A methodology of material characterisation and finite element model discretisation is presented for spot welded boron steel sheets, with the aim of predicting failure during quasi-static loading. The predicted load-displacement curves from the Finite Element model are compared with experimentally measured curves for lap-shear and cross-tension weld destructive geometries, and serve as model validation.

During spot welding, the weld and surrounding material are exposed to a wide range of temperatures, from the melting point at the weld centre to room temperature in the base material. As a consequence, the weld exhibits varying microstructures with corresponding varying material properties which have a profound influence on its load bearing capacity and failure strength as a whole. In addition, boron steel spot welds exhibit unique hardness profiles, with high hardness values in the nugget and outlying base material, and a sudden drop in the area between these regions. This sudden decrease in material properties leads to further difficulties in modelling the failure of boron steel welds.

The weld process inherently produces localised residual strains which also need to be accounted for in the model simulation, together with significant plastic strain redistributions resulting from the mechanical loading of the spot weld to its ultimate failure. The initial residual strains were measured in weld samples using neutron diffraction and were subsequently input into the FEA models.

This thesis aims to quantify the varying material constitutive behaviour throughout the weld, required for the failure prediction. In particular, the following constitutive properties were extracted: the stress-strain response of certain weld regions, failure loci consisting of fracture strain versus stress state for the corresponding regions, and the residual stress distribution through the weld.

Due to the small size of the weld, cutting test specimens directly from the weld is unachievable. To overcome this problem, specific weld and heat affected zone micro-structures were recreated onto practical tensile specimens through use of a Gleeble thermo-mechanical physical simulator. These specimens were subjected to the same thermal histories as specific points in the actual weld. From these tensile specimens, stress-strain curves relating to specific weld regions could be obtained. In a similar fashion, three additional destructive specimen sets were created to obtain failure loci. These failure loci give fracture strain as a function of stress state: specifically shear, uniaxial and plane-strain states.

Due to the practical limitations in the accuracy of the Gleeble technique, deviations from the target microstructures were expected in the Gleeble samples. To gauge the extent of these deviations, a method of extracting reference material properties directly from the weld was required. Instrumented indentation offers such a solution, where the load and displacement of the indenter are measured and run through an algorithm to calculate the yield strength of the indented locations. These yield strengths are then compared with the yield from the Gleeble stress-strain curves to gauge the accuracy with which the weld microstructures were recreated. This technique serves to quantify the deviation of the Gleeble microstructures from the target material microstructures.

It is common practice to discretise the weld into a small number of bulk regions during the design process, with material constitutive behaviour assigned to these discretised parts. In the new methodology, the extracted material constitutive behaviour is modelled as a continuously varying function of the distance from the weld centre. By performing appropriate interpolation, the data may be finely or roughly discretised. The data at a certain distance from the weld centre may then be assigned to the corresponding element in the finite element model. This means one may discretise the model by choosing the level of data interpolation refinement.

The following results were observed in the thesis:
• Residual strain distributions of boron steel spot welds, which have not been measured before, were presented. Clear correlations between hardness and residual stress distributions were seen.
• A new application of instrumented indentation was attempted by verifying the accuracy of heat treated samples with respect to their target microstructures by comparing yield strengths.
• The boron steel HAZ was characterised in a finer level of detail than seen in other literature works.
• Through physical simulation, stress - strain and failure loci corresponding to certain HAZ areas were successfully extracted and used to model weld failure.
• A new method of finite element model discretisation was presented, where material properties may be input as a relatively smooth function through the length of the model.


Abstract Tropical diabetic hand syndrome describes an acute symptom complex found in patients with diabetes in the tropics, usually following minor trauma to the hand. Two different patients, both previously diagnosed with diabetes, suddenly developed an abscess of the hand that progressively worsened, and became an ulcer that was difficult, to manage at the referring private hospitals. The hands and lives of both patients were saved. The frequency of these cases appears to be increasing. Aggressive glycaemic control is a vital control measure for upper limb sepsis. Education remains the most important preventive tool in underdeveloped countries, and should remain an integral part of prevention.


Non-native fish are considered the most important threat to the survival of the indigenous freshwater fishes in the Cape Floristic Region (CFR). A pilot project to evaluate the use of the piscicide rotenone to eradicate non-native fish from selected reaches in four rivers has been proposed by CapeNature, the conservation authority of the Western Cape province, South Africa. Each river has unique characteristics and challenges to achieving the eradication of non-native fish and the restoration of its indigenous fish assemblage. The proposal is described and the management methods available for reducing the impact of non-native fish on indigenous species are discussed. An environmental impact assessment (EIA) concluded that the project was justified and necessary, the choice of rivers sound, and supported the use of piscicides. The need for the project, the selection of sites and the findings of the EIA are discussed. It is expected that the project will be successful while having minimal impact on other aquatic fauna. The successful completion of the pilot project could help establish methods to eradicate non-native fish from critical biodiversity areas in South Africa. Such projects must, however, be part of a comprehensive conservation management plan to be implemented by conservation agencies in the CFR.


Over the past three decades, leading industrial nations and many developing countries have deregulated their financial markets. Financial liberalization has produced major benefits, including more efficient intermediation of financial resources, more rapid economic development and faster growth in trade. At the same time, however, many banking crises have occurred in countries that previously adopted programs of financial deregulation. This essay provides a brief overview of banking crises in international markets since 1973, together with more detailed discussions of Japan's financial crisis that began in 1990, the U.S. banking crises of 1929-33 and 1980-92, and the challenges confronting major U.S. and European banks during 2000-02. This historical evidence indicates that financial liberalization encourages banks to increase their lending commitments and equity investments in the real estate and securities markets. A rapid growth of credit and investment in those markets typically produces an economic "boom," which is fueled by positive feedback between rising asset prices and the willingness of creditors and investors to provide additional financing in the belief that asset values will continue to increase. Under such conditions, asset prices tend to "overshoot" and reach levels that cannot be justified by economic "fundamentals" (e.g., the actual cash flow generated by real estate projects and business ventures). When investors and creditors realize that market prices have diverged significantly from economic fundamentals, they are likely to pursue a rapid liquidation of investments and loans and thereby trigger a "bust." A severe asset bust often gives rise to a systemic banking crisis, because it exposes banks to crippling losses from defaulted loans and depreciated loan collateral and equity investments. Governments have typically responded to such crises by spending massive amounts to protect depositors and recapitalize banks. This apparent correlation between deregulation and banking crises suggests that financial liberalization has a "dark side," because it tends to create a banking system that is more vulnerable to systemic risk. Bank regulators should therefore give greater attention to the potential lending and investment risks created by financial liberalization efforts.


This article explores the intersection of poverty, power, and privilege in the child protection system that contributed to the child sexual abuse scandal at Penn State University. The article first reviews the facts underlying the case of former Penn State football coach Gerald A. Sandusky, who was convicted on forty-five counts of child sexual abuse. It also offers insight into the actions of former University leaders whose nondisclosure and active roles in the cover up of child sexual abuse resulted in disgrace to one of the nation's premier college athletic programs. Next, the article considers the irony in the failure to report child sex abuse involving disadvantaged youth at Penn State when children living in poverty are generally over-reported for suspected child abuse; hence, former Penn State leaders created invisible victims of underprivileged youth who are typically overly visible to child protective services. The article sets forth the rationale for mandated reporting laws by drawing a correlation between moral, social, and economic forces within the child protection system. Examples of inequities in the child protection system which underscore the maltreatment of underprivileged youth at the heart of the Penn State scandal are also presented. The article identifies numerous shortfalls in Pennsylvania's mandated reporting law that are relevant to the defense of two ex-Penn State officials who were indicted for perjury and failure to report allegations against Sandusky. The article proposes viable legislative reform to address these statutory shortfalls and concludes with a call to action to ensure accountability for mandated reporters and create equity in systems protecting children and youth.


As the first U.S.-born Hispanic senator, Senator Dennis Chavez of New Mexico left a rich legacy of advocacy for civil rights and civil liberties. In this lecture, the fourth U.S. Senator Dennis Chavez Endowed Lecture on Law and Civil Rights, I explore an idea at the intersection of those two bodies of law: the right to privacy. In 2020, the hallmark of surveillance is its ubiquity; "everyone is watched." Unfortunately, this discourse erases the fact that, across American history, the burdens of government surveillance have fallen overwhelmingly on the shoulders of immigrants, heretics, people of color, the poor, and anyone else considered "other." Inspired by the legacy of "El Senador," I trace that history from the English Puritans we now know as Pilgrims to the immigrant children detained at the southern U.S. border. I go on to argue that if we acknowledge the "color of surveillance," we must reckon with its consequence. If surveillance is a tool used to threaten the vulnerable, we must understand privacy not just as a civil liberty, but also a civil right: A shield that allows the unpopular and persecuted to survive and thrive.


The contemporary American Health Care System created a demand for skilled advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) to meet the health care needs of the U.S. population. It is imperative that graduate nursing programs adequately educate APRN students with the competencies to address these demands. Graduate nursing programs have adopted simulation-based learning to provide safe, cost-effective learning opportunities without the potential for real-world negative outcomes that can arise during hospital-based education. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to provide a tailored, APRN-focused prebriefing activity before simulation-based learning and measure its effects on self-reported student self-confidence scores. This project was conducted using a quantitative post-intervention survey design with a convenience sample of 17 APRN students. The participants were provided a prebriefing intervention by email prior to their interprofessional education (IPE). After the prebriefing intervention, the APRN students participated in four pre-established IPE simulation scenarios. The participants were then asked to complete the National League for Nursing (NLN) Satisfaction and Self-confidence in Learning Scale, a thirteen-statement survey with a 5-point Likert scale measuring self-reported, student satisfaction and self confidence related to their simulation-based learning experiences. Overall, high scores resulted on the post-intervention survey for the two subscales. This project supported the implementation of a structured prebriefing activity before IPE simulation-based learning in graduate nursing education.


The heart is surrounded by a layer of fat known as epicardial adipose tissue (EAT). The adipocytes within EAT are critical to the function of the heart; they are an essential source of free fatty acids, which cardiomyocytes utilise for energy. EAT also provides thermal insulation and physical protection for the heart. However, the beneficial functions of EAT can be negated by the release of signals that evoke pathological changes in cardiomyocytes. EAT releases molecules, such as adipokines and cytokines, and due to the close proximity of EAT to cardiomyocytes these adipose-derived factors can affect the heart in a paracrine manner. The thickness of EAT as a predictor for several types of cardiac diseases. It is not possible to co-culture adipocytes and cardiomyocytes in a 2 dimensional co-culture, because mature adipocytes do not attach to cell culture surfaces. As a result, most studies on the effects of adipocyte released factors on cardiomyocytes use the addition of adipocyte-conditioned medium to cardiomyocytes. However, this does not allow paracrine effects between both cell types to become established after their isolation, and does not allow the study of long-term interactions. Adipocytes can be trapped and maintained in a 3-dimensional collagen matrix. We are currently optimising such a 3-dimensional culture system to study the effects that adipocytes have on adjacent cardiomyocytes, and vice versa. The translucent nature of the collagen matrix allows studying cellular phenotypes, Ca2+ signalling and contractions within the cultures. We investigated whether signalling pathways are activated or inhibited by the addition of adipokines and cytokines, and whether co-culture with adipocytes affects the contractility of cardiomyocytes.

TNF-α (3 ng/ml), activin A (1 ng/ml) and adiponectin (10 µg/ml) were added to cardiomyocytes for a period of 6 hours, and the activity of signalling pathways was subsequently examined using a PathScan Signalling Array (Cell Signalling Technology). We found a significant up-regulation of cardiomyocyte pro-apoptic signalling pathways by TNF- α and Activin A. Whereas, adiponectin reduced ERK and mTOR activity, in line with its proposed cardioprotective effects.

Co-culture of cardiomyocytes with adipocytes for 3 days caused negative chronotropic and negative inotropic responses. The presence of adipocytes reduced the frequency of cardiomyocyte beating from 0.51 ± 0.0 to 0.32 ± 0.04 Hz, and reduced the amplitude of contraction from 6.9 ± 0.3 to 3.8 ± 0.5 µm (n= 10 regions, 3 wells each with or without adipocytes, mean ± SEM, unpaired t-test, P<0.05).

These data illustrate that adipose-derived cytokines and adipokines cause an up-regulation of inflammatory and pro-apoptotic pathways in rat ventricular cardiomyocytes. In addition, the proximity of adipocytes to cardiomyocytes leads to changes in contractility.


ABSTRACT This paper revisits the role of business saving in the economy by critically scrutinizing the existing macroeoconomic and corporate finance literatures. We assemble and exploit a broad international, unbalanced panel of 47 countries over 1995–2013 on saving and investment by institutional sector to shed new light on the relevance of business saving for private saving and investment around the world. We show that businesses contribute on average more than 50% of national saving around the world. Using this unique dataset, we find evidence of partial piercing of the corporate veil: a $1 increase in business saving gives rise to a decrease of approximately $0.40 in household saving–thereby raising private saving by as much as $0.60. We also find that a $1 increase in business saving increases private investment by as much as $0.20 in countries where limited financing is a binding constraint on firms' investment. The evidence suggests that business saving and external financing are complementary sources of financing for investment.


In the past few years, there has been a growing appreciation by Western scholars of the vast scale, great achievements, and methodological originality of Japanese archaeologists. However, an understanding of the results of their work has been hampered in the West by a lack of up-to-date and authoritative texts in English. This book provides Western readers for the first time with a uniquely East Asian perspective of Japanese archaeology. Prehistoric Japan is organized into 16 chapters covering the environment, the history of the Japanese investigations of their past, the peculiarities of Japanese scholars' interests and methodologies, the organization and material culture of previous Japanese societies, economic trade and the question of immigration, the political unification of Japan, and the relationships between the core islands of Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu to Hokkaido in the north and the Ryukyu Islands to the south.


Interactive computational steering provides users with the opportunity to tackle new problems in a way that helps them to learn about the computation in a highly engaging, interactive, visual environment. Causal consistency is an important feature of interactive steering of distributed computations, as it is often required to maintain the correctness of the computation. However, due to the asynchronous nature of distributed computations, it is difficult to coordinate steering changes across processes to guarantee that the changes are applied consistently at all processes. This thesis introduces a transaction-based computation model for distributed computation. This abstract model not only gives users a simple and high-level view of distributed computation, but also simplifies reasoning consistency problem by reducing the amount of information to be handled. Furthermore, this work investigates two approaches for achieving consistent steering: conservative steering and optimistic steering. The performance of conservative and optimistic steering approaches is evaluated in term of perturbation and lag. Our experiments show that when the percentages of consistency on the first attempt are large enough and the size of checkpoint is not too large, the optimistic approach will achieve better performance; otherwise, the conservative approach will be better.


BACKGROUND
Total parenteral nutrition (PN), including fat administered as a soybean oil-based lipid emulsion (SOLE), is a life-saving therapy but may be complicated by PN-induced cholestasis and dyslipidemia. A fish-oil-based lipid emulsion (FOLE) as a component of PN can reverse PN-cholestasis and has been shown to improve lipid profiles.

OBJECTIVE
The objective was to describe changes in the fatty acid and lipid profiles of children with PN-cholestasis who were treated with a FOLE.

DESIGN
Lipid and fatty acid profiles of 79 pediatric patients who developed PN-cholestasis while receiving standard PN with a SOLE were examined before and after the switch to a FOLE. All patients received PN with the FOLE at a dose of 1 g · kg(-1) · d(-1) for ≥1 mo.

RESULTS
The median (interquartile range) age at the start of the FOLE treatment was 91 (56-188) d. After a median (interquartile range) of 18.3 (9.4-41.4) wk of receiving the FOLE, the subjects' median total and direct bilirubin improved from 7.9 and 5.4 mg/dL to 0.5 and 0.2 mg/dL, respectively (P < 0.0001). Serum triglyceride, total cholesterol, LDL, and VLDL concentrations significantly decreased by 51.7%, 17.4%, 23.7%, and 47.9%, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS
The switch from a SOLE to a FOLE in PN-dependent children with cholestasis and dyslipidemia was associated with a dramatic improvement in serum triglyceride and VLDL concentrations, a significant increase in serum omega-3 (n-3) fatty acids (EPA and DHA), and a decrease in serum omega-6 fatty acids (arachidonic acid). A FOLE may be the preferred lipid emulsion in patients with PN-cholestasis, dyslipidemia, or both. This trial is registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT00910104.


Farmers in the semi-arid regions grow drought tolerant maize varieties and practice maize-legume intercropping. A study was conducted in Machakos, Mwea and Waruhiu in 2008 short rains and 2009 long rains to determine the performance of maize varieties currently grown in semi-arid regions and their compatibility with beans. Sixteen maize varieties were grown as sole crops or intercropped with beans. The experiments were laid out in randomized complete block design with split plot arrangement and replicated three times. Maize variety and maize plus beans intercrop system were assigned to main and sub-plots, respectively. Using land equivalent ratio (LER) and monetary advantage (MA) indices, productivity of intercropping was evaluated. Results indicated that varieties KCB, Katumani, DHO 1, DHO 2, DK 8031 and Duma 43 were suitable for Mwea and Waruhiu. They tolerated or escaped drought by maturing early. Further, these varieties were compatible with beans in an intercrop system. However, bean yield was significantly affected by maize component in intercrop system and declines of 52% to 59% were observed. Despite the yield reduction of beans in intercropping, this system was shown to be economically viable according to LER and MA indices. All maize varieties failed to produce a crop in Machakos in two seasons. Increased food production in semi-arid areas requires adoption of drought escaping and tolerant varieties and maize-bean intercropping systems. However, areas with severe droughts like Machakos and adjoining regions of south-eastern Kenya require alternative maize varieties or crop species that are more drought tolerant than those currently recommended.


The preparation of students for professional practice in the field of early intervention has changed as a result of mandates through Part C, Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The purpose of this survey research was to describe the knowledge and skill areas, specific to early intervention, included in pre-professional curricula and clinical practice education of future speech-language pathologists (SLPs). American Speech-Language-Hearing Association/Council on Academic Accreditation accredited programs were invited to participate in the online survey. Of the 248 initial requests for information, 109 surveys were completed. Results revealed limited exposure for students to curricular content and clinical practica that focused on the knowledge and skills necessary for professionals working in Part C IDEA settings. Programs indicated that barriers to the inclusion of such content and clinical practice experiences included funding, access to faculty and staff, and limited practice settings. Implications and future directions are discussed.


Signal transduction ATPases with numerous domains (STAND) are sophisticated proteins that integrate several signals and respond by building multimeric platforms allowing signalling in various processes: apoptosis, innate immunity, bacterial metabolism. They comprise a conserved nucleotide oligomerization domain (NOD), which functions as a binary switch that oscillates between the OFF (ADP‐bound) and the ON (ATP‐bound) conformation, and non conserved sensor and effector domains. Transition from the OFF form to the ON form strictly depends on the binding of an inducer to the sensor domain. The interaction of the inducer with this domain was studied in MalT, a model STAND protein. MalT sensor domain has a SUPR (superhelical repeats) fold resembling a cylinder with a central cavity. The cavity was subjected to an alanine‐scanning approach, and the effects of the alanine substitutions on inducer binding and transcription activation were analyzed. This work unambiguously showed that the inducer maltotriose binds inside the cavity, and a patch on the inner surface was proposed to be the primary maltotriose binding‐site. Furthermore, limited proteolysis suggested that maltotriose binding changes the conformation of the sensor domain.


Although the scholarly literature is replete with discussion of the pros and cons of mandatory arbitration and civil litigation, relative to one another, there has been no examination of one-way binding arbitration as a potential bridge between these procedural poles. The goal of this article is to fill that void. One-way binding arbitration requires an employee to use arbitration to resolve workplace disputes, but also gives the employee, but not the employer, the option of rejecting the arbitrator's decision. In the event the employee is not satisfied with the outcome of arbitration, she can still pursue her claim in court. This collaborative alternative may help to alleviate workplace conflict. Employees today are stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, they are increasingly forced to sign pre-dispute arbitration agreements as a condition of employment. Employees are bound by arbitration – an alternative to civil litigation that often does not offer the full panoply of procedural protections. On the other hand, workers seeking relief from the federal court system for employment claims are increasingly finding the system inhospitable to their claims. While the federal courts offer more robust procedural protections than arbitration, they pose obstacles of their own, such as administrative agency backlog, more rigorous pleading requirements, and high dismissal rates. This has put employees in a bind, requiring the consideration of fresh alternatives. A promising and unique alternative is one-way binding arbitration. This unilateral arrangement – voluntarily adopted by The Coca-Cola Company, is a groundbreaking and novel approach to promoting arbitration, while also protecting employee choice and access to the court system. Companies can enjoy all of the benefits of arbitration – such as efficiency, privacy, costs savings and litigation avoidance – while supporting the due process rights of workers and bolstering workplace relations that may enhance profitability. The legal system also profits from arbitration arrangements that relieve administrative and judicial caseloads, promote settlement and reconcile competing dispute resolution systems. One-way binding arbitration has its own limitations, which requires that important safeguards be used. However, given its transformative potential, employers and employee advocates should consider it as an alternative to compulsory binding pre-dispute arbitration. One-way binding arbitration offers society another option along the continuum between mandatory, pre-dispute arbitration and civil litigation – providing society with a compromise that seeks to balance the benefits of both worlds and reconcile their differences. This article is part of a series examining the impact of procedure on civil rights. See Suzette M. Malveaux, Statutes of Limitations: A Policy Analysis in the Context of Reparations Litigation, 74 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 68 (2005) and available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1484804; and Suzette M. Malveaux, Fighting to Keep Employment Discrimination Class Actions Alive: How Allison v. Citgo's Predomination Requirement Threatens to Undermine Title VII Enforcement, Chap. 4 in Employment Class and Collective Actions (Estreicher, Samuel & Sherwyn, D., Editors, 2009 Kluwer Law International), reprinted from 26 Berkeley J. Emp. & Lab. Law 405 (2005) and available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1484761.


Protein repellent coatings have been extensively studied to introduce anti-fouling properties at material surfaces. Here we introduce a covalent anti-fouling coating at the surface of supramolecular ureidopyrimidinone (UPy) based materials introduced via post-modification of reactive UPy-functionalized tetrazine additives incorporated into the supramolecular polymer material. After material formulation, an anti-fouling coating comprised of bicyclononyne (BCN) functionalized poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) polymers was reacted. This coating was covalently attached to the surface via a highly selective electron-demand Diels–Alder cycloaddition between tetrazine and BCN. The anti-fouling properties of three different BCN-PEG polymers, mono-functional-PEG-BCN, bi-functional-PEG-BCN and star-PEG-BCN, respectively, were systematically studied. The mono-functional-PEG-BCN showed minor reduction in both protein adsorption and cell adhesion, whereas the bi-functional-PEG-BCN and the star-PEG-BCN polymer coating demonstrated complete anti-fouling performance, both towards protein adhesion as well as cell adhesion. Additionally, a bioorthogonal ligation strategy was performed in culture medium in the presence of cells showing a similar behavior for the three anti-fouling coatings, which indicates that this strategy can be applied for post-modification reactions in a complex environment.


Are children's value priorities different from their parents' generation? We present data from the youngest children's sample that has been included in a comprehensive family study of values so far: Our study is based on self-reported values of 127 six- to eleven-year-old German children (M = 7.89, SD = 1.35) and their mothers and fathers. We further took into account two potentially interacting developmental variables that have been suggested in the literature: (a) family members' gender and (b) cultural milieu (we looked specifically at families with Turkish immigration background and families without immigration background). While values of self-transcendence, self-enhancement and openness to change did not differ significantly between the two generations, children found conservation significantly more important than their parents. This contrasts with findings from previous studies with older participants. We discuss to what extent this effect may be unique to this developmental stage of middle childhood that had not been covered by previous research. Females valued conservation more than males, and conservation was more important in families with as compared to families without Turkish immigration background. There was neither a gender × generation nor a cultural milieu × generation interaction.


ABSTRACT This manuscript outlines new laws enacted by Congress in 1996 relevant to small business and analyzes their impact. In terms of regulatory reforms, 1996 was actually a relatively good year for the entrepreneur. The first and most significant legislative development discussed is the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act. Also analyzed are new developments in the areas of health care, minimum wage, welfare reforms, and tax relief. On balance, small business owners should benefit from these new legislative mandates. INTRODUCTION What did 1996 hold in store for small business in terms of new federal legislative developments? The surprising answer is a sigh of relief to most entrepreneurs-mostly good news. From regulatory reform to health care to selected tax relief, the small business owner fared relatively well in the 1996 Congress. This article will highlight numerous changes and new developments at the federal level which are largely beneficial for small business. "RED TAPE" REFORM The most significant piece of legislation to come out of Washington last year was the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act, which gives small business some relief from arbitrary government rule making and more of a voice in the regulatory process. It also attempts to address the large amount of money small businesses have to shell out to comply with federal regulations. According to the General Accounting Office, American businesses spent $650 billion, or 9% of the total U.S. GDP, in 1995 to comply with regulatory rules. As a result of this new law, for the first time, federal agencies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) must assess the economic impact of their regulations on small business before they are implemented. A similar law in 1990, the Regulatory Flexibility Act, forced agencies to examine the effect of new rules by didn't give small business people any real say in the process. Now government agencies have to be more responsible for the rules they make because small business owners can challenge any federal agency's regulations and/or ruling in court. Before the law came into effect, a small business faced a tremendous financial risk if it challenged an agency's regulation as unreasonable. Now, if a court rules against OSHA or EPA, the agency must pay the challenger's attorney's fees and expenses. The law also provides a multilayered system for business men and women to have greater involvement in the formulation of rules that affect them. Regulatory agencies are now required to listen to the opinions of business leaders before making any proposals for significant rule changes. To this end, a database will be set up by the Small Business Administration with the names of CEOs around the country who can be consulted about new regulations as they are being formulated. In addition, every proposed rule change must be submitted to the House, Senate, and General Accounting Office for review and be accompanied by a cost-benefit analysis and a description of die steps the agency has taken to minimize the impact the rule will have on small business. If a rule does actually go into effect, the agencies must now assist businesses to comply with the regulations by writing guides that can be easily understood by those who must abide by them. The law also allows a 60-day review period in which Congress can reject new regulations which they deem are unnecessary. Finally, the law sets up mechanisms for small businesses to monitor their interactions with agencies. The aim is to build a better working relationship and prevent much of the frustration business people like Franc Cremeans had when dealing with agencies. An independent ombudsman at the Small Business Administration will now receive confidential complaints and comments from companies around the country on their interactions with federal regulators. …


We study theoretically the phonon-induced relaxation and decoherence processes in the hybrid qubit in silicon. Hybrid qubit behaves as a charge qubit when the detuning is close to zero and as spin qubit for large detuning values. It is realized starting from an electrostatically defined double quantum dot where three electrons are confined and manipulated through only electrical tuning. By employing a three-level effective model for the qubit and describing the environment bath as a series of harmonic oscillators in the thermal equilibrium states, we extract the relaxation and decoherence times as a function of the bath spectral density and of the bath temperature using the Bloch-Redfield theory. For Si quantum dots the energy dispersion is strongly affected by the physics of the valley, i.e. the conduction band minima, so we also included the contribution of the valley excitations in our analysis. Our results offer fundamental information on the system decoherence properties when the unavoidable interaction with the environment is included and temperature effects are considered.


Historically there has been great focus on the performance of nonprofits versus for-profit entities. The literature has included research on variances in salaries, operational efficiencies, pricing, market penetration, composition of clientele, etc. However, there is a new category of entity that exists between the traditional nonprofit and for-profit spectrum. This entity is the nonprofit engaged in social enterprise activities. Social enterprise is the pursuit of earned income activities. To date, little research has focused on how these particular entities may vary in their performance from traditional nonprofits or even for-profits. If research has found differences in nonprofits versus for-profits could there be differences between social enterprise organizations and their traditional counterparts? There are various items that could be explored such as variances in operational performance, outcomes, salaries, and others. However, this research examined the differences in financial performance between traditional nonprofit behavioral healthcare providers and those nonprofit behavioral healthcare providers engaged in social enterprise activities. This research uses financial data available from Guidestar and completed surveys from Pennsylvania behavioral healthcare organizations to determine differences in financial metrics. Linear regression was used to estimate the impact social enterprise had on current ratio, days cash on hand, net profit margin percentage, net days in accounts receivable, debt ratio, revenue per full time employee, and administrative overheard percentage. The results of the research did not typically support the hypotheses and the null was accepted that social enterprise did not lead to better financial performance in these various metrics. Further research must be conducted to continue to provide resolution to the ongoing debate of whether social enterprise provides benefits to the organization or harm.


We present a new elastomeric valve for integrated nucleic acid analysis by capillary electrophoresis. The valve functions include metering to capture a designated volume of biological sample into a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) chamber, sealing to preserve the sample during PCR cycling, and transfer of the PCR-products and on-chip formamide post-processing for the analysis of DNA fragments by capillary gel electrophoresis. This new valve differs from prior art polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) valves in that the valve is not actuated externally by air-pressure or vacuum so that it simplifies a DNA analysis system by eliminating the need for an air-pressure or vacuum source, and off-cartridge solenoid valves, control circuit boards and software. Instead, the new valve is actuated by a thermal cycling peltier assembly integrated within the hardware instrument that tightly comes in contact with a microfluidic cartridge for thermal activation during PCR, so that it spontaneously closes the valve without an additional actuator system. The valve has bumps in the designated locations so that it has a self-alignment that does not require precise alignment of a valve actuator. Moreover, the thickness of the new valve is around 600 μm with an additional bump height of 400 μm so that it is easy to handle and very feasible to fabricate by injection molding compared to other PDMS valves whose thicknesses are around 30–100 μm. The new valve provided over 95% of metering performance in filling the fixed volume of the PCR chamber, preserved over 97% of the sample volume during PCR, and showed very comparable capillary electrophoresis peak heights to the benchtop assay tube controls with very consistent transfer volume of the PCR-product and on-chip formamide. The new valve can perform a core function for integrated nucleic acid analysis by capillary electrophoresis.


Sound generated by an airfoil in the wake of a rod is predicted numerically by two different hybrid CFD/CAA approaches (Ma = 0.2). The configuration is a symmetric airfoil one chord downstream of a rod, whose wake contains both periodic and broadband vortical fluctuations. In particular, a significant broadening of the main Strouhal peak has been observed at subcritical vortex shedding conditions. This study addresses the overall ability of both CFD/CAA hybrid approaches to model broadband noise sources. The first approach computes the aerodynamic noise by solving the linearized perturbed compressible equations (LPCE) for the noise propagation, with the acoustic sources and hydrodynamic flow variables computed from the incompressible Large Eddy Simulation (iLES) using a computional grid of approximately 3 million grid cells and high-order compact finite difference schemes. The second approach uses the unsteady aerodynamic field of a compressible Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) and a Ffowcs Williams & Hawkings (FW-H) acoustic analogy formulation for the farfield noise calculations. The non-zonal DES approach solves either the unsteady Reynolds-averaged or spatially filtered Navier-Stokes equations by using a novel cubic explicit algebraic stress turbulence model based on a two-equation k-e model by Lien and Lechziner. An implicit formulation is used with second order accuracy and a grid of approximately 2.3 million cells. The results of these hybrid approaches are compared and subsequently validated with the measurements of Jacob et al. in the nearfield (HWA) and in the farfield (noise). ICSV14 • 9–12 July 2007 • Cairns • Australia


Within the paradigm of population dynamics a central task is to identify environmental factors affecting population change and to estimate the strength of these effects. We here investigate the impact of observation errors in measurements of population densities on estimates of environmental effects. Adding observation errors may change the autocorrelation of a population time series with potential consequences for estimates of effects of autocorrelated environmental covariates. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we compare the performance of maximum likelihood estimates from three stochastic versions of the Gompertz model (log-linear first order autoregressive model), assuming 1) process error only, 2) observation error only, and 3) both process and observation error (the linear state-space model on log-scale). We also simulated population dynamics using the Ricker model, and evaluated the corresponding maximum likelihood estimates for process error models. When there is observation error in the data and the considered environmental variable is strongly autocorrelated, its estimated effect is likely to be biased when using process error models. The environmental effect is overestimated when the sign of the autocorrelations of the intrinsic dynamics and the environment are the same and underestimated when the signs differ. With non-autocorrelated environmental covariates, process error models produce fairly exact point estimates as well as reliable confidence intervals for environmental effects. In all scenarios, observation error models produce unbiased estimates with reasonable precision, but confidence intervals derived from the likelihood profiles are far too optimistic if there is process error present. The safest approach is to use state-space models in presence of observation error. These are factors worthwhile to consider when interpreting earlier empirical results on population time series, and in future studies, we recommend choosing carefully the modelling approach with respect to intrinsic population dynamics and covariate autocorrelation.


- Shows how both activists and the casually progressive can leverage the power of social networks for social change
 - Helps readers maintain credibility, establish new connections, deal with common fears, and have a good time
 - Authoritative but aggressively non-technical—like talking to a real person with a great sense of humor who really knows her stuff

 Social networks can be so much more than a way to find your high school friends or learn what your favorite celebrity had for breakfast. They can be powerful tools for changing the world. With Share This! both regular folks of a progressive bent and committed activists can learn how to go beyond swapping movie reviews and vacation photos (not that there's anything wrong with that).

 At the moment the same kinds of people who dominate the dialog off-line are dominating it online, and things will never change if that doesn't change. Progressives need to get on social networks and share their stories, join conversations, connect with others—and not just others exactly like themselves. It's vital to reach out across all those ethnic/gender/preference/class/age lines that exist even within the progressive camp. As Deanna Zandt puts it, "creating a just society is sort of like the evolution of the species—if you have a bunch of the same DNA mixing together the species mutates poorly and eventually dies off."

 But there are definitely dos and don'ts. Zandt delves into exactly what people are and are not looking for in online exchanges. How to be a good guest. What to share. Why authenticity is more important than just about anything, including traditional notions of expertise or authority. She addresses some common fears, like worrying about giving too much about yourself away, blurring the lines between your professional and personal life, or getting buried under a steaming heap of information overload. And she offers detailed, nuts-and bolts "how to get started" advice for both individuals and organizations.

 The Internet is upending hierarchies and freeing the flow of information in a way that makes the invention of the printing press seem like an historical footnote.  Share This! shows how to take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity to make marginalized voices heard and support real, fundamental change—and, incidentally, have some fun doing it.


Mediterranean-style diets caused a significant decline in cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) in early landmark studies. The effect of a traditional Mediterranean diet on lipoprotein oxidation showed that there was a significant reduction in oxidative stress in the intervention group (Mediterranean diet + Virgin Olive Oil) compared to the low-fat diet group. Conversely, the increase in oxidative stress causing inflammation is a unifying hypothesis for predisposing people to atherosclerosis, carcinogenesis, and osteoporosis. The impact of antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents on cancer and cardiovascular disease, and the interventive mechanisms for the inhibition of proliferation, inflammation, invasion, metastasis, and activation of apoptosis were explored. Following the Great Oxygen Event some 2.3 billion years ago, organisms have needed antioxidants to survive. Natural products in food preservatives are preferable to synthetic compounds due to their lower volatility and stability and generally higher antioxidant potential. Free radicals, reactive oxygen species, antioxidants, pro-oxidants and inflammation are described with examples of free radical damage based on the hydroxyl, nitric oxide and superoxide radicals. Flavonoid antioxidants with 2- or 3-phenylchroman structures such as quercetin, kaempferol, myricetin, apigenin, and luteolin, constituents of fruits, vegetables, tea, and wine, which may reduce coronary disease and cancer, are described. The protective effect of flavonoids on the DNA damage caused by hydroxyl radicals through chelation is an important mechanism, though the converse may be possible, e.g., quercetin. The antioxidant properties of carotenoids, which are dietary natural pigments, have been studied in relation to breast cancer risk and an inverse association was found with plasma concentrations: higher levels mean lower risk. The manipulation of primary and secondary human metabolomes derived especially from existing or transformed gut microbiota was explored as a possible alternative to single-agent dietary interventions for cancer and cardiovascular disease. Sustained oxidative stress leading to inflammation and thence to possibly to cancer and cardiovascular disease is described for spices and herbs, using curcumin as an example of an intervention, based on activation of transcription factors which suggest that oxidative stress, chronic inflammation, and cancer are closely linked.


OBJECTIVES
To assess country differences in prevalence of overweight, obesity, underweight and stunting in the Pro Children Survey.

METHODS
A cross-sectional study conducted in a random sample of schools in nine European countries in 2003. The subjects were 8317 11-year-old children from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. Parents reported height and weight of the children, and BMI values were analysed using the US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention and the International Obesity Task Force reference populations. Continuous variables were compared with one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Games-Howell post hoc tests. Categorical variables were analysed using chi-square tests.

RESULTS
The prevalence of overweight + obesity varied between the countries from 8.6% to 30.6% and 5.9% to 26.5%, respectively, depending on the reference population, with the lowest prevalence in Dutch girls, the highest in Portuguese boys. Obesity prevalence varied from 1.1% (Dutch and Danish girls) to 10.7% (Portuguese boys) and from 0.3% (Dutch girls) to 6.2% (Portuguese boys), respectively. Portugal and Spain had the highest prevalence of overweight and obesity for both genders. The ranking of the countries according to overweight and obesity prevalence was roughly the same, independent of reference population. The prevalence of underweight varied from 2.3% (Swedish boys) to 12.3% (Belgian boys), using the American reference population. The proportion of stunted children was highest in Portugal, Spain and Belgium.

CONCLUSIONS
The highest levels of overweight, obesity and stunting in the pro children material are found in Portugal and Spain.


Municipal governments commonly confront the problem of tardy or delinquent property tax payments. We implement an experiment in property tax collection for tardy taxpayers in the City of Philadelphia for the calendar year 2015. The experiment sent one of seven reminder letters to the tardy taxpayers, testing the efficacy of a simple reminder; two alternative reminders stressing economic sanctions; and four alternative reminders emphasizing either that taxpayers receive neighborhood services or city-wide services for their tax payments, that most of their neighbors pay their taxes on time, or that as a citizen in a democracy it is a civic duty to pay taxes on time. Compliance behaviors were compared to a holdout sample that received no reminder letter. The most effective letters were those that threatened an economic sanction for continued non-compliance. These letters were particularly cost-effective in raising additional city revenues. There was no evidence that those receiving a reminder for calendar year 2015 improved their tax compliance behavior in calendar year 2016.


This paper presents a new multilevel selective harmonic elimination pulse-width modulation (MSHE-PWM) technique for transformerless static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) system employing cascaded H-bridge inverter (CHI) configuration. The proposed MSHE-PWM method optimizes both the dc-voltage levels and the switching angles, enabling more harmonics to be eliminated without affecting the structure of the inverter circuit. The method provides constant switching angles and linear pattern of dc-voltage levels over the modulation index range. This in turns eliminates the tedious steps required for manipulating the offline calculated switching angles and therefore, easing the implementation of the MSHE-PWM for dynamic systems. Although the method relies on the availability of the variable dc-voltage levels which can be obtained by various topologies, however, the rapid growth and development in the field of power semiconductor devices led to produce high-efficiency dc-dc converters with a relatively high-voltage capacity and for simplicity, a buck dc-dc converter is considered in this paper. Current and voltage closed loop controllers are implemented for both the STATCOM and the buck converter to meet the reactive power demand at different loading conditions. The technique is further compared with an equivalent conventional carrier-based pulse-width modulation to illustrate its enhanced characteristics. The effectiveness and the theoretical analysis of the proposed approach are verified through both simulation and experimental studies.


A carcinogenic tar applied to rabbit skin renders many more epidermal cells neoplastic than ever declare themselves by forming tumors. They may be present in large numbers and persist for a considerable time after brief tarring, yet give rise to no growths unless encouraged. The stimulus of wound healing will suffice to make some of them multiply and form tumors. No evidence has been obtained, in experiments specifically directed to the point, that the cells which tar renders neoplastic respond in this way because they are possessed of peculiarities not shared by the rest of the normal epithelium. The fact that non-specific stimulation (as e.g. wound healing) may act as the deciding influence in tumor formation brings out the need for a sharp distinction between the forces which induce neoplastic change and those which determine, or prevent, its realization in terms of a tumor. The distinction is vital to the appraisal of the many carcinogenic substances worked with nowadays. The ability of tumor cells to lie latent for long periods and respond to non-carcinogenic stimulation by multiplying into growths provides an explanation of those clinical instances in which cancer appears rapidly after acute injury to tissue that had seemed normal.


In this study composite coatings of polycaprolactone (PCL) and nanosized bioactive glass were produced on stainless steel by electrophoretic deposition (EPD) for biomedical applications. PCL was dissolved in dimethylcarbonate and bioactive glass nanoparticles were dispersed in ethanol for the deposition. The EPD parameters were varied in terms of voltage, deposition time, concentration of PCL and bioactive glass (BG) and pH. SEM showed that homogeneous composite coatings of about 5µm thickness were produced. Contact angle measurements indicated that the contact angle and hence the hydrophobicity of the coatings decreases with increasing BG content. The bioactivity of the coatings was investigated by assessing the formation of hydroxyapatite on coating surfaces in simulated body fluid for up to 15 days and investigating the samples by Raman spectroscopy and SEM. EPD was confirmed to be a suitable technique to produce composite coatings based on nanosized bioactive glass and PCL, which are of interest as soft (deformable) bioactive coating in orthopedic applications.


This paper proposes VideoFountain, a novel service that deploys kiosks at popular venues to store and transmit digital media to users' personal devices using Wi-Fi access points, which may not have Internet connectivity. We leverage mobile users to deliver content to these kiosks. A key component in this design is an in-depth understanding of user mobility. We gather real mobility traces from two largest location-based social networks (Foursquare and Gowalla) and analyze both macroscopic and microscopic human mobility in different cities. Based on the insights we gain, we study several algorithms to determine the initial placement of content and design routing algorithms to optimize the content delivery. We further consider several practical issues, such as how to incentivize users to forward content, how to manage copyrights, how to ensure security, and how to achieve service discovery. We demonstrate the feasibility of VideoFountain using trace-driven simulations.


Objective: To investigate the impact of a quality improvement initiative for severe sepsis and septic shock focused on the resuscitation bundle on 90-day mortality. Furthermore, effects on compliance rates for antiinfective therapy within the recommended 1-hour interval are evaluated. Design: Prospective observational before-after cohort study. Setting: Tertiary university hospital in Germany. Patients: All adult medical and surgical ICU patients with severe sepsis and septic shock. Intervention: Implementation of a quality improvement program over 7.5 years. Measurements: The primary endpoint was 90-day mortality. Secondary endpoints included ICU and hospital mortality rates and length of stay, time to broad-spectrum antiinfective therapy, and compliance with resuscitation bundle elements. Main Results: A total of 14,115 patients were screened. The incidence of severe sepsis and septic shock was 9.7%. Ninety-day mortality decreased from 64.2% to 45.0% (p < 0.001). Hospital length of stay decreased from 44 to 36 days (p < 0.05). Compliance with resuscitation bundle elements was significantly improved. Antibiotic therapy within the first hour after sepsis onset increased from 48.5% to 74.3% (p < 0.001). Multivariate analysis revealed blood cultures before antibiotic therapy (hazard ratio, 0.60–0.84; p < 0.001), adequate calculated antibiotic therapy (hazard ratio, 0.53–0.75; p < 0.001), 1–2 L crystalloids within the first 6 hours (hazard ratio 0.67–0.97; p = 0.025), and greater than or equal to 6 L during the first 24 hours (hazard ratio, 0.64–0.95; p = 0.012) as predictors for improved survival. Conclusions: The continuous quality improvement initiative focused on the resuscitation bundle was associated with increased compliance and a persistent reduction in 90-day mortality over a 7.5-year period. Based on the observational study design, a causal relationship cannot be proven, and respective limitations need to be considered.


Emma has always wanted a little brother. Now her family is adopting Max, and Emma is sure he will be the best brother ever. But Max has his own ideas. He thinks sisters are yucky, and that Emma is the yuckiest! Is this really what having a brother is all about? In Jean Little's warmhearted, perceptive story about adoption, Emma learns that there is more to having a little brother than she had ever guessed -- and that in order to get the brother she wants, she must first learn to be the sister he needs.


Why do international criminal tribunals write histories of the origins and causes of armed conflicts? Based on original empirical research with judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys and expert witnesses in three international criminal tribunals, Writing History in International Criminal Trials, book here introduced, seeks to understand how law and history are combined in the courtroom. Historical testimony is now an integral part of international trials, with prosecutors and defense teams using background testimony to pursue decidedly legal objectives. In the Slobodan Milosevic trial, the prosecution sought to demonstrate special intent to commit genocide by reference to a long-standing animus, nurtured within a nationalist mindset. For their part, the defense called historical witnesses to undermine charges of superior responsibility, and to mitigate the sentence by representing crimes as reprisals. Although legal ways of knowing are distinct from those of history, the two are effectively combined in international trials in a way that challenges us to rethink the relationship between law and history.


A rapid spectrophotometric assay to determine the activities of HPI and HPII catalases in Escherichia coli extracts has been developed. This assay is based upon the differential heat stabilities of the two enzymes and offers significant advantages over previous methods for quantitation of their activities. Measurement of catalase activities in extracts of various mutant strains confirmed the ability of this method to accurately distinguish the two activities. Contrary to previously published results, HPI catalase activity was observed to increase at stationary phase in strains lacking the stationary-phase sigma factor sigma(s) (RpoS). This increase was independent of OxyR and also occurred in a strain lacking the HPII structural gene, katE. These results suggest a potential novel pathway for HPI induction in response to increased oxidative stress in the absence of HPII. Measurement of HPII activity in strains carrying mutations in pcm (encoding the L-isoaspartyl protein methyltransferase) and surE led to the finding that these strains also have an amber mutation in rpoS; sequencing demonstrated the presence of this mutation in several commonly used laboratory strains of E. coli, including AB1157, W1485, and JC7623.


During the summer of 1963, Harvard linguist Karl V. Teeter traveled along the Saint John River, the great thoroughfare of Native New Brunswick, Canada, with his principal Maliseet consultant, Peter Lewis Paul. Together they recorded a series of tales from Maliseet elders whom Paul regarded as among the best Maliseet storytellers born before 1900, including Charles Laporte, Matilda Sappier, Solomon Polchies, William Saulis, and Alexander Sacobie. Paul also contributed eleven narratives of his own. Tales from Maliseet Country presents the transcripts and translations of the texts Teeter collected, together with one tale recorded by linguist Philip S. LeSourd in 1977. The stories range from chronicles of shamanistic activity and mysterious events of the distant past, through more conventionally historical narratives, to frankly fictional yarns, fairy tales with roots in European traditions, and personal accounts of subsistence activities and reservation life. This entertaining and revealing volume testifies to the rich heritage of the Maliseets and the enduring vibrancy of their culture today. Featuring a bilingual format, with Maliseet and English on facing pages, this is the first extensive collection to be published in the Maliseet language, a member of the far-flung Algonquian family spoken in New Brunswick. The volume is also the first to provide full phonemic transcriptions, including the notation of accentual contrasts, of the Maliseet tales. An authoritative introduction provides a guide to interpreting the texts.


The Bank's Board approved a new Ex Post Policy (EPP) in October 2003, which mandated two new tasks to OVE: the review and validation of Project Completion Reports and the implementation of ex post project evaluations. The scope of this report (RE-308) is limited to the ex post project evaluation task. It's overall purpose is to present the preliminary findings from the first year's experience in implementing EPP. The preliminary findings draw upon three themes: (i) the individual projects evaluated; (ii) the systematic features of the Bank's monitoring and evaluation system; and (iii) evaluative method standards.


The Greenland ice sheet is the largest Northern Hemisphere store of fresh water, and it is responding rapidly to the warming climate. In situ observations document the changing ice sheet properties in the lower accumulation area, Southwest Greenland. Firn densities from 1840 meters above sea level retrieved in May 2012 revealed the existence of a 5.5-meter-thick, near-surface ice layer in response to the recent increased melt and refreezing in firn. As a consequence, vertical meltwater percolation in the extreme summer 2012 was inefficient, resulting in surface runoff. Meltwater percolated and refroze at six meters depth only after the end of the melt season. This prolonged autumn refreezing under the newly accumulated snowpack resulted in unprecedented firn warming with temperature at ten meters depth increased by more than four degrees Celsius. Simulations confirm that meltwater reached nine meters depth at most. The refrozen meltwater was estimated at 0.23 meters water equivalent, amounting to 25 % of the total 2012 ablation.A surface energy balance model was used to evaluate the seasonal and interannual variability of all surface energy fluxes at that elevation in the years 2009 to 2013. Due to the meltwater presence at the surface in 2012, the summer-averaged albedo was significantly reduced (0.71 in 2012; typically 0.78). A sensitivity analysis revealed that 71 % of the subsequent additional solar radiation in 2012 was used for melt, corresponding to 36 % of the total 2012 surface lowering. This interplay between melt and firn properties highlights that the lower accumulation area of the Greenland ice sheet will be responding rapidly in a warming climate.


Politics and, cultural production and consumption activities are among the essential dimensions of the social and political life. Firstly, they may shape and be shaped by different social infrastructures. Secondly, they may define the allocation of power within the society. Cultural production and consumption activities should not only be regarded as a form of entertainment but also their impact on politics. Cultural production and consumption practices may stimulate civic participation. That is to say, they may function as a vehicle of citizens' encouragement to voice their opinions through artistic manifestations. The establishment of online communities may facilitate the gathering and networking of citizens interested in civic participation and, cultural production and consumption practices. Non-governmental/ non-for-profit organizations dealing with the promotion of civic participation through cultural production and consumption manifestations may facilitate the access to a wider audience to the cultural public sphere. The study was focused on the case of the European Cultural Foundation (ECF). Specifically, the data collection procedure was conducted mainly on the online community of the ECF Labs, a platform established by the ECF. The primary goal of the platform is to gather citizens keen on politics and cultural production. Among the main findings was that cultural production and consumption activities may mobilize citizens to participate in the political and social life. However, if there is an absence of the necessary infrastructures cultural production and consumption activities may have no impact on civic participation.Politics and, cultural production and consumption activities are among the essential dimensions of the social and political life. Firstly, they may shape and be shaped by different social infrastructures. Secondly, they may define the allocation of power within the society. Cultural production and consumption activities should not only be regarded as a form of entertainment but also their impact on politics. Cultural production and consumption practices may stimulate civic participation. That is to say, they may function as a vehicle of citizens' encouragement to voice their opinions through artistic manifestations. The establishment of online communities may facilitate the gathering and networking of citizens interested in civic participation and, cultural production and consumption practices. Non-governmental/ non-for-profit organizations dealing with the promotion of civic participation through cultural production and consumption manifestations may facilitate the access to a wider audience to the cultural public sphere. The study was focused on the case of the European Cultural Foundation (ECF). Specifically, the data collection procedure was conducted mainly on the online community of the ECF Labs, a platform established by the ECF. The primary goal of the platform is to gather citizens keen on politics and cultural production. Among the main findings was that cultural production and consumption activities may mobilize citizens to participate in the political and social life. However, if there is an absence of the necessary infrastructures cultural production and consumption activities may have no impact on civic participation.


It is out of the question that nowadays the European competence to defend rule of law and human rights against Member States is one of the core issues of the 'European project'. In the last decade, the EU institutions have made several benevolent, but feeble attempts to enforce rule of law and human rights requirements. Though EU law's approach, at least at first glance, might appear to be idiosyncratic, it is far from unprecedented and, as far as multilevel constitutionalism is concerned, EU law may draw on the experiences of various regimes where centralized human rights protection and national (state) constitutional identities coexist. Comparative federalism provides an array of experiences, solutions and techniques, which help the European integration to grasp and address the diagonal enforcement of human rights and to take stock of its solutions. This volume addresses the EU's human rights problem from a comparative perspective and explores the constitutional and jurisprudential patterns addressing the question of inquiry in a multilevel constitutional architecture.


This paper describes the synthesis, characterization and studies of dendrimers possessing an amino acid–metal complex as the core. Using Frechet-type polyaryl ether dendrons, L-tyrosine–metal (ZnII and CoII) complex cored dendrimers of 0–4 generations were synthesized. The metal complexation of the tyrosine unit at the focal point of these dendrons took place smoothly, in excellent yields, even though the sizes of the dendrons increase as the generations advance. Spectrophotometric titrations with CoII metal ion confirmed the formation of a 2 ∶ 1 dendritic ligand to metal complex and the existence of a pseudotetrahedral geometry at the metal centre is also inferred. Cyclic voltammetric studies of dendrimer–CoII complexes showed that while the electron transfer of CoII to CoI was facile for generations 0–2, such a process was difficult with generations 3 and
4, indicating a rigid encapsulation of the metal ion centre by proximal dendron groups. Further reduction of CoI to Co0 and the corresponding oxidation processes appear to be limited by adsorption at the surfaces of the electrodes.


John Nevius served as a missionary to China in the late nineteenth-century. From his field experience, Nevius argued for radical changes in missionary methodology. His greatest influence may have been on the mission to Korea beginning in the 1890s. David Garrison, currently serving in South Asia, served for several years in influential administrative roles within the International (formerly Foreign) Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. He studied and advocated Church Planting Movements [CPM], necessitating a change in contemporary missionary methodology. Both men have made major contributions to the practice of missions. This article endeavors to show the similarities between their methods, viz., the Nevius Method and CPMs, through the historical lens of the introduction of Protestant Christianity to Korea. The impetus behind this analysis is the role and value of missions history in developing missionary strategy. Both the Nevius Method and Church Planting Movements implement certain similar strategies that have proved effective and are worthy of consideration.


In XX female mammals a single X chromosome is inactivated early in embryonic development, a process that is required to equalise X-linked gene dosage relative to XY males. X inactivation is regulated by a cis-acting master switch, the Xist locus, the product of which is a large non-coding RNA that coats the chromosome from which it is transcribed, triggering recruitment of chromatin modifying factors that establish and maintain gene silencing chromosome wide. Chromosome coating and Xist RNA-mediated silencing remain poorly understood, both at the level of RNA sequence determinants and interacting factors. Here, we describe analysis of a novel targeted mutation, XistINV, designed to test the function of a conserved region located in exon 1 of Xist RNA during X inactivation in mouse. We show that XistINV is a strong hypomorphic allele that is appropriately regulated but compromised in its ability to silence X-linked loci in cis. Inheritance of XistINV on the paternal X chromosome results in embryonic lethality due to failure of imprinted X inactivation in extra-embryonic lineages. Female embryos inheriting XistINV on the maternal X chromosome undergo extreme secondary non-random X inactivation, eliminating the majority of cells that express the XistINV allele. Analysis of cells that express XistINV RNA demonstrates reduced association of the mutant RNA to the X chromosome, suggesting that conserved sequences in the inverted region are important for Xist RNA localisation.


Several recent visual working memory studies have suggested that face expertise is reflected in a greater capacity for face stimuli, others would suggest that the locus of face expertise can be identified in the fidelity/quality of the facial representation. This study investigated face memory by manipulating expertise, both between object categories (faces, shaded cubes), and within face category (Chinese, Western Caucasian). The research design was a quasi-experimental 3 factor study, looking at the effects associated with participant ethnicity, face stimulus ethnicity. When both participant and face ethnicity factors were collapsed, the results indicated that an advantage of faces over shaded cubes was present only in the within-category change condition. The full factorial analysis revealed an interaction between participant ethnicity and face ethnicity, indicating an advantage for own race face, in both within and between category conditions. The results are considered within current conceptualisations of face representation within visual work memory.


The Deitels' groundbreaking How to Program series offers unparalleled breadth and depth of object-oriented programming concepts and intermediate-level topics for further study. This survey of Java programming contains an extensive OOD/UML 2 case study on developing an automated teller machine. The Seventh Edition has been extensively fine-tuned and is completely up-to-date with Sun Microsystems, Inc.'s latest Java releasei¾–Java Standard Edition (Java SE) 6.


The dynamics of the Jaynes-Cummings interaction of a two-level atom interacting with a single mode of the radiation field is investigated, as the state of the field is gradually changed from a coherent state to a squeezed coherent state. The effect of mild squeezing on the coherent light is shown to be striking: the photon number distribution gets localized and it peaks maximally for a particular value of squeezing. The atomic inversion retains its structure for a longer time. The mean linear entropy shows that the atom has a tendency to get disentangled from field within the collapse region and also in the revival region, for mild squeezing. These properties are absent for the case of a coherent state or for an excessively squeezed coherent state. We also elucidate a connection between these properties and the photon statistics of the mildly squeezed coherent state; these states have the minimum variance and are also maximally sub-Poissonian.


Under normal growth conditions, cells maintain a low concentration of the transcription factor and tumor suppressor protein p53. This occurs through the conjugation of p53 to ubiquitin molecules, a modification that signals its degradation by the ubiquitin-proteosome pathway. Conditions of stress, such as DNA damage, cause an increase in cellular p53 and subsequent activation of p53-dependent events such as the control of cell cycle progression and apoptosis. Two groups report that a ubiquitin-related molecule called the small ubiquitin-related modifier (SUMO) is also conjugated to p53. "Sumolation" was observed in vitro and in vivo. The site of SUMO addition was mapped to a single lysine residue at the COOH-terminus of p53. Mutation of this residue did not inhibit ubiquitination of the protein, although this residue may also be a site of ubiquitin addition. Unlike the addition of multiple ubiquitin molecules to p53, only one molecule of SUMO is appended. Sumolation increased the transcription activity of p53, but it remains to be determined how SUMO activates p53 and whether this modification contributes to the growth suppressing properties of p53. Rodriguez, M.S., Desterro, J.M.P., Lain, S., Midgley, C.A., Lane, D.P., and Hay, R.T. (1999) SUMO-1 modification activates the transcriptional response of p53. EMBO J. 18: 6455-6451. [Abstract] [Full Text] Gostissa, M., Hengstermann, A., Fogal, V., Sandy, P., Schwarz, S.E., Scheffner, M., and Del Sal, G. (1999) Activation of p53 by conjugation to the ubiquitin-like protein SUMO-1. EMBO J. 18: 6462-6471. [Abstract] [Full Text]


More than two hundred years of volcano watching in Hawaii is captured in this pictorial history by three contemporary volcano watchers. Volcanoes have been observed and records have been made of their activity since the early Polynesians recognized the Hawaiian Islands as volcanic and incorporated their awareness of volcanic processes into legends and chants. This illustrated summary of eruptions and earthquakes on the island of Hawaii from the time of Captain Cook's voyage in the late eighteenth century to recent, on going events at Kilauea includes early maps, paintings, drawings, and photographs made by volcano watchers. Lucid, thought provoking, and superbly illustrated, this work highlights the accomplishments of both scientists and lay observers: the Reverend Titus Coan, James D. Dana, Sarah Joiner Lyman, Thomas A. Jaggar, Jerry Eaton, and others. The authors describe the conditions under which the early observers worked, the methods available to them, and the insights they gained through observation. The book also traces the development of volcanology in Hawaii and the history of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. It concludes by discussing future challenges to coexistence with Hawaii's active volcanoes.


We examine the high levels of financial stress among Indigenous populations in Australia. We estimate separate models for the determinants of financial stress for Indigenous and non-Indigenous households and show the importance of separately considering Indigenous disadvantage. We use these models to build equivalence scales for both groups. We find evidence consistent with financial stress being exacerbated by demand-sharing ("humbugging"). The evidence also suggests that financial stress is reduced by engagement in traditional hunting and gathering activities.


Denmark is far in developing Digital Government. Two essential challenges have, however, emerged. First, the use of information and communication technology (ICT) has caused unlawful administration in some areas due to deficient and faulty programming, in some cases violating the very core of rule of law. This unwanted side effect of digitalisation has been counteracted by a development of new principles of Danish administrative law; administrative law by design and the requirement for a good administration impact assessment. Administrative law by design imposes a duty on public authorities to apply a value-based approach and to ensure relevant legislation and unwritten principles of public administrative law are embedded into the design of ICT. Good administration impact assessment entails a requirement for mapping all relevant legislation and principles of administrative law as part of the development of a given technology, if it is to be used by public authorities. Second, a major challenge is the skidding of control and insight as the digitalisation transition progresses and the technologies used develops. Some Danish authorities have already lost the oversight, the knowledge and the control of the systems used within their areas of administration, as also described in this article. During the summer of 2017 Danish administrative law might have adjusted to this challenge as well. The Parliamentary Ombudsman stated that in some cases the explicit acceptance of the democratically legitimised parliament, in other words legislation, is needed, if private companies are to develop and operate technologies used in the public sector. The aim of this article is to give a brief description of these two challenges caused by digitalisation and to hopefully serve as inspiration for others facing similar challenges and to give a more comprehensive insight in the subsequent development of Danish administrative law.


Software projects are among the failure prone projects in engineering and software requirements problems have been attributed to be one of main reasons to software project failures. There are many techniques and methodology developed for practitioners to use in working with software requirements, which makes it impossible for one to master them during formal education. In addition, many of the practitioners are coming from different disciplines. Thus they are required to learn in practice. Previous studies have shown informal learning (i.e. not planned or run by institutions or organizations) to be more effective and more used in workplace learning situations. The study investigates how the requirements engineering skills are and can be learned in workplace especially informally. By comparing the results obtained by the literature study and empirical study the recommendations are given on how one can recognise, utilise, and encourage the informal learning activities to develop requirements engineering skills. The study does not rule out the need to have the formal education and training in requirements engineering but identify it as an important prerequisite and/or complement. It provides insight on how informal learning practices are utilised by practitioners who are rather experienced in requirements engineering and how they could try to recognise and/or utilise other learning opportunities presented by previous literature. It furthermore offers general recommendations of how to utilise the informal learning for developing requirements engineering skills and other related disciplines.


Efficient bi-directional axonal transport is critical for the function and survival of neurons. Defects in this process have been identified in early stages of several late-onset neurological disease models. Axonal transport is also thought to naturally decline with age, which could exacerbate pathological deficiencies and may alter disease onset and/or progression. Here, by using the atoxic binding fragment of tetanus neurotoxin (HcT), we monitored the transport kinetics of axonal signalling endosomes, which are intracellular compartments essential for neuronal differentiation and homeostasis. HcT can be injected into muscles, where it is taken up by nerve termini and hijacks the retrograde delivery of signalling endosomes. Assessing the dynamic properties of signalling endosomes in live, female, wild-type mice aged from one to over 13 months, we saw no significant alterations in transport speeds or pausing. Our work indicates that decline in signalling endosome kinetics does not occur before one year in vivo, suggesting that its deterioration during normal ageing is unlikely to be affecting previously reported disease-associated endosome transport deficits.


Since mutagens produce an extraordinary diversity of mutational patterns, differential mutational exposures among populations are expected to produce different patterns of mutation. Classical epidemiological methods have been successful in implicating specific mutagens in cancers such as those of lung and skin in which one mutagen predominates. In breast cancer, however, no mutagens have been implicated in an unequivocal manner. In an attempt to facilitate epidemiological studies, we have been studying the pattern of p53 gene mutations in breast cancers from multiple populations with high and low breast cancer incidences. We previously reported that breast cancers from Midwest United States, predominantly rural Caucasian women, have a different pattern of p53 gene mutation from populations of Western European women. Herein, we analyze patterns of p53 mutations from Graz, Austria, another population with a high incidence of breast cancer. Among the 60 Austrian breast cancers analyzed, 14 (23%) have a p53 gene mutation in exons 5-9 or in adjacent splice junctions. Analysis of the patterns of mutation shows differences between the "Western European" profile and the Austrian and Midwest United States groups (P = 0.027 and 0.024, respectively). The Austrian pattern is characterized by a high frequency of A:T-->T:A transversions (P = 0.006). The presence of distinct patterns of mutation among the limited number of analyzed populations of Western European origin supports the idea that differential mutagenic exposure and/or genetic differences contribute to breast cancer mutagenesis among geographically distinct Caucasians of Western European origin.


America is at an unprecedented time with self-determination for Black women, and this phase of the movement is reverberating throughout this nation and around the world. There is no confusion for those who identify as Black women that this movement is perpetual, dating back to the enslavement of Black people in America by act and by law. One need only look to the intersecting crises of 2020 to discern the reality of Black women's — and by extension the Black community and by further extension individuals and groups marginalized, subordinated, and oppressed by white patriarchy — perpetual struggle for civil and human rights.

To appreciate the genealogy of this perpetual struggle for civil and human rights, it is instructive to look back on the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment and to be immersed in the stories and the legacies of Black women suffragists to gain insights about modern contestations against limiting the franchise. In the forming of this nation, Black women were intentionally excluded and erased from conceptions of humanity. This exclusion and erasure of Black women's voices and contributions from the annals of social, political, and economic movements throughout history, such as abolitionist and women's suffrage movements, tarnish the legitimacy of our democratic institutions, our laws, and our collective progress toward equality.

This article centers Black women's lived experiences in the struggle for universal suffrage while also leading and supporting their communities in the fight against racial inequality and oppression. By making the sojourn through history using the lens of Black women, an opening is created to understand the perpetuation of racial injustice and oppression through the practices of withholding citizenship and the franchise. It also offers a window into the expertise and resilience of Black women in building and maintaining relationships, alliances, and coalitions to press for the larger vision of universal suffrage, even when their putative partners choose self-interest over the collective. The purpose of highlighting the duality of the movement is to contribute to the literature that seeks to reveal how Black women and their lived experiences with racism and oppression during the women's suffrage movement up through and after the ratification of the 19th Amendment can inform today's efforts at successful coalition building to support modern movements against injustice and inequality.


Calibration of variably saturated flow models with field monitoring data is complicated by the strongly nonlinear dependency of the unsaturated flow parameters on the water content. Combining predictions using various independent models, often called multimodel prediction, is becoming a popular modeling technique. The objective of this study was to compare different methods of multimodel simulation of the field soil water regime using pedotransfer functions (PTFs). We solved the Richards flow equation using HYDRUS‐1D with parameter sets derived from 19 published PTFs and compared different methods of combining the simulation results from the 19 individual models by (i) using only the best model, (ii) using equal weights, (iii) regressing measured values to the results of the individual models, (iv) using singular‐value decomposition (SVD) in the regression, (v) using Bayesian model averaging, and (vi) using weights derived from Akaike criteria. Data on soil water contents and basic soil properties at five depths along a 6‐m transect in a layered loamy soil were used to calibrate the Richards equation and to develop the input for the PTFs. The SVD multimodel was the best method, with an accuracy of about 0.01 m3 m−3 at the 35‐cm depth and about 0.005 m3 m−3 at greater depths for 30 d of monitoring and 13 mo of testing. This indicates that multimodeling in combination with monitoring of the soil water regime can be a viable approach to simulating water flow in the vadose zone.


All polymastiid sponges displaying ornamented exotyles are reviewed and their morphological affinities are reconsidered. The study embraces all known species of Proteleia, Sphaerotylus, Trachyteleia and Tylexocladus as well as several species of Polymastia. A new genus, Koltunia, is established for the Antarctic species Proteleia burtoni based on the unique shape of distal ornamentations of its giant exotyles and on the absence of a spicule palisade in its cortex, a rare feature among the polymastiids. Three new species of Sphaerotylus are described – S. renoufi from the British Isles, S. strobilis from South Africa and S. tjalfei from West Greenland. Transfer of one New Zealand species from Polymastia to Proteleia and of one Chilean species from Polymastia to Sphaerotylus is proposed. The present study provides a background for future integrative phylogenetic analyses based on comprehensive molecular and morphological datasets which should reveal the natural relationships between the polymastiid taxa.


A search for the production of events containing three W bosons predicted by the standard model is reported. The search is based on a data sample of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV recorded by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC and corresponding to a total integrated luminosity of 35.9  fb^(−1(. The search is performed in final states with three leptons (electrons or muons), or with two same-charge leptons plus two jets. The observed (expected) significance of the signal for W^±W^±W^∓ production is 0.60 (1.78) standard deviations, and the ratio of the measured signal yield to that expected from the standard model is 0.34^(+0.62)_(−0.34). Limits are placed on three anomalous quartic gauge couplings and on the production of massive axionlike particles.


This study reports on two experiments in which German participants had to type words presented to them in various modes. Experiment 1 compares typing following visual and oral word presentation with typing following picture presentation. In the second experiment typing responses following oral and visual word presentation were delayed by an extended preparatory period. Both experiments demonstrate significantly increased inter-keystroke intervals (IKIs) at exclusive syllable (S) boundaries and combined syllable and morpheme (SM) boundaries in comparison to within-syllable (L) boundaries. SM-IKIs are significantly larger than S-IKIs and influenced by word frequencies, indicating lexical dependencies. SM-IKIs were found to be significantly longer for oral than for visual word presentation. This is taken as an indication that additional processes are involved in the accessing of graphemic word forms when words are presented orally. Two effects of the typing delay were identified: a decrease of word initial latencies and the disappearance of size differences between SM-IKIs following visual and oral word presentation. On the other hand, the persistence of augmented SM- and S-IKIs in the delayed typing task indicates that input into the motor system is constituted by sub-word units instead by fully specified words. As SM- and S-IKIs reflect influences of different hierarchical levels of language processing, these findings suggest a processing architecture in which the peripheral motor system essentially connects at several hierarchical levels with central processing units.


Theater has been used as an educational tool since the Great Depression era, and it is currently considered an effective tool for health promotion and reducing risk-taking behaviors among youth (Sequin & Rancourt, 1996; Starkel, 2001). For example, Emory University's EN-ACTE theater company, Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa's Acting Out! Teen Theater Troupe, and Atlanta's professional Alliance Theater address a range of contemporary adolescent health issues, including drug and alcohol use, unintended pregnancy, date rape, and HIV infection (Alliance Theater, 2007; Rangus, 2007; Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa, 2007). Theater projects are well suited for communicating prevention messages to youth audiences because they can depict real-life settings and characters who can change during the performance in different ways as the story unfolds. Such character portrayals and settings can offer accurate health information, dispel myths, and illustrate important refusal skills and other preventative practices. These qualities may increase the likelihood that audience members will adopt prevention behaviors. Furthermore, because theater productions communicate health messages to many individuals simultaneously, these messages may become topics of future conversations in classrooms as well as outside school among peers and, possibly, parents and siblings at home. Finally, by simulating dialogue, live theater may help alter social norms regarding adolescent risk behaviors (Starkel, 2001). Although theater-as-education may be effective for addressing a wide range of health and risk behaviors, previous programs that have used this strategy have experienced limitations. First, many programs fail to use a theoretical foundation, thereby ignoring principles that can be transferred to teaching and practice settings. Second, theater-as-education projects often lack systematic assessment of their impacts on audience attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, so the effects of these programs are not well documented. Last, many theater-delivered programs fail to employ a community-based process, which limits their contextual validity. This article describes the development and assessment of the theater-as-education component of a prevention marketing campaign that addresses attitudes toward tobacco and alcohol use, the demonstration of refusal skills, and the clarification of norms regarding use of these products among young adolescents. This program addresses the limitations discussed above, and it provides a replicable model for developing a theater-as-education production for schools and communities to follow. Sarasota County Demonstration Project A coalition of professional and lay leaders in Sarasota County, Florida, collaborated with the Florida Prevention Research Center (FPRC) at the University of South Florida to conduct community-specific research on the local determinants of youth tobacco and alcohol use, and to develop, implement, and evaluate strategies to prevent youth from initiating use of these products. This initiative employed a framework known as Community-Based Prevention Marketing (CBPM), a community-directed social change process that applies marketing theories and techniques to the design, implementation, and evaluation of health promotion and disease prevention programs (Bryant, Forthofer, McCormack Brown, Landis, & McDermott, 2000). Using the results of the community-specific determinants research, the coalition developed a prevention marketing plan and multidimensional intervention strategies that became the Believe in All Your Possibilities prevention marketing campaign (Florida Prevention Research Center, 2007). One of the key strategies in the Believe in All Your Possibilities prevention marketing campaign was the creation and delivery of a theater production performed by youth. Local development of theater-as-education Data derived from youth, parents, and key community stakeholders (Figure 1) were the basis for the development and implementation of the local theater production and the overarching community-based prevention marketing campaign, Believe in All Your Possibilities. …


The Role-Lexical Module (RLM) is a new Web application designed to map lexical meaning from syntax to semantics and to parse a Hebrew text. This tool enables the linguist to decompose meaning according to the notion of semantics in Role and Reference Grammar. Work by programmers Chris Wilson and Ulrik Petersen allows us to exploit WordNet for definition of glosses. On this basis the linguist can classify verbs into Aktionsart classes, represent the meaning of clauses following a selection of Logical Structure, and gradually build an RRG lexicon for Biblical Hebrew. The potential and procedures are illustrated in analyses of the verbs of killing, creation and seeing in Biblical Hebrew. This tool helps us map from syntax to semantics in a closed corpus in the database of the Werkgroep Informatica of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.


For almost a decade, 'public legitimacy' has remained largely unaddressed in empirical international relations (IR) analyses of international legalization. Yet, this concept has behavioral consequences. IR scholars for long assume that a belief in the legitimacy of a norm may be one reason for a 'compliance pull' on the international stage. The present study addresses this gap. It suggests a sociological conception of legalization observable in mass media debates and encompassing law's 'public legitimacy', understood as the congruence between legal regulations and discursive practices to that effect that these rules are also accepted by the larger public. This conception is illustrated in European and US newspaper reporting about military interventions in the post-Cold War era (1990-2005). Based on a large-n media analysis, the study not only concludes that an 'international rule of law' frame is heavily diffused across the communicative practices of European and US public spheres. It also shows that two legal norms in particular – human rights and United Nations (UN) multilateralism – generate a shared sense of 'public legitimacy' across the six countries analyzed.