C hronic diseases, particularly cardiovascular disease (CVD), type 2 diabetes, cancer, and chronic respiratory disease, account for more than 50% of all deaths worldwide. Tobacco use, poor diet, and physical inactivity are among the major risk factors contributing to this disease burden. Yet even as the harmful impact of these diseases on health and economies strengthens and spreads globally, there is still only limited public health, financial, and political support for programs aimed at their prevention. One reason for this neglect has been the belief by governments and philanthropists that chronic diseases are afflictions of affluent populations who have led a life of sloth. In reality, these diseases are now global problems that have been driven by profound changes in consumption patterns. Ubiquitous marketing of tobacco and unhealthy food introduces children to (and in the case of tobacco, addicts them to) lifestyles that greatly elevate their disease risk. Rapid changes in transport, work, and leisure activities have led to a global collapse in physical activity levels. Overall, unhealthy choices have become the easy choices.

Already, chronic diseases exert a significant negative impact on the health and economies of developing countries. A recent World Bank analysis of how best to improve health in Europe and Central Asia concluded that measures to control CVD would produce more gains in life expectancy than would measures to address the Millennium Development Goals[*][1] that focus on selected infectious diseases and maternal and child health. This finding probably applies to many of the 4 billion people living in low- and middle-income countries. About 3 million deaths from CVD occur annually in both India and China. One million tobacco-related deaths occur annually in China and 700,000 in India. With 1 in 5 children in the world now smoking and 1 in 10 classified as overweight or obese, future prospects regarding CVD and type 2 diabetes are grim. Because chronic diseases diminish worker productivity, investor returns in developing countries will be affected, which in turn will likely affect the growth of countries within the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Recent reports by investment banks have raised concerns that transnational corporations and pension funds face future risks from the rise in obesity rates.[†][2]

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CREDITS (TOP TO BOTTOM): P. VIROT/WHO; CURT CARNEMARK/THE WORLD BANK; TIM CULLEN/THE WORLD BANK

Governments internationally need to act more decisively. The implementation of two major strategies adopted by all governments at World Health Assemblies could make a huge difference in global prevention of the major risk factors driving the chronic disease epidemics: the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), adopted in 2003; and the Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health (Global Strategy), adopted in 2004. The FCTC will carry the force of international law when it takes affect on 28 February 2005. Already, it has stimulated increases in tobacco excise taxes, the implementation of marketing bans, and the introduction of smoke-free public places in many countries. These actions have been well documented as effective. In contrast, because there are no long-term best practices against obesity or physical inactivity, applied research is needed to assess the effectiveness of the core educational, legislative, intersectoral, and financial elements of the Global Strategy as it is implemented.

Efforts in chronic disease prevention can often take decades to yield benefits. Potentially, these benefits could be achieved more rapidly by investing in clinically based primary care treatments that focus on people at elevated risk for chronic disease, particularly CVD and diabetes. The recent report by the World Health Organization on Priority Medicines for Europe and the World emphasizes the need to expand access to currently available smoking cessation products, antihypertensives, statins, and aspirin, while investing in research to develop heat-stable insulin and a "polypill" to prevent complications and recurrences in patients with CVD.

At the core, chronic disease prevention and health promotion require a shift in thinking and actions by governments and diverse stakeholders. Each society must decide what it is willing to do and pay to help make healthy choices become the easy choices. The gains for global health and economy could be profound.

 [1]: #fn-1
 [2]: #fn-2
 [3]: pending:yes


The use of drone small cells (DSCs) which are aerial wireless base stations that can be mounted on flying devices such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), is emerging as an effective technique for providing wireless services to ground users in a variety of scenarios. The efficient deployment of such DSCs while optimizing the covered area is one of the key design challenges. In this paper, considering the low altitude platform (LAP), the downlink coverage performance of DSCs is investigated. The optimal DSC altitude which leads to a maximum ground coverage and minimum required transmit power for a single DSC is derived. Furthermore, the problem of providing a maximum coverage for a certain geographical area using two DSCs is investigated in two scenarios; interference free and full interference between DSCs. The impact of the distance between DSCs on the coverage area is studied and the optimal distance between DSCs resulting in maximum coverage is derived. Numerical results verify our analytical results on the existence of optimal DSCs altitude/separation distance and provide insights on the optimal deployment of DSCs to supplement wireless network coverage.


Although the benefits of knowledge management systems (KMS) have been clearly articulated, there remains a gap between KM theory and practice. One explanation for this gap can be attributed to the dichotomy between the people versus technology approaches to research that characterize the academic literature on KM and KMS. This paper describes an adaptive theory approach to unpack the people, process and technology dimensions of organisational KMS based on evidence gathered from two in-depth case studies of global consultancy companies that are considered exemplars of KM practice. This study makes a contribution to theory and practice by delineating the people, process and technology dimensions of organizational KMS. The output of this approach is a process-based conceptual model that captures the technological and non-technological features of a KMS, and which incorporates people-based dimensions such as roles and values, as well as the technology platform and supporting technologies employed. The model is informed by theory and grounded in practice, and, as such, it can be used by practitioners as a starting point to plan future KMS implementations or to examine current KMS implementation. Conversely, the model may be used by KM theorists as a starting point for more parsimonious, detailed research studies.


A number of approaches have been proposed in the literature for reconstruction of 3-D objects from sequence of images. Yet, very few studies have been reported on the quantification/validation of the accuracy of these reconstructions. In addition, no design has been reported for a generic vision platform that can allow various modality imaging. The purpose of this paper is two folds: 1) propose a vision platform that lend itself for acquisition of calibrated sequence of images, and concurrently obtain a direct 3-D reconstruction by laser scanning; and 2) develop and implement different approaches for 3-D reconstructions from sequence of images. 3-D reconstructions will be evaluated against the 3-D scanning generated from a laser scanner. Validation of the reconstructions is made by pair-wise comparison with the 3-D scanning results. In addition, other validation approaches are suggested if the ground truth is not available. Preliminary studies with the proposed vision platform show a good promise for its use in the validation of various 3-D reconstructions.


Food color can be indicative of specific nutrients, and thus discrimination based on color can be a valuable foraging behavior. Several bird and fish species with carotenoid-based body ornamentation show color preferences for presumably carotenoid-rich red and orange foods. However, little is known within species about whether or not individuals with (or growing) more colorful ornaments show stronger food-color preferences than those with drabber coloration. Here, we examine food color preferences in house finches (Carpodacus mexicanus) ‐ a species with sexually dichromatic and selected carotenoid coloration ‐ as a function of sex and plumage coloration during molt. We captured wild, molting juvenile house finches over 4 wk in late summer ⁄early fall, quantified the color and size of plumage ornaments being developed in males, and determined food color preference in captivity by presenting individuals with dyed sunflower chips (red, orange, yellow, and green). On average, finches showed an aversion to yellow-dyed chips and a preference for red- and green-colored chips. We found no significant difference between male and female preferences for specific food colors, and food color preference was not significantly related to male plumage ornamentation. However, we did find that redder birds demonstrated a higher degree of food selectivity, measured as the proportion of their preferred food color consumed. These results suggest that food color is not a major factor determining food choice in molting house finches, but that there still may be aspects of foraging behavior that are linked to the development of colorful plumage.


This thesis explores the effects of gender diversity on workgroup performance in Pakistani universities. The study explores the cultural context of KPK in Pakistan and theorises how social constructs attempt to regulate human gender relationships. Qualitative methods are employed to identify, explore and explain how the concept of gender covertly contributes to shaping the professional roles of men and women within extreme patriarchal cultures. The perspectives of both men and women academics, acquired through semi structured interviews and non participant observations of academic meetings, are analysed in this study. They contribute to a deeper understanding of gender disparity that arises and prevails among the individuals working in gender diverse groups.The findings support Goffman's (1954) work on performance and an argument is developed that social and cultural dynamics disempower women by affecting the way they control others' impression of them (women). The study posits a theory that segregation of men and women in Pakistani society, the attitudes and behaviours of individuals as well as social structure, all work to the advantage of men. This is based on cultural values influenced by traditional practices and different interpretations of religious beliefs. In this way, the study undermines Lukes' (1974) and Marxist feminist views of gender relations by arguing that religious thought and traditional customs imposed for social control rather than economic interests can be a powerful reproducer of patriarchy.The study concludes that religious thought embedded in deep rooted historical religious traditions might be a more powerful reproducer of patriarchy than capitalist relations of production, particularly in South Asian cultures. Unlike western cultures where the influence of religious thought has been challenged and diminished over the course of last three centuries, there is no equivalent enlightenment in Pakistan that challenges the hegemony of religious thought. This being the case, the popular (activist) base from which to challenge the dominance of religiously informed patriarchy is not yet sufficiently well developed to support enforcement of legislation.The study recommends a four-step model to university stakeholders and activists for bringing change and promoting equality. Demonstrating social justice in universitiesto young adults brings the hope of a larger change in the society. By contributing to the understanding of gender related dynamics, the study expects to promote gender equality and embrace the notion of gender studies as a source of improving the human condition.


TRAYKOV, I., A. TOSHEVA and E. UZUNOVA, 2010. Physicochemical characteristics of dam lakes in Southwestern Bulgaria. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 16: 350-357 The validity of the defined water body types in Bulgaria and the relationships between the nutrient concentration and the response variables to eutrophication was tested in eight reservoirs in the Struma River Basin. The applicability of different classification schemes based on reservoirs' morphological and physicochemical characteristics are presented and discussed. The similar response of the lakes to changes in TP has proved the relationships underlining the classification of lakes relative to eutrophication, and suggests possible restriction, or at least a redistribution of the reservoirs among the lake types. All tested variables responded markedly to eutrophication, and only the aquatic plants showed limitation both at low as well as at high nutrient levels. The theoretical residence time and the fluctuation of the water table influence the nutrient levels and thus the response variables to the eutrophication in the reservoirs. This emphasizes the problem of how a rather limited sampling program, based on one or a few annual samplings, can provide an adequate and correct definition of the ecological state in the future. Further studies, concerning the validity of the typology system in Bulgaria are needed before the establishment of type specific reference conditions and a consequent calculation of the EQR values for the individual biological quality elements.


The Effective Behavior of Thermoelectric Composites Yang Yang Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Jiangyu Li Mechanical Engineering Thermoelectric materials have attracted significant interests recently for their capability in converting heat directly into electricity and vice versa, and thus promise a wide range of applications. Despite their importance, there have been only very limited theoretical effort towards the analysis and understanding of effective behavior of thermoelectric composites. In this work, we develop • a rigorous continuum analysis on both bi-layered and core-shell thermoelectric composites, in which the distribution of temperature, electric potential, and heat flux are solved from the governing equations, and the effective thermoelectric properties defined through an equivalency principle; • a conversion efficiency analysis of thermoelectric composites, using an idealized thermoelectric module; • a non-linear asymptotic homogenization theory to understand the effective behavior of both one-dimensional and two-dimensional thermoelectric composites without macroscopic heterogeneity. We establish the unit cell problem, for which, the twodimensional numerical solution are obtained by a Finite Element method. The nonlinearly coupled thermoelectric transport equations are further homogenized, from which the macroscopic field distributions are derived with local fluctuation averaged out, and overall thermoelectric conversion efficiency is established. Through analysis, we • demonstrate that higher figure of merit of thermoelectric composite than any of its constituents is indeed possible, excluding size and interfacial effects; • find out that the thermoelectric conversion efficiency of a composite can be enhanced by its constituents, with the mechanism responsible for the enhancement identified, and the upper bound established; • discover that the thermoelectric field distributions in the composite are different from those in a homogeneous material, and they are difficult to be fitted by homogeneous solution. We conclude that thermoelectric conversion efficiency of a composite is not bounded, and can be higher than all its constituents in the absence of size and interface effects. Furthermore, it is noted the effective properties defined by a set of equivalency principle depend on specific boundary conditions, resulting in effective figure of merit that is not correlated with thermoelectric conversion efficiency directly. The analysis thus points toward a new route for developing high-performance thermoelectric materials, and provides considerable insight into the effective behavior of thermoelectric composites in terms of both design and optimization.


America's experience with farmland preservation is a combination of modest success and inconsistent farm policies. The successes-in terms of farmland acres preserved-have been concentrated in a relatively small number of counties, mainly in the Northeast and in California (see Sokolow and Zurbrugg, 2003). But nationwide there is a split between the farm income-oriented policies of the US federal government and the land use and growth management policies of state and local governments. Even though the federal government has recently implemented a farmland preservation grant program, land use planning in America is largely controlled by local governments. Getting the local governments-—townships in the Northeast and Midwest, and counties in the rest of the nation-to coordinate their land use planning and farmland preservation efforts has often been a frustrating experience. Targeting federal funds to important agricultural regions has not been fully realized.


This chapter provides a discussion on a variety of didactic practices, focusing largely on musical learning within institutions. An appropriate curriculum for performers beyond the immediate study of music has been promulgated in many different contexts, one eighteenth century source prescribing for music students 'the whole of worldly wisdom, as well as mathematics, poetry, rhetoric and many languages'. Within the broad study of music, theory and analysis have gradually been supplemented by a host of other performance-related subjects, such as acoustics, performance practice, psychology and world music. In addition, the increasing interaction of performers with their communities has brought into focus the benefits of music to disadvantaged members of society. For musical training, mobility is of great importance; the possibility of moving relatively freely between institutions within a 'European Higher Education Area' is an attractive one for musicians, for whom networking and mobility are central to training.


In this essay we examine a fundamental question in biosemiotic ethics: why think that semiosis is a morally relevant property, or a property that supports the moral value of living beings or systems that possess it? We argue that biosemiotic particularism, the view that normative assessment should be based on the particular fulfillment of an organism's or other biological entity's specific semiosic capacity, offers a justifiable normative position for the biosemiotic ethicist. If what justifies offering moral standing to all living beings and systems is that these entities are semiosic, then there must be something ethically motivating about semiosis. We examine several arguments in answer to this question. These include arguments for semiotic agency, the claim that all living entities are agential as a result of their semiosic capacities; arguments for subjective or quasi-subjective experience, that all living beings have it and that it matters morally; and arguments for the moral relevance of meaning-making as sufficient for moral considerability. We also address the negative argument that semiosis is at least as defensible as sentience, an alternative candidate capacity for grounding moral relevance, and other cognition-related capacities. Finally, we push further to ask: even if semiosis is a morally relevant capacity of living organisms, is it the morally relevant property? That is, is semiosis the least common denominator for attribution of moral worth, to the effect that sentience-based approaches, among others, could build on biosemiotic ethics as a foundational meta-ethical theory?


Crude oil and natural gas are the main sources for energy in the US and around the word. Natural gas is a relatively clean source of energy compared to oil and could be cheaper to the consumer than oil especially if there is no coupling in price between oil and gas. Therefore, it is of interest to determine the long term relationship between oil and gas prices and to develop a model for predicting gas price. In this study, we used the Johansen integration test and showed that the logarithm of crude oil prices and the logarithm of natural gas prices are co-integrated in the sense that they are in a long term equilibrium relationship in which case the two series stay together and do not diverge over time. Any divergence is usually short term and eventually the two series come back together. Also, the logarithm of electricity price was found to be cointegrated with the logarithm of natural gas price. The logarithm of the GDP was also found to be co-integrated with that of natural gas price. Using data from 1973 to 2009, a time series model was developed that related the logarithm of natural gas price to that of crude oil and electricity prices. The model is useful for predicting, in the short run, gas price from knowledge of oil and electricity prices INTRODUCTION The United States as well as the rest of the world are heavily dependent on oil for their energy requirement. In the US, there has been an on- going call and a recent movement on the part of the government for developing alternative, renewable, and clean energy sources. A salient argument in favor of this move is to reduce our dependence on foreign oil for our own security and economic well being and to reduce environmental pollution. A sharp increase in crude oil prices over a short time period, caused by reduced oil production due to political instability in some of the oil rich countries, could cause inflation in the US and jeopardize its security. Developing alternative clean energy sources such as wind, bio-fuel, solar and hydro power is a long term development that should be pursued. However, an immediate source of energy that is available in abundance domestically is gas. Natural gas is believed to be an important, if not the most important, energy source for the future. Natural gas is a relatively clean source of energy compared to oil and could be cheaper to the consumer than oil especially if there is no coupling in price between oil and gas. Hence, there has been some interest in the literature in looking at the relationship of crude oil and natural gas prices. An understanding of this relationship would help in market forecasts and utilization of both commodities. In this paper, we use time series data of crude oil and natural gas prices on a yearly basis in the US to investigate the long term relationship between them as well as between natural gas price and electricity price. In addition, we develop an empirical model relating natural gas price to crude oil price and price of electricity RELEVANT LITERATURE There are a number of studies in the literature investigating the relationship between natural gas price and other energy prices such as oil and electricity. Asche et al (2006) studied the long term relationship between oil, gas and electricity prices. The authors' interest was in determining if prices of any two series are co-integrated in the sense that the two series stay together and do not diverge over time. Any divergence is usually short term and eventually the two series come back together. If two series are co-integrated, then they are deemed coupled. There was evidence from the study pointing to a co-integrated relationship between energy prices in the United Kingdom (UK) for the period, 1995-1998. Also, Pangiotