In this survey chapter on pricing and reimbursement in U.S. pharmaceutical markets, we first provide background information on important federal legislation, institutional details regarding distribution channel logistics, definitions of alternative price measures, related historical developments, and reasons why price discrimination is highly prevalent among branded pharmaceuticals. We then present a theoretical framework for the pricing of branded pharmaceuticals, without and then in the presence of prescription drug insurance, noting factors affecting the relative impacts of drug insurance on prices and on utilization. With this as background, we summarize major long-term trends in copayments and coinsurance rates for retail and mail order purchases, average percentage discounts off Average Whole Price paid by third party payers to pharmacy benefit managers as well as average dispensing fees, and generic penetration rates. We conclude with a summary of the evidence regarding the impact of the 2006 implementation of the Medicare Part D benefits on pharmaceutical prices and utilization, and comment on very recent developments concerning the entry of large retailers such as Wal-Mart into domains traditionally dominated by large retail chains and the "commoditization" of generic drugs.


Export of pelagic carbonate tests from surface waters and their deposition at the seafloor plays a significant role in the CO 2 cycle and ability of the oceans to absorb atmospheric CO 2 . Sediment 2 3 0 Th and 3 He measurements have been interpreted as evidence that significant lateral advection of pelagic material occurs in the water column, leading to marked spatial variations in deposition rates and, in particular, to significant focusing of deposits on the Pacific equator. We report spatially continuous stratigraphy from two 1000 km seismic lines that show evidence of depositional anomalies near the equator. Accumulation rates were apparently enhanced locally by a factor of two, similar to the proposed modern sediment-focusing factors, but the anomalies are surprisingly patchy over the 20 m.y. period analyzed-they are not confined to an equatorial region, and they are not necessarily found on adjacent seismic profiles. These intermediate-scale anomalies are >∼100 km across and represent areas of seafloor that received more deposits for one period, less in following periods, and vice versa. Variogram analysis was used to determine how the spatial scales of deposition changed over the Neogene. The period when the spatial scale of depositional variability was largest correlates with hiatuses in drill cores, a correlation that we interpret as caused by enhanced and spatially heterogeneous carbonate dissolution at that time. The study suggests that seismic stratigraphy has the potential to reveal spatial patterns related to unsteady bottom-water flow and chemistry.


Research Summary

This study investigated forensic evidence processing in a nationally representative sample of state and local law-enforcement agencies (n = 3,153). For a 5-year period, agencies reported that 14% of all unsolved homicides (an estimated 3,975 cases) and 18% of all unsolved rapes (an estimated 27,595 cases) contained forensic evidence that had not been submitted to a forensic crime laboratory for analysis. Approximately 40% of these unanalyzed homicide and rape cases were reported to have contained DNA evidence. The lack of a suspect in the case was the most frequently cited reason for not submitting forensic evidence for analysis.

Policy Implications

Despite an increased diffusion of knowledge regarding the value of forensic evidence in the prosecution and defense of criminal cases, the investigative capabilities of forensic science are not being realized by law enforcement. Additional training for law enforcement on the use of forensic science to develop investigative leads is critical, as is the creation of departmental policies that prioritize and streamline the analysis of forensic evidence for homicide and rape cases—even in "no-suspect" cases. Ensuring adequate resources and information sharing for forensic processing especially of violent crimes, is also critical.


This introductory book discusses how to plan and build useful, reliable, maintainable and cost efficient computer systems for automated engineering design. The book takes a user perspective and seeks to bridge the gap between texts on principles of computer science and the user manuals for commercial design automation software. The approach taken is top-down, following the path from definition of the design task and clarification of the relevant design knowledge to the development of an operational system well adapted for its purpose. This introductory text for the practicing engineer working in industry covers most vital aspects of planning such a system. Experiences from applications of automated design systems in practice are reviewed based on a large number of real, industrial cases. The principles behind the most popular methods in design automation are presented with sufficient rigour to give the user confidence in applying them on real industrial problems. This book is also suited for a half semester course at graduate level and has been complemented by suggestions for student assignments grown out of the lecture notes of two postgraduate courses given annually or biannually during the last ten years at the Product development program at the School of Engineering at Jonkoping University


Telomerase transgenics are an important tool to assess the role of telomerase in cancer, as well as to evaluate the potential use of telomerase for gene therapy of age‐associated diseases. Here, we have targeted the expression of the catalytic component of mouse telomerase, mTERT, to basal keratinocytes using the bovine keratin 5 promoter. These telomerase‐transgenic mice are viable and show histologically normal stratified epithelia with high levels of telomerase activity and normal telomere length. Interestingly, the epidermis of these mice is highly responsive to the mitogenic effects of phorbol esters, and it is more susceptible than that of wild‐type littermates to the development skin tumors upon chemical carcinogenesis. The epidermis of telomerase‐transgenic mice also shows an increased wound‐healing rate compared with wild‐type littermates. These results suggest that, contrary to the general assumption, telomerase actively promotes proliferation in cells that have sufficiently long telomeres and unravel potential risks of gene therapy for age‐associated diseases based on telomerase upregulation.


In 1970, Congress enacted RICO to eradicate organized crime in America. To enlist the help of private citizens in this effort, the statute included civil provisions providing treble damages for plaintiffs who proved that they were injured by a pattern of racketeering activity. As the decades passed, civil RICO dramatically expanded its reach, addressing misconduct in a diverse array of contexts, including high-profile suits against the Clinton Foundation and Trump University. This Article examines this evolution, focusing on three factors that have figured prominently in civil RICO's runaway growth: the broad interpretation of what constitutes a RICO "enterprise"; the flexibility ascribed to the requirement that members of the enterprise work towards a "common purpose"; and the present ambiguity, created by the U.S. Supreme Court, in defining proximate causation in this context. To illustrate the extent to which RICO litigation has moved away from its original mission, this Article concludes by discussing the civil RICO lawsuit filed in December 2017 against Harvey Weinstein and his associates by women alleging sexual misconduct that compromised their employment prospects.


"Globalization increases poverty" is a common assertion made by critics of globalization. The proliferation of low-wage jobs and higher food prices are some of the arguments brought forward in support of this argument. One of the hallmarks of globalization is the systematic dismantling of barriers to trade. Advocates of trade liberalization – particularly industrialized country agriculture reform – argue that the ensuing rise in world prices for agriculture products will boost rural incomes, thereby reducing poverty in the poorest countries, where the bulk of world poverty resides. Who is right? The goal of this paper is take a systematic look at the structure of poverty across a range of developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and explore how national poverty rates in some of the poorest countries in the world are likely to be affected by global trade liberalization. Our analysis of the structure of poverty is based on national household surveys from 14 developing countries. While we consider both spending and earnings effects of trade liberalization, it is argued that the earnings effects will generally be the dominant factor. This is particularly true in the short run for households that are highly specialized in their earnings patterns. Consider the case of a self-employed farm household. Assuming that trade liberalization results in higher farm prices, we expect the short run effect on the returns to family labor and land to be positive, and somewhat larger in percentage terms (the so-called "magnification effect"). Furthermore, if this household is not employed off-farm, then the farm profitability effect translates directly into an income effect, and this is likely to be sufficient to lift some of the farm households out of poverty. Of course this same effect can work in reverse, with commodity price declines increasing poverty. This makes specialized households highly vulnerable to trade policy shocks. In addition to agriculture-specialized households, we focus on self-employed non-agriculture specialized households, households specialized in wage labor and those relying on transfer payments for 95% or more of their income. Together, these four types of specialized households account for an average of 56% of the poor in the 14 countries examined. Thus a majority of the poor have specialized earnings patterns and are likely to be disproportionately affected by trade liberalization. The same is not true of the non-poor, where a majority of the households are diversified, and are therefore less vulnerable to sector-specific commodity price changes. We also find that the poor are over-represented among the agriculture-specialized households. With this background, we turn to an examination of the broad effects of multilateral trade liberalization on relative commodity prices and factor returns across the 14 countries in question. We distinguish between per capita effects – or the impact of trade liberalization on the "average" household in each country, and the effects on the poorest households. Our per capita results are quite similar to other studies of multilateral trade liberalization, with most countries gaining modestly, while a few gain substantially and a few lose due to the erosion of benefits from existing preferences. Some argue that this "rising tide will lift all boats" and so the positive per capita gains from trade liberalization will reduce poverty. However, we show that the short run impact of trade liberalization on different household groups is quite varied, and not always positive. First of all, global trade liberalization tends to raise food prices – particularly for staples, relative to non-food prices. This is true in all but 2 of the countries in our sample. This food price hike has an adverse effect on the poor, relative to the per capita household, since they spend a disproportionate share of their income on food. Also, the short run earnings impacts are quite varied, with agricultural profits rising relative to per capita income in 11 of the 14 countries, while relative non-agricultural profits and wages fall in many of these countries. Thus the overall impact on poverty depends on the structure of poverty in each country – hence our emphasis on this topic. We proceed to systematically explore the impact of trade liberalization on poverty utilizing a recently developed analytical framework that combines the detailed household survey data with a global economic model in order to measure the poverty impacts of trade liberalization on the five different household strata in each country. Each of the first four strata corresponds to one of the groups of earnings-specialized households, while the fifth encompasses the diversified households in each country. We conduct our analysis at the level of one hundred income percentiles, ranging from poorest to richest in each stratum. In this way, we uncover the differential impact of trade liberalization, by country, stratum and by income level. We also calculate the change in poverty rates, both at the stratum and national levels. Our findings emphasize the differential short run poverty impacts of multilateral trade liberalization on poverty across countries, across strata, and within strata, thereby highlighting the links between the structure of poverty and the national impacts of trade liberalization.


