Introduction "For me to voluntarily open my pocket to help the poor and needy is a worthy and honorable act of human compassion. But for you to reach inside my pockets and take my money to do so is stealing for which someone should go to jail" (1) (Walter E. Williams 2009). "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane" (Martin Luther, Jr). Medicare/Medicaid programs were added to Social Security Act in 1965 under LBJ's "Great Society" program. In the 1970's the bill set up cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) making a yearly adjustment on basis of consumer price index (CPI) increase of 3% or more. In 1992, Social Security legislation expanded the minimum monthly benefits of persons employed in low-income positions for at least 30 years as well as for widows, widowers, and dependents which set up the Supplemental Security Income welfare program. The 1983 Amendment set up social security in excess of a household income threshold ($25,000 for singles and $32, 000 for couples) taxable to help generate revenue and prevent solvency. Social Security and Medicare funds, therefore, have been in crisis all along due to changing financial pictures. The question before opponents of the Guaranteed Affordable Care Act (ACA) then is "why the angst, the opposition to an Act seeking to fix a broken healthcare system as was allowed in 1983?" This paper examines the implications of moral obligation and social rationality of the government re: the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of March 23, 2010. It provides valuable discursive insight into what is expected to be the outcome from the ongoing debate about the rationale behind the enactment of the ACA and predicts that the final decision on the constitutionality of the law resides within the U.S. Supreme Court (2) and, eventually, the 2012 general elections. The ACA includes provisions designed to provide a high quality, high value, health care system for all Americans and to make health care insurance market more consumer-friendly and transparent. It will dramatically increase the number of people lacking coverage but it does not extend coverage to everyone; approximately 46 million are currently lacking healthcare insurance (3). The ACA will initially cover 32 million people currently uninsured but that only accounts for 94% of young Americans eligible to receive health care; about 83-85% Americans are currently covered. The ACA extends the number of people eligible for Medicaid and provides subsidies for the lower class to buy insurance, but lacks a government-sponsored public option that could have ensured universal coverage. By 2014, states will open up health insurance marketplaces or "exchanges," which allow the unemployed, self-employed, part-time workers and small businesses to comparison-shop for private insurance plans at more affordable rates than the ones they have now. Until then, many reforms to the ACA are expected. Children are now allowed to remain on their parents' health plans until age 26 and can no longer be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions. Adults with similar conditions can take advantage of a high-risk insurance program provided by the government, and by 2014 assume full protection from denials of coverage. Insurance companies will no longer be allowed to set lifetime limits on health care coverage or cancel policy once someone gets sick. The ACA closes the Medicare "doughnut hole," a gap in prescription drug coverage that makes medication very expensive for older adults to help them purchase medicine below the catastrophic coverage thresholds. On the revenue side, the ACA delays its taxes until 2013, adding additional Medicare payroll/investment taxes in three years for richer families. In eight years, it will add an excise tax on high-cost insurance plans indexed to creep into more insurance plans in the second decade of the law. It bars insurers from rescinding coverage to shedding the sick based on pre-existing conditions and capping lifetime coverage. …


There are about 2 million smallholders cultivating 40% of Indonesia's oil palm area. They require significant financing to establish, maintain and replant their oil palm plantations, in order to both increase productivity and improve the quality of the fresh fruit bunches. Their capacity to self-finance their plantation is limited. However, most of them are credit-constrained.Since the late 1970s, the Government of Indonesia has introduced a number of credit schemes for oil palm smallholders. Banks and other formal institutions have also been offering various credit schemes in terms of the amount, grace period and requirements for smallholders, both individually or in groups.Through interviews and focus group discussions in two districts, each in South Sumatra and Central Kalimantan, we found four gaps: (1) demand–supply gaps; (2) maturity gaps; (3) risk-sharing gaps; and (4) legal gaps. Demand–supply gaps exist where credit applications by oil palm smallholders were not approved because of issues related to collateral requirements, credit amounts, and crop gestation periods. Maturity gaps exist when only few financing schemes consider a grace period for smallholders to wait for the first harvest. Risk-sharing gaps refer to the volatility in production costs and palm oil prices that smallholders have to bear. Many smallholders do not hold proper documentation, which leads to the legal gaps that prevent them from using their land as collateral to access credit from banks. These gaps reduce the possibility of smallholders accessing credit from formal institutions, which drives an informal local lending market with limited credit amounts and higher interest rates. The government and financial institutions must address these gaps in order to improve formal credit access for smallholder oil palm farmers.


This paper discusses a method of increasing the sensitivity of a fiber-optic hydrophone by forming coatings on the sensitive part of the fiber. The results of sensitivity measurements are presented for certain types of coatings. The experimental results showed that, by using special coatings, the sensitivity can be increased by 25–30 dB by comparison with a fiber in a standard polyacrylate coating.


Mycobacterium leprae, an obligate intracellular pathogen, invades and multiplies within host mononuclear phagocytes. To understand M. leprae invasion better, we have investigated the role of phagocyte receptors and bacterium-bound ligands in phagocytosis of M. leprae by human monocytes. Complement receptors CR1 and CR3 mediate adherence and phagocytosis of M. leprae in nonimmune serum. Two MAbs used in combination against CR3 inhibit adherence by up to 90 +/- 3%. Two MAbs used in combination against CR1 and CR3 inhibit adherence by up to 70 +/- 1%. Single MAbs against CR1 or CR3 consistently inhibit adherence by 38-55%. In contrast, MAbs against other monocyte surface molecules, alone or in combination, do not significantly influence adherence. As studied by electron microscopy, 100% of monocyte-associated M. leprae are ingested in the presence of nonimmune serum and MAbs against CR3 markedly inhibit ingestion. Complement receptors CR1 and CR3 also mediate the low level of adherence observed in the absence of serum. Serum complement component C3 serves as a ligand on the bacterial surface in monocyte phagocytosis of M. leprae. Adherence of M. leprae to monocytes is enhanced by preopsonization (3.1 +/- 1.1-fold increase) and is markedly reduced in less than 0.5% fresh serum (66 +/- 7% reduction) or heat-inactivated serum (68 +/- 3% reduction). Adherence is also markedly reduced in C3- or factor B-depleted serum; repletion with purified C3 or factor B increases adherence 4.3 +/- 0.8- and 2.6 +/- 0.2-fold, respectively. C3 is fixed to M. leprae by the alternative pathway of complement activation, as determined by a whole bacterial cell ELISA. By electron microscopy, monocytes ingest M. leprae by conventional phagocytosis. This study demonstrates that (a) human monocyte complement receptors CR1 and CR3 mediate phagocytosis of M. leprae; (b) complement component C3 on the bacterial surface serves as a ligand for complement receptors; (c) complement component C3 binds to M. leprae by the alternative pathway of complement activation; and (d) monocytes phagocytize M. leprae by conventional phagocytosis.


Duplications and deletions in the human genome Duplications and deletions can lead to variation in copy number for genes and genomic loci among humans. Such variants can reveal evolutionary patterns and have implications for human health. Sudmant et al. examined copy-number variation across 236 individual genomes from 125 human populations. Deletions were under more selection, whereas duplications showed more population-specific structure. Interestingly, Oceanic populations retain large duplications postulated to have originated in an ancient Denisovan lineage. Science, this issue 10.1126/science.aab3761 Copy-number variation reveals how selection affects the human genome across the globe. INTRODUCTION Most studies of human genetic variation have focused on single-nucleotide variants (SNVs). However, copy-number variants (CNVs) affect more base pairs of DNA among humans, and yet our understanding of CNV diversity among human populations is limited. RATIONALE We aimed to understand the pattern, selection, and diversity of copy-number variation by analyzing deeply sequenced genomes representing the diversity of all humans. We compared the selective constraints of deletions versus duplications to understand population stratification in the context of the ancestral human genome and to assess differences in CNV load between African and non-African populations. RESULTS We sequenced 236 individual genomes from 125 distinct human populations and identified 14,467 autosomal CNVs and 545 X-linked CNVs with a sequence read-depth approach. Deletions exhibit stronger selective pressure and are better phylogenetic markers of population relationships than duplication polymorphisms. We identified 1036 population-stratified copy-number–variable regions, 295 of which intersect coding regions and 199 of which exhibit extreme signatures of differentiation. Duplicated loci were 1.8-fold more likely to be stratified than deletions but were poorly correlated with flanking genetic diversity. Among these, we highlight a duplication polymorphism restricted to modern Oceanic populations yet also present in the genome of the archaic Denisova hominin. This 225–kilo–base pair (kbp) duplication includes two microRNA genes and is almost fixed among human Papuan-Bougainville genomes. The data allowed us to reconstruct the ancestral human genome and create a more accurate evolutionary framework for the gain and loss of sequences during human evolution. We identified 571 loci that segregate in the human population and another 2026 loci of fixed-copy 2 in all human genomes but absent from the reference genome. The total deletion and duplication load between African and non-African population groups showed no difference after we account for ancestral sequences missing from the human reference. However, we did observe that the relative number of base pairs affected by CNVs compared to single-nucleotide polymorphisms is higher among non-Africans than Africans. CONCLUSION Deletions, duplications, and CNVs have shaped, to different extents, the genetic diversity of human populations by the combined forces of mutation, selection, and demography. Figure Global human CNV diversity and archaic introgression of a chromosome 16 duplication. (Left) The geographic coordinates of populations sampled are indicated on a world map (colored dots). The pie charts show the continental population allele frequency of a single ~225-kbp duplication polymorphism found exclusively among Oceanic populations and an archaic Denisova. (Right) The ancestral structure of this duplication locus (1) and the Denisova duplication structure (2) are shown in relation to their position on chromosome 16. We estimate that the duplication emerged ~440 thousand years ago (ka) in the Denisova and then introgressed into ancestral Papuan populations ~40 ka. In order to explore the diversity and selective signatures of duplication and deletion human copy-number variants (CNVs), we sequenced 236 individuals from 125 distinct human populations. We observed that duplications exhibit fundamentally different population genetic and selective signatures than deletions and are more likely to be stratified between human populations. Through reconstruction of the ancestral human genome, we identify megabases of DNA lost in different human lineages and pinpoint large duplications that introgressed from the extinct Denisova lineage now found at high frequency exclusively in Oceanic populations. We find that the proportion of CNV base pairs to single-nucleotide–variant base pairs is greater among non-Africans than it is among African populations, but we conclude that this difference is likely due to unique aspects of non-African population history as opposed to differences in CNV load.


Consider a dataset where data is collected on multiple features of multiple individuals over multiple times. This type of data can be represented as a three dimensional individual/feature/time tensor and has become increasingly prominent in various areas of science. The tensor biclustering problem computes a subset of individuals and a subset of features whose signal trajectories over time lie in a low-dimensional subspace, modeling similarity among the signal trajectories while allowing different scalings across different individuals or different features. We study the information-theoretic limit of this problem under a generative model. Moreover, we propose an efficient spectral algorithm to solve the tensor biclustering problem and analyze its achievability bound in an asymptotic regime. Finally, we show the efficiency of our proposed method in several synthetic and real datasets.


Copper and copper alloys typically experience a sharp loss in ductility at intermediate temperature, induced by grain boundary damage and fracture processes. The susceptibility of the material to intermediate temperature embrittlement is, as a result, strongly affected by the presence, along the grain boundary, of segregated atoms or low-melting phase inclusions, the former potentially weakening atomic bonding and the second causing liquid metal embrittlement along the boundaries. This thesis is an exploration of underlying phenomena that govern the intermediate temperature embrittlement of Cu-Pb alloys, addressing in turn capillary phenomena and then their relation to the tensile strength and ductility of leaded copper alloys. The dihedral angle shown by intergranular lead inclusions in Cu-1Pb alloys is measured varying the purity of the metal and the temperature. Several measurement methods are used and compared, namely classical 2D methods based on metallurgical cross section analysis, and a 3D stereoscopic method that yields the true three-dimensional angle value for individual inclusions straddling a flat grain boundary (first presented by Felberbaum et al., J. Mat. Sci., vol. 40 (2005) p. 3121). Data confirm and extend earlier measurements using the newer 3D method. It is shown that a discrepancy found between literature data and stereoscopic 3D dihedral angle measurements is not caused by impurity effects, but the data indicate that its origin lies in a difference in average dihedral angle values measured between inclusions straddling two grains, and values found at inclusions located where three or more grains meet. The method is then extended towards the simultaneous measurement of relative grain boundary energy and all five macroscopic grain boundary degrees of freedom in a copper polycrystal containing quenched lead inclusions. Data are compared with a model for grain boundary energy in pure fcc metals. The comparison suggests (i) that relaxation can lower the grain boundary energy significantly when equal numbers of broken bonds are present on either side of the grain boundary and (ii) that lead segregation to grain boundaries affects the orientation-dependence of large-angle grain boundary energies in copper. A study of the tensile strength of two Cu-1Pb alloys of different purity and of different microstructure tested at 400 °C and at a strain rate of 10 s-1 is then presented. Data show that the alloy fracture stress is consistent with a Griffith-type fracture criterion that results from assimilation of the inclusions to a void. Measured fracture stresses suggest a 25-fold increase in fracture energy dissipation over surface tension contributions, likely caused by plastic deformation of the ductile copper phase. Tensile tests conducted at 400 °C and at a strain rate of 10-2 s-1 are then presented for a Cu-Ni-Sn-Pb alloy, which exhibits high mechanical strength at room temperature coupled with good machinability. Additions to this alloy of less than 1 wt% are investigated, namely Al, Mn, Zr, B or P. It is found that, unlike the other alloying additions explored, B and P improve the strength and ductility of the leaded alloy and also that these form second phase particles in the alloy; it is proposed that the improvement results from a capillary and mechanical interaction between these particles and molten lead inclusions in the alloy, consistent with the theory advanced to explain results found for the Cu-1Pb alloy. The thesis concludes with a preliminary exploration of grain boundary engineering strategies towards the improvement of the 400 °C strength of Cu-1%Pb, showing that marginal improvements in both strength and ductility can be achieved.


Abstract Floodplain meadow ecosystems are characterized by high water level fluctuations and highly variable soil water potentials. Additionally, climate change scenarios indicate an increasing risk for summer drought along the northern Upper Rhine and the Middle Elbe River, Germany. While adult plants often persist even after strong changes in water availability, early life phases, such as seed germination and seedling establishment, might be more vulnerable. Therefore we tested whether reduced soil water potentials will affect the germination of meadow species and whether the response varies between (1) forbs indicative of wet and dry habitats and (2) seeds originating from sites along the rivers Elbe and Rhine. We exposed seeds of 20 floodplain meadow species with different moisture requirements from five plant families to a water potential gradient ranging from 0 to − 1.5 MPa. While across species germination percentage and synchrony decreased, germination time increased at reduced water potentials. Germination of the species indicative of dry habitats decreased more strongly, was slower and less synchronous at reduced water potentials than that of species indicative of wet habitats. Seeds from sites along the rivers Elbe and Rhine did not differ in their germination characteristics. We propose that species of wet sites follow an all-or-nothing-strategy with fast and synchronous germination to maximize competitive advantages, betting on a high probability of moist conditions for establishment (optimists). In contrast, species from dry sites appear to follow a bet-hedging strategy with a moisture-sensing mechanism for unsuitable conditions (pessimists), resulting in a slower and less synchronous germination.


Purpose Peripheral prisms (p-prisms) shift peripheral portions of the visual field of one eye, providing visual field expansion for patients with hemianopia. However, patients rarely show adaption to the shift, incorrectly localizing objects viewed within the p-prisms. A pilot evaluation of a novel computerized perceptual-motor training program aiming to promote p-prism adaption was conducted. Methods Thirteen patients with hemianopia fitted with 57Δ oblique p-prisms completed the training protocol. They attended six 1-hour visits reaching and touching peripheral checkerboard stimuli presented over videos of driving scenes while fixating a central target. Performance was measured at each visit and after 3 months. Results There was a significant reduction in touch error (P = 0.01) for p-prism zone stimuli from pretraining median of 16.6° (IQR 12.1°–19.6°) to 2.7° ( IQR 1.0°–8.5°) at the end of training. P-prism zone reaction times did not change significantly with training (P > 0.05). P-prism zone detection improved significantly (P = 0.01) from a pretraining median 70% (IQR 50%–88%) to 95% at the end of training (IQR 73%–98%). Three months after training improvements had regressed but performance was still better than pretraining. Conclusions Improved pointing accuracy for stimuli detected in prism-expanded vision of patients with hemianopia wearing 57Δ oblique p-prisms is possible and training appears to further improve detection. Translational Relevance This is the first use of this novel software to train adaptation of visual direction in patients with hemianopia wearing peripheral prisms.


Kalman filters are widely used for data assimilation into ocean models. The aim of this study is to discuss the relevance of these filters with high resolution ocean models. This was investigated through the comparison of two advanced Kalman filters: the singular evolutive extended Kalman (SEEK) filter and its ensemble-based variant, called SEIK filter. The two filters were implemented with the Princeton Ocean model (POM) considering a low spatial resolution configuration (Mediterranean sea model) and a very high one (Pagasitikos Gulf coastal model). It is shown that the two filters perform reasonably well when applied with the low resolution model. However, when the high resolution model is considered, the behavior of the SEEK filter seriously degrades because of strong model nonlinearities while the SEIK filter remains remarkably more stable. Based on the assumption of prior Gaussian distributions, the linear analysis step of the latter can still be improved though.


A numerical approach has been developed for simulating the recording and erasure kinetics in photorefractive materials for high modulation of the light-intensity pattern. The recording kinetics for the fundamental grating strongly deviates from exponential behavior, and it is much slower than the kinetics inferred from a linearized solution. The harmonics of the grating show lower growth rates for higher Fourier orders and exhibit an initial delay time. On the other hand, in the optical erasure experiment (starting from the steady-state solution), the decay rate of the fundamental harmonic is exponential and closely matches the predictions of the linear approximation. Moreover, the decay rate of the harmonics are in good agreement with the value corresponding to a fundamental grating with the same k vector. This uncoupling of the Fourier components is no longer intact when erasure is started from a nonsaturated grating. The effect of the grating vector of the light pattern and an externally applied field on the growth and the erasure kinetics have also been investigated. The applied field modifies the kinetic behavior and introduces some differential features with regard to the linear solution.


At this Sydney Writers' Festival event highlight, 'Have we been conned on climate change? An emergency Town Hall meeting', four leading climate change thinkers address the devastating lack of political leadership on the issue of climate change in Australia. Environmentalist Tim Flannery (The Weather Makers), economist and author of the Garnaut Report, Ross Garnaut, academic/writer/public intellectual Clive Hamilton (Requiem for a Species) and US journalist and activist Bill McKibben (Eaarth) speak frankly and passionately about what needs to be done and where the political system has failed. Sydney Town Hall, May 2010 Part 1 - 29:34 Part 2 - 24:23 Part 3 - 24:18


America's eighteenth-century founders expected that the people of the United States would establish a wise and happy government of written laws adopted with a single eye to reason and the good of those governed. Few Americans today would say that America's lawmaking fulfills the founders' expectations. Dysfunctional is the word that many Americans use to describe their methods of lawmaking. The legal professions tell the American people that they are doing the best the can. They tell a myth of common law. They say the people should rejoice, and not complain, when America's judges make law, for such lawmaking makes America's laws exceptional. It is how America has always made law, they say. Judges make better laws than legislatures, they claim.
The historical part of this book explodes the common law myth of dominance of judge-made law in American history. Using sources hardly accessible until 21st century digitization, it shows that statutes have had a much greater role in American law than the legal professions acknowledge.
The comparative part of this book dismantles the claim that judges make better law then legislatures. It shows how the methods of American legislative lawmaking, owing to neglect, have failed to keep up with their counterparts abroad, and have thus denied the people the government of laws that the founders expected.
This book shows how such a system works in Germany and would be a solution for the American legal system as well


There are a number of economic costs associated with taxes, some of which unfortunately, are almost always ignored or misunderstood. The direct and most visible cost of taxes is simply the tax itself. It is the amount of earnings that individuals or businesses forego when they pay taxes. Put simply, an individual earns income but only receives a portion of it after paying for taxes. This is the direct cost of taxation: loss of income.Another cost of taxes — which is often recognized but frequently not taken sufficiently into account in public policy discussions — is the incentive effects of taxes. As noted above, taxes create a wedge between what individuals and businesses earn and what they actually receive for their efforts. The incentive costs from taxes are a result of changed behaviour and foregone opportunities. For example, workers might decide to work less overtime because they deem the reward (that is, extra earnings) insufficient to compensate them for the extra effort. Similarly, businesses might decide to forego expansion or investing in new businesses if the after-tax reward (adjusted for risk) is insufficient. In both these cases, society is less well off because of decisions that were made, in part, due to the effects of taxes.The costs associated with complying with the tax code are almost always ignored in public policy debates. Compliance costs include the time required to collect and organize receipts, accounting and other professional fees, the time required to complete tax forms if professionals are not used, appeal costs if applicable, and the general costs of remitting returns. Similarly, the administrative costs incurred by governments to administer and collect taxes are often ignored. In both cases, one explanation of this is the lack of quantitative estimates of these costs. This study will facilitate taking these costs into account.In 2011, between $19.2 billion and $24.8 billion was spent complying with the personal and business tax system in Canada. An additional $6.6 billion was collectively spent by governments across the country administering the tax system. Should Canada choose to embark on fundamental tax reform, this could reduce these costs by simplifying the tax system.


The origin of Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) has been well documented by historians and scholars in agricultural education. This rich history is ingrained in the tradition of the agricultural education community and is a source of pride for those who acknowledge SAE to be the first formal experiential learning model of instruction in Career and Technical Education (CTE). During the last forty years, many studies have identified SAE as the shrinking component of the agricultural education program. Many researchers in agricultural education have questioned who is at fault for the decline of student participation in SAE. Dyer and Osborne (1995) conducted a synthesis of all research related to SAEs in which they identified the success of the SAE component to be dependent upon the teacher. They also concluded from many studies that teachers value the foundation of SAE but are not transferring this value into action by requiring students to participate in SAEs. More recently, Wilson and Moore (2006) found this to still be true. Other researchers believe that school principals can affect whether teachers choose to implement SAE. Dyer and Osborne (1996) concluded that opinions of administrators make a difference in the maintenance of agricultural education program quality. Wilson and Moore (2006) found that teachers believe that principals do not reward them for having their students conduct SAEs. The rationale for this research was simple. In North Carolina, teachers self report their participation in SAE each year. In 2004-2005, only 37% of these teachers and in 2005-2006, only 43% of these teachers reported all students in their programs had an SAE program. Ninety-three principals responded to our survey and provided the following data: Seventy-six percent of the principals taught at the high school level before being a principal, only 10% had taught a career and technical education course at that level. While 16.5% of the principals who participated in the survey took an agricultural education course in high school, only 13.4% reported having either placement or entrepreneurship SAE project. Seventy-five percent of those surveyed indicated that the students at their school come from rural areas. Eighty percent of those surveyed reported that the agricultural education teacher(s) at their school are employed on 12 month contracts. The principals in this study believe that SAE is important and valuable. Principals agree that SAE is important, realistic, and provides character education. They also believe that teachers should visit and supervise students conducting SAE and teachers should possess 12 month contracts to do so. Principals believe that the level of teacher involvement with SAE and the quality of these experiences is above average. Only 65% of the principals surveyed reported that the agriculture teacher(s) at their school have students conducting work-based agricultural education experiences. However only 5.2% think those work-based agricultural education experiences are available to all of their agricultural education students. Nearly 20% of these principals state that their agricultural education teacher(s) provides work-based learning opportunities for 25% or less of their students. Only five percent of the principals surveyed believe that the agricultural education teacher(s) at their school provides work-based learning opportunities for 100% of their students. Even though principals believe in the importance and quality of SAE they do not believe teachers are visiting or grading the majority of student projects. Only 40% of the principals surveyed believe the agricultural education teachers at their school visit and supervise work-based learning experiences for a majority of their students. Fifty percent of those principals who reported having programs with work-based learning agricultural education programs said that their agricultural education teachers give students grades for their projects. …


We study the large scale geometry of the mapping class group, MCG(S). Our main result is that for any asymptotic cone of MCG(S), the maximal dimension of locally compact subsets coincides with the maximal rank of free abelian subgroups of MCG(S). An application is a proof of Brock-Farb's Rank Conjecture which asserts that MCG(S) has quasi-flats of dimension N if and only if it has a rank N free abelian subgroup. (Hamenstadt has also given a proof of this conjecture, using different methods.) We also compute the maximum dimension of quasi-flats in Teichmuller space with the Weil-Petersson metric.


The problem of a reflected Gaussian beam after it has propagated through an inhomogeneous medium is studied. The characteristics of the displacement of the beam are described in detail. Three-layered media composed of two different homogeneous media and a finite stratified medium, whose permittivity decreases linearly with distance, are considered. The amount of the beam displacement obtained by this theory is much larger than that predicted by the conventional Goos–Hanchen shift.


Gene expression is a regulated process fueled by ATP consumption. Therefore, regulation must be coupled to constraints imposed by the level of energy metabolism. Here, we explore this relationship both theoretically and experimentally. A stylized mathematical model predicts that activators of gene expression have variable impact depending on metabolic rate. Activators become less essential when metabolic rate is reduced and more essential when metabolic rate is enhanced. We find that in the Drosophila eye, expression dynamics of the yan gene are less affected by loss of EGFR-mediated activation when metabolism is reduced, and the opposite effect is seen when metabolism is enhanced. The effects are also seen at the level of pattern regularity in the adult eye, where loss of EGFR-mediated activation is mitigated by lower metabolism. We propose that gene activation is tuned by energy metabolism to allow for faithful expression dynamics in the face of variable metabolic conditions.


Presently, there are competing philosophies of education which need comparison. Two philosophies will be compared which are at opposite ends of the continuum. They are distinctly different. And yet, both schools of thought have their disciples. Each of the two will be discussed in terms of its essential features and then there will be selected contrasts made. Measurement Philosophy Advocates of measurement philosophy believe strongly in the late E. L Thorndike's (1874-1949) beliefs, "Whatever exists, exists in some amount, and if it exists in some amount, it can be measured." The measurement movement has been very strong in ascertaining how much pupils learn with its annual testing in grades three through eight and an exit test (No child Left Behind, passed by Congress and signed by the President in 20020. Thus, state mandated objectives and testing are the law of the land, if each state wants to receive federal aid for their respective schools. Each state emphasizes that pupil progress may be monitored through testing. Teachers supposedly have objectives developed by the state to provide guidelines for teaching. There are assumptions made in that what is tested represents the basics in reading and mathematics. These two curriculum areas only, comprise what is tested in to ascertain pupil progress. All pupils are to be "proficient" in reading and mathematics by the year 2014. These curriculum areas are necessary for all to reveal optimum achievement. The others appear to be peripheral. Standardized tests have the same subject matter and the same time limits for their taking. All conditions are to be kept the same for all pupils regardless of ability levels, or handicaps possessed. Since objective test items only, are used in standardized tests, machine scoring is possible of mass numbers of tests. Answers are either right or wrong. Pupils fill in the bubble on the answer sheet for what is perceived to be the correct answer. Test results may indicate what percentile rank the child is on. They might also indicate achievement with a grade equivalent. Measurement theory emphasizes: * precision of test results with an exact numeral; * pupils compared with each other in terms of percentile ranks or grade equivalents; * schools and school districts being compared; * failing schools being identifiable, using test results; and * a single test providing proof of achievement or lack thereof. Standardized tests indicate a form of behaviorism with its uniformity of conditions for test taking, numerical test results, and interpretation of achievement. The late B. F. Skinner with his advocacy of programmed learning developed tenets of behaviorism. Dr. Skinner believed that all subject matter could be broken up into component parts, no matter how complex the original content. Thus, the inherent ideas might be simplified in order to have a starting point for the learner. The pupil then reads a sentence or more from the programmed textbook or computer screen. In sequence, the pupil responds to a multiple choice test item. If correct, the pupil feels rewarded. If incorrect, the pupil sees the correct answer and is also ready to read the succeeding content followed again with a response to a multiple choice test item, and then evaluation to notice if the answer given was correct. The program emphasizes read, respond, and check sequentially and continually. Dr. Skinner believed that pupils make few errors when pursuing a program. With good programs, a pupil should be successful ninety five percent of the time in responses given. Each program moves forward very slowly in complexity of ideas presented. Pupils make few errors in pursuing a program. The pupil knows immediately if he/she is correct in responding to a test item covering content read. If an incorrect answer was given, the pupil sees the correct answer on the monitor. …


This paper applies the methodology of Ravallion and Chen in calculating growth incidence curves for Ireland over the 2003-2011 period, using measures of equivalised disposable income from the Survey of Income and Living Conditions (SILC). These curves provide an indication of growth at different percentiles of the distribution and may be used to address the issue of whether growth was pro-poor or not. The analysis suggests that growth was broadly propoor over the period as a whole and also over two sub-periods of 2003-2007 and 2008-2011, reflecting periods of boom and recession respectively. However, the results must be qualified by the fact that the income measure may not completely capture living standards as it deals incompletely with housing costs and state provided services.


Vice President Joseph Biden last week vowed to tackle "cancer politics" during an unusual roundtable at the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Sitting alongside leading oncologists and National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, Biden elaborated on his plans for the cancer "moonshot" that President Barack Obama had highlighted 3 days earlier in the State of the Union address. Biden9s goal is to catalyze greater investment, coordination, and collaboration in a field marked by multiple initiatives, targeting a complex of many different diseases. He has already consulted with some 200 cancer experts worldwide and is planning to set up a task force. Although detail about the initiative is scarce, Biden9s interest is energizing the cancer research community.


Increasing the precision in timetable planning is a key success factor for all infrastructure managers, since it allows us to minimize delay propagation without reducing usable capacity. Since most running time calculation models are based on standard and deterministic parameters an imprecision is implicitly included, which has to be compensated by running time supplements. At the same time, GPS or even more precise trackings are continuously stored in the event recorders of most European trains. Unfortunately, this large amount of data is normally stored but not used except for failure and maintenance management. To consider real running time variability in running time calculation, an approach has been developed, which allows us to calibrate a performance factor for each motion phase. Given the standard motion equation of a train, and a mesoscopic model of the line, the tool uses a simulated annealing optimisation algorithm to find the best regression between calculated and measured instant speed. To increase precision, the motion is divided into four phases: acceleration, braking at stops, braking for speed reductions/signals and cruising. By performing the procedure over a number of train runnings, a distribution of each performance parameter is obtained. Once the infrastructure model is defined and the trackings are imported, the procedure is completely automated. The approach can be used in both stochastic simulation models and as a basis for advanced timetable planning tools, where stochastic instead of deterministic running times are used. The tool has been tested in the north-eastern part of Italy as input for both running time calculation and microscopic simulation.


This article demonstrates that views about the commoditization of algorithms and the irrelevance of market forecasts are incorrect. The role of forecasts within algorithms is examined, indicating how they directly affect performance. Specific characteristics of high frequency market data that are problematic for conventional approaches are identified, indicating where improvements can be made. Using volume forecasting and VWAP algorithms as an example, it is shown that improving the quality of the forecast significantly improves performance and reduces risk. We demonstrate consistent reductions in average forecasting error ranging from 20% to 33%. These result directly translate into gains in VWAP performance between 19% and 25% with reductions risk of nearly 41%. Since VWAP algorithms are relatively simple in their use of forecasts, it is clear that the link between forecasting accuracy and execution performance generalizes to other classes of algorithms. The implication for algorithm users is that algorithms are not commodities, and that a primary differentiating factor is the quality of the underlying forecasting technologies.


The determination of the class number of totally real fields of large discriminant is known to be a difficult problem. The Minkowski bound is too large to be useful, and the root discriminant of the field can be too large to be treated by Odlyzko's discriminant bounds. We describe a new technique for determining the class number of such fields, allowing us to attack the class number problem for a large class of number fields not treatable by previously known methods. We give an application to Weber's class number problem, which is the conjecture that all real cyclotomic fields of power of 2 conductor have class number 1.


Evaluation methods for information retrieval systems come in three types: offline evaluation, using static data sets annotated for relevance by human judges; user studies, usually conducted in a lab-based setting; and online evaluation, using implicit signals such as clicks from actual users. For the latter, preferences between rankers are typically inferred from implicit signals via interleaved comparison methods, which combine a pair of rankings and display the result to the user. We propose a new approach to online evaluation called multileaved comparisons that is useful in the prevalent case where designers are interested in the relative performance of more than two rankers. Rather than combining only a pair of rankings, multileaved comparisons combine an arbitrary number of rankings. The resulting user clicks then give feedback about how all these rankings compare to each other. We propose two specific multileaved comparison methods. The first, called team draft multileave, is an extension of team draft interleave. The second, called optimized multileave, is an extension of optimized interleave and is designed to handle cases where a large number of rankers must be multileaved. We present experimental results that demonstrate that both team draft multileave and optimized multileave can accurately determine all pairwise preferences among a set of rankers using far less data than the interleaving methods that they extend.


We derive for a pair of operators on a symplectic space which are adjoints of each other with respect to the symplectic form (that is, they are sympletically adjoint) that, if they are bounded for some scalar product on the symplectic space dominating the symplectic form, then they are bounded with respect to a one-parametric family of scalar products canonically associated with the initially given one, among them being its "purification". As a typical example we consider a scalar field on a globally hyperbolic spacetime governed by the Klein–Gordon equation; the classical system is described by a symplectic space and the temporal evolution by symplectomorphisms (which are symplectically adjoint to their inverses). A natural scalar product is that inducing the classical energy norm, and an application of the above result yields that its "purification" induces on the one-particle space of the quantized system a topology which coincides with that given by the two-point functions of quasifree Hadamard states. These findings will be shown to lead to new results concerning the structure of the local (von Neumann) observable-algebras in representations of quasifree Hadamard states of the Klein–Gordon field in an arbitrary globally hyperbolic spacetime, such as local definiteness, local primarity and Haag-duality (and also split- and type III1-properties). A brief review of this circle of notions, as well as of properties of Hadamard states, forms part of the article.


Previous work (in i960) at Nosy Be, in northwestern Madagascar, resulted in the collection by dredging of the antipatharian Stichopathes echinulata Brook parasitized by the copepod Vahinius petax Humes, 1967. More recently (in 1964 and 1967) I have obtained by SCUBA diving several other antipatharians with which the copepods described below were associated. The collection in 1964 was made as part of the U. S. Program in Biology of the International Indian Ocean Expedition. The collections in 1967 were made during field work supported by a grant (GB-5838) from the National Science Foundation of the United States. The study of the copepods has been aided by the same N. S. F. grant. All figures have been drawn with the aid of a camera lucida. The letter after the explanation of each figure refers to the scale at which it was drawn. The abbreviations used are: Ax = first antenna, A2 = second antenna, R = rostrum, L = labrum, MD = mandible, Ρ = paragnath, ΜΧχ = first maxilla, MX2 = second maxilla, MXPD = maxilliped, and Pi = leg ι. The measurements of the length of the body have been made in all cases from specimens in lactic acid and do not include the setae on the caudal rami. In the spine and setal formulas for legs 1 to 4 the Roman numerals indicate spines and the Arabic numerals represent setae. The lengths of the segments of the first antenna have been measured along their posterior non-setiferous margins. I am greatly indebted to Dr. W. Vervoort of the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie, Leiden, for the identifications of the several species of Antipathes, and to Dr. Elisabeth Deichmann of the Museum of Comparative


This book chapter deals with the generation of auditory-inspired spectro-temporal features aimed at audio coding. To do so, we first generate sparse audio representations we call spikegrams, using projections on gammatone or gammachirp kernels that generate neural spikes. Unlike Fourier-based representations, these representations are powerful at identifying auditory events, such as onsets, offsets, transients and harmonic structures. We show that the introduction of adaptiveness in the selection of gammachirp kernels enhances the compression rate compared to the case where the kernels are non-adaptive. We also integrate a masking model that helps reduce bitrate without loss of perceptible audio quality. We then quantize coding values using the genetic algorithm that is more optimal than uniform quantization for this framework. We finally propose a method to extract frequent auditory objects (patterns) in the aforementioned sparse representations. The extracted frequency-domain patterns (auditory objects) help us address spikes (auditory events) collectively rather than individually. When audio compression is needed, the different patterns are stored in a small codebook that can be used to efficiently encode audio materials in a lossless way. The approach is applied to different audio signals and results are discussed and compared. This work is a first step towards the design of a high-quality auditory-inspired "object-based" audio coder.


Language model pretraining has led to significant performance gains but careful comparison between different approaches is challenging. Training is computationally expensive, often done on private datasets of different sizes, and, as we will show, hyperparameter choices have significant impact on the final results. We present a replication study of BERT pretraining (Devlin et al., 2019) that carefully measures the impact of many key hyperparameters and training data size. We find that BERT was significantly undertrained, and can match or exceed the performance of every model published after it. Our best model achieves state-of-the-art results on GLUE, RACE and SQuAD. These results highlight the importance of previously overlooked design choices, and raise questions about the source of recently reported improvements. We release our models and code.


Assisted colonisations are increasingly being used to recover endangered or functionally extinct species. High quality habitat at release sites is known to improve the success of assisted colonisations, but defining high quality habitat can be challenging when species no longer inhabit their historical range. A partial solution to this problem is to quantify habitat use at release sites, and use results to inform assisted colonisation in the future. In this study, we quantified habitat use by the eastern barred bandicoot Perameles gunnii, functionally extinct on the Australian mainland, immediately after translocation to an island ecosystem. The release site, Churchill Island in Westernport, Victoria, Australia, has a mix of open woodlands and open pasture, providing a range of habitat conditions considered appropriate for nesting and foraging. A total of 16 bandicoots were radio-tracked for 30 d immediately post-release. Early survivorship was high (94%), with males found to have larger home ranges and move greater distances from their first nest than females. Males and females initially used structurally complex habitats for nesting and foraging; as they became more established, males moved further from their release point and both sexes increased their use of open habitats during nightly activity. Female home ranges had limited overlap, suggesting intra-sexual territoriality. Males exhibited larger overlapping home ranges. Our results assist in quantifying habitat use of bandicoots immediately post-release and will be used to inform future assisted colonisations of the species to larger islands, in the presence of feral cats.


Cholera toxin (CT) is a secreted bacterial toxin that binds to glycoconjugate receptors on the surface of mammalian cells, enters mammalian cells through endocytic mechanisms and intoxicates mammalian cells by activating cytosolic adenylate cyclase. CT recognizes cell surface receptors through its B subunit (CTB). While the ganglioside GM1 has been historically described as the sole receptor, CTB is also capable of binding to fucosylated glycoconjugates, and fucosylated molecules have been shown to play a functional role in host cell intoxication by CT. Here, we use colonic epithelial and respiratory epithelial cell lines to examine how two types of CT receptors—gangliosides and fucosylated glycoconjugates—contribute to CTB internalization. We show that fucosylated glycoconjugates contribute to CTB binding to and internalization into host cells, even when the ganglioside GM1 is present. The contributions of the two classes of receptors to CTB internalization depend on cell type. Additionally, in a cell line that harbours both classes of receptors, gangliosides dictate the efficiency of CTB internalization. Together, the results lend support to the idea that fucosylated glycoconjugates play a functional role in CTB internalization, and suggest that CT internalization depends on both receptor identity and cell type.


The Barents Sea hosts multiple source rocks from Palaeozoic to Cretaceous age. Attempts in the past to link individual oil and condensates directly to one type of source rock have often been complicated due to 'blended-oil' signatures. As a result of uplift, remigration, alteration and mixing of petroleums, deconvolution of primary petroleum signatures in terms of maturity, age and depositional environment is generally complicated. In this paper, we use δ13C isotopes, and age- and source-related biomarkers to line out the main basin-scale trends concerning the depositional environments and source-rock ages, as well as the type of organic matter input that constitutes the inferred source-rock kerogen. Multivariate statistical analysis was applied as an auxillary tool to suggest petroleum families. Results classify the petroleums into four families: (1) Permian–Triassic-sourced petroleums; (2) Carboniferous-sourced petroleums; (3) Jurassic-sourced petroleums; and (4) phase-fractionated condensates charged from late mature Triassic–Jurassic source rocks. The inferred palaeo-environments for the petroleums cover marine, transitional and terrestrial depositional environments, and display geological variations that prevailed during Permian–Jurassic times. Isotope signatures and age-specific parameters suggest that many oils in the region should be considered as blends or mixtures derived from more than one source rock.


Tinnitus mechanisms remain poorly understood. Our previous functional MRI (fMRI) studies demonstrated an abnormal hyperactivity in the right parietal operculum 3 (OP3) in acoustic trauma tinnitus and during provoked phantom sound perceptions without hearing loss, which lead us to propose a new model of tinnitus. This new model is not directly linked with hearing loss and primary auditory cortex abnormalities, but with a proprioceptive disturbance related to middle-ear muscles. In the present study, a seed-based resting-state functional MRI method was used to explore the potential abnormal connectivity of this opercular region between an acoustic trauma tinnitus group presenting slight to mild tinnitus and a control group. Primary auditory cortex seeds were also explored because they were thought to be directly involved in tinnitus in most current models. In such a model, hearing loss and tinnitus handicap were confounding factors and were therefore regressed in our analysis. Between-groups comparisons showed a significant specific connectivity between the right OP3 seeds and the potential human homologue of the premotor ear-eye field (H-PEEF) bilaterally and the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) in the tinnitus group. Our findings suggest the existence of a simultaneous premotor ear-eye disturbance in tinnitus that could lift the veil on unexplained subclinical abnormalities in oculomotor tests found in tinnitus patients with normal vestibular responses. The present work confirms the involvement of the OP3 subregion in acoustic trauma tinnitus and provides some new clues to explain its putative mechanisms.


Background: Successful treatment of cutaneous melanoma depends on early and accurate diagnosis of clinically suspicious melanocytic skin lesions. Multiple international studies have described the challenge of providing accurate and reproducible histopathological assessments of melanocytic lesions, highlighting the need for new diagnostic tools including disease-specific biomarkers. Previously, a 38-microRNA signature ("MEL38") was identified in melanoma patient plasma and validated as a novel biomarker. In this study, MEL38 expression in solid tissue biopsies representing the benign naevi to metastatic melanoma spectrum is examined. Methods: Nanostring digital gene expression assessment of the MEL38 signature was performed on 308 formalin fixed paraffin embedded biopsies of naevi, melanoma in-situ and invasive melanoma. Genomic data were interrogated using hierarchical clustering, univariate, and multivariate statistical approaches. Classification scores computed from the MEL38 signature were analysed for their association with demographic data and histopathology results, including MPATH-DX class, AJCC disease stage and tissue subtype. Results: The MEL38 score can stratify higher-risk melanomas (MPATH-Dx Class V or more advanced) from lower-risk skin lesions (Class I-IV) with an area-under-the curve of 0.97 (P<0.001). The genomic score ranges from 0 to 10 and is positively correlated with melanoma progression, with an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.85 with stage 0 to IV disease. Using an optimised classification threshold of ≥2.7 accurately identifies higher-risk melanomas, associated with poorer outcomes and more intensive suggested clinical actions with 89% sensitivity and 94% specificity. Multivariate analysis showed the score to be a significant predictor of malignancy, independent of technical and clinical covariates. Application of the MEL38 signature to spitz naevi reveal an intra-subtype profile, with elements of the profile in common to both naevi and melanoma. Conclusion: Melanoma-specific circulating microRNAs maintain their association with malignancy when measured in the hypothesized tissue of origin. The MEL38 signature is an accurate and reproducible metric of melanoma status, based on changes in microRNA expression that occur as the disease develops and spreads. Inclusion of the MEL38 score into routine practice would provide physicians with previously unavailable, personalised genomic information about their patient's skin lesions. Combining molecular biomarker data with conventional histopathology data may improve diagnostic accuracy, healthcare resource utilisation, and patient outcomes.


As the growth of protests directed at the Group of 20 has shown, world economies are becoming increasingly globalized in ways that create both opportunities and anxieties. Globalization manifests itself in many sectors of the economy, including increased trade in products, services, and ideas, the movement of factors of production such as capital and labor, and the movement of productive activities across international borders. One of the most closely watched of these patterns is the migration of highly-educated people across international borders, most commonly from relatively poor source countries towards relatively wealthy receiving countries. That migration is seen as an opportunity for the migrants themselves, but migration is viewed with more ambivalence by both the governments and residents of the source and receiving countries. This article examines patterns of recent emigration of the highly-educated from developing countries--the "brain drain"--and places that migration in the context of economic and policy analysis. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Brain Drain Today The modern era of mass migration to the wealthy countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is probably best dated to the 1960s when the United States ended 40 years of restrictive immigration policy and began admitting many more immigrants from a much wider range of countries. In recent years, the United States has admitted an average of about one million immigrants per year, with immigrants from Asia and Latin America accounting for about 80 percent of that total. While Canada and Australia have been primary destinations for international immigrants for decades and immigration from poor countries to Europe has increased substantially in the past three decades, the United States continues to play an important role in worldwide migration because of the many immigrants it accepts and because of the large number of countries that send emigrants to the United States. US immigration policy prioritizes family reunification, but it has also included preferences for immigrants with specialized skills, through the modern H1-B program, for example. Other countries, particularly Australia and Canada, have been more aggressive in their effort to recruit and their policies have led them to admit disproportionate numbers of highly skilled immigrants. The large flows of skated immigration to Australia and Canada have been facilitated by both countries' use of a point system that makes prospective immigrants' admission easier if they possess specialized technical skills that are viewed as in short supply. Australia, for example, considers a prospective immigrant's age, level of schooling, work experience, English language ability, and occupational background in its skilled immigrant program. Doctors, engineers, mechanics, and carpenters are among the occupations viewed favorably in the Australian immigration process. One example of these policies' effects is that Vancouver, Canada was the destination for many highly-skilled immigrants from Hong Kong in the years leading up to the 1997 Change of Hong Kong from British to Chinese sovereignty. Some European countries, such as Germany, are increasing their use of education and skill as criteria in their immigration admission policies. Thus, the policies of receiving countries facilitate the emigration of highly-educated, highly-skilled workers from developing countries, though the United States pursues that strategy less vigorously than do many other receiving countries. Who's Leaving: Examples of High Brain Drain Emigration Rates by Country of Origin and Education Level, for Selected Developing Countries, 2000 Tertiary-educated Primary-educated Western Hemisphere Haiti 70.4 5.8 Guyana 77.8 25.7 Africa Belize 59.5 10.7 Congo 38. …


Recent studies show that volatility-managed equity portfolios realize higher Sharpe ratios than portfolios with a constant notional exposure. The authors show that this result only holds for risk assets, such as equity and credit, and they link this finding to the so-called leverage effect for those assets. In contrast, for bonds, currencies, and commodities, the impact of volatility targeting on the Sharpe ratio is negligible. However, the impact of volatility targeting goes beyond the Sharpe ratio: It reduces the likelihood of extreme returns across all asset classes. Particularly relevant for investors, left-tail events tend to be less severe because they typically occur at times of elevated volatility, when a target-volatility portfolio has a relatively small notional exposure. We also consider the popular 60–40 equity–bond balanced portfolio and an equity–bond–credit–commodity risk parity portfolio. Volatility scaling at both the asset and portfolio level improves Sharpe ratios and reduces the likelihood of tail events.


Journal paper is a scholarly document, a sound judgment of a scholar on a particular subject matter. It is a concise, clear and accurate report; discussing a problem and its solution achieved through rigorous, valid methodology. It is not an aggregate of anecdotal evidences gathered by a researcher. Scientific publishing is a rigorous effort of writing facts derived from a valid methodology. The information is accurate and current: relevant to the discipline of knowledge. Inasmuch, publishing is an act of disseminating of the knowledge to peers. Scholarly journals are actively involved in the creation and diffusion of knowledge. The function of a journal is a function of how useful it is a source of knowledge.


We provide concrete evidence that floating-point computations in C programs can be verified in a homogeneous verification setting based on Coq only, by evaluating the practicality of the combination of the formal semantics of CompCert Clight and the Flocq formal specification of IEEE 754 floating-point arithmetic for the verification of properties of floating-point computations in C programs. To this end, we develop a framework to automatically compute real-number expressions of C floating-point computations with rounding error terms along with their correctness proofs. We apply our framework to the complete analysis of an energy-efficient C implementation of a radar image processing algorithm, for which we provide a certified bound on the total noise introduced by floating-point rounding errors and energy-efficient approximations of square root and sine.


Conclusions The NATO enlargement process faces two dangers. The first is that enlargement will proceed too fast. If we move too fast, enlargement could upset a very delicate political process underway in Russia. This has been Europe's concern this year. The other danger is that if we slow the process too much, we will lose momentum and the process will stall. This may be Europe's concern next year. NATO needs an enlargement plan that sails deftly between this Scylla and Charybdis. What Can We Learn from History? History teaches us the importance of Central and Eastern Europe to world peace. Two World Wars and the Cold War were fought this century primarily over the territory between Germany and Russia. There have been four previous enlargements of NATO. The lesson is that previously countries either have joined in steps or with conditions. * Greece and Turkey joined in 1952, but they became associate members before becoming full members. * West Germany joined in 1955, but at first it joined indirectly via the Western Union. * Spain joined in 1982 but it has not yet joined the integrated military command. * East Germany joined in 1990 when it united with West Germany, but NATO deployments in the former East Germany are initially limited. Recent history tells us that the U.S./NATO decision to enlarge was made in phases and without a clear consensus: * l993 was a year of deliberation in the U.S. Government, mostly in the State Department. Both State and the National Security Council were split internally on the issue. Momentum for enlargement was reversed temporarily by Russian events of October l993. This cleared the way for Partnership for Peace (PFP) to become the centerpiece for the January 1994 summit. * 1994 was a year of decision. The January NATO summit in Brussels created the PFP and it opened the door for enlargement. Richard Holbrooke became Assistant Secretary of State and championed enlargement. President Clinton travelled to Warsaw that July and declared in a speech that enlargement was not a matter of whether, but when. The December 1994 Ministerial commissioned a NATO study on the "why and how" of enlargement, and a sense of momentum was created. * 1995 is the year of the Russian reaction. It actually started in November 1994 with President Boris Yeltsin's "Cold Peace" speech in Budapest which was followed by Russia's unwillingness to sign its Individual Partnership Program (IPP) and to implement its cooperation plans with NATO. While the Russian reaction was modified at the May l995 Moscow summit and Noordwijk meeting, their opposition continues. Partnership for Peace a Success In less than two years, PFP has become a true success. It is no longer seen by most partners as a second best alternative to NATO membership, but as a practical way to modernize their armed forces and to become more interoperable with NATO forces. Twenty-six new partner countries have joined PFP and they are beginning the process of self-differentiation. Sixteen have liaison officers at SHAPE's Partnership Coordination Cell (PCC); and the PCC together with Russian liaison officers participated in planning for the Bosnia IFOR deployment. Fourteen countries are participating in the PFP Planning and Review Process which provides a high degree of military transparency. The United States has committed $100 million to support PFP activities. Militarily, PFP countries have participated in numerous exercises and significant military events. But PFP is still somewhat schizophrenic. Some see it as a prep school for NATO--others see it as a lasting institution which will perform peacekeeping, humanitarian, and search and rescue functions. So Why Enlarge? There are at least four reasons why NATO enlargement has emerged as U.S. policy. The reasons can be personified in four individuals. …


Procellariiform seabirds (petrels, albatrosses and shearwaters) navigate vast distances over seemingly featureless ocean habitat by mechanisms that are not well understood. These birds have large olfactory bulbs, and the use of smell has been implicated in both foraging and homing behavior. While many olfactory cues relevant to these behaviors have been identified, ammonia is a potentially significant, biogenic, scented compound that has not been studied in this context. Ammonium (NH4+) constitutes a primary waste product produced by many of the prey species on which procellariiforms forage. Nitrogen waste products, including volatilized ammonia (NH3) also scent the terrestrial landscape of sub-Antarctic islands where newly breeding procellariiform seabirds recruit and raise their young. Since an ability to smell ammonia may be relevant to both prey detection and locating colonies or islands, we used a non-invasive, behavioral assay to examine whether this scented compound is detectable by a candidate test species, the blue petrel Halobaena caerulea Gmelin. Our results suggest that these birds can detect volatilized ammonia within a concentration range that they may naturally encounter (10(-11) to 10(-5) M), and point to ammonia as a potential signal molecule in the sub-Antarctic.


Secret shopping is a form of unobtrusive evaluation that can be accomplished with minimal effort, but still produce rich results. With as few as 11 shoppers, the author was able to identify trends in user satisfaction with services provided across two entry-level desks at Illinois Wesleyan University's The Ames Library. The focus of this secret shopping program was on user experiences rather than whether correct answers were given by student employees working at the desks. Overall, users were satisfied or very satisfied with their experiences, though user feedback identified one desk as providing consistently better service.


San Francisco recently adopted the broadest ban on polystyrene foam items in the U.S. As of Jan. 1, 2017, a new city ordinance halts sales of meat trays, egg cartons, plates, cups, packing peanuts, coolers, pool toys, and dock floats made of expanded polystyrene foam. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors cited the contribution of polystyrene foam to plastic pollution in waterways, adding that the material cannot be composted and is difficult or impossible to recycle. In recent years, San Francisco and several other large cities across the U.S. have banned carryout food and beverage containers made of the plastic foam.


The crisis which originated in the US financial sector in 2007 and subsequently spread to the real economy caused severe economic and social damage around the world. Governments have responded by providing fiscal support to the economy, undertaking exceptional monetary policy measures and introducing programmes targeted to vulnerable groups. In addition, considerable efforts have been made to recapitalise banks. Important as they are, these measures do not tackle the deeper influence of financial markets and institutions in the operation of the real economy. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the need for reforms in this neglected area. The paper confirms the finding of the World of Work Report 2009 that the financial sector has grown beyond reasonable boundaries and its practices have spread to the nonfinancial economy. For example, in the last 20 years, financial sector's share of total corporate profits doubled, reaching as high as 44 per cent in 2002. The study also demonstrates that in the United States, the growing influence of the financial sector has led to a reduction in the share of business investment as a percent of value added by as much as 2 percentage points in the last three decades. More research is needed to shed further light on the causal linkages and to identify the reforms that could help ensure that the financial sector encourages investment --thereby growth and employment-rather than hurting it. However, the finding of this paper is suggestive and important for today's debate on sustainable crisis responses.


A television programme in Thames Television's TV eye' series gave a detailed account of a day's road accidents and illustrated the effects that accidents can have on those involved and on their relatives. Audience reactions to this programme were studied. The programme was seen by some 8.7 million people: questions to drivers showed that few of those who did not see it had deliberately chosen not to do so because of the topic. Those who saw the programme were asked how likely they felt it was that they would, in the future, be involved in a serious accident as a driver; they thought that this was more likely to happen than non-viewers did, and more so than a cross-section of drivers did before the programme. Those who saw the programme were somewhat more likely to mention pedestrians and motorcyclists among accident causes than those who did not see it and accidents to these road users had featured strongly in the programme. The programme seems to have had some success in achieving its aim of bringing home the waste of life. The study supports evidence about TV commercials by confirming that when a considerable amount of time is devoted to road safety on TV, this can bring about changes among the audience of the kind desired. (Author/TRRL)


Cost-efficient business contingency and continuity planning for a post-9/11 and Katrina world Disasters can happen. Contingency plans are necessary. But how detailed and expensive do your contingency and continuity plans really need to be? Employing a thoroughly practical approach, Business Continuity Strategies: Protecting Against Unplanned Disasters, Third Edition provides a proven methodology for implementing a realistic and cost-efficient business contingency program. Kenneth Myers--an internationally recognized contingency planning specialist--shows corporate leaders how to prepare a logical "what if" plan that would enable an organization to retain market share, service customers, and maintain cash flow if a disaster occurs. Completely updated throughout to reflect lessons learned from 9/11 and hurricanes Katrina and Wilma, Business Continuity Strategies, Third Edition helps cost-conscious senior management: * Establish a corporate contingency program policy and strategy that ensures timely completion of a plan, with minimal disruption to operations * Minimize plan development costs * Understand the importance of conducting briefings to communicate the proper mindset before the program development process begins * Save time and money by avoiding a consultant's traditional approach of extensive information-gathering that contributes little to the development of practical solutions, but much in the way of consultant fees Addressing countless hypothetical disaster scenarios doesn't make good business sense. Business Continuity Strategies, Third Edition helps companies focus on what is necessary to survive a natural catastrophe, workplace violence, or a terrorist attack.


This article outlines a socio-political theory appropriate for the study of the ecological repercussions of contemporary media technologies. More specifically, this approach provides a means of assessing the material impacts of media technologies and the representations of capitalist ecological crises. This approach builds on the work of ecological economists, ecosocialist scholars, and Marx's writings on the conditions of production to argue that capitalism necessarily results in ecological destabilization. Taking Apple's 2016 Environmental Responsibility Report as a case study, the article uses the theory to analyze Apple's responses to ecological crises. The article asserts that Apple's reactions are emblematic of the capitalist compulsion for increasing rates of productivity. However, unless the matter/energy savings achieved through higher rates of productivity surpass the overall increase in the flow of matter/energy in production, ecological crises will continue. Ultimately, capital accumulation ensures continued ecological destabilization.


We focus on packet video delivery, with an emphasis on the quality of service perceived by the end user. A video signal passes through several subsystems, such as the source coder, the network (ATM or Internet), and the decoder. Each of these can impair the information, either by data loss or by introducing delay. We describe how each of the subsystems can be tuned to optimize the quality of the delivered signal, for a given available bit rate in the network. The assessment of end-user quality is not trivial. We present research results, which rely on a model of the human visual system.


Morphine sulfate is a commonly prescribed drug for the relief of pain. This study investigated the dissolution profile of extemporaneously prepared slow-release morphine-sulfate capsules and MS Contin (Purdue Frederick, Norwalk, CT). Extemporaneously prepared capsules obtained from one pharmacist were compared with MS Contin tablets. In addition, we compared capsules prepared by 15 different pharmacists and three different batches prepared by the same phaarmacist. A dissolution test was used to generate the dissolution profile for drug products. The compounded capsules demonstrated a slow-release profile that was similar to the commercial preparation except that the morphine sulfate was released at a faster rate. The zero-order dissolution rate constant (k0, milligrams/hour) was calculated from the dissolution profiles. Statistical analysis of k0 showed that caapsules prepared extemporaneously by pharmacist one showed a faster dissolution compared to MS Contin (p=0.0368); the difference was a rate of 0.81 mg/hour during the first four hours. When variability among compounding pharmacists was compared, only one batch of compounded capsules prepared from 15 different pharmacies showed a significantly different rate of morphine release. When reproducibility by a single pharmacist was examined, capsules showed some variation from batch to batch (p=0.05). Although variation was seen from one pharmacy to another and even between different batches made by the same pharmacist, the compounded capsules showed a remarkably consistent in vitro slow-release profile.


BACKGROUND
Congenital chylous ascites is a rare condition that constitutes a challenge for the physician. It is defined as the accumulation of chyle into the peritoneal cavity in infants younger than 3 months. This condition is often refractory to therapy and it is responsible for serious malnutrition and immunological deficiency because of the loss of proteins and lymphocytes.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Four cases of congenital neonatal chylous ascites, were treated by our staff during the last two years. One case was treated conservatively and three with laparotomy. Two of them had intraabdominal cysts that were excised and one was treated with ligation of the left lumbar lymphatic trunk and cisterna chyli and the use of fibrin glue.

RESULTS
All four cases were treated successfully. On follow up tests no one showed recurrence of the ascites. All children, except the one that treated conservatively and also had other problems due to prematurity, are growing up normally.

CONCLUSIONS
Congenital chylous ascites is a complex condition. Its diagnostic evaluation is difficult and its therapy of long duration. Conservative treatment is in most cases the initial choice, but when it fails, exploratory laparotomy could provide a successful alternative.


This paper reports the results of an archaeological survey and test excavation conducted in one of the ancient megalithic stele sites in south Ethiopia, Sakaro Sodo. The Sakaro Sodo stele site is situated in Gedeo zone, which is known to have the largest number and highest concentration of megalithic stele monuments in Africa, with an estimate of more than 10,000 stelae in sixty or more sites. Prior to our work, only one absolute date was available (850 ± 40 BP) (Joussaume 2012) from a stele site in the Gedeo zone, suggesting stele sites began to be constructed in the region approximately a millennium ago. We report here new AMS dates suggesting that stelae were being emplaced about 2000 BP, pushing the creation of these monuments back at least a millennium. Additionally, we report preliminary findings from characterizing the geochemical properties of obsidian artifacts recovered from stele sites, and stone used to make stelae. While compositional analysis of obsidian suggests long-distance movement of material from sources located in northern Kenya, petrographic microscopy and electron microprobe analyses show a strong connection of stelae to local geological tuff exposures/sources.


We have developed simple, cost efficient and environmentally benign protocol for the synthesis of 5-substituted 1H-tetrazole via [2+3] cyclo addition reaction from organic nitrile and sodium azide in refluxing DMF by using heterogeneous catalyst as MTSA (Melamine tri sulphonic acid). The corresponding 5-substituted 1H-tetrazole were obtained in lower yield but when using silica supported MTSA the yield obtained 85% in 6 h. After completion of the reaction, the catalyst was recovered by filtration and reused with only a slight decrease of activity observed under the same reaction conditions. Various aliphatic and aromatic nitrile converted in corresponding 5-substituted 1H-tetrazole in excellent yield without any contamination.


This introduction to the special issue celebrates the 30th anniversary of the publication of Sugimori et al. (Sugimori, Y., Kusunoki, K., Cho, F. and Uchikawa, S., Toyota production system and Kanban system: materialisation of just-in-time and respect-for-human system. Int. J. Prod. Res., 1977, 15(6), 553–564), the first extensive description of the Toyota Production System (TPS) to be published in English. After some initial discussion of the TPS, this article reviews three important issues regarding the context of the original paper: the West's growing interest in Japanese manufacturing; the preoccupation with information technology as the future of production; and, concerns with job design and motivation. The Sugimori paper is then analysed in these terms, focusing on the technical and human elements of the TPS. The article closes with an introduction to the other papers in the special issue.


Research Summary: Communities represent an important facet of restorative justice; yet few studies have empirically evaluated the influence that community characteristics have on reintegrative programs. In this study, I use official juvenile court data from an urban, metropolitan county in Arizona and Census data to examine how individual- and community-level data influence the selection of offenders to a restorative justice program. To examine the effectiveness of the restorative justice program and to determine if program impact varies by community, recidivism is modeled with individual- and community-level data. FINDINGS indicate individual and community characteristics are important predictors of restorative justice program placement. Also, juveniles who successfully completed the restorative justice program were less likely to recidivate than were juveniles in a comparison group. Recidivism results show no variation of program impact across communities. Policy Implications: Study findings demonstrate the importance of incorporating community-level data in studies of restorative justice. Restorative justice programs must be sensitive to local, community characteristics and ensure that reintegration efforts do not exclude offenders in need. The successful reintegration process experienced by juveniles who participated in the restorative justice programs is clearly reflective of program effectiveness. KEYWORDS: Juvenile justice; Language: en


Biofiltration, a simple technique involving microorganisms supported on a solid matrix, offers an attractive solution for the removal of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The removal of benzene, toluene and xylene (model VOCs) in vapour phase has been compared individually in the present study using three biofilters. These biofilters were operated at different flow rates and concentrations (<2.7g m–3), to achieve different loading rates of these pollutants. Removal efficiencies greater than 80% for toluene and between 70–82% for benzene and xylene, respectively, were obtained. The maximum VOC elimination capacity in the biofilter ranged between 52–107g m–3 h–1 for benzene, toluene or xylene under the tested condition. High removal efficiencies over the entire range of operating conditions proved the effectiveness and reliability of the biofilter for industrial applications.


Commentary: A New Zealand broadcast journalist of 25 years' experience comes under fire from former colleagues after joining the environmental campaigning organisation Greenpeace. The ensuing criticism provides insight into how the mainstream media views itself and how sensitive it might be to any perceived threat to its credibility. It opens up an argument about what constitutes a 'journalist' in a contemporary context.  A troubling epoch for journalists facing tight newsroom budgets, news trivialisation, fragmented media spheres and dwindling public confidence in the profession. This commentary examines the argument for new terminology to describe the kind of investigative journalism which might be practised within non-government organisations (NGOs) for a mainly digital audience. It also challenges views on objectivity and bias, positing whether advocacy journalism with strict ethical guidelines produced from within an organisation with a known agenda, may serve the public interest more ably than a fragmented mainstream journalism compromised by less obvious biases.


Since 2000, more than twenty countries around the world have held elections in which parties that espouse a political agenda based on an Islamic worldview have competed for legislative seats. Islamist Parties and Political Normalization in the Muslim World examines the impact these parties have had on the political process in two different areas of the world with large Muslim populations: the Middle East and Asia. The book's contributors examine major cases of Islamist party evolution and participation in democratic and semidemocratic systems in Turkey, Morocco, Yemen, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Bangladesh. Collectively they articulate a theoretical framework to understand the strategic behavior of Islamist parties, including the characteristics that distinguish them from other types of political parties, how they relate to other parties as potential competitors or collaborators, how ties to broader Islamist movements may affect party behavior in elections, and how participation in an electoral system can affect the behavior and ideology of an Islamist party over time. Through this framework, the contributors observe a general tendency in Islamist politics. Although Islamist parties represent diverse interests and behaviors that are tied to their particular domestic contexts, through repeated elections they often come to operate less as antiestablishment parties and more in line with the political norms of the regimes in which they compete. While a few parties have deliberately chosen to remain on the fringes of their political system, most have found significant political rewards in changing their messages and behavior to attract more centrist voters. As the impact of the Arab Spring continues to be felt, Islamist Parties and Political Normalization in the Muslim World offers a nuanced and timely perspective of Islamist politics in broader global context. Contributors: Wenling Chan, Julie Chernov Hwang, Joseph Chinyong Liow, Driss Maghraoui, Quinn Mecham, Ali Riaz, Murat Somer, Stacey Philbrick Yadav, Saloua Zerhouni.


The aim of this study was to investigate soil contamination with trace elements and fluoride at sites in Szczecin (NW Poland) where economic activity was historically associated with the use of trace metals. As the Polish legislation does not recognize the lasting impact of historical pollution on soils, land developers are not obliged to determine soil pollution in the new residential areas, including parks and playgrounds for children. Therefore, in this study, at the locations of defunct metalwork enterprises (smithies, foundries, chemical plants, and small metal production plants), which were closed down after World War II, we determined lead (Pb), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), mercury (Hg), cadmium (Cd), and cobalt (Co) levels in the soil. In addition, we also determined fluoride (F) levels due to the contemporary fluoride pollution in the area generated by a large chemical plant with a post-production phosphogypsum waste landfill and a power plant complex. Our results show that soil at the sites of now-defunct smithies can still act as a significant source of trace metals. Pb concentration in the surface (0–20 cm) and subsurface (20–40 cm) layers exceeded concentration thresholds for soils with first-degree pollution. The concentrations of Zn and Cu also exceeded their natural background limits. Furthermore, our research indicates an increased concentration of fluoride in surface layers of the soil; however, not exceeding the fluoride content threshold. These observations have important consequences for public health and safety because, presently, the studied sites function as housing estates and other public facilities. Therefore, contaminated soil at these sites may pose a threat to the health of local residents and should be closely monitored for trace metal contamination levels.


This study estimated the effects of projected variations in precipitation and temperature on snowfall-snowmelt processes and subsequent river discharge variations in the Tagliamento River in Italy. A lumped-parameter, non-linear, rainfall-runoff model with 10 general circulation model (GCM) scenarios was used. Spatial and temporal changes in snow cover were assessed using 15 high-quality Landsat images. The 7Q10 low-flow probability distribution approximated by the Log-Pearson type III distribution function was used to examine river discharge variations with respect to climate extremes in the future. On average, the results obtained for 10 scenarios indicate a consistent warming rate for all time periods, which may increase the maximum and minimum temperatures by 2.3 °C (0.6–3.7 °C) and 2.7 °C (1.0–4.0 °C), respectively, by the end of the 21st century compared to the present climate. Consequently, the exponential rate of frost day decrease for 1 °C winter warming in lower-elevation areas is approximately three-fold (262%) higher than that in higher-elevation areas, revealing that snowfall in lower-elevation areas will be more vulnerable under a changing climate. In spite of the relatively minor changes in annual precipitation (−17.4 ~ 1.7% compared to the average of the baseline (1991–2010) period), snowfall will likely decrease by 48–67% during the 2080–2099 time period. The mean river discharges are projected to decrease in all seasons, except winter. The low-flow analysis indicated that while the magnitude of the minimum river discharge will increase (e.g. a 25% increase in the 7Q10 estimations for the winter season in the 2080–2099 time period), the number of annual average low-flow events will also increase (e.g. 16 and 15 more days during the spring and summer seasons, respectively, in the 2080–2099 time period compared to the average during the baseline period), leading to a future with a highly variable river discharge. Moreover, a consistent shift in river discharge timing would eventually cause snowmelt-generated river discharge to occur approximately 12 days earlier during the 2080–2099 time period compared to the baseline climate. These results are expected to raise the concern of policy makers, leading to the development of new water management strategies in the Tagliamento River basin to cope with changing climate conditions.


Coronavirus infection has been considered by the WHO (World Health Organization) as a global pandemic. Since its origin, it has posed a threat to global health, not so much because of its symptoms, but also because of its rapid spread and contagion and the respiratory complications that they produce in patients with other chronic underlying conditions. Telehealth has caused prominence in this time of COVID-19 since many face-to-face consultations have been closed to avoid contagion and virtuality has been preferred. Teledentistry has not been the exception, facilitating the consultation of patients, specialists and / or dental care providers at a distance to provide dental services, especially diagnostic and preventive optimized in the physical absence of the patient. This literature review article aims to describe the use of teledentistry as a tool in times of COVID-19, its application and use in different dental specialties.


The pressure dependence of electrical resistance of single-crystal magnetite (Fe3O4) was measured under quasi-hydrostatic conditions to 100 GPa using low-temperature, megabar diamond-anvil cell techniques in order to gain insight into the anomalous behavior of this material that has been reported over the years in different high-pressure experiments. The measurements under nearly hydrostatic pressure conditions allowed us to detect the clear Verwey transition and the high-pressure structural phase. The appearance of a metallic ground state after the suppression of the Verwey transition around 20 GPa and the concomitant enhancement of the electrical resistance caused by the structural transformation to the high-pressure phase form reentrant semiconducting-metallic-semiconducting behavior, although the appearance of the metallic phase is highly sensitive to stress conditions and details of the measurement technique.


Despite the integration of international capital markets and the relaxation of capital controls, U.S. defined benefit pension plans do not sufficiently diversify their assets across international holdings. In this paper, we explore whether incorporating liabilities in the asset allocation decision can help explain pension plans' home bias. We find that incorporating pension liabilities proves not to explain pension plan home bias in the case when returns are nominal. Furthermore, when we focus on real returns, incorporating pension plan liabilities makes the home bias puzzle worse. The fact remains that U.S. defined benefit pension plans could benefit substantially from more international investment.


This paper proposes a novel protection scheme for ring type distribution systems. Using an intelligent electronic device (IED) equipped with a dedicated communication channel and programmable logic controller (PLC) makes this configuration more feasible. Not only the main protections are presented, but also the backup protections are well introduced in detail whenever the system configuration is ring or radial. This investigation discusses pilot relaying systems, mainly including the permissive overreaching transfer trip (POTT), the directional comparison blocking (DCB) and direct transfer trip (DTT) schemes. Meanwhile, the hierarchical protection scheme of ring type distribution system is adopted in the primary feeder system. This work demonstrates that the proposed protection scheme is extremely well designed so that both the numbers and the durations of interruptions caused by the faults can be minimized. Especially, the most significant advantage of this system is that the service is not interrupted when a fault occurs on the feeder. Based on the above-mentioned novel protection scheme, a trade-off is also made between the dependability and the security of protection system, particularly considering the communication channel conditions. The evaluations of the performances of ring type distribution systems are also described.


This study sheds new light on the stagnation problem troubling the iterative Fourier transform algorithm used for phase retrieval. This is implemented by the introduction of two concepts, the territory and the hole, which exist in a relationship in the sense that the creation and the annihilation of a hole results in the annihilation and the creation of a corresponding territory. These concepts are brought about in the parameter space formed by the set of objects satisfying the object-domain constraints by means of topographical investigations of the minimization process by use of the error-reduction algorithm, paying particular attention to the cases of 2×2 and 3×2 objects with L-shaped supports. The effect of noise contained in the Fourier modulus on the stagnation phenomena is also clarified by use of these concepts.


We explore the implications of improvements in hardware and knowledge representation for the application of automated reasoning systems to planning. We apply a novel automated-reasoning system with no planningspecific features to questions about the PDDL planning domains Blocksworld and (no airports) Logistics. Our system, with no human interaction and considering no specific problem instances, is able to verify all the key state invariants for both domains. We propose organizing domain reasoning around (currently hand-written) recursive state-predicate– achievement macro-actions, such as a macro to achieve clear(b) in the Blocksworld. Leveraging (somewhat) limited human interaction, our system can completely characterize the effects of executing such recursive macros for each predicate in each domain. In addition, with substantial human interaction, our system can formally verify the solvability of arbitrary Blocksworld and Logistics problems, verifying a human-written generalized plan based on the macros. In each case, no specific problem instances are considered. We loosely meter and qualitatively characterize the human interaction required for the above verifications in order to stimulate research to reduce this benchmark until it is zero. We propose (and where possible estimate the benchmark improvement for) plausible future approaches to reducing interaction, including eliminating the need for hand-definitions of the recursive predicateachievement macros and generalized plans in these domains. Finally, we contrast our reasoning system favorably (for this task) with a widely used verification system, Coq.