lines, of the monolithically integrated active‐matrix display. Different active‐matrix display addressing schemes have been investigated and a matrix display fill factor of 65 % was reached. This is achieved by combining a three‐terminal electrochemical transistor with an electrochromic display cell architecture, in which an additional layer of PEDOT:PSS was placed on top of the display cell counter electrode. In addition, we have evaluated different kinds of electrochromic polymer materials aiming at reaching a high color switch contrast. This work has been carried out in the light of achieving a robust display technology that is easily manufactured using a standard label printing press, which forced us to use the fewest different materials as well as avoiding exotic and complex device architectures. Together, this yields a manufacturing process of only five discrete patterning steps, which in turn promise for that the active matrix addressed displays can be manufactured on paper or plastic substrates in a roll‐to‐roll production procedure.


Performance evaluation of multi-target tracking algorithms is of great practical importance in the design, parameter optimization and comparison of tracking systems. The goal of performance evaluation is to measure the distance between two sets of tracks: the ground truth tracks and the set of estimated tracks. This paper proposes a mathematically rigorous metric for this purpose. The basis of the proposed distance measure is the recently formulated consistent metric for performance evaluation of multi-target filters, referred to as the OSPA metric. Multi-target filters sequentially estimate the number of targets and their position in the state space. The OSPA metric is therefore defined on the space of finite sets of vectors. The distinction between filtering and tracking is that tracking algorithms output tracks and a track represents a labeled temporal sequence of state estimates, associated with the same target. The metric proposed in this paper is therefore defined on the space of finite sets of tracks and incorporates the labeling error. Numerical examples demonstrate that the proposed metric behaves in a manner consistent with our expectations.


This lesson picks up where the past lesson "How the EU functions?" left us at. It focuses on the other important institutions that make up the frame of the EU's image, such as, the European Central Bank, the European Court of Auditors, the Economic and Social Committee or the Committee of the Regions. The discussions deal with the national agencies role in these institutions actions and the EU policy influence and authority fields (i.e. labour market policy, energy, agricultural, monetary policies or humanitarian aid, etc) and the outcome of all this policies, strategic fields and law mapped out in the EU's competences. Is EU just a monitor or does it really have a saying in all the decision-making and policy area coordination? Lecturer: Kristian Lau Nielsen. Lecture is filmed in autumn 2010.


Ghost reflections and water reverberations are major and inevitable seismic noises in marine seismic exploration. More recently, new receiver deployment techniques at different sea depths for signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) enhancement are developing. The reverberation characteristics must be known before applying the reverberation attenuation methods. This paper studies the characteristics of reverberations acquired using multi-depth streamers by analyzing the seismic ray path geometry and the scaled physical model data. The study results show that the primary reflection waveforms and reverberations are broadened with an increase in offset. The reverberation waveforms are quite different from those of primary reflections due to the wide-angle reflection. Under shallow water and small spread approximation, new arrival time equations for the primary reflections and reverberations are derived and fit the scaled physical model data very well. The depth-arrival time relationships of the primary reflections and reverberations in the common-source vertical-array gather are linear but their depth-arrival time relationship slopes are different. The primary reflection slopes are the same for different common-source vertical-array offsets but the reverberation slopes increase with offsets.


Autofocus is an important task for digital cameras, yet current approaches often exhibit poor performance. We propose a learning-based approach to this problem, and provide a realistic dataset of sufficient size for effective learning. Our dataset is labeled with per-pixel depths obtained from multi-view stereo, following [9]. Using this dataset, we apply modern deep classification models and an ordinal regression loss to obtain an efficient learning-based autofocus technique. We demonstrate that our approach provides a significant improvement compared with previous learned and non-learned methods: our model reduces the mean absolute error by a factor of 3.6 over the best comparable baseline algorithm. Our dataset and code are publicly available.


State-of-the-art approaches for robot navigation among humans are typically restricted to planar movement actions. This work addresses the question of whether it can be beneficial to use interaction actions, such as saying, touching, and gesturing, for the sake of allowing robots to navigate in unstructured, crowded environments. To do so, we first identify challenging scenarios to traditional motion planning methods. Based on the hypothesis that the variation in modality for these scenarios calls for significantly different planning policies, we design specific navigation behaviors as interaction planners for actuated, mobile robots. We further propose a high level planning algorithm for multi-behavior navigation, named Interaction Actions for Navigation (IAN). Through both real-world and simulated experiments, we validate the selected behaviors and the high-level planning algorithm, and discuss the impact of our obtained results on our stated assumptions.


The goal of this work is to comparatively evaluate the potential of both event-based automatic calibration and Dynamic Identifiability Analysis (DYNIA) as proposed by Wagener et al. This is combined with an investigation on a potential relation of a priori knowledge on event characteristics with optimal model parameters. A joint application of DYNIA and automatic parameter estimation leads to implications considering the informational content of both methods. Optimal model parameters, identified on an event basis, are tested for statistical relations with physical characteristics of the rainstorm events (e.g. intensity). In this paper, we present results of a modelling study in the Rietholzbach catchment (Switzerland). We employed the hydrological model WaSiM-ETH, using a combined DYNIA (Dynamic Identifiability Analysis) and automatic parameter estimation (PEST) approach to investigate best parameter sets as well as parameter variability along the time series of the hydrograph. The results of the study indicate that the "drainage" parameter identifiability for the long-term simulation is linked to the event-based calibrated parameter for the flood events. However, the parameter sets obtained with single-event calibration could not be fully linked to the chosen characteristic features derived from the precipitation forecast.


Proficiency in the second language lesson is very much determined by language learning strategies. Strategies of language learning are defined as strategies that contribute to the development of the language system which the learner constructs and affects learning directly (Rubin, 1987). There are six major categories of language learning strategies as developed by Oxford (1990). They are memory strategies,cognitive strategies, compensation strategies, metacognitive strategies, affective strategies and social strategies. This study was conducted to investigate the interrelationships among language learning strategy used, and self-efficacy that lead to proficiency in the second language. The respondents were a hundred and nine students from the Faculty of Mass Communication of Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM).The students' use of language learning strategies was measured through a fifty-item questionnaire that was an adaptation of Oxford's (1990) Strategy Inventory
for Language Learning (SILL). Their self-efficacy was also measured through a twenty eight-item questionnaire developed by Gahungu (2007) in which they expressed their levels of certainty that they could perform learning tasks at desired levels of proficiency. The results of the study revealed the existence of positive and significant relationships among the two variables measured. Recommendations for
further study include other determining factors that would contribute to further understand on what and how those factors affect learners' preferences and application of learning strategies, thus explore on its relationship with self-efficacy.


We study a methodology for checking incrementally deadlock-freedom of component-based systems. A system is obtained as the composition of atomic components by using interactions. Each interaction expresses strong synchronization (rendezvous) between actions of the components. We improve the heuristic verification method applied by the D-Finder tool to BIP components. The method consists in computing symbolically global invariants for composite components by solving a set of boolean behavioral constraints. The new incremental verification method allows the computation of these global invariants by using a decomposition of the constraints based on the structure of a composite component. We formalize the construction process of a composite component from a set of atomic components. We provide results relating invariants of constituent components used in the construction process, to global invariants. In particular, we show how the boolean behavioral constraints of the composed components are related to those of the product system. Experimental results by using the D-Finder tool for checking deadlock-freedom show significant gains in performance with respect to the global verification technique.


Phospholipase C and two inositol polyphosphate (IP) kinases constitute a signaling pathway that regulates nuclear messenger RNA export through production of inositol hexakisphosphate (IP6). The inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate kinase of this pathway in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, designated Ipk2, was found to be identical to Arg82, a regulator of the transcriptional complex ArgR-Mcm1. Synthesis of inositol 1,4,5,6-tetrakisphosphate, but not IP6, was required for gene regulation through ArgR-Mcm1. Thus, the phospholipase C pathway produces multiple IP messengers that modulate distinct nuclear processes. The results reveal a direct mechanism by which activation of IP signaling may control gene expression.


The use of semantic technologies and ontologies is becoming more and more popular in engineering applications and particularly in product modelling. Still, the use is limited in academia and applications are of a small scale. In this paper we present the research work done by the closed-loop life cycle management (CL2M) team of the Laboratory for Computer-Aided Design and Production (LICP) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, on the use of ontology-based technologies for the life cycle management of products and engineering assets. This research has been performed through a number of PhD works partially financed by the European Framework Program for research. It aims at providing both a wider understanding of the benefits of applying such technologies in the complex environment of asset life cycle management (ALM) and at providing a platform for implementing ontology models in industrial environments.


Unrecognized congenital hypothyroidism leads to mental retardation. Newborn screening and thyroid therapy started within 2 weeks of age can normalize cognitive development. The primary thyroid-stimulating hormone screening has become standard in many parts of the world. However, newborn thyroid screening is not yet universal in some countries. Initial dosage of 10 to 15 μg/kg levothyroxine is recommended. The goals of thyroid hormone therapy should be to maintain frequent evaluations of total thyroxine or free thyroxine in the upper half of the reference range during the first 3 years of life and to normalize the serum thyroid-stimulating hormone concentration to ensure optimal thyroid hormone dosage and compliance. Improvements in screening and therapy have led to improved developmental outcomes in adults with congenital hypothyroidism who are now in their 20s and 30s. Thyroid hormone regimens used today are more aggressive in targeting early correction of thyroid-stimulating hormone than were those used 20 or even 10 years ago. Thus, newborn infants with congenital hypothyroidism today may have an even better intellectual and neurologic prognosis. Efforts are ongoing to establish the optimal therapy that leads to maximum potential for normal development for infants with congenital hypothyroidism. Remaining controversy centers on infants whose abnormality in neonatal thyroid function is transient or mild and on optimal care of very low birth weight or preterm infants. Of note, thyroid-stimulating hormone is not elevated in central hypothyroidism. An algorithm is proposed for diagnosis and management. Physicians must not relinquish their clinical judgment and experience in the face of normal newborn thyroid test results. Hypothyroidism can be acquired after the newborn screening. When clinical symptoms and signs suggest hypothyroidism, regardless of newborn screening results, serum free thyroxine and thyroid-stimulating hormone determinations should be performed.