A teacher's content knowledge, coupled with skilled teaching and a disposition for classroom service, all have a positive effect on student outcomes. This study assessed the in-service professional development needs of Georgia agriculture teachers' in the seven career pathways defined in the Agricultural Education curriculum: Agribusiness Systems, Animal Systems, Environmental Service Systems, Food Products and Processing Systems, Natural Resources, Plant Systems, and Power and Technical Systems. Multiple areas within pathways were found to be beneficial for professional development according to teachers including: lab management, lab safety, greenhouse management, nutrition, feeds and feeding, market research, business plan development, etc. Teachers at all levels of experience noted additional professional development in plant systems and lab safety would be beneficial and teachers with less than 10 years expressed need for training in power and technical systems. Significant differences were found between male and female teachers in the area of power and technical systems, with males expressing need for additional professional development. Rural teachers saw more benefit in food processing professional development than their urban counterparts. Future research should investigate trends in professional development as it pertains to gender to provide a more tailored understanding of factors contributing to the individual needs of teachers, especially in the power and technical systems pathway. Additionally, research is needed to assess other elements of effective professional development in Agricultural Education such as the value of duration, collaboration, and reflection.


This study of London and of English social history and manners traces the city's growth from its original walls, emphasizing how the lives of its people shaped the character of the city. Since its first publication in 1934, the book has become a minor classic on the subject. This revised edition contains a new chapter, "Forty Years After: An Essay on London New Towns," in which Rasmussen describes the New London as a continuation and perfection of the special pattern of the 17th and 18th centuries which made it so completely different from other continental cities planned during that period. There are also some new views on historic London, an account of the old English system of measures that was basic to residential London's original layout, and additional illustrations.


This paper examines the relationship between the new markets for credit default swaps (CDS) and the pricing of syndicated loans to U.S. corporates. We find that changes in CDS spreads have a significantly positive coefficient and explain about 25% of subsequent monthly changes in aggregate loan spreads during 2000-2005. Moreover, when compared to traditional loan pricing factors, they turn out to be the dominant determinant of loan spreads. In particular, they explain loan rates much better than same rated bonds. This suggests that, even though CDS and bond markets may equally price market credit risk, a substantial part of CDS prices additionally contains loan-specific information. We also find that, over time, new information from CDS markets is incorporated into loans faster, but information from other markets is not. We argue that this indicates that the markets for CDS influence banks' loan pricing behavior and thus have an impact on actual financing decisions in the economy.


Energy is one on the resource that human being/community use in daily life.The consumption of these energy counts on daily living cost and determine standard of living. Renewable energy sources are one of the friendly sources of energy in various spheres like; economic, health and environment. The main objective of this study
was to assess the sustainability of Janja stove in the community by analyzing its financial advantages. Still there is a big existing gap in between the users and
suppliers of renewable energy. Both public and private institution have to assort their effort together in promoting renewable energy not only for sustainable economic
development but also for environmental and health security. The survey was carried out in Meru District in Arusha City between September 2013 and June 2014 in collaboration with the CARMATEC and ATC. It involved 117 respondents from
Maji ya Chai ward and 7 village executive officer's. The principal methodology used in this study was descriptive statistics where various tools were used include
interviews, Questionnaires, Focus Group Discussion and Key Informants Interviews.The study suggest various mitigation to the problem; by conducting Community training on importance of renewable energy, The government should provide both financial and technical support to the isolated communities, Research on other renewable energies should be done so as to propel development in the community,Produced products should be customer oriented rather than producer oriented


It is continually debated in the academic and professional literature whether stock prices exhibit or have exhibited bubbles. In this article the author argues that the persistence of closed-end fund (CEF) and exchange-traded fund (ETF) discounts and premiums, a phenomenon believed to be inexplicable by rational asset pricing theory, is due to the existence of stock price bubbles. Price bubbles in the stocks underlying the funds and in the market prices of the fund shares themselves generate the discounts and premiums. This rational asset pricing theory that explains the persistent of these discounts and premiums on CEFs and ETFs across both time and varying market conditions represents the proverbial smoking gun proving the existence of stock price bubbles. TOPICS: Exchange-traded funds and applications, mutual funds/passive investing/indexing, exchanges/markets/clearinghouses


In a well-known series of decisions handed down over the past five years, the Supreme Court has firmly yoked its interpretation of the Confrontation Clause to Anglo-American common-law principles that were in place at the time of the Sixth Amendment's ratification in 1791. Based on its understanding of those principles, the Court has held that an unavailable witness's testimonial hearsay statements are inadmissible in a criminal case unless the defendant was given an opportunity to cross-examine the witness prior to trial. Despite all of the attention that the Court's reappraisal of the Confrontation Clause has drawn, the most startling consequence of that reappraisal has entirely escaped notice. This Article contends that, under the common-law principles that the Confrontation Clause now incorporates, defendants are not entitled to an attorney's assistance when interrogating adverse witnesses prior to trial. Warren Court precedent holding that counsel's pretrial participation is essential is thus poised to join the ranks of other cases that have been pushed aside under the Court's new reading of the Confrontation Clause. In certain circumstances, the Assistance of Counsel Clause and the Due Process Clauses will pick up the slack, guaranteeing defendants an attorney's help when cross-examining witnesses prior to trial. In other instances, however, the Constitution today leaves unrepresented defendants responsible for cross-examining witnesses on their own.


We construct analogs of the flat space Kaluza-Klein (KK) monopoles in locally Anti-de Sitter (AdS) spaces for $D \ge 5+1$. We show that, unlike the flat space KK monopole, there is no five dimensional static KK monopole in AdS that smoothly reduces to the flat space one as the cosmological constant goes to zero. Thus, one needs at least two extra dimensions, one of which is compact, to get a static KK monopole in cosmological backgrounds.


A study was conducted to determine the N fertilizer recovery efficiency (REN) of Vitis vinifera L. cv. Thompson Seedless grown in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Vines were drip- or furrow-irrigated and fertilized with 15N-labeled potassium nitrate (KNO3) or ammonium sulfate (NH4)2SO4. The fertilizers were applied shortly after anthesis with a single application of 25 g N/vine (~28 kg N/ha). An additional set of the drip-irrigated vines was fertilized 10 times beginning 20 April across a 20-week period during the growing season with labeled KNO3 (amounts equivalent to ~31 kg N/ha). Total biomass, N concentrations, and 15N of all vine organs, including the root system, were measured. There were no significant differences in REN (~40%) between the two fertilizer types (nitrate versus ammonium) for the drip-irrigated vines or for the comparison of a single application of KNO3 to a split application of that fertilizer applied every two weeks. The REN of furrow-irrigated vines was ~12%. The partitioning of 15N-labeled fertilizer taken up by the vine was significantly affected by fertilizer treatment. Approximately 47% of the ammonium fertilizer for the drip-irrigated vines was found in the clusters, while only 30% of the nitrate fertilizer for the split application of the fertilized, drip-irrigated vines was found in the clusters. The greatest amount of fertilizer N found in the roots was for the nitrate fertilized vines under drip-irrigation (both single and split applications). The results indicated that irrigation type greatly affected REN of the N fertilizers used in the study, and that irrigation and fertilizer type affected the distribution of N once it was taken up by the vine.


Multi-purpose advanced systems are considered a complex problem in water resource management, and the use of data-intelligence methodologies in operating such systems provides major advantages for decision-makers. The current research is devoted to the implementation of hybrid novel meta-heuristic algorithms (e.g., the bat algorithm (BA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm) to formulate multi-purpose systems for power production and irrigation supply. The proposed hybrid modelling method was applied for the multi-purpose reservoir system of Bhadra Dam, which is located in the state of Karnataka, India. The average monthly demand for irrigation is 142.14 (106 m3), and the amount of released water based on the new hybrid algorithm (NHA) is 141.25 (106 m3). Compared with the shark algorithm (SA), BA, weed algorithm (WA), PSO algorithm, and genetic algorithm (GA), the NHA decreased the computation time by 28%, 36%, 39%, 82%, and 88%, respectively, which represents an excellent enhancement result. The amount of released water based on the proposed hybrid method attains a more reliable index for the volumetric percentage and provides a more effective operation rule for supplying the irrigation demand. Additionally, the average demand for power production is 18.90 (106 kwh), whereas the NHA produces 18.09 (106 kwh) of power. Power production utilizing the NHA's operation rule achieved a sufficient magnitude relative to that of stand-alone models, such as the BA, PSO, WA, SA, and GA. The excellent proficiency of the developed intelligence expert system is the result of the hybrid structure of the BA and PSO algorithm and the substitution of weaker solutions in each algorithm with better solutions from other algorithms. The main advantage of the proposed NHA is its ability to increase the diversity of solutions and hence avoid the worst possible solutions obtained using BA, that is, preventing a decrease in local optima. In addition, the NHA enhances the convergence rate obtained using the PSO algorithm. Hence, the proposed NHA as an intelligence model could contribute to providing reliable solutions for complex multi-purpose reservoir systems to optimize the operation rule for similar reservoir systems worldwide.


Animals in the wild are constrained by food resources. To understand the severity of starvation events on their biology, starvation in all its manifestations must be documented. Male Potamonautes warreni Calman crabs were collected live from the Mooi River, near Potchefstroom, South Africa, in April 2009. One hundred-microlitre haemolymph samples were collected serially at a specially prepared site on the carapace of each of the fed and starved crabs, and haemocyanin, D-glucose, chloride, calcium and pH were analysed. After six weeks' starvation, D-glucose had decreased by 400% and haemocyanin by more than 55% in starved crabs. Chloride concentration decreased continuously during the six weeks from 316.0 (SE 5.9) to 282 (SE 6.7) mmol l-1 and from 301.0 (SE 7.9) to 266.0 (SE 3.6) mmol l-1 in fed and starved crabs, respectively. Calcium concentration and pH decreased in fed crabs, whereas calcium concentration increased and haemolymph pH decreased in starved crabs. Possible reasons for changes in haemolymph...


High performance time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOF-MS) is applied to the analysis and characterization of complex biological samples. High mass accuracy, high resolution, and accurate relative isotope abundance are all applied to the determination of analytes covering a range of concentrations in complex matrices including plasma and urine. Qualitative and quantitative evaluations are provided and include demonstrations of the impact of high-performance MS on sensitivity and selectivity. The ability to leverage high-performance MS in conjunction with a broad dynamic range in rapid ultrahigh-pressure liquid chromatography (UHPLC) analyses to identify unknowns and to propose putative metabolic biomarkers is demonstrated. The impact of speed of analysis and selectivity to the depth of coverage and accuracy of the analyses are discussed.


Bacteria in low moisture environments are not favorable for growth, but can survive and cause a possible food safety risk for consumers. A study was conducted to evaluate survivability of Escherichia coli and storage stability of commercial powdered goat milk (PGM) products. Three batches of whole milk PGM samples were purchased at a local outlet, and divided into two halves to assign non-inoculated control and E. coli inoculated groups, then stored at 4 and 22°C for 0, 2, and 4 months. Results showed that significant reduction (P<0.05) in E. coli counts occurred at 22°C treatment group by more than 2 log CFU/g at 2 months storage, then further decreased by an additional 0.37 log CFU/g at 4 months storage. The survival of E. coli was significantly higher at 4°C, suggesting that E. coli could survive better at 4°C by extending a longer latent period than at higher temperature (22°C) under the low water activity condition. E. coli counts had negative correlations with water activity at both temperature treatments for all three storage periods except for 0 and 2 months at 22°C, indicating that the survivability of the E. coli would decrease in powdered whole goat milk for 4 months of storage because of decrease in water activity. It was concluded that Escherichia coli survival and storage stability of the commercial PGM products were significantly (P<0.05) affected by storage temperature and time.


ABSTRACT What explains institutional trust in democratic institutions in Mongolia? Institutional trust facilitates establishing democratic institutions in post-transition countries and has been accounted for by institutional performance and social capital approaches in previous research. We argue that particularly in post-transition systems, partisanship, the evaluation of corruption and the quality of democracy also impacts institutional trust. To contribute to the study of political culture in Mongolia, the only Asian post-communist country to have developed towards democracy, we investigate determinants of citizens' trust in the president, parliament, and judiciary. To test the various explanatory factors of trust, we run ordered logit models using Asian Barometer data from 2014. The results suggest that, apart from institutional and social capital factors, partisanship strongly influences trust in the president and courts. This implies that Mongolians' perceptions of the justice system are informed by political preference, which partially originates in attempts to seize courts' autonomy.


Development of seasonal hypoxia was studied weekly in the western narrows of Long Island Sound (WLIS) during the summers of 1992 and 1993 by measuring hydrographic properties, biological oxygen demand (BOD), biomass, production, and mortality of phytoplankton and bacterioplankton in the water column. Dissolved oxygen in bottom waters was low and variable during stratified periods (19–51% saturation), oscillating in and out of hypoxic conditions (defined as <3 mg O2 l−1 or 94 μM O2). Hypoxia was more prevalent in 1993 than in 1992, corresponding to greater water column stratification in 1993. Microbial BOD in bottom waters appeared to be fueled by delivery of autochthonous carbon from phytoplankton blooms rather than allochthonous carbon input. Phytoplankton production responded to elevated NH4+ concentrations, especially when the mixed layer was shallow. NH4+ concentrations generally varied as a function of the preceding week's rainfall (r2=0.765). Bacterial production did not covary with phytoplankton production, yet was closely correlated with particulate organic carbon, which was chlorophyll-rich. Results indicate that the timing and severity of hypoxia development are strongly coupled to allochthonous input of NH4+ after heavy precipitation. Observations illustrate for the first time that bottom waters in this system oscillate in and out of hypoxia on an almost weekly basis rather than sustain them over the entire stratified period. The frequency of these oscillations depends upon variations in nutrients, planktonic production and export, and bottom water ventilation.


This study reports on 431 surveys that were used to determine speakers' attitudes toward the tuteo and voseo in Montevideo. It examines speakers' attitudes toward: the use of tu; the use of vos in [+D] domains; speakers' recognition of V–V, T–V, and T–T combinations; ti and vos in prepositional phrases; and the dialect of Montevideo. All speakers express positive attitudes toward the tuteo, although those under 40 do not use it. Younger speakers show a preference for V–V combinations and a predilection for vos as a prepositional object. The youngest subjects expressed the most positive attitude toward the Montevidean dialect. Although recent research points to an increasing use of the voseo in Montevideo (Steffen 2010, Weyers 2009, Bertolotti and Coll 2006), the generally favorable attitudes expressed toward the tuteo suggest an affinity toward the Montevideo norm, regardless of actual usage or potential future changes.


A king foolishly divides his kingdom between his scheming two oldest daughters and estranges himself from the daughter who loves him. So begins this profoundly moving and disturbing tragedy that, perhaps more than any other work in literature, challenges the notion of a coherent and just universe. The king and others pay dearly for their shortcomings--as madness, murder, and the anguish of insight and forgiveness that arrive too late combine to make this an all-embracing tragedy of evil and suffering.


Sinusoidal variations in recharge can induce cyclical flows in surface water and groundwater. In this thesis, such time-dependent flows are explored in a coupled lakeaquifer system. The modelling extends previous steady state results and introduces new flow-visualisation techniques. Local responses in a 2D vertical section are illustrated for lakes within a 1D regional groundwater mound. The theory employs complex variables to decouple the periodic groundwater flows into separate steady state and fluctuating components.

The time dependent behaviour causes the lake-aquifer flow to change between flowthrough, recharge and discharge regimes. Corresponding fluctuations between inflow and outflow across the lakebed allow interchange of lake water with the aquifer (recycling and recapture). This also gives rise to sinuous flowpaths that can result in apparent dispersion; the number and size of waves, cusps and loops is characterised by a nondimensional waviness ratio. Streakline plots are introduced and provide an intuitive impression of the time-dependent groundwater motion. Such plots are enhanced by animation and illustrate the complex and potentially dispersive nature of the flows.

Interplay between the steady state and fluctuating responses determines the type and strength of flow regime transition. Importantly, there is an inverse relationship between head and flow in the fluctuating response. This is characterised by a dimensionless response time; a function of the aquifer geometry, hydraulic properties and period of fluctuation. During fast response, the recharge propagates mainly as fluctuation in flow, with small phase lags; particle trajectories form elliptical paths in the visualised flows. With a slower aquifer response, variation in recharge is manifest mostly as fluctuation in water level; cyclical perturbations in the flows are small and flows are nearly in steady state.

The position of a lake within the regional setting, size of the lake, and ratio of lake to aquifer recharge are important to the steady state response. Flow-through regimes occur throughout the regional setting, but dominate when the lake is lower in the system and groundwater flow is greater. Discharge and recharge regimes occur higher in the flow system, when the ratio of lake to aquifer recharge is large in magnitude.


Objectives The Oxford hip score (OHS) is a 12-item questionnaire designed and developed to assess function and pain from the perspective of patients who are undergoing total hip replacement (THR). The OHS has been shown to be consistent, reliable, valid and sensitive to clinical change following THR. It has been translated into different languages, but no adequately translated, adapted and validated Danish language version exists. Methods The OHS was translated and cross-culturally adapted into Danish from the original English version, using methods based on best-practice guidelines. The translation was tested for psychometric quality in patients drawn from a cohort from the Danish Hip Arthroplasty Register (DHR). Results The Danish OHS had a response rate of 87.4%, no floor effect and a 19.9% ceiling effect (as expected in post-operative patients). Only 1.2% of patients had too many items missing to calculate a sum score. Construct validity was adequate and 80% of our predefined hypotheses regarding the correlation between scores on the Danish OHS and the other questionnaires were confirmed. The intraclass correlation (ICC) of the different items ranged from 0.80 to 0.95 and the average limits of agreement (LOA) ranged from -0.05 to 0.06. The Danish OHS had a high internal consistency with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.99 and an average inter-item correlation of 0.88. Conclusions This Danish version of the OHS is a valid and reliable patient-reported outcome measurement instrument (PROM) with similar qualities to the original English language version.


The Effectiveness of Regulatory Policy in the Maryland Food Industry by Alphonsus Korie MA, Sojourner–Douglass College, 2010 BS, Alabama State University, 1986 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Public Policy and Administration Health Services Walden University February 2016 Abstract Foodborne illness is a persistent problem in the food service industry. Restaurant inspections reveal that only 60-70% of restaurants are in compliance with health code requirements, which vary from state to state and county to county. In Maryland, 5 of the state's 24 counties have a requirement that restaurants classified as mediumor highpriority food establishments must employ certified food managers (CFMs). It is unknown how this requirement has influenced the operation of the affected restaurants and the extent to which the requirement has resulted in improved food handling safety. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine the effectiveness of CFMs in reducing the incidence of foodborne illness in Maryland counties. The study was based on the theory of planned behavior. The study was also based on the relationship between foodborne illness outbreaks and the presence of CFMs and the role such managers can play in reducing those outbreaks. Data were collected from the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene reports regarding foodborne illness outbreaks from 2004 to 2013. A total of 288 establishments were selected for analysis. Data analysis involved comparing results for the 5 counties that require CFMs with the 19 counties that lack thisFoodborne illness is a persistent problem in the food service industry. Restaurant inspections reveal that only 60-70% of restaurants are in compliance with health code requirements, which vary from state to state and county to county. In Maryland, 5 of the state's 24 counties have a requirement that restaurants classified as mediumor highpriority food establishments must employ certified food managers (CFMs). It is unknown how this requirement has influenced the operation of the affected restaurants and the extent to which the requirement has resulted in improved food handling safety. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine the effectiveness of CFMs in reducing the incidence of foodborne illness in Maryland counties. The study was based on the theory of planned behavior. The study was also based on the relationship between foodborne illness outbreaks and the presence of CFMs and the role such managers can play in reducing those outbreaks. Data were collected from the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene reports regarding foodborne illness outbreaks from 2004 to 2013. A total of 288 establishments were selected for analysis. Data analysis involved comparing results for the 5 counties that require CFMs with the 19 counties that lack this requirement. Results showed a significance difference of 0.008 (95% CI, 0.005), z = 4.71, p = 0.000 in the proportion of foodborne illness outbreaks between county restaurants that require CFMs and those without such a requirement. Social change implications include the potential to reduce the incidence of foodborne illness, thereby contributing to improved public health. The patrons who live in Maryland counties without onsite CFMs risk exposure to foodborne illness more than those living in counties with CFMs. The Effectiveness of Regulatory Policy in the Maryland Food Industry by Alphonsus Korie MA, Sojourner–Douglass College, 2010 BS, Alabama State University, 1986 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Public Policy and Administration Health Services


This paper deals with H/sub /spl infin// state estimation of two-dimensional (2D) linear discrete time-invariant systems described by a 2D local state-space Fornasini-Marchesini second model. Several versions of the bounded real lemma of the 2D discrete systems are established. The 2D bounded real lemma allows one to solve the finite horizon H/sub /spl infin// state estimation problems using a Riccati difference equation. Further, a solution to the infinite horizon H/sub /spl infin// filtering problem based on a linear matrix inequality approach is developed. Our results extend existing work for one-dimensional systems to the 2D case and give a state-space solution to the bounded realness of 2D discrete systems as well as 2D H/sub /spl infin// state estimation for the first time.


Introduction: Herbal drug usage is very common in general population; their usage is much more in developing countries such as India. Many untoward instances have been reported either because of herbs per se or because of their interactions with other drugs. Aim: We lack the data showing the prevalence of herbal use, and to fill these gaps, the authors aimed to document the prevalence and perception of herbal drug usage in patients visiting the outpatient department (OPD) of a tertiary care hospital. Materials and Methods: This prospective cross-sectional study was conducted on 200 patients visiting various OPDs. After obtaining informed consent, patients were given questionnaires seeking their sociodemographic data, medical history and herbal drug intake and their perception about herbal drugs. Results: The study population consisted of 127 men and 117 women, out of these 107 (43.49%) patients reported the usage of herbal drugs. Seventy-three (68.2%) patients were taking these herbs on the advice of an alternate therapist. Among those who take herbs, majority of them i.e., 48 (44.9%) think that herbs cure the illness. Moreover, only 38.3% have disclosed herbal intake to the treating physician. While in non-herbal users, most of them i.e., 76 (71.3%) had never given a thought to herbal drugs as they lack knowledge. Conclusion: Herbal drug use is quite common and at the same time disclosure to healthcare professionals about it is very low. We conclude that for effective and safe usage of herbal drugs, we have to promote educational research for both consumers as well as for healthcare professionals.


Humans are able to rapidly understand scenes by utilizing concepts extracted from prior experience. Such concepts are diverse, and include global scene descriptors, such as the weather or lighting, as well as local scene descriptors, such as the color or size of a particular object. So far, unsupervised discovery of concepts has focused on either modeling the global scene-level or the local object-level factors of variation, but not both. In this work, we propose COMET, which discovers and represents concepts as separate energy functions, enabling us to represent both global concepts as well as objects under a unified framework. COMET discovers energy functions through recomposing the input image, which we find captures independent factors without additional supervision. Sample generation in COMET is formulated as an optimization process on underlying energy functions, enabling us to generate images with permuted and composed concepts. Finally, discovered visual concepts in COMET generalize well, enabling us to compose concepts between separate modalities of images as well as with other concepts discovered by a separate instance of COMET trained on a different dataset. Code and data available at https://energy-based-model.github.io/comet/.


SUMMARY. A 2-year field study in Lexington, Ky., evaluated weed control efficacy and infl uence on yields of several organic mulches in two organically managed bell pepper (Capsicum annuum) production systems. Five weed control treat- ments (straw, compost, wood chips, undersown white dutch clover (Trifolium repens) "living mulch," and the organically approved herbicide corn gluten) were applied to two production systems consisting of peppers planted in double rows in either fl at, bare ground or on black polyethylene-covered raised beds. In the fi rst year, treatments were applied at transplanting and no treatment was found to provide acceptable season-long weed control. As a result, bell pepper yields in both production systems were very low due to extensive weed competition. First year failures in weed control required a modifi cation of the experimental protocol in the second year such that treatment application was delayed for 6 weeks, dur- ing which time three shallow cultivations were used to reduce early weed pres- sure and extend the control provided by the mulches. This approach increased the average weed control rating provided by the mulches from 45% in 2003 to 86% in 2004, and resulted in greatly improved yields. In both years, polyethyl- ene-covered raised beds produced higher yields than the fl at, bare ground system (8310 lb/acre compared to 1012 lb/acre in 2003 and 42,900 lb/acre compared to 29,700 lb/acre in 2004). In the second year, the polyethylene-covered bed system coupled with mulching in-between beds with compost or wood chips pro- vided excellent weed control and yields. When using the wood chip mulch, which was obtained at no cost, net returns were $5587/acre, which is similar to typical returns for conventionally grown peppers in Kentucky. Net returns were sub- stantially decreased when using compost due to the purchase cost. Results from this study indicate that shallow cultivation following transplanting, combined with midseason mulch application, resulted in high yields in an organically man- aged bell pepper system that were comparable to yields of most varieties grown conventionally in a variety trial conducted on the same farm.


Lack of performance when it comes to continual learning over non-stationary distributions of data remains a major challenge in scaling neural network learning to more human realistic settings. In this work we propose a new conceptualization of the continual learning problem in terms of a temporally symmetric trade-off between transfer and interference that can be optimized by enforcing gradient alignment across examples. We then propose a new algorithm, Meta-Experience Replay (MER), that directly exploits this view by combining experience replay with optimization based meta-learning. This method learns parameters that make interference based on future gradients less likely and transfer based on future gradients more likely. We conduct experiments across continual lifelong supervised learning benchmarks and non-stationary reinforcement learning environments demonstrating that our approach consistently outperforms recently proposed baselines for continual learning. Our experiments show that the gap between the performance of MER and baseline algorithms grows both as the environment gets more non-stationary and as the fraction of the total experiences stored gets smaller.


The conduct of IT/IS evaluation and its associated approaches, techniques and methods have been the subject of IS research for many years, particularly in the last two decades. This paper reflects on the body of knowledge which has emerged over the past twenty-five years in order to identify where research efforts are focussed, what are the important issues in IT/IS evaluation research, and where future research efforts should be placed. This study presents a descriptive analysis of research on IT/IS evaluation over the last 25 five years, from 1986 to 2010, in five leading IS journals In total, 176 papers related to IT/IS evaluation are identified and reviewed in this study. Based on the Context, Content and Process model, IT/IS evaluation can be broken down to five interrelated elements: why evaluation is carried out, what is evaluated,whenwhen evaluation takes place, how evaluation is performed and who is involved in evaluation. Each of these elements are identified and classified in the sample research articles and based on this analysis, we propose a new perspective for classifying IT/IS evaluation approaches.


To assess obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) and periodic limb movement disorder (PLMD) in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) compared with a control group. The ADHD was diagnosed based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, version IV (DSM‐IV) criteria on successively seen elementary school children aged 6–12 years referred to a psychiatric clinic for suspected ADHD. A standardized interview (Kiddie‐SADS‐E), parents and teacher questionnaires, neuropsychological testing, and nocturnal polysomnography were completed for each child. Eighty‐eight children (77 boys) with ADHD and 27 controls were involved in the study. Fifty children with ADHD (56.8%) had an apnea–hypopnea index (AHI) >1 event h−1 and 17 (19.3%) had an AHI >5 event h−1. Nine children (10.2%) had a periodic limb movement index (PLMI) >5 events h−1. There is one child with AHI >1 and none with a PLMI > 5 in the control group. In the test of variables of attention (TOVA), the response time was significantly worse in ADHD with sleep disorders than those without them. The child behavior checklist (CBCL) showed a significant difference between groups in the hyperactivity subscale. The diagnostic criteria for ADHD based on DSM‐IV do not differentiate between children with or without sleep disorders. Evaluation of sleep disorders should be considered before starting drug treatment for ADHD.


Labeling data is a seemingly simple task required for training many machine learning systems, but is actually fraught with problems. This paper introduces the notion of concept evolution, the changing nature of a person's underlying concept (the abstract notion of the target class a person is labeling for, e.g., spam email, travel related web pages) which can result in inconsistent labels and thus be detrimental to machine learning. We introduce two structured labeling solutions, a novel technique we propose for helping people define and refine their concept in a consistent manner as they label. Through a series of five experiments, including a controlled lab study, we illustrate the impact and dynamics of concept evolution in practice and show that structured labeling helps people label more consistently in the presence of concept evolution than traditional labeling. Author


Social care is currently undergoing a transformation, driven by Government policy, and key to this transformation is giving greater choice to service users. This vision of choice is based on a market model of competing service providers; such a model can be difficult to implement in rural areas where problems of space, time and access hamper service delivery. This raises the question of whether policy is biased towards urban areas and highlights the important role that geographical gerontology can play in developing more person-centred social care policy and practice. This consumerist vision of social care has also fuelled a theoretical debate which underpins this research. The market model of choice has been located within a wider discourse which regards the self as a rational, self-sufficient individual. An alternative discourse has been posited from a feminist ontology in which interdependence and co-responsibility come to the fore; such a discourse emphasises the personal dimension to social care practice. This project forms the research component of a professional doctorate in occupational therapy and is concerned with the self-expressed views of rural older people in relation to the above social care theory and policy. Taking a phenomenological approach, a narrative methodology was used to interview 11 older people who live in rural West Northumberland. Participants? narratives concerning social care re-affirm findings from previous gerontological research which assert low expectations, self-sufficiency and the crucial role of human relationships. Although at a superficial level, "choice? is not a term participants relate to social care, it is revealed that they do make choices on a daily basis both in relation to social care and their home situation, but choice is a complex and ongoing process rather than a one off event. It is suggested that the way participants situate themselves within their network of care and their geographic location helps them to maintain coherence in their personal identity. The concepts identified above are used to develop theory from a postmodern and feminist perspective in the areas of social care and geographical gerontology, forming an original contribution at the interface of these two domains.


A b s t r ac t Background Homozygous loss-of-function mutations in TREM2, encoding the triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2 protein, have previously been associated with an autosomal recessive form of early-onset dementia. Methods We used genome, exome, and Sanger sequencing to analyze the genetic variability in TREM2 in a series of 1092 patients with Alz hei mer's disease and 1107 controls (the discovery set). We then performed a meta-analysis on imputed data for the TREM2 variant rs75932628 (predicted to cause a R47H substitution) from three genomewide association studies of Alzheimer's disease and tested for the association of the variant with disease. We genotyped the R47H variant in an additional 1887 cases and 4061 controls. We then assayed the expression of TREM2 across different regions of the human brain and identified genes that are differentially expressed in a mouse model of Alz hei mer's disease and in control mice. Results We found significantly more variants in exon 2 of TREM2 in patients with Alz heimer's disease than in controls in the discovery set (P = 0.02). There were 22 variant alleles in 1092 patients with Alz hei mer's disease and 5 variant alleles in 1107 con trols (P<0.001). The most commonly associated variant, rs75932628 (encoding R47H), showed highly significant association with Alz hei mer's disease (P<0.001). Meta-analysis of rs75932628 genotypes imputed from genomewide association studies confirmed this association (P = 0.002), as did direct genotyping of an addi tional series of 1887 patients with Alz hei mer's disease and 4061 controls (P<0.001). Trem2 expression differed between control mice and a mouse model of Alz hei mer's disease. Conclusions Heterozygous rare variants in TREM2 are associated with a significant increase in the risk of Alz hei mer's disease. (Funded by Alz hei mer's Research UK and others.)


Shortlisted for the Royal Society Winton Prize 2013 and the 2013 Best Book of Ideas Prize. Memory is an essential part of who we are. But what are memories, and how are they created? A new consensus is emerging among cognitive scientists: rather than possessing a particular memory from our past, like a snapshot, we construct it anew each time we are called upon to remember. Remembering is an act of narrative as much as it is the product of a neurological process. Pieces of Light illuminates this theory through a collection of human stories, each illustrating a facet of memory's complex synergy of cognitive and neurological functions. Drawing on case studies, personal experience and the latest research, Charles Fernyhough delves into the memories of the very young and very old, and explores how amnesia and trauma can affect how we view the past. Exquisitely written and meticulously researched, Pieces of Light blends science and literature, the ordinary and the extraordinary, to illuminate the way we remember and forget.


Incorrectly identifying a building's history can have far-reaching consequences. The building which today houses the Eastern Star Museum in Grahamstown was initially declared a monument on the grounds of its value as the original premises of the Anglo-African newspaper. Subsequent articles referred to it as the premises of the Eastern Star, named after the fore-runner of today's The Star newspaper. A false impression of the building has thus been reinforced due to inadequate research. This article attempts to clarify the partial truths about the origins of the building and the museum.


The Prolific and other Priority Offender (PPO) strategy was introduced by the Home Office in the summer of 2004, with the central aim of reducing crime and reducing re-offending by those who persistently cause the most crime and harm locally. Within Birmingham, this was introduced into a context where a number of existing projects and strategies were already being implemented on a piecemeal basis to address specific targeted offenders, either through the Persistent Offender Partnership programme (POPP), or Project Chrysalis. Strategic direction on the management of prolific offenders in Birmingham is provided through the Drug Treatment and Offender Management Core Priority Group.

The situation in Birmingham with regards to managing prolific and other priority offenders is highly complex, involving many partners at both strategic and delivery levels. This study aimed to assess the current provision of services for prolific and other priority offenders in Birmingham, and to identify gaps in the service delivery that can inform the development of the local PPO strategy and an action plan for the forthcoming year. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 key personnel involved at either the strategic or service delivery level for the PPO strategy. In addition to this, interviews were conducted with six offenders who were or had previously been on the POPP scheme. These covered a number of areas, including access to services, case management, partnership working, information sharing and tracking of offenders through the system.


The Medicine on the Move series provides fully-flexible access to subjects across the curriculum in a unique combination of print and mobile formats ideal for the busy medical student and junior doctor. No matter what your learning style, whether you are studying a subject for the first time or revisiting it during exam preparation, Medicine on the Move will give you the support you need. This innovative package will help you to connect with the topic of anesthesia, to learn, understand and enjoy it, and to cement your knowledge in preparation for exams and future clinical practice. By using this resource in print or as an app, you really will experience the opportunity to learn medicine on the move!


The effect of several factors on bending moment of an underground flexible pipe section buried in a ditch with sheet piling was investigated experimentally by means of centrifugal model test. The models were two-dimensional with various combinations of the four factors: 1) wall thickness (rigidity) of pipe, 2) width of ditch, 3) cover height and 4) backfill density. The sheet piles were extracted during flight to simulate the actual construction procedure. The bending moment of the pipe increased remarkably with the extraction of the sheet piles, and pipe rigidity and ditch width were found to be the major sensitive factors for the bending moment. A cushion placed under the pipe was found effective to reduce the bending moment of the pipe, whereas a cushion on the top was not.


We address the phenomenon of critical Kondo destruction in pseudogap Bose-Fermi Anderson and Kondo quantum impurity models. These models describe a localized level coupled both to a fermionic bath having a density of states that vanishes like ${|\ensuremath{\epsilon}|}^{r}$ at the Fermi energy ($\ensuremath{\epsilon}=0$) and, via one component of the impurity spin, to a bosonic bath having a sub-Ohmic spectral density proportional to ${|\ensuremath{\omega}|}^{s}$. Each bath is capable by itself of suppressing the Kondo effect at a continuous quantum phase transition. We study the interplay between these two mechanisms for Kondo destruction using continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo for the pseudogap Bose-Fermi Anderson model with $0lrl\frac{1}{2}$ and $\frac{1}{2}\ensuremath{\le}sl1$, and applying the numerical renormalization group to the corresponding Kondo model. At particle-hole symmetry, the models exhibit a quantum-critical point between a Kondo (fermionic strong-coupling) phase and a localized (Kondo-destroyed) phase. The two solution methods, which are in good agreement in their domain of overlap, provide access to the many-body spectrum, as well as to correlation functions including, in particular, the single-particle Green's function and the static and dynamical local spin susceptibilities. The quantum-critical regime exhibits the hyperscaling of critical exponents and $\ensuremath{\omega}/T$ scaling in the dynamics that characterize an interacting critical point. The $(r,s)$ plane can be divided into three regions: one each in which the calculated critical properties are dominated by the bosonic bath alone or by the fermionic bath alone, and between these two regions, a third in which the bosonic bath governs the critical spin response but both baths influence the renormalization-group flow near the quantum-critical point.


The molecular structure of the DNA double helix has been known for 60 years, but we remain surprisingly ignorant of the balance of forces that determine its mechanical properties. The DNA double helix is among the stiffest of all biopolymers, but neither theory nor experiment has provided a coherent understanding of the relative roles of attractive base stacking forces and repulsive electrostatic forces creating this stiffness. To gain insight, we have created a family of double-helical DNA-like polymers where one of the four normal bases is replaced with various cationic, anionic or neutral analogs. We apply DNA ligase-catalyzed cyclization kinetics experiments to measure the bending and twisting flexibilities of these polymers under low salt conditions. Interestingly, we show that these modifications alter DNA bending stiffness by only 20%, but have much stronger (5-fold) effects on twist flexibility. We suggest that rather than modifying DNA stiffness through a mechanism easily interpretable as electrostatic, the more dominant effect of neutral and charged base modifications is their ability to drive transitions to helical conformations different from canonical B-form DNA.


Background: Futile care is provided many complicated challenges for nursing in intensive care
units in Iran.
Objective: This study aimed to study prevalence of futile care from the viewpoints of nurses that
working ICU.
Methods: This descriptive-analytical study was conducted on totally 210 nurses working in all ICU
of academic, public, and private hospitals of Qazvin city in 2014. Data were analyzed using Chisquare,
independent t-test, one-way ANOVA and Friedman tests.
Findings: The most prevalence of providing futile care was in teaching hospital (51.98±23.2), and
the least prevalence was in charity hospital (37.3±12.77). There was significant difference between
mean of futile care in different hospitals (P<0.007).
Conclusion: As the key role of nurses in the managing futile care, awareness about prevalence of
this kind of care, could be initial step for providing benefit care plans in ICU.
Keywords: Futile care, Nurses' attitude, Intensive care unit, Prevalence


This bulletin provides a snapshot of the sale and distribution of fentanyl and its analogues across several popular illicit darknet markets. Data collected daily from six darknet markets between 2 January and 23 February 2019 reveal the amount, types and physical forms of fentanyl available. Of more than 123,000 unique drug listings identified, nearly 7,400 were opioids, of which 439 (0.347% of all drugs listed) were fentanyl products. Between 15 and 22 kilograms of fentanyl was available on any day and the average price per gram varied between A$30 and A$301, depending on the physical form. The data also reveal the shipping methods, cross-market operations and product specialisation of the 102 active fentanyl vendors on these six darknet markets.


Evidence in this paper indicates that insulin can down-regulate the inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) pathway in vivo. The iNOS pathway is up-regulated in diabetes-prone rats and mice and is associated with an autoimmune process. However, the results presented here indicate that macrophage nitric oxide (NO) production and iNOS mRNA expression are also elevated in rats or mice made diabetic by streptozotocin injection in which there is no primary autoimmune component. Insulin administration reduces NO production in autoimmune-prone and streptozotocin-induced diabetic rodents. Finally, insulin decreases macrophage NO production in normal hosts. These results indicate that the autoimmune paradigm is inadequate to explain increased NO in diabetes. As a potential mechanism to explain insulin-mediated regulation of NO production, TGF-1 may be involved because 1) macrophages from diabetic mice produce less TGF-beta1 than macrophages from normal hosts; 2) the circulating TGF-beta1 level is lower in diabetic mice; and 3) insulin administration increases circulating TGF-beta1 in normal mice. Together, these results provide evidence that increased NO in diabetes is not only a cause but also an effect of beta-cell destruction and results in part from a heretofore unrecognized immunomodulatory activity of insulin.


Introduction: The recruitment and retention of Registered Nurses (RNs) in Guernsey and Alderney has been a continual challenge over the years. Whilst measures have been put in place to address the problem, these solutions have had little sustained impact on the problem. The current vacancy rate is double that being experienced by National Health Service (NHS) Trusts outside of the London area. This study proposed to explore the recruitment and retention problem in a more holistic way by capturing the experiences of RNs who are working within the Islands. Study aim: To explore the professional and personal challenges facing generalist RNs working and living in two small island communities. Methodology: An experience-centred narrative research methodology was used to explore the experiences of 20 newly appointed RNs and 15 long-serving RNs. The data consisted of 35 'stories' which were captured through the use of semi-structured interviews, written accounts and visual media. The data was analysed using a critical hermeneutic approach. Results: Sixteen themes were identified and aligned with the conceptual framework underpinning the study. The stories of the participants were used to develop a model to demonstrate the acculturation process they were experiencing. Conclusions: It was recognised that all new recruits undergo a process of acculturation when they take up employment in the Islands. The study demonstrated that the process of acculturation was a continual journey and that the longer-serving participants were also undergoing a process of adjustment to the on-going cultural changes taking place in the organisation. The research highlighted that this acculturation process was influenced by multiple inter-connected factors which contributed to the challenges perceived by the participants. Whilst these factors had some commonality with those identified in the literature, the specific nature of the issues raised by the participants in this study were context dependent.


I study the moral hazard problem where an agent can create an extra instance of effort and potentially improve bad realizations of the outcome before the principal observes it. The agent cannot hide the outcome of his effort, but just the way he achieved it. Findings are that both, principal and agent, value the option of improving the outcome in case of a bad realization if doing so is cheap. I also find that contracted effort is not always decreasing in its cost. I also study the situation in which, if the principal can impose short deadlines and eliminate the agent's extra chance, under a broad range of scenarios, the principal will do so when the parameters make agency costs sufficiently high. Finally, if the creation of the extra instance can cause a punishment for the principal, and if that punishment is sufficiently big, the principal will avoid writing contracts that incentive effort only on the extra chance.


The memory footprints of sensitive data in security critical systems programs and end user applications is generally not ensured to be kept small. This results in data being left over in the memory long after it has been last used in the program. The prolonged presence of such memory resident data that is sensitive (such as passwords and cryptographic keys) poses a number of security risks.
The onus of ensuring that sensitive data does not remain in the program well beyond its intended use is left entirely to the programmer. Unfortunately this is only done by the most sophisticated of applications developers, as many developers are not simply aware of these issues. Consequently, there is a dire need to retrofit applications to minimize the prolonged life of sensitive data in memory. A promising approach is to delete sensitive data as soon as it becomes unnecessary.
In this thesis, we propose methods to reduce the lifetime of memory resident data by erasing the memory footprint of sensitive data after it's last usage in programs. Our approach uses program transformation techniques to achieve the goal of precise and effective minimization of data exposure in sequential and concurrent applications.
We first describe SWIPE, an approach to reduce the lifetime of sensitive, memory resident data in large-scale sequential applications written in C. In contrast to prior approaches that used a delayed or lazy approach to the problem of erasing sensitive data, SWIPE uses a novel eager erasure approach that minimizes the risk of accidental sensitive data leakage. SWIPE achieves this by transforming a legacy sequential C program to include additional instructions that erase sensitive data immediately after its intended use. SWIPE is guided by a highly scalable static analysis technique that precisely identifies locations to introduce erase instructions in the original program. In our experiments, SWIPE is able to successfully and robustly transform several large applications with minimal performance overheads. The sequential programs transformed using SWIPE enjoy several additional advantages: minimization of leaks that arise due to data dependencies; erasure of sensitive data with minimal developer guidance; and negligible performance overheads (averaging 1.35%).
We subsequently tackle the challenge of minimizing data lifetime in the realm of concurrent pro- grams. In this case, the issues are comparatively more challenging as the interleaving of threads in concurrent applications makes the determination of lifetime statically difficult. In this dissertation, we also address the problem of data lifetime minimization for concurrent programs in addition to sequential programs. The major challenge for our approach is to ensure that the erasures introduced to the shared memory locations are done after anticipating all possible interleaving of threads, in order to en- sure soundness. We develop a new algorithm that anticipates shared variable lifetimes, and correctly introduce erase instructions. This algorithm is implemented in a tool called DEICS (Data Erasure In Concurrent Software). Through an experimental evaluation, we show that DEICS is able to reduce lifetimes of shared sensitive data in several concurrent applications (over 100k lines of code combined) with minimal performance overheads. This thesis is, as far as we know, the first study that applies "data lifetime minimization" techniques to concurrent programs. The method we present to erase data from shared memory is sound (i.e., data is erased only after it is no longer needed). Our experimental results show, DEICS enables data erasure efficiently.
Taken together, SWIPE and DEICS address the issues in minimizing sensitive lifetime in modern computing applications. They demonstrate that precise and effective minimization of data exposure in sequential and concurrent applications can be achieved through program transformation techniques.


We have characterized cis-acting elements that direct the early phase of Hoxc-8 expression using reporter gene analysis in transgenic mice. By deletion we show that a 135 bp DNA fragment, located approximately 3 kb upstream of the coding region of Hoxc-8, is capable of directing posterior neural tube expression. This early neural tube (ENT) enhancer consists of four separate elements, designated A, B, C and D, whose nucleotide sequences are similar to binding sites of known transcription factors. Nucleotide substitutions suggest that element A is an essential component of the ENT enhancer. However element A by itself is incapable of directing neural tube expression. This element requires interactions at any two of the other three elements, B, C or D. Thus, the components of the ENT enhancer direct neural tube expression in an interdependent manner. We propose that Hoxc-8 is activated in the neural tube by combinatorial interactions among several proteins acting within a small region. Our transgenic analyses provide a means to identify transcription factors that regulate Hoxc-8 expression during embryogenesis.


In today's business world, concepts such as technology, diversity, competition, uncertainty and confusion stand out. Businesses that want to succeed by overcoming all of these concepts are required to take into consideration their most important assets - human resources. Human resources, as a distinct concept from other business sources, have psycho-social characteristics, wherefore concepts such as satisfaction, morale, motivation, leadership, commitment and communication gain importance in great deal in the work environment. In this study, two of the aforementioned concepts – organizational communication and work commitment – are discussed and the effects of open communication which has a constructive and closed communication that has a bureaucratic nature on the work commitment of employees are examined. A result is that open communication has a positive effect on work commitment. On the other hand closed communication, contrary to expectations, has a positive effect on commitment towards work as well. According to authors, it seems reasonable that closed communication, with its bureaucratic tone, fits public institutions that also have a more bureaucratic social environment.


Managing terminal lake elevation and salinity are emerging problems worldwide. We contribute to terminal lake management research by quantitatively assessing water and salt flow for Utah's Great Salt Lake. In 1959, Union Pacific Railroad constructed a rock-filled causeway across the Great Salt Lake, separating the lake into a north and south arm. Flow between the two arms was limited to two 4.6 meter wide rectangular culverts installed during construction, an 88 meter opening (referred to locally as a breach) installed in 1984, and the semi porous material of the causeway. A salinity gradient developed between the two arms of the lake over time because the south arm receives approximately 95% of the incoming streamflow entering Great Salt Lake. The north arm is often at, or near, salinity saturation, averaging 317 g/L since 1966, while the south is considerably less saline, averaging 142 g/L since 1966. Ecological and industrial uses of the lake are dependent on long-term salinity remaining within physiological and economic thresholds, although optimal salinity varies for the ecosystem and between diverse stakeholders. In 2013, Union Pacific Railroad closed causeway culverts amid structural safety concerns and proposed to replace them with a bridge, offering four different bridge designs. As of summer 2015, no bridge design has been decided upon. We investigated the effect that each of the proposed bridge designs would have on north and south arm Great Salt Lake elevation and salinity by updating and applying US Geological Survey's Great Salt Lake Fortran Model. Overall, we found that salinity is sensitive to bridge size and depth, with larger designs increasing salinity in the south arm and decreasing salinity in the north arm. This research illustrates that flow modifications within terminal lakes cannot be separated from lake salinity, ecology, management, and economic uses.


A proposed methodology for the study of image-enabled discourse is introduced, focusing on a conceptual framework that builds on theoretical contributions of related research and provides working definitions for key concepts,and a brief description of future empirical research. The goal of this methodology is to produce an analytic model of image-enabled conversations that could be applied to a range of multimodal information problems including system building for information access and extraction. Drawing is used as an example of an imagecentered discourse practice.


Livestock sector constitutes one of the leading agricultural branches in Volyn Region, since it provides both regional food security and economic benefits for individual farms, which currently are major livestock producers. The article tries to disclose the functioning of modern livestock breeding in individual farms, including highlighting the main problems and prospects of livestock breeding in this kind of households. Methodologically this study is based on a systematic approach to the study of socio-economic processes and phenomena occurring in individual farms using a number of methods, including theoretical generalization, comparison and analysis, as well as system-structural analysis of statistical data. The study found that fragmentation of agricultural land plots resulted in weakening of ties between individual farms, but the latter increased their share in livestock regional production up to 66.3%. This figure rises to north as the northern areas of Volyn Region have a small number of farms and relatively worse agro-climatic and soil conditions. In 2015, individual farms in Volyn region produced 83% of milk, 52% of meat, 93.3% of wool and 88% of eggs of the total amount. This may be explained by the fact that individual farms not only supply their own needs but receive additional revenue from product sales, partially satisfying the demand in animal products of the urban population. As a result, individual farms increase their significance and strengthen their position as the leader among all categories of households in terms of agricultural production. Several regional development programs launched in Volyn Region posturize an important factor for improvement of individual farms and increase in their livestock production. The main purpose of aforementioned programs is to support individual farms, providing them with technical and financial assistance. However, a number of acute problems hinder the development of individual peasant households, including inadequate funding, low purchase prices for animal products and high feed prices, lack of technical support and high complexity of production process. Solving problems listed above would not only further stimulate the development of individual farms, but also would improve the living standards of the rural population in Volyn region.


The Midwest United States produces around one-quarter of the world's grain supply. The demand for corn ethanol is likely to cause a shift toward greater corn planting. To be prepared for the potential impacts of increased corn production, we need a better understanding of the current state of ecosystem services in this region. In this article, we describe a unique procedure for developing a dataset containing multiple variables useful in modeling ecological responses and tradeoffs. We demonstrate how to construct a detailed land cover classification and link it to yield and agricultural practices. We used the 2001 National Land Cover Database (NLCD) to spatially constrain the datasets during overlay analysis. With this method, we found that the percent agreement between classifications was frequently greater than 80%, indicating little change to the original base layer accuracies. Using three different land cover datasets, we were able to add 18 classes for agriculture and 155 classes for natural cover. We then linked variables for yield, fertilizer, and pesticide application rates, field residue, irrigation percentages, and tillage practices to the land cover data. The final Midwest dataset contained 15.5 million grid values and 15 variables. Capturing the land cover and land management information at the 30-m grid scale allows for aggregation and modeling of the ecosystem services at a variety of spatial scales. As a final step, we demonstrate a tradeoff evaluation between corn yield and nitrogen loadings using our dataset. The effort required to develop the Midwest dataset was greater than initially anticipated; however, the benefit of being able to calculate derivative variables and add new variables justifies the time expenditure needed to create such a detailed database.


Amos Tversky (1937-1996), a towering figure in cognitive and mathematical psychology, devoted his professional life to the study of similarity, judgment, and decision making. He had a unique ability to master the technicalities of normative ideals and then to intuit and demonstrate experimentally their systematic violation due to the vagaries and consequences of human information processing. He created new areas of study and helped transform disciplines as varied as economics, law, medicine, political science, philosophy, and statistics. This book collects forty of Tversky's articles, selected by him in collaboration with the editor during the last months of Tversky's life. It is divided into three sections: Similarity, Judgment, and Preferences. The Preferences section is subdivided into Probabilistic Models of Choice, Choice under Risk and Uncertainty, and Contingent Preferences. Included are several articles written with his frequent collaborator, Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman.


The consequences of the choice of electrostatic boundary conditions on the interfacial properties of water and on the free energy of ion adsorption from aqueous solution have been investigated. The Ewald summation method for lattices, which are periodic in two dimensions, is considered to be the most adequate method in slabs of finite thickness in one dimension. In agreement with the physics of the problem a field-free region in the bulk phases is observed. The use of spherical truncation methods like the shifted-force method leads to unphysical results. The electrostatic potential depends on the size of the system. Ewald summation methods for three-dimensional lattices lead to results in qualitative agreement with the corresponding two-dimensional lattice sum. The computed value of the electrostatic potential depends on an additional parameter, namely the lattice constant c in the direction perpendicular to the interface. The results for Ewald summation in three dimensions converge to the results for Ewa...


Cancer-related death is mainly due to metastasis: the ability of tumor cells to colonize distant sites after detaching from the primary tumor, migrating and traveling through the body via the circulation. Understanding the mechanisms underlying this metastatic process is vital to develop drugs that specifically target (the formation of) metastases and prevent further metastatic outgrowth. The behavior of tumor cells in vivo is different than in vitro, because tumor cells in vivo are part of their natural 3D microenvironment, which is crucial for invasion and dissemination of the tumor cells and colonization of distant tissues. Therefore, we studied different types of cancer by visualizing tumor cells in vivo using fluorescent mouse tumor models combined with intravital microscopy (IVM). This state-of-the-art technique is the method of choice for studying cancer biology, since IVM permits visualization of primary tumor onset, progression and different aspects of the metastatic process in living organisms. Using IVM we made several discoveries concerning the mechanisms that are used by tumor cells to disseminate and colonize distant tissue. First, we observed that in two different genetic mouse models of epithelial cancer (pancreas and breast), the tumor cell population that detached from the primary tumor migrated not as a collective sheet (what could be expected of epithelial cells) but as single cells. This is important information necessary for developing drug targets that act upon the specific pathways involved in different types of migration. We also discovered that within breast epithelial primary tumors with high expression of the cell adhesion protein E-cadherin (an epithelial marker), there is a fraction of tumor cells that lacks functional E-cadherin (E-cadLO). We demonstrated that these E-cadLO cells have a mesenchymal expression profile and using IVM we showed that this fraction of tumor cells is migrating and invading into the stroma, in contrast to the immobile bulk E-cadHI tumor cells. We found both E-cadLO as E-cadHI circulating tumor cells in the blood and as single cells in lung metastases. However, all metastases larger than 3 cells were EcadHI, which was caused by a switch back towards an epithelial state. Any proposed metastatic outgrowth advantage of mesenchymal cells is therefore irrelevant, as mesenchymal cells switch back to epithelial cells upon expansion. Another observation we made using IVM was the difference between in vitro and in vivo response of tumor cells to the chemotherapeutic agent docetaxel. While our in vitro results showed an increase in apoptotic tumor cells due to mitotic perturbations (as expected from this type of drug), mitotic progression was not affected in apoptotic cells in vivo. In our study, we could directly compare in vitro and in vivo effects of docetaxel by using the same cell lines in both settings and we could directly see the effect of the drug in the 3D natural environment using IVM, which is clearly essential for extrapolating results of the drug's mechanism of action to its effect in patients. Discovering the true mechanism of action of a drug is also important for the design of new drugs.


Background Recent studies have shown higher neonatal mortality among births delivered by a skilled attendant at birth (SAB) compared to those who were not in sub–Saharan African countries. Deaths during the neonatal period are concentrated in the first 7 days of life, with about one third of these deaths occurring during the first day of life. We reassessed the relationship between SAB and neonatal mortality by distinguishing deaths on the first day of life from those on days 2–27. Methods We used data on births in the past five years from recent demographic and health survey (DHS) between 2010 and 2014 in 20 countries in sub–Saharan Africa. The main categorical outcome was 1) newborns who died within the first day of birth (day 0–1), 2) newborns who died between days 2–27, and 3) newborns who survived the neonatal period. We ran generalized linear mixed model with multinomial distribution and random effect for country on pooled data. Additionally, we ran a separate model restricted to births with SAB and assessed the association of receipt of seven antenatal care (ANC) and two immediate postnatal care interventions on risk of death on days 0–1 and days 2–27. These variables were assessed as proxy of quality of antenatal and postnatal care. Results We found no statistically significant difference in risk of death on first day of life between newborns with SAB compared to those without. However, after the first day of life, newborns delivered with SAB were 16% less likely to die within 2–27 days than those without SAB (OR = 0.84, 95% CI = 0.71–0.99). Among births with skilled attendant, those who were weighed at birth and those who were initiated early on breastfeeding were significantly less likely to die on days 0–1 (respectively OR = 0.42 95% CI = 0.29–0.62 and OR = 0.24, 95% CI 0.18–0.31) or on days 2–27 (OR = 0.60, 95% CI = 0.45–0.81 and OR = 0.59, 95% CI = 47–0.74, respectively). Newborns whose mothers received an additional ANC intervention had no improved survival chances during days 0–1 of life. However, there was significant association on days 2–27 where newborns whose mothers received an additional ANC interventions had higher survival chances (OR = 0.95, 95% CI = 0.93–0.98). Conclusion Findings demonstrate the vulnerability of newborns immediately after birth, compounded with insufficient quality of care. Improving the quality of care around the time of birth will significantly improve survival and therefore accelerate reduction in neonatal mortality in sub–Saharan African countries. Improved approaches for measuring skilled attendant at birth are also needed.


Payment delays and losses persist in the construction industry and continue to be a key concern to industry practitioners. Therefore an exploration of the key causes of payment delays and losses is undertaken in this study with the ultimate objective of seeking mitigating solutions. The study adopted a survey approach using an online questionnaire, administered to practitioners from the New Zealand construction industry, comprising consultants, head contractors and subcontractors. The data obtained was analysed using inferential statistical techniques, including comparing means and factor analysis. Factor analysis enabled clustering of the inter-related causes of payment delays and losses in order to find reduced number of causes. Accordingly, the study found that payment problems mainly relate to contractual issues, financial strength of industry players, disputes, short-comings of payment processes and 'domino effects'. Among them, the financial strength of critical industry players was considered central to payment problems. The study concludes that any solution to these problems must address these primary causes, as a rational starting point. Thus procuring a feasible form of financial security at the outset of a project, and the pre-qualification of the financial status of critical project participants, were found to be significant in the mitigation of construction payment risks. Paper Type: Research article


Parenteral iron treatment is used especially in patients who need urgent treatment, have intolerance symptoms to oral iron therapy, and/ or where therapy with oral iron supplementation is insufficient. Allergic reactions can be observed with intravenous iron containing medicines and they should thus only be administered by trained staff with appropriate resuscitation facilities. The European Medicines Agency does not approve the use of intravenous iron-containing products in patients with previous hypersensitivity reactions to other parenteral iron products in its 2013 recommendations to manage the risk of allergic reactions to intravenous iron-containing medicines. However, it may be an option to administer intravenous iron therapy with desensitization in patients who need urgent treatment, who cannot be treated effectively with oral iron preparations, or display intolerance to these products. Here we present the first case of successful ferric carboxymaltose desensitization in a patient who had suffered a prior reaction with the same medicine.


Dozens of saliency models have been designed over the last few decades, targeted at diverse applications ranging from image compression and retargeting to robot navigation, surveillance, and distractor detection. Barriers to their use include the different and often incompatible software environments that they rely on, as well as the computational inefficiency of older implementations. For application-purposes models are then frequently chosen based on convenience and efficiency, at the expense of optimizing for task performance. To facilitate the evaluation and selection of saliency models for different applications, we present KDSalBox - a toolbox of 10 knowledge-distilled saliency models. Using the original model implementations available in their native environments, we produce saliency training data for efficient MobileNet-based architectures, that are identical in their architecture but differ in how they learn to distribute saliency over an image. The resulting toolbox allows these 10 models to be efficiently run, compared, and be practically applied.


Over the history of the corporate entity, U.S. law has evolved to treat the corporate entity as a legal person under the U.S. Constitution. Despite the increased rights granted to the corporation as a legal person, both For-profit and Nonprofit corporations have come under considerable scrutiny for misconduct and issues related to corporate governance. When For-profit and Nonprofit organizations collaborate together, however, both organizations generally seek to achieve philanthropic good. On the other hand, both organizations and their management are bound by law to fulfill specific duties to their individual constituents. In the 1930s, psychologist Jean Piaget noted that "The good, in short, is not, like duty, the result of a constraint exercised by society upon the individual. The aspiration to the good is of different stuff from the obedience given to an imperative rule." Guided by the basis for Piaget's above assertion related to the natural person, this article begins an analysis of the relationship between legal persons: collaborating For-profit and Nonprofit organizations in light of duty, arguing that there is a balance between too much constraint and none that leads to sustainability of the cooperative venture.


By James Pomfret FOSHAN, China (Reuters) Chinese electronics maker Foxconn, a key manufacturer of iPhones and iPads for Apple, has been hit by a new staff dispute, with employees saying they protested this week about pay and relocation plans. Workers at affiliate Foxconn Premier Image Technology (China) Ltd in Foshan, near the booming metropolis of Guangzhou, told Reuters on Friday that there had been a large protest this week over pay. "The entire street here was filled with workers," said one worker, sitting astride a moped outside the factory on a leafy avenue in a dusty industrial estate. "There were perhaps six or seven thousand," said the worker, who declined to be identified. "We're not satisfied." Other workers trickling out of the gates spoke of demands for significantly higher wage levels, as well as opposition to plans to redeploy batches of workers to inland factories. Foxconn has struggled to repair its image following a series of apparent worker suicides at its plants in southern China. The company has pledged to improve worker conditions and has raised salaries. Many factories operating in China have been moving away from coastal regions such as Guangdong and Fujian to inland areas, where labor and land costs are cheaper. Foxconn Technology Group, which counts Hon Hai and Foxconn International as its subsidiaries, will invest $2 billion on a new plant in Chengdu in western China, the city government said last month. A Hon Hai spokesman denied there was any organized industrial action, but said some workers had come together to ask for higher wages. He declined to comment on how many workers were involved. Workers in Foshan said that management had not agreed to any demands and instead threatened to fire any striking workers. "They put out a notice saying if we strike they'll fire us," another worker added. According to one worker, the factory pays a basic wage of 1,100 yuan ($165.8) a month, which he added is less than what Foxconn had promised to pay its workers when it raised wages recently. Take-home pay, after overtime and deductions for social security, is about 2,000 yuan per month. Other workers appeared nervous and would not comment when asked about the dispute. The Foshan plant employs about 20,000 people, according to workers, far smaller than Foxconn's big facilities in Shenzhen on the other side of the Pearl River delta, which employ several hundred thousand workers. A burst of strikes in China hit mainly Japanese companies and their suppliers several months ago, bringing into focus low pay and the often difficult conditions facing many Chinese workers. ($1=6.636 yuan) (Additional reporting by Kelvin Soh in Hong Kong; Writing by Ben Blanchard ; Editing by Don Durfee)


Hokusai's "Mangas" constitute a comprehensive visual encyclopaedia of the Japanese civilization in the XIXth Century. This huge masterpiece is a collection of 4,000 drawings in 15 volumes for a total of 800 pages. It was published in Japan between 1814 and 1878. The word 'manga', which designates Japanese comics, is composed of two ideograms: man, which means "according to the taste-liking of the author" with an idea of spontaneity and profusion and ga, which means drawing. Mangas are a wealth of sketches executed randomly, freely and with no order whatsoever on a variety of subjects. This word was used for the first time for this work by Hokusai. Hokusai's "Mangas" had an educational aim; his students, asked him to make a compilation of sketches for inspiration. These Mangas, showing all the sides of Hokusai's styles and all the themes he approached, obtains an astonishing portrait of daily life in Japan. He also depicts the Japanese landscape: wildlife, vegetation, mountains, countryside, seaside, the changes of weather, architecture as well as religious and mythological themes.


In April 2004, high numbers of fecal enterococci triggered a beach advisory on Sea Island, GA. Targeted sampling, which finds fecal contamination much like the children's game of "hot" and "cold," was combined with three bacterial source tracking (BST) methods: Enterococcus speciation, the presence or absence of a human virulence factor in Enterococcus faecium, and fluorometry. During calm (i.e non-runoff) conditions, the likely contamination sources were wildlife feces and leaking sewer lines located on a creek of St. Simons Island, GA. Fluorometry quickly identified malfunctioning sewer lines. A test for human virulence factor was positive. During stormflow (i.e. runoff) conditions, the likely contamination sources were wildlife feces and effluent from two pipes. A test for human virulence factor was negative. Because the percentage of Ent. faecalis from the pipes was high (>30%), fecal contamination from wild birds was likely. This is the first report of targeted sampling during stormy conditions, and the first time fluorometry has been combined with targeted sampling.


It is expected that electric devices would be high efficiency, high output and downsized by using high-temperature superconducting (HTS) bulk materials. In the previous study, we have fabricated and tested a linear synchronous actuator with double-sided primary and YBCO bulk secondary; the linear actuator consists of a field-cooled YBCO bulk for secondary (mover) and copper windings with an iron core as a primary. The primary, which was excited by a three-phase VVVF (variable voltage variable frequency) power source to generate sinusoidal traveling magnetic fields, was divided into two sections: 1) the starting section in which the secondary is accelerated as an induction machine; and 2) the synchronous section in which the secondary moves with a specified synchronous speed. And we have evaluated both of the static and dynamic characteristics on this linear synchronous actuator. However, for practical use of linear actuator with field-cooled HTS bulk secondary, it is required to examine the distribution of magnetic field within the HTS bulk which is exposed to the traveling magnetic field in a realistic operational environment of linear actuator. Therefore, in this study, we repeated the mode of acceleration, constant-speed, deceleration and stop with the control circuit in the synchronous section. The direction of the mover can be turned automatically by the switching device and it made round-trip running possible. Then, we carried out many times round-trip operations and evaluated the change of the magnetic field on the surface of the YBCO bulk in various conditions with trapped field of the secondary and traveling magnetic field generated by the primary windings.


In this paper, a new approach to reduce the computation time taken by neural nets for the searching process is introduced. We combine both fast and cooperative modular neural nets to enhance the performance of the detection process. Such an approach is applied to identify human faces automatically in cluttered scenes. In the detection phase, neural nets are used to test whether a window of 20/spl times/20 pixels contains a face or not. The major difficulty in the learning process comes from the large database required for face/nonface images. A simple design for cooperative modular neural nets is presented to solve this problem by dividing these data into three groups. Such division results in reduction of computational complexity and thus decreasing the time and memory needed during the test of an image. Simulation results for the proposed algorithm show a good performance.


This study of Christmas television programming from the 1960s is prompted by the repeated assertion that A Charlie Brown Christmas was an aberration within the television medium because its creator, Charles Schulz, dared to include religious content in the mainstream title. Grounded by historical/archival research, this article presents a content analysis of Christmas titles from the 1960s formative decade-of-change in order to substantiate the claim of television's secularity. The findings demonstrate that even in the genre of Christmas programming, mainstream television has abided by a public/private split from this early era, embracing a model of secularity that resists references to religious belief. A Charlie Brown Christmas and its contemporaries are also analyzed to determine the conventions of the genre that may at times afford such religious aberration when otherwise followed.


Lattice models are a way of representing spatial locations in a grid where each cell is in a certain state and evolves according to transition rules and rates dependent on a surrounding neighbourhood. These models are capable of describing many phenomena such as the simulation and growth of a forest fire front. These spatial simulation models as well as spatial descriptive statistics such as Ripley's K-function have wide applicability in spatial statistics but in general do not scale well for large datasets. Parallel computing (high performance computing) is one solution that can provide limited scalability to these applications. This is done using the message passing interface (MPI) framework implemented in R through the Rmpi package. Other useful techniques in spatial statistics such as point pattern reconstruction and Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods are discussed from a parallel computing perspective as well. In particular, an improved point pattern reconstruction is given and implemented in parallel. Single chain MCMC methods are also examined and improved upon to give faster convergence using parallel computing. Optimizations, and complications that arise from parallelizing existing spatial statistics algorithms are discussed and methods are implemented in an accompanying R package, parspatstat.


In hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons, action potentials are typically initiated in the axon and backpropagate into the dendrites, shaping the integration of synaptic activity and influencing the induction of synaptic plasticity. Despite previous reports describing action-potential propagation in the proximal apical dendrites, the extent to which action potentials invade the distal dendrites of CA1 pyramidal neurons remains controversial. Using paired somatic and dendritic whole cell recordings, we find that in the dendrites proximal to 280 microm from the soma, single backpropagating action potentials exhibit <50% attenuation from their amplitude in the soma. However, in dendritic recordings distal to 300 microm from the soma, action potentials in most cells backpropagated either strongly (26-42% attenuation; n = 9/20) or weakly (71-87% attenuation; n = 10/20) with only one cell exhibiting an intermediate value (45% attenuation). In experiments combining dual somatic and dendritic whole cell recordings with calcium imaging, the amount of calcium influx triggered by backpropagating action potentials was correlated with the extent of action-potential invasion of the distal dendrites. Quantitative morphometric analyses revealed that the dichotomy in action-potential backpropagation occurred in the presence of only subtle differences in either the diameter of the primary apical dendrite or branching pattern. In addition, action-potential backpropagation was not dependent on a number of electrophysiological parameters (input resistance, resting potential, voltage sensitivity of dendritic spike amplitude). There was, however, a striking correlation of the shape of the action potential at the soma with its amplitude in the dendrite; larger, faster-rising, and narrower somatic action potentials exhibited more attenuation in the distal dendrites (300-410 microm from the soma). Simple compartmental models of CA1 pyramidal neurons revealed that a dichotomy in action-potential backpropagation could be generated in response to subtle manipulations of the distribution of either sodium or potassium channels in the dendrites. Backpropagation efficacy could also be influenced by local alterations in dendritic side branches, but these effects were highly sensitive to model parameters. Based on these findings, we hypothesize that the observed dichotomy in dendritic action-potential amplitude is conferred primarily by differences in the distribution, density, or modulatory state of voltage-gated channels along the somatodendritic axis.


A procedure for the efficient extraction and separation of rare earths and other valuable elements from used NdFeB permanent magnets is presented. In a first step, an iron free leachate is prepared from an used magnet using nitric acid. Cobalt is separated through a liquid–liquid extraction in aqueous nitrate media using as organic phase the ionic liquid trihexyl(tetradecyl)phosphonium nitrate which is easily prepared from the commercially available ionic liquid trihexyl(tetradecyl)phosphonium chloride (Cyphos® IL 101). Afterwards neodymium and dysprosium are successfully separated using ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) as a selective complexing agent during liquid–liquid extraction with the same ionic liquid. Different parameters of the separation process such as shaking speed, time, temperature, pH effect and concentration of complexing agents were optimized. The designed process allowed the separation of these three elements efficiently in few steps. The separated rare earths and cobalt were precipitated with oxalic acid and then calcined in order to form the oxides. Nd2O3, Dy2O3 and CoO were obtained with purities of 99.6%, 99.8% and 99.8%, respectively. Recycling of the employed ionic liquid for reuse in rare earths separation was also demonstrated.


This study analyses the impact of government subsidy schemes on farm production capacity, technical effi ciency and use of idle production factors (land and labour) in the olive and vineyard sectors of Albanian agriculture. The paper uses a quasiexperimental design by applying a propensity score matching method based on a structured survey conducted in 2013. The results show that the government subsidy scheme had a net positive impact on areas planted with olives and grapevines, and on part-time on-farm employment. On the other hand, no signifi cant net impact was observed regarding farm size and crop yields. This is the fi rst time that such an in-depth impact assessment of government subsidies in the agriculture sector has been carried out in Albania, thus the results will be useful both for scientists and policy makers in agriculture and rural development.


Financial Asset Pricing Theory offers a comprehensive overview of the classic and the current research in theoretical asset pricing. Asset pricing is developed around the concept of a state-price deflator which relates the price of any asset to its future (risky) dividends and thus incorporates how to adjust for both time and risk in asset valuation. The willingness of any utility-maximizing investor to shift consumption over time defines a state-price deflator which provides a link between optimal consumption and asset prices that leads to the Consumption-based Capital Asset Pricing Model (CCAPM). A simple version of the CCAPM cannot explain various stylized asset pricing facts, but these asset pricing 'puzzles' can be resolved by a number of recent extensions involving habit formation, recursive utility, multiple consumption goods, and long-run consumption risks. Other valuation techniques and modelling approaches (such as factor models, term structure models, risk-neutral valuation, and option pricing models) are explained and related to state-price deflators. The book will serve as a textbook for an advanced course in theoretical financial economics in a PhD or a quantitative Master of Science program. It will also be a useful reference book for researchers and finance professionals. The presentation in the book balances formal mathematical modelling and economic intuition and understanding. Both discrete-time and continuous-time models are covered. The necessary concepts and techniques concerning stochastic processes are carefully explained in a separate chapter so that only limited previous exposure to dynamic finance models is required.


Due to the complexity and inter-disciplinary nature of water resource planning and management, and because many of the problems are site and situation-specific, general-purpose computer programs are less prevalent than in other fields. Much of the work is model oriented, and many tools have been borrowed from related disciplines of hydraulics, hydrology, and environmental engineering. The combination of computerized spatial data management and analytical mathematical modeling appears well-suited to the need for generalized computer tools. Spatial data management involves the computer storage of information such as population, soils, terrain, etc., that is organized and referenced geographically. Analytical mathematical models can operate upon this stored data, as physical or economic/demographic simulations, or as statistical and combinatorial analyses. It is likely that such tools, organized as systems of inter-related models operating upon a data base, will become increasingly popular and important in the near future.


Do terrorism-related investing strategies generate abnormal returns or risks? Employing two strategies for U.S. stocks over the past decade, the author finds that this is not the case. The first strategy evaluates a subportfolio of S&P 500 stocks which is constructed based on a terrorism-related risk score that measures a company's degree of operations in countries with a high incidence of terrorism-related activity. The second strategy evaluates a "terror-free" portfolio of S&P 500 stocks that are screened based on the presence of a company's operations in countries deemed state sponsors of terrorism by the U.S. Department of State. The author finds that the terrorism-related risk exposure portfolio would have earned, on average, an economically small and statistically insignificant 16 bps premium per month with a tracking error of 2.8% per month and the terror-free portfolio would have earned an even smaller –1.6 bps premium per month with a tracking error of 25 bps per month. Return attribution analysis using a multifactor model uncovers interesting differences in systematic exposures to market risks and factors related to size, market-to-book ratios, and momentum.