This research addresses the gaps in the literature on m-learning approaches in Saudi Arabia, with a focus on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students studying at university level. The research aimed to explore university students' use of social media applications and their role in language learning, with a focus on how mobile devices can best be utilised. It analysed the attitudes of 102 learners towards the use of social media to improve language learning both inside and outside the classroom setting. Students of both genders completed a questionnaire, and five students engaged in semi-structured interviews. The aim was to discover whether the students are currently using social media applications to enhance their language skills, and what the students' attitudes are towards the use of social media via mobile devices inside and outside the classroom. Prior to designing the research instruments, the literature was reviewed, including examining the attitudes of learners in different countries towards mobile technologies, and to decide on the best approach to take in examining attitudes towards new forms of learning. Based on the findings from the literature, appropriate questions were devised, and these reveal an overall positive response towards from the student participants towards using social media and mobile technologies to facilitate learning English. The results of this research are positive, and it is important that Saudi Arabia keeps up to date with advancements in technology to ensure the best learning experience for learners and maximise their potential.


This book is a tutorial that will enable readers to become proficient with the use of image data in projects using geographical information systems (GIS). It begins with an introduction to image display, scanned maps, and remotely sensed imagery. Subsequent chapters focus on transforming pixel coordinates to real-world coordinates, image classification, classification accuracy assessment, and grid operations. The book's practical, hands-on approach facilitates rapid learning of how to process remotely sensed images, digital orthophotos, digital elevation models, and scanned maps, and how to integrate them with points, lines, and polygon themes. The companion CD-ROM includes files, images, and data sets employed in exercises throughout the book. (Keywords: GIS Applications)


During a survey from January to March 1998, the occurrence of UV‐B radiation (UVBR)‐ induced DNA damage in Antarctic marine phytoplankton and bacterioplankton was investigated. Sampling was done in Ryder Bay, off the British base Rothera Station, 67°S, 68°W (British Antarctic Survey). Samples were taken regularly during the survey period at fixed depths, after which DNA damage was measured in various plankton size fractions (>10, 2–10, and 0.2–2 μm). Incident solar radiation was measured using spectroradiometry, whereas attenuation of biologically effective UVBR was studied using a DNA dosimeter. A diatom bloom was found in the bay during the research period, judging from microscopic observations and HPLC analyses of taxon‐specific pigments. The high phytoplankton biomass likely caused strong attenuation of DNA effective UVBR (Kbd‐eff). Kbd‐eff values ranged from 0.83·m−1 at the peak of the bloom to 0.47·m−1 at the end of the season. UVBR‐mediated DNA damage, as measured by cyclobutane pyrimidine dimer (CPD) abundance, was detected in all plankton size fractions. Highest levels were found in the smallest size fraction, mainly consisting of heterotrophic bacteria. Clear CPD depth profiles were found during mid‐summer (January, beginning of February) with surface levels exceeding 100 CPDs per million nucleotides in the bacterioplankton fraction. At that time, melting of the continuously present shelf ice caused strong salinity gradients in the upper meters, thereby stimulating water column stabilization. At the end of February and beginning of March, this phenomenon was less pronounced or absent. At that time, DNA damage was homogeneously distributed over the first 10 m, ranging between 20 and 30 CPDs per million nucleotides for the smallest size fraction.


The development of the International Monitoring System (IMS) for the verification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) has led to a rapid revival of interest in infrasound. Furthermore, the installation of low-frequency sensors at seismic sites has increased in recent years, providing researchers with large and heterogeneous data-sets in near real-time. New techniques are needed to better process all of this data and to extract meaningful information quickly for various applications. In particular, there is a need to find distinct features in the infrasonic signals that allow one to distinguish low level nuclear tests from seismic events. In this thesis three methods for feature extraction from infrasound and other types of low frequency signal data are discussed: (1) discrete wavelets transforms (DWTs); (2) time scale spectra (TSSs) using continuous wavelet transforms (CWTs); and (3) empirical mode decomposition (EMD). The dimensionality of the feature space can range from a few to thousands. For processing highdimensional data we use multi-modal data space to find low-dimensional structures. The advantage of this space is that multiple metrics of similarity are converted into one single Euclidean space. The overall goal of our research is a system for automatic identification and classification of lowfrequency signals in real-time that is easy to implement in hardware. In this thesis we present our design and implementation of the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) on FPGAs for processing a continuous flow of data to obtain optimal extraction of feature information. FPGA simulation and implementation has been realized by using the polyphase structure, the filter reuse method and techniques such as pipelining and basic operations on the QUARTUS II platform. VHDL has been used to describe the functionality of the discrete wavelet transform and ModelSim has been used for the functional verification. Advancements in electronics provide a vital new option for implementation of low-frequency smart sensors that can perform signal processing close to the sensors and transmit the data wirelessly. These smart sensors can improve the efficiency of an automatic classification system and reduce the cost of actual infrasound microphones. The design of a digital wireless data acquisition system using a QF4512 programmable signal converter from Quickfilter Technologies, a MSP430 microcontroller from Texas Instruments and a F2M03GLA Bluetooth module from Free2move for infrasonic records is also presented in this thesis. The digital wireless data acquisition system has passed extensive laboratory and field tests (e.g. with man-made explosions). A study of using a miniature 3-axis fluxgate magnetometer to get fingerprints from ferrous objects is also presented in this thesis. In this experiment, distinguishing features of iron samples of four different shapes were determined using wavelet methods. Systematic differences were observed between the signatures of the four shaped iron samples.


Organizational spaces project claims of organizational legitimacy while also constituting physical environments where work happens. This research questions how organizational space and legitimacy are mutually constituted over time as organizations experience shifts in work and institutional demands.Building on a qualitative case study of Paris Dauphine University, a French university founded in the late 1960s that has, since its inception, occupied the former North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters, we theorize the dynamic intersection of organizational space and legitimacy over time. The case study demonstrates how spatial practices of appropriation, reappropriation, and disappropriation intersect with and inform what we call "spatial legacies" that function to establish or repair an alignment between organizational space and legitimacy. Spatial practices of appropriation and reappropriation build and manipulate spatial legacies, whereas spatial practices of disappropriation attempt to break away from such legacies. Appropriation and reappropriation involve managing spatial legacies to maintain the alignment between organizational space and legitimacy claims. Disappropriation involves trying to erase or alter these legacies to realign the space to changing legitimacy claims. This research adds to the literature on sociomateriality by adopting a longitudinal perspective that highlights legacies as nondeterministic outcomes of past imbrications of the social and the material, to research on legitimacy by conceptualizing it as a sociomaterial construction, and to research on organizational spaces by revealing the institutional underpinnings of spatial transformations. This research also holds practical implications by highlighting the relationships between space as it is designed and used and an organization's legitimacy claims and by showing how claiming the immutability or flexibility of a space can be legitimizing for an organization.


This thesis investigates the emergence and influence of expertise in group decision making while performing a judgmental task. Previous studies focused on intellective tasks or compared the group performance with the performance of the best individual in the group. In this study, performance feedbacks are provided to groups to help group members compare the individual performances and identify the expert. Laboratory experiments were conducted in which the task was to select a proverb that Canadians would like the most from the list of four proverbs from countries other than Canada. The four proverbs for each question were guaranteed to have equal selection probability based on the pretest survey. 18 four-person cooperative groups were asked to perform the task for eight iterations each. One member in each group was selected randomly to be the expert. Groups received performance feedbacks that reinforced the expert at the end of each iteration. The amount of information conveyed to each group regarding the expertise level of each group member was measured with a novel application of information analysis that captures the expert's gradual emergence. Experiment results supported the hypotheses of this study that (1) group members recognize the expert when working on a judgmental task with performance feedback and (2) while performing a judgmental task, the expert has more influence on the group decision making compared to others.


The interest in Supply Chain (SC) decision-making problem is fast growing. There is an increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI)-based engineering and management technologies in supply chain problem solving. Furthermore, the trend is towards product data and knowledge globalisation in the SC network. The purpose of a SC is to transform incomplete information about the market and available production resources into co-ordinated plans for production and replenishment of goods and services in the network formed by co-operating entities. The value of this information is critical to managing the network, built on principles of a co-operative supply chain (CSC). The goal of SC Knowledge Management (KM) is to facilitate knowledge transfer and sharing in the context of SC structures, thereby integrating the customer and the supplier. Ontology-oriented KM tools for SC configuration utilise reusable components and configure knowledge as needed, in order to interactively assist users (agents) in decision-making. This paper discusses a generic development methodology for information support of supply chain management using an industry example.


Ground-based direct detection of extra-solar planets is very challenging due to high planet to star brightness contrasts. For giant close-in planets, such as have been discovered by the radial velocity method, closer than 0.1 AU, the reflected light is predicted to be fairly high yielding a contrast ratio ranging from 10 -4 to 10 -5 at near infra-red wavelengths. In this paper, we investigate direct detection of reflected light from such planets using nulling interferometry, and high-order adaptive optics in conjunction with large double aperture ground-based telescopes. In this configuration, at least 10 -3 suppression of the entire stellar Airy pattern with small loss of planet flux as close as 0.03 arcsec is achievable. Distinguishing residual starlight from the planet signal is achieved by using the center of gravity shift method or multicolor differential imaging. Using these assumptions, we derive exposure times from a few minutes to several hours for direct detection of many of the known extra-solar planets with several short-baseline double aperture telescopes such as the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT), the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the Keck Telescope.


This paper provides the results and assessment of local and transboundary pollution in the Pozna metropolitan area and at the Wielkopolski National Park, Poland. Precipitation that occurred simultaneously in both locations was collected and the analyses such as H+, F−, Cl−, NO3−, SO42−, Na+, K+, Mg2+, Ca2+ and NH4+ and conductivity were determined. The results were subjected to full statistical evaluation and chemometrical analysis: Time Series (TS), Correlation Analysis, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). TS analysis allowed the observation of noncorresponding peaks on TS graphs and the occurrence of local pollution effects. Correlation analysis and PCA indicated a strong correlation between the concentrations of analytes determined in samples collected at both sites, especially those that originate from anthropogenic sources. This indicates that pollutants emitted in the metropolitan area or from remote sources might significantly influence the nearby area. ANOVA, supported with the prevailing wind direction analysis, showed a minor influence of the cross-border transport of pollutants.


The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) will not only be Africa's largest dam, but it is also essential for future cooperation and development in the Nile River Basin and East African region. This book, after setting out basin-level legal and policy successes and failures of managing and sharing Nile waters, articulates the opportunities and challenges surrounding the GERD through multiple disciplinary lenses.

It sets out its possibilities as a basis for a new era of cooperation, its regional and global implications, the benefits of cooperation and coordination in dam filling, and the need for participatory and transparent decision making. By applying law, political science and hydrology to sharing water resources in general and to large-scale dam building, filling and operating in particular, it offers concrete qualitative and quantitative options that are essential to promote cooperation and coordination in utilising and preserving Nile waters. The book incorporates the economic dimension and draws on recent developments including: the signing of a legally binding contract by Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan to carry out an impact assessment study; the possibility that the GERD might be partially operational very soon, the completion of transmission lines from GERD to Addis Ababa; and the announcement of Sudan to commence construction of transmission lines from GERD to its main cities. The implications of these are assessed and lessons learned for transboundary water cooperation and conflict management.


Insoluble organic matter (IOM) in primitive carbonaceous meteorites has preserved its chemical composition and isotopic heterogeneity since the solar system formed ∼4.567 billion years ago. We have identified the carrier moieties of isotopically anomalous hydrogen in IOM isolated from the Orgueil carbonaceous chondrite. Data from high spatial resolution, quantitative isotopic NanoSIMS mapping of Orgueil IOM combined with data from electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy reveals that organic radicals hold all the deuterium excess (relative to the bulk IOM) in distinct, micrometer-sized, D-rich hotspots. Taken together with previous work, the results indicate that an isotopic exchange reaction took place between pre-existing organic compounds characterized by low D/H ratios and D-rich gaseous molecules, such as H2D+ or HD2+. This exchange reaction most likely took place in the diffuse outer regions of the proto-planetary disk around the young Sun, offering a model that reconciles meteoritic and cometary isotopic compositions of organic molecules.


A profound reshaping of the relationship between the third sector and state and non-state actors in the new welfare spaces after the economic crash poses questions about how these spaces are co-constructed by actors within them. Third sector scholarship has typically sought to address these questions as if third sector organisations were injured parties being compelled to adapt to survive, and this is matched by a lack of theoretical and empirical attention to the active role played by third sector organisations in constructing these spaces. This article offers a critique of a third sector paradigm for being too rooted in rational actor and historical institutionalism, too focused on organisational adaptation to existing norms and too passive. It argues for a radically decentred interpretivist methodology that will capture the intense struggle over meaning that constitutes civil society and in which third sector narratives are themselves rhetorical weapons.


Objectives: To determine whether the three mailings routinely used by researchers for epidemiological surveys are useful and appropriate, by comparing social characteristics and selected disease histories to find out if there are differences between individuals responding at different times. Methods: Social characteristics and selected disease histories of 11,797 British women still under general practitioner observation in the Royal College of General Practitioners' Oral Contraception Study were compared. The women aged 40-78 at December 1992 were sent health survey questionnaires via their general practitioners between November 1994 and July 1995. Results: Significant differences in the characteristics of first, second and third mailing respondents and non-respondents were found for smoking habits, social class, parity, area of residence, further contact, bronchitis, hysterectomy and mental illness. First mailing respondents were more likely to be from a non-manual social class, have a parity of less than three, live in England, and be happy to be contacted again, but were less likely to have had bronchitis or mental illness and were less likely to have been smokers at the time of recruitment than second mailing respondents. A comparison of second and third mailing respondents on the above factors showed no significant differences between the two groups. Conclusions: The inclusion of third mailing respondents did not significantly change the social or health characteristic profile of the cohort and suggests that the effort and resources expended in carrying out a third mailing may not be justified.


We examine the Management Control System (MCS) as a focus of action in two companies moving to a comprehensive Lean Production (LP) operations philosophy. Neither organization had previously self-identified as Lean.These two organizations experience difficulty in understanding and changing their MCS in response to LP, even though both have some prior experience with lean tools. We describe issues faced by managers in re-imagining financial control in LP. In both organizations there is a very strong move to physical controls and diminution of time spent on financial controls, however this move is quite troublesome for the financial staff, who—although they support the change—feel that they lack a conceptual basis for the revising their financial tools. Physical KPIs are viewed as a core part of the MCS by operations and financial managers, which support the Simmonds (1981) Strategic Management Accounting concept.


ABSTRACT Achieving economic, social, and environmental sustainability of urban transport is one of the great contemporary societal challenges. By tracing urban land-use and transport policies and technological change in transport over a 60-year period in a case study of Istanbul, the authors demonstrate the displacement of more sustainable modes of transport (ferry, walking, and public transport) for a more automobile-dependent metropolis with road bridges across the Istanbul Strait (Bosphorus Strait). This article describes the main features, history, and status of the Europe-Asia crossings in Istanbul, thus framing a discussion of sustainability issues. Its originality is a discussion of sustainability through the economic, social, and environmental impacts of Europe-Asia crossings based on both a historical perspective and future prospects in order to assess whether current policies are leading toward more sustainable outcomes. The article concludes by emphasizing the impacts of policy decisions on transport infrastructures and highlighting some suggestions for policymakers.


I analyze the impact of online ads on the advertiser's competitors, using data from randomized field experiments on a restaurant-search website. I find significant positive causal effects of ads on the chances of sales for non-advertised restaurants. The spillover benefits are concentrated on restaurants that serve the advertiser's cuisine and have a high rating on the website. The extent of spillovers also depends on the intensity of the advertising effort. The spillovers are largest when the intensity (frequency) of advertising is low. As the intensity increases, the spillovers disappear and the advertiser gains more. These patterns are consistent with the following mechanism: ads increase the chance of consumers buying the advertised product, but also remind consumers of similar (non-advertised) options. Higher ad intensity leads to a stronger direct effect favoring the advertiser and can offset the spillover caused by the broader reminder.


Although there is no lack of reasons for conversation analysis to be reluctant to adopt a cognitivist idiom and paradigm in studying talk and other conduct in interaction, examination of the literature with an open mind will disclose attentiveness to such themes in the conversation-analytic literature nonetheless. The pursuit of such themes however, cannot be appropriately and successfully conducted under the aegis of currently dominant cognitivist paradigms. One central analytic resource in CA work is the notion of a 'possible X', a resource which is here described and exemplified for three discrete 'values' of 'X'. The understanding of how such 'possible Xs' could work for participants in interaction invites understanding by analysts by reference to a 'multiple passes' model of uptake, a characterization which for now can be no more than metaphoric. Here is a venue at which conversation-analysts and neuro/cognitive analysts might usefully try to work together.


We price multi-asset options by solving their price partial differential equations using a meshfree approach with radial basis functions under jump-diffusion and geometric Brownian motion frameworks. In the geometric Brownian motion framework, we propose an effective technique that breaks the multi-dimensional problem to multiple 3D problems. We solve the price PDEs or PIDEs with an implicit meshfree scheme using thin-plate radial basis functions. Meshfree approach is very accurate, has high order of convergence and is easily scalable and adaptable to higher dimensions and different payoff profiles. We also obtain closed form approximations for the option Greeks. We test the model on American crack spread options traded on NYMEX.


A politics maker is any person who is somehow involved in it. It is the peculiarities of thinking of a political person (hereinafter will be referred to as actor) that our research is dedicated to. The effectiveness of political activity is determined by the way actor realizes the political situation and his own self in politics, how and which exactly political tasks he produces, is ready to solve and actually solves. When interpreting political thinking we are based on the systemic and strategic approach, namely on the following: (а) general psychological concepts related to thinking as psychical function and as an integral form of cognitive activity; (b) specific features of political consciousness and its functioning in different types of political activity and behavior; (c) peculiarities of political activity as a separate type of activity and political thinking as a special type of activity, intellectual activity in particular; d) the idea of a subject's activity aimed at his overcoming of an uncertain situation (subjective and objective) in thinking activity.


Introduction: Maternal satisfaction is a means of evaluating quality of maternal health care given in health facilities. The objective was to assess the level of maternal Satisfaction and associated factors at Asrade Zewude Memorial Primary Hospital. Method: Cross-sectional study was conducted on 420 clients by systematic sampling method from February 8, 2017 to September 25, 2017. Structured questionnaire that was prepared by Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health was used. Pre-testing was done prior to the actual data collection process on a sample of 20 respondents and modified accordingly. The study was approved by Asrade Zewude Memorial Primary Hospital Senior Management Committee. The collected data were checked for completeness and consistency before being coded, entered and analyzed using SPSS version 16. Logistic regression was used to assess the presence of association between dependent and independent variables using SPSS at 95% CI and 5% margin of error. Result: The study revealed that level of satisfaction among delivering mothers was 88%. Educational level (AOR = 2.15, 95% CI = [1.02-3.71], access to ambulance service (AOR=3.15, 95% CI=[1.02-3.78], respect full delivery service (AOR=6.85, 95%CI=[4.35-6.95], welcoming hospital environment (AOR=3.09, 95% CI = [2.30-2.69], proper labor pain management (AOR=4.51, (95% CI=(3.12-5.01) and listening to their questions [AOR=3.95, 95%CI [2.35-4.36] were independent predictors for maternal satisfaction. Conclusion and Recommendation: Even though most of the participants were satisfied, they still had unmet needs and expectations in the delivery service provider. The identified main determinants were level of education, access to ambulance service, welcoming hospital environment, proper pain management and listening to their questions. Therefore, there is a need to improve the care given to maternity and appropriate strategy should be designed to address the unmet needs of mothers delivered in the hospital.


Abstract Opinion spammers exploit consumer trust by posting false or deceptive reviews that may have a negative impact on both consumers and businesses. These dishonest posts are difficult to detect because of complex interactions between several user characteristics, such as review velocity, volume, and variety. We propose a novel hierarchical supervised-learning approach to increase the likelihood of detecting anomalies by analyzing several user features and then characterizing their collective behavior in a unified manner. Specifically, we model user characteristics and interactions among them as univariate and multivariate distributions. We then stack these distributions using several supervised-learning techniques, such as logistic regression, support vector machine, and k-nearest neighbors yielding robust meta-classifiers. We perform a detailed evaluation of methods and then develop empirical insights. This approach is of interest to online business platforms because it can help reduce false reviews and increase consumer confidence in the credibility of their online information. Our study contributes to the literature by incorporating distributional aspects of features in machine-learning techniques, which can improve the performance of fake reviewer detection on digital platforms.


Individual participation in preventive care may depend on preventive health behavior in an individual's peer group. This paper analyzes the importance of social interactions in the context of new social policies (PROGRESA) in Mexico that aim to increase the participation in different types of preventive care. We follow the promising approach of analyzing social interactions in real world peer groups. Identification of social interactions is based on a partial-population design. Results indicate that PROGRESA succeeded in increasing preventive care usage among program eligible households. In addition, endogenous social interactions increase preventive care usage both among eligibles and non-eligibles for various types of prevention. The overall treatment effect of PROGRESA on prevention can be decomposed in a direct effect related to financial incentives and an indirect effect related to social interactions. The indirect effect accounts for 10% up to 58% of the total treatment effect.


We present geochemical data of lavas from northwest Africa, allowing us for the fi rst time to carry out large-scale "mapping" of sublithospheric mantle fl ow beneath the northwest African plate. Our study indicates that Canary mantle plume material traveled laterally along a subcontinental lithospheric corridor (i.e., at depths that are usually occupied by continental lithospheric mantle) more than 1500 km to the western Mediterranean, marking its route over the last 15 m.y. through a trail of intraplate volcanism. A three-dimensional geodynamic reconstruction, integrating results from geophysical studies, illustrates that long-distance lateral fl ow of mantle material into and through a subcontinental lithospheric corridor can be caused by a combination of (1) defl ection of upwelling plume material along the base of the lithosphere, (2) delamination of subcontinental mantle lithosphere beneath northwest Africa, and (3) subduction suction related to the rollback of the subducting oceanic plate in the western Mediterranean. Although the fl ow of plume material beneath oceanic lithosphere to mid-ocean ridges or along the base of continental rifts has been previously shown, this study demonstrates that plume material can also fl ow large lateral distances through subcontinental corridors from suboceanic to nonrifting subcontinental settings, generating continental intraplate volcanism without the need for a plume to be located directly beneath the continent.


Many cost accounting systems accumulate product costs incorrectly and therefore lead to inappropriate decisions. Let's look at the following two products. Product 1, manufactured from material purchased in a nearby city, requires two hours of direct labor time, very little machine time and is scheduled through the shop regularly. Its manufacturing lead time is only three days, so very little finished goods inventory is required to meet customer demand. Product 2 is manufactured from material that costs the same as product 1 but the material is purchased in Korea. Product 2 also requires two hours of direct labor but six hours of machine time on a new million-dollar piece of equipment, which needs constant maintenance; parts for the equipment are available only from the original manufacturer in France. The demand for product 2 is erratic, resulting in constant schedule changes. Because of these conditions--the erratic demand, the equipment's unreliability, a four-week manufacturing lead time and the excessive material lead time--10 weeks' worth of product 2 finished goods are kept on hand at all times. Which product costs more? Although the answer is obvious, most cost accounting systems in use today would tell management these two products cost exactly the same! Since raw material costs and direct labor for both products are the same, most of today's cost accounting systems would assign the same overhead to these products, leading management to have a distorted perception of the product cost. What should financial managers do when they can make product profitability decisions better without cost accounting data? They get back to basics. They must understand the manufacturing process to understand the costs. The process, as shown in the product 2 example, is often not simple and assuredly is not the same for all products. Many companies, realizing their diverse products are probably cross-subsidizing each other by sharing costs that are unique to an individual product, are investigating or attempting to upgrade their costing systems. One way to do this effectively is to implement an activity based costing (ABC) system. WHAT IS ACTIVITY BASED COSTING? ABC recognizes that costs originate from and are driven up or down by factors other than volume and direct labor. These factors or activities have proven to be better indicators of product costs than figures based on volume or direct labor. ABC systems assign costs to products based on their consumption of activities, such as order preparation, storage time, wait time, engineering changes and internal product movement. As a result of its more sophisticated approach to product costing, ABC provides companies with better product costs and a better understanding of product pricing and product mix decisions on their profitability. To use ABC and other new costing tools effectively, it is necessary to understand how costs are incurred. This requires asking the materials handler why one part is moved seven times before it is plated and asking the materials manager why a year-and-a-half supply of packaging materials is in stock. It also requires working simultaneously with the marketing organization to understand the true product cost and with the plant engineers to reduce that product's cost while ensuring that product quality and customer service are maintained or improved. PROCESS VALUE ANALYSIS When applied with common sense and a basic understanding of the business, process value analysis (PVA) is the foundation for other cost analysis tools, including activity based product costing. PVA is the most powerful analysis method financial managers can use to analyze a company's cost structure. This method allows them to get back to basics and understand the manufacturing and costing system. PVA STEPS By using the following step-by-step approach, financial managers can understand their companies' detailed manufacturing and costing procedures. …


ABSTRACT The rapid rise of digital media use for political participation has coincided with an increase in concerns about citizens' sense of their capacity to impact political processes. These dual trends raise the important question of how people's online political participation is connected to perceptions of their own capacity to participate in and influence politics. The current study overcomes the limitation of scarce high-quality cross-national and over-time data on these topics by conducting a meta-analysis of all extant studies that analyze how political efficacy relates to both online and offline political participation using data sources in which all variables were measured simultaneously. We identified and coded 48 relevant studies (with 184 effects) representing 51,860 respondents from 28 countries based on surveys conducted between 2000 and 2016. We conducted a multilevel random effects meta-analysis to test the main hypothesis of whether political efficacy has a weaker relationship with online political participation than offline political participation. The findings show positive relationships between efficacy and both forms of participation, with no distinction in the magnitude of the two associations. In addition, we tested hypotheses about the expected variation across time and democratic contexts, and the results suggest contextual variation for offline participation but cross-national stability for online participation. The findings provide the most comprehensive evidence to date that online participation is as highly associated with political efficacy as offline participation, and that the strength of this association for online political participation is stable over time and across diverse country contexts.


Objectives
Vitamins and minerals dietary intake recommendations rely on their role on energy-yielding metabolism, cognitive functions and fatigue relief. However, even in adult populations, reliable information on the actual dietary intake is not easily available. In this study, possible gaps between recommendation and actual intake of these micronutrients were assessed in adult European (Spain &Turkey), American (USA, Brazil & Mexico) and Asian (Vietnam) populations. It aimed to provide an overview of the risk of inadequate intake and to identify potential variations across geographic regions and genders.

Methods
In each country, information was retrieved from representative nation-wide dietary survey, government reports and Medline scientific publications. Prevalence of inadequate intake was classified as the proportion of the population group with an intake below the estimated average requirement (EAR) as follows: <15%: low risk (green); 15 to 40%: possible risk (yellow); 41 to 75%: real risk (orange); >75%: high risk (red).

Results
The risk of inadequate intake of micronutrients known for their role on physical and mental performance varied across nutrients, genders and countries (Table 1). Some common features were identified across the six countries such as a higher risk of deficiency in women compared to men and in developing vs developed countries. Certain specific risks were identified namely a high risk of inadequate folate intake in Spain, a wide geographical risk of inadequate vitamin C intake even where fruits should be easily available, and a general risk for most micronutrients in Turkey.

Conclusions
Inadequate dietary intakes are far from being uncommon in most countries in the selected micronutrients that are key for the energy metabolism, cognitive functions and fatigue relief. Therefore, diets and nutritional education need constant improvement worldwide, and dietary supplements could be helpful by closing the gaps between the recommended and the actual intakes.

Funding Sources
This study has been sponsored by Sanofi.

Supporting Tables Images and/or Graphs


Mixed reality environments offer new potentials for the design of compelling social interaction experiences with virtual characters. In this paper, we summarise initial experiments we are conducting in which we measure comfortable social distances between humans, virtual humans and virtual robots in mixed reality environments. We consider a scenario in which participants walk within a comfortable distance of a virtual character that has its appearance varied between a male and female human, and a standard- and human-height virtual Pepper robot. Our studies in mixed reality thus far indicate that humans adopt social zones with artificial agents that are similar in manner to human-human social interactions and interactions in virtual reality.


Five patients with central hypothyroidism and hypogonadism due to mass or infiltrative lesions of the pituitary and hypothalamus were studied to determine pulsatile pituitary glycoprotein secretion patterns. Blood samples were obtained every 15 min over 24 h, and TSH, LH and FSH were measured by immunoradiometric assays. Hormone pulses were located by cluster analysis, and pulse patterns were compared to those in normal subjects. Three patients had unmeasurable LH levels, while two had a normal number of low amplitude pulses. In contrast, all patients had normal FSH pulse frequency, and only one had low pulse amplitude. Three patients had normal 24-h TSH pulse frequency and amplitude, while two had slightly decreased pulse parameters. However, all failed to show normal nocturnal increases in TSH pulse amplitude. Thus, anatomical hypothalamic-pituitary lesions disrupt pulsatile glycoprotein secretion in a discordant fashion. LH is most severely affected, with abnormal pulse patterns similar to those in idiopathic central hypogonadism. FSH and TSH pulses are relatively preserved, but loss of the usual nocturnal increase in TSH pulse amplitude is sufficient to cause clinical hypothyroidism. Whether these defects reflect intrinsic pituitary disease or impaired hypothalamic releasing factor function remains to be determined.


A changing approach to social responsibility: a historic-normative case study of the North-West University (Potchefstroom Campus) As a direct consequence of its Christian character, the former Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education (PU for CHE) engaged in local corporate responsibility programmes for a number of decades. When the PU for CHE was merged at the end of 2003 to become the North-West University (NWU) (including the PU for CHE) which emerged in 2004, these programmes continued at the Potchefstroom Campus, but were stripped of their Christian grounding. Now the University has a "value-driven" approach. This article tracks the changes to the normative character as well as the continued changes to the university's position on social responsibility. It was found that the North-West University's normative points of departure have yet to be linked clearly to its community activities, and that formal corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities must be clearly differentiated from normal university business as well as student activities such as rag. It is argued that the problematic overlapping of profit-generating activities should be distinguished from all CSR programmes and the contribution of sponsors disclosed at all times. Developments late in 2008 seemed to indicate that some of the most important problem areas be addressed when a new approach to "community engagement" is fleshed out. This could result in the NWU achieving the CSR goals set by both government and the University itself regarding its so-called do-values and developing a guiding philosophy on "community en-gagement".


Based on cognitive load theory, this study investigated the effect of simultaneous written presentations on comprehension of spoken English as a foreign language. Learners' language comprehension was compared while they used 3 instructional formats: listening with auditory materials only, listening with a full, written script, and listening with simultaneous subtitled text. Listening with the presence of a script and subtitles led to better understanding of the scripted and subtitled passage but poorer performance on a subsequent auditory passage than listening with the auditory materials only. These findings indicated that where the intention was learning to listen, the use of a full script or subtitles had detrimental effects on the construction and automation of listening comprehension schemas.


Nowadays, computer vision algorithms have countless application domains. On the one hand, these algorithms are typically computationally demanding, on the other hand, they are often used in embedded systems, which have stringent constraints on, e. g., size or power. In this work, we present the benefits of mapping compute-intensive imaging algorithms on programmable massively parallel processor arrays. More specific, we propose different variants of a combined corner and edge detection algorithm, the Harris Corner Detector (HCD), map these variants onto tightly-coupled processor arrays (TCPAs), and prototype the TCPA architecture, executing the different HCD implementations, in FPGA technology. Because floating-point operations are very costly in FPGAs, we use fixed-point arithmetic in our design, and evaluate our implementation by means of accuracy and performance against two state-of-the-art implementations: (a) the OpenCV library of programming functions for real-time computer vision, using 64-bit floating-point precision, and (b) a 32-bit fixed-point DSP-based embedded system. The accuracy of our work is evaluated by considering the number of corners detected. Here, our approach achieves an average error of less than 1.5% when compared with a reference implementation. Our different variants, trading accuracy for performance, are mapped to the programmable processor elements of a TCPA. Here, the fastest TCPA implementation achieves a 55 times higher frame rate than a state-of-the-art implementation of the HCD on a digital signal processor. Finally, we show how our implementation can be used in the context of a new resource-aware parallel computing paradigm, called invasive computing. Here, an application can adapt itself at run-time in order to satisfy different quality and throughput requirements.


The American commitment to environmental protection has grown markedly in recent decades, whether measured by public opinion surveys or the amount of money devoted to protection activities. Environmental issues have steadily climbed as an area of widespread public concern, reflected in their growing prominence on the agendas of federal, state, and local governments. In turn, this interest is also reflected in fiscal terms, as a nation which devoted less than 1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to environment-related matters in 1970 is expected to allocate more than 2.5 percent of GDP to such concerns by 2000. This dramatic expansion of concern and investment has not, however, been translated into significant improvements in environmental quality. Some successes have been achieved, but these have been eclipsed by a series of problems that were not effectively addressed at the time the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created and much decisive legislation was enacted at the federal and state levels in the late 1960s and 1970s. Perhaps foremost among these environmental problems is pervasive toxics contamination. Numerous explanations can be advanced for the failure of past efforts to achieve greater environmental improvement, but one of the most convincing is the problem of regulatory fragmentation and its perverse environmental effects. This fragmentation divides regulatory policy into distinct spheres by medium (air, water, and land), often establishing separate approaches and management systems. Increasing evidence from the physical sciences indicates that this fragmentation has had the perverse effect of merely shifting pollutants - including pervasive toxics - from medium to medium rather than addressing them in any comprehensive manner. Consequently, many of the nation's most serious environmental problems may not stem from illegal dumping of wastes or failure to enforce individual permit standards. Instead, the irony is that much of the problem may be attributable to medium-based pollution control strategies created and implemented by federal and state governments. A similar dynamic is evident in Canada, where both federal and provincial environmental policies tend to be modeled closely after their American predecessors (Hoberg, 1991). The extent of this problem is well illustrated by the massive ecosystem encompassed in the Great Lakes Basin, which will be the major focal point of this article. Massive efforts to reduce major point source emissions, supported by the Clean Water Act, have led to some genuine improvements in Basin water quality, albeit at a very high cost. But the entire Basin remains highly vulnerable to the effects of cross-media pollution. It is on the receiving end of numerous air toxics; has extensive commercial, agricultural, and recreational activity that contribute "nonpoint" pollution to Basin water; and has a long "residence time" for water before it circulates out of the Basin (Alder, Landman, and Cameron, 1993; Elder et al., 1989). Air deposition accounts for more than 80 percent of many of the most threatening organic compounds found in the Great Lakes (Colborn et al., 1990). Further surface water contamination derives from groundwater discharge, landfill leaching, pesticide runoff from farmland, and dredging of lake-bottom sediments contaminated by prior dumping, all of which further compound the problems facing the Basin. Such problems are not unique to this region, as other North American ecosystems, such as the Chesapeake Bay, are similarly endangered by cross-media pollution (Horton and Eichbaum, 1991). Nonetheless, the diverse and expansive geographic scope of the Great Lakes Basin effectively illustrates the larger phenomenon of cross-media pollution within a medium-based regulatory system that often becomes a vehicle (witting or otherwise) for cross-media "transfer, transport, or transformation" (Irwin, 1989). The existence of this cross-media problem is not a new discovery. …


Based on the ATCA computation architecture and Compute Nodes (CN), investigation and implementation work has been being executed for HADES and PANDA trigger algorithms. We present our designs for HADES track reconstruction processing, Cherenkov ring recognition, Time-Of-Flight processing, electromagnetic shower recognition, and the PANDA straw tube tracking algorithm. They will appear as co-processors in the uniform system design to undertake the detector-specific computing. The algorithm principles will be explained and hardware designs are described in the paper. The current progress reveals the feasibility to implement these algorithms on FPGAs. Also experimental results demonstrate the performance speedup when compared to alternative software solutions, as well as the potential capability of high-speed parallel/pipelined processing in Data Acquisition and Trigger systems.


Journalists see the First Amendment as an amulet, and with good reason. It has long protected the Fourth Estate—an independent institutional press—in its exercise of editorial discretion to check government power. This protection helped the Fourth Estate flourish in the second half of the twentieth century and ably perform its constitutional watchdog role.

But in the last two decades, the media ecology has changed. The Fourth Estate has been subsumed by a Networked Press in which journalists are joined by engineers, algorithms, audience, and other human and non-human actors in creating and distributing news. The Networked Press's most powerful members are platforms. These platforms—companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter—shun the media label even as they function as information gatekeepers and news editors. Their norms and values, including personalization and speed, stymie watchdog reporting.

The Networked Press regime significantly threatens watchdog journalism, speech that is at the core of the press's constitutional role. Yet, limited by the state action doctrine, the First Amendment cannot shield this speech from a threat by private actors like platforms. Today, the First Amendment is insufficient to protect a free press that can serve as a check on government tyranny.

This article argues that we must look beyond the First Amendment to protect watchdog journalism from the corrosive power of platforms. It describes the limits of the First Amendment and precisely how platforms threaten watchdog journalism. It also proposes a menu of extra-constitutional options for bolstering this essential brand of speech.


As an important extension of symbolic execution (SE), probabilistic symbolic execution (PSE) computes execution probabilities of program paths. Using this information, PSE can prioritize path exploration strategies. To calculate the probability of a path PSE relies on solution counting approaches for the path constraint. The correctness of a solution counting approach depends on the methodology used to count solutions and whether a path constraint maintains a one-to-one relation with program input values. This work focuses on the latter aspect of the solution counting correctness for string constraints. In general, maintaining a one-to-one relation is not always possible, especially in the presence of non-linear constraints. To deal with this issue, researchers that work on PSE for numerical domains either analyze programs with linear constraints, or develop novel techniques to handle solution counting of non-linear constraints. For the string domain, however, previous work on PSE mainly focuses on efficient and accurate solution counting for automata-based string models and has not investigated whether a one-to-one relationship between the strings encoded by automata and input string values is preserved. In this work we demonstrate that traditional automata-based string models fail to maintain one-to-one relations and propose to use the weighted automata model, which preserves the one-to-one relation between the path constraint it encodes and the input string values. We use this model to implement a string constraint solver and show its correctness on a set of non-trivial synthetic benchmarks. We also present an empirical evaluation of traditional and proposed automata solvers on real-world string constraints. The evaluations show that while being less efficient than traditional automata models, the weighted automata model maintains correct solution counts.


Based on several nano-scale groove models, we propose a new technique to simultaneously determine the azimuthal and polar surface anchoring strengths of nematic liquid crystal (LC). The optical analysis of LCs on a grooved surface made by nanoimprinting lithography was performed on special alignment material, using a typical rubbing process. In our approach, using a polarizing microscope, we can determine the LC alignment exactly as it is in a parallel state, rather than a twisted state. This simple proposed method gives an accurate value of the surface LC anchoring of various surfaces, as well as simultaneously measuring the azimuthal and polar anchoring energy.


6-Chloropurine and 2,6-dichloropurine were reacted with N1-substituted imidazoles to give purin-6-yl substituted imidazolium salts, respectively. Deprotonation of the 1-methylimidazolium derivative resulted in the formation of the corresponding stable conjugated mesomeric betaine, whereas the 1-phenyl,- 1-vinyl- and 1-(2-hydroxyethyl) derivatives proved to be unstable. In situ generation of the mesomeric betaines by caesium carbonate in the presence of sulfur and selenium, however, gave the thiones and the selenones of the tautomeric purine-substituted imidazol-2-ylidene, respectively. Its anionic N-heterocyclic carbene was formally trapped by reaction with triethylborane at high temperatures as a cyclic boron adduct which is the first representative of a new heterocyclic ring system. DFT calculations gained insight into the electronic properties of the N-heterocyclic carbenes substituted by π-electron donators. Results of a single crystal X-ray analysis of the boron adduct are presented.


This paper explains why the current patchwork of media and advertising regulation is failing to prevent the premature sexualisation of Australian children. A number of improvements are proposed based on a review of current regulatory arrangements for the areas most responsible for the sexualisation of children: girls' magazines, television and outdoor advertising, and television programs. This paper is a companion to Corporate Paedophilia: The sexualisation of children in Australia.


Software Product Lines (SPL) is a relatively new way of working in software development. A SPL is an enforced architecture and a collection of components common for more than one product within a domain. Development using SPL utilizes tools and techniques for creating software systems from a common set of core assets in order to satisfy a certain market. In this study we investigate how to proceed when transitioning to a SPL development approach by evaluating proposed and used adoption approaches, methods and frameworks. We performed a systematic literature review using three main sources; Compendex/Inspec, CiteSeerX and Google Scholar. The results are analyzed using a qualitative analysis technique called Recursive Abstraction where the results are iteratively summarized to extract the essence of the data. A manageable collection of frameworks, methods and approaches are summarized as a starting point for a reader who wants to dig deeper into the subject. A set of guidelines is suggested for companies who are considering a transition to SPL development. We also investigate the link between SPL and organization maturity, with a focus on the benefits of combining a SPL initiative with a CMMI initiative. We conclude that the transition process should not be taken lightly; in most cases it should be made in incremental steps. There is a fairly standard approach to adopt SPL and there are a few frameworks that are commonly accepted. However, we also conclude that most research areas of SPL development lacks in validation. Concerning the link between SPL and CMMI we identify some PA's that are more important when considering SPL development and a few others that may be harder to execute. We conclude that SPL benefits from process maturity and discipline as SPL development is process controlled and a lack in process discipline may cause corrosion of the SPL. A CMMI maturity level of Defined processes should be considered a prerequisite for a complete SPL practice. We could not find any indication that the organization maturity would benefit from SPL practices alone. Neither could we identify any drawbacks of having both an CMMI initiative and SPL transition initiative within the same organization.


Impairments in visuospatial processing exhibited by individuals with Williams Syndrome (WS) have been ascribed to a local processing bias. The imprecise specification of this local bias hypothesis has led to contradictions between different accounts of the visuospatial deficits in WS. We present two experiments investigating visual processing of geometric Navon stimuli by children with WS. The first experiment examined image reproduction in a visuoconstruction task and the second experiment explored the effect of manipulating global salience on recognition of visual stimuli by varying the density of local elements possessed by the stimuli. In the visuoconstruction task, the children with WS did show a local bias with respect to controls, but only when the target being copied was present; when drawing from memory, subjects with WS produced a heterogeneous pattern of answers. In the recognition task, children with WS exhibited the same sensitivity to global figures as matched controls, confirming previous findings in which no local bias in perception was found in WS subjects. We propose that subjects with WS are unable to disengage their attention from local elements during the planning stage of image reproduction (a visual-conflict hypothesis).


Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of death globally and they are on the rise both in low- and middle-income countries, with South Africa being no exception. Implicated in this upward trend in the country is an observed change in diet - a transition from traditional foods, to what has come to be known as the 'western' diet, i.e. more energy-dense, processed foods, more foods of animal origin, and more added sugar, salt and fat. Increasingly, international research links rapidly changing food environment with escalating chronic disease, i.e. it implicates population-level dietary change over individual factors such as knowledge, attitudes and behaviours. Environmental and/or policy interventions can be some of the most effective strategies for creating healthier food environments.
This chapter explores the link between the rise in diet-related NCDs, their proximal determinants (specifically an observed change in diet patterns), contributing environmental factors, what is currently being done or recommended to address this internationally, and the most relevant national-level policies for South Africa.
The authors conclude that to improve dietary patterns and reduce chronic diseases in South Africa will require a sustained public health effort that addresses environmental factors and the conditions in which people live and make choices. Overall, positive policies have been made at national level; however, many initiatives have suffered from a lack of concerted action. Key actions will be to reduce the intake of unhealthy foods and make healthy foods more available, affordable and acceptable in South Africa.


Bubble hydrodynamics is fundamental to the performance of the flotation process widely used in the separation industry. To compare the effect of biosurfactants and chemical synthetic surfactants on bubble hydrodynamics in the flotation process, the motion of a single bubble and the size distribution of bubble swarms in various surfactants (rhamnolipid, tea saponin and Triton X-100) solutions were observed directly using a high-speed video camera in a laboratory scale flotation column. Bubble trajectory, dimensions, velocity and size distribution were then determined through image analysis. The results indicated that the addition of biosurfactants had the same significant effects on bubble motion and size distribution as chemosynthetic surfactants. The biosurfactant effect on bubble behavior was also found to depend on their type and concentration. In general, the effect of tea saponin was stronger than another biosurfactant (rhamnolipid) used in the present study. The present findings implied that some biosurfactants like tea saponin can replace chemosynthetic surfactants in controlling bubble behavior in flotation operation. This will contribute to promoting the use of green environmentally friendly flotation agents in the separation industry.


Abstract. Inhalation of airborne particulate matter (PM) is associated with a variety of adverse health outcomes. However, the relative toxicity of specific PM types—mixtures of particles of varying sizes, shapes, and chemical compositions—is not well understood. A major impediment has been the sparse distribution of surface sensors, especially those measuring speciated PM. Aerosol remote sensing from Earth orbit offers the opportunity to improve our understanding of the health risks associated with different particle types and sources. The Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite has demonstrated the value of near-simultaneous observations of backscattered sunlight from multiple view angles for remote sensing of aerosol abundances and particle properties over land. The Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols (MAIA) instrument, currently in development, improves on MISR's sensitivity to airborne particle composition by incorporating polarimetry and expanded spectral range. Spatiotemporal regression relationships generated using collocated surface monitor and chemical transport model data will be used to convert fractional aerosol optical depths retrieved from MAIA observations to near-surface PM10, PM2.5, and speciated PM2.5. Health scientists on the MAIA team will use the resulting exposure estimates over globally distributed target areas to investigate the association of particle species with population health effects.


Abstract We report a montmorillonite material with enhanced surface area but with very little alteration in cation exchange capacity (CEC) upon dealumination with para toluene sulphonic acid (p-TSA). The new material shows higher catalytic activity in comparison with mineral-acid-treated clay. Montmorillonite clay was treated with p-TSA for 10 minutes under microwave irradiation. The resulting clay was characterized by CEC, X-ray diffraction (XRD), BET analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), temperature programmed desorption (TPD) of ammonia and cyclic voltametry (CV) techniques. XRD patterns show an unchanged structure of pristine matrix after the acid action. BET analysis revealed an increase in the surface area and pore volume on p-TSA treatment, indicating formation of voids in the octahedral layer which suggests dealumination. Nitrogen adsorption-desorption curves showed the creation of new micro porous regions, possibly in the octahedral sheets. In contrast to mineral acid treatment, p-TSA treated clay samples showed similar CEC which shows the absence of dissolution of isomorphously substituted Mg and Fe ions present in the octahedral layer. CV studies confirm the formation of an Al-p-TSA complex, suggesting dissolution of aluminium octahedral sheets. The complex subsequently hydrolyses, replacing interlayer cations with Al3+ ions. Similar treatment with mineral acid resulted in clay with enhanced surface area but with reduced CEC, evidently due to the removal of isomorphously substituted Fe and Mg. Further, the p-TSA treated clays showed relatively higher esterification activity under solvent-free microwave irradiation. The p-TSA treated clay retained its activity even after three subsequent runs and thus can be exploited for practical applications.


»Zum Zusammenspiel von Risiken, Impfungen und Staatlichkeit im Deutschland des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts«. Vaccinations protect from infections, reduce infant mortality, and increase the standard of living. They enable a modern risk management. However, vaccinations require a risk management also in a very different sense: the danger of side effects and fatal incidents questions the benefits of vaccination up to the present day. Therefore, vaccination programs pose fundamental questions. What weighs more: a risk for the common good – or a risk to the individual? The article pursues the history of this risk management in Germany, and analyzes the interaction of risk ideas and concepts of social order. I focus on communication strategies for vaccination that came into use in the twentieth century that could not any longer rely on coercive measures. They also needed to appeal to the public and resort to "risk" as a public argument. The article therefore examines risk discourses with which the population should be convinced of the necessity of precautionary measures. The main thrust of the article will be that this kind of risk management was a prerequisite for a 'social engineering,' with which the idea of the "preventive self" was raised to the leading figure of modernity since the 1940s.


A longitudinal study of the acquisition of English vowels by Brazilian Portuguese speakers provides evidence for the claim of Flege's (1995) speech learning model (SLM) that phonetic learning is possible in adulthood, and further that the results of this learning are apparent even in the early stages and in the phonetic approximation of "similar" vowels. In addition to the expected link between certain L1 and interlanguage (IL) vowels, the study provides evidence for a link among the IL vowels themselves, which appear to undergo changes in relation to one another. The results suggest that any description of the phonetic representation of newly-formed IL categories should include their location within the phonetic space relative to the location of other L2 categories.


REASONS FOR PERFORMING STUDY
Body temperature can be a useful measure of how well the horse responds to thermal challenges of exercise and environment. Currently there is little information available about how body temperature changes throughout an endurance ride, and no nonsurgical methods to evaluate internal temperature of exercising horses during prolonged periods and during long distances.

OBJECTIVE
To develop and test a nonsurgical method, using temperature loggers, of continuously recording internal temperature during exercise and over an extended period.

METHODS
Loggers were inserted transcervically into the uterus of mares to measure internal temperature. A total of 9 mares were implanted for periods of 3 days to 6 weeks. The internal temperature was recorded while horses underwent their normal training and competition. Loggers were validated against rectal temperature over a range of internal temperatures while mares were alternatively exercised and rested.

RESULTS
The technique proved to be straightforward and accurate. There were no ill effects observed and all mares retained the logger in utero until removal manually, except for one mare, which expelled the logger when she came into oestrus. The intrauterine and deep rectal temperatures were highly correlated and increased during exercise and decreased with aggressive cooling after exercise.

CONCLUSIONS
The technique is a useful and accurate nonsurgical method for prolonged monitoring of internal temperature in mares, including those animals in athletic competition.

POTENTIAL RELEVANCE
This method allows more intensive studies of core temperature during prolonged exercise in competition and under different environmental conditions. It also enables comparison to be made of different methods of cooling of horses post exercise.


CATALYTIC REDUCTION OF NITRIC OXIDE BY CARBON MONOXIDE AND COPPER LOADED GRANULAR ACTIVATED CARBON IN THE PRESENCE OF OXYGEN by Kaiwen Ma The reduction reaction of nitric oxide (NO) by carbon monoxide (CO), and granular activated carbon (GAC) in the presence and absence of oxygen was studied in a fixed bed catalytic reactor. The conversion of NO as a function of reaction temperature was evaluated for various reductant to NO ratios and space velocities. The results show that oxygen enhanced the NO+CO reaction over copper (Cu) ion exchanged ZSM-5. About 60% NO conversion to nitrogen (N2) was obtained at 400°C and 2,000 v/v/hr. This result is consistent with the hypothesis that CO is an intermediate in the soot-NO reaction. The apparent mechanism seems to be the soot-02 reaction produces CO on the surface, the CO diffuses into the catalyst pores where it preferentially reacts with NO to produce carbon dioxide (CO-) and N2. The overall observation is that soot or GAC in the presence of oxygen reduces NO to N2 and CO2 if a Cu containing catalyst is present. One observes that Cu ion dispersed in GAC in the presence of 10% oxygen promotes the formation of CO at a relatively low temperature. This is followed by essentially complete NO conversion to N2 at 600°C and 2,000 v/v/hr and 20,000 v/v/hr. At 450°C, 95% NO is converted to N2 at 2,000 v/v/hr. The reaction rate of NO conversion to N2 decreases with increasing space velocity with either CO or carbon black as the reducing materials. Based on the results presented here, additional research on the catalytic reduction of NO by CO on the results presented here, additional research on the catalytic reduction of NO by CO and copper loaded GAC in the presence of 0, at higher space velocities between 50,000 and 100,000 v/v/hr is warranted. Effect of water on the two reactions is also needed to be


Selecting groups of objects is a frequent task in graphical user interfaces since it precedes all manipulation operations. Current selection techniques such as lasso become time-consuming and error-prone in dense configurations or when the area covered by targets is large or hard to reach. Perceptual-based selection techniques can considerably improve the selection task when the targets have a perceptual structure, driven by Gestalt principles of proximity and good continuity. However, current techniques use ad hoc grouping algorithms that often lack evidence from perception science. Moreover, they do not allow selecting arbitrary groups (i.e. without a perceptual structure) or modifying a selection. This paper presents a domain-independent perceptual-based selection technique that addresses these issues. It is built upon an established group detection model from perception research and provides intuitive interaction techniques for selecting (whole or partial) groups with curvilinear or random structures. Our user study shows that this technique not only outperforms rectangle selection and lasso techniques when targets have perceptual structure, but also it is competitive when targets have arbitrary arrangements.


In Starting Out With Visual C# 2012, Gaddis makes a very detailed and evenly paced presentation of both programming and C# syntax concepts so all readers will be able to follow along. His GUI-based approach to teaching C# will resonate with students in CS, IT, and CIS courses. While the book is written for readers with no prior programming background, even experienced programmers will benefit from its depth of detail. Tony Gaddiss accessible, step-by-step presentation helps beginning students understand the important details necessary to become skilled programmers at an introductory level. Gaddis motivates the study of both programming skills and the Visual C# programming language by presenting all the details needed to understand the how and the whybut never losing sight of the fact that most beginners struggle with this material. His approach is both gradual and highly accessible, ensuring that readers understand the logic behind developing high-quality programs.


For wireless multi-hop networks with unicast sessions, most coding opportunities involve only two or three sessions as coding across many sessions requires greater transmission power to broadcast the coded symbol to many receivers, which enhances interference. This work shows that with a new flow-based characterization of pairwise intersession network coding (coding across two unicast sessions), an optimal joint coding, scheduling, and rate-control scheme can be devised and implemented using only the binary XOR operation. The new scheduling/rate-control scheme demonstrates provably graceful throughput degradation with imperfect scheduling, which facilitates the design tradeoff between the throughput optimality and computational complexity of different scheduling schemes. Our results show that pairwise intersession network coding improves the throughput of non-coding solutions regardless of whether perfect/imperfect scheduling is used. Both the deterministic and stochastic packet arrivals and departures are considered. This work shows a striking resemblance between pairwise intersession network coding and non-coded solutions, and thus advocates extensions of non-coding wisdoms to their network coding counterpart.


Portuguese in Unesco?Recommendation 73 of the World Conference on Cultural Policies (Mexico City, 1982) dealt with Portuguese and other languages, calling on the director-general of Unesco to promote study of the possible use of Portuguese as a working language in the organization. Six reasons were given, including the fact that Portuguese is now the official language of seven member-states, that it is used also in various forms in other parts of the world, that it is a language that bridges cultural and racial diversity, and that it is already an official language of the Organization of American States.At the Unesco General Conference in 1983, representatives of three Portuguese-speaking countries addressed the session in Portuguese, and the representative of Portugal specifically called for the introduction of Portuguese as a working language. Currently there are three categories of languages at Unesco: the official languages of the General Conference, eight in number; the working languages of the General Conference and the Executive Board, of which there are six; and the working languages of the offices (English and French are those of headquarters).A recent Unesco document dealing with the introduction of Portuguese and other working languages calculates the cost of introducing a new working language at between $4,421,000 and $6,521,100 per biennium for limited use (i.e., translation of certain documents and provision of interpretation in certain meetings) and between $13,889,500 and $18,520,600 for use on a par with the other working languages. While the Joint Inspection Unit of the United Nations has warned against the costs involved in introducing further languages into the UN system, the director-general has tended to favor a somewhat more egalitarian approach to the problem, emphasizing the necessity to weigh such considerations as cultural values against the purely utilitarian question of cost.


Marie Bashkirtseff was of one of the most extraordinary women of the 19th century. Her Journal (originally comprising some 20,000 hand-written pages but pared down to a few hundred for publication) was a cause celebre after her death and continues to be an inspiration to the Women's Movement to this day. It also inspired such great writers as Anais Nin and Katherine Mansfield among many others.

Born into an aristocratic family in a village in Ukraine the family soon settled in France, first in Nice and later in Paris. Taught entirely by tutors Marie spoke multiple languages, played numerous musical instruments and longed for a singing career on the stage. An illness that affected her throat made her change course and she took up painting for which she had a latent talent. As a student at the Academie Julian in Paris she was soon exhibiting at the annual Paris Salon, the premier venue for artists.

But it was her personality that makes Marie Bashkirtseff such an exceptional individual. At a very young age she was already exhibiting in her Journal the thoughts of a learned philosopher, wrestling with the nature of God, the position of women in society, the politics of men. Having contracted tuberculosis in early childhood she ceaselessly strove to shrug it off in her quest to achieve greatness. In the end, a great tragedy unfolds.

The book is somewhat unique in format. The first part is a biographical section that describes Marie's unusual and fascinating life. Then a second section, consists of a single Journal excerpt (in English translation from the original French) on each left-hand page, juxtaposed with one of her outstanding works of art on the facing page. In this manner, we learn about her remarkable life and tribulations, enter her restive and brilliant mind via her Journal, as well as appreciate her exceptionally fine works as an artist.


In this article is argued that the nuptial imagery of the Book of Revelation is not limited to chapters 19 and 21 but rather runs throughout the book. While the imagery is certainly most pronounced in the final part of the book, it also appears in the letters to the churches (bridal wreath in Rev 2,10; 3,11), in the scene depicting the 144,000 as virgins (Rev 14,4-5), and is encountered again in Rev 18,23 (silencing of the voice of bridegroom and bride) and Rev 22,17 (summons of the bride) at the end of the book. Thus the wedding metaphors can be seen as one of the structural patterns of Revelation as a whole directly in contrast to the metaphors of fornication.


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Postgraduate neuromusculoskeletal physiotherapy courses in the UK, accredited by the Manipulation Association of Chartered Physiotherapists (MACP), aim to promote clinical expertise. Gaining the specialist qualification has been demonstrated to enhance career progression to extended scope practitioner, clinical specialist and consultant roles within the NHS. While research has identified the attributes of expertise, there is limited understanding of how individuals learn and develop that expertise. The aim of the study was to develop an explanatory theory of the learning transitions of neuromusculoskeletal physiotherapists on completion of an MACP approved Masters programme. The methodology was a naturalistic inquiry using a single theory-seeking case study design and insider research. Twenty six semi-structured face to face or telephone, audio-taped interviews with eleven alumni who had successfully completed a MSc neuromusculoskeletal physiotherapy course participated and were selected using purposeful sampling. Alumni were interviewed between six months and five years after completion of the MSc. A further two study participants with high levels of clinical expertise, were theoretically sampled and interviewed once. Dimensional analysis of the research data was used to develop a substantive theory of the learning transition. The learning transition was from hidden, received practice knowledge with routine, therapist centred clinical practice to critical understanding of practice knowledge that enabled patient centred practice and the capability to learn in, and from, practice. This development towards clinical expertise was primarily facilitated by critical evaluation of practice knowledge through critical companionship in the practice setting. The learning transition varied between study participants and depended on their conception of clinical practice, epistemology of practice knowledge, conception of teaching and learning, achievement motivation, locus of control, perceived self efficacy in practice knowledge, professional self esteem, emotional control, learning relationships and learning style. Findings suggest that direct observation of clinical practice together with the questioning and challenging approach of critical companionship within clinical practice enhanced the clinical expertise of neuromusculoskeletal physiotherapists. Clinical expertise was characterised by critical understanding of practice knowledge, patient centred practice and a capability to learn in, and from, clinical practice. The explanatory theory of the learning transition has implications for physiotherapy clinical practice, education and research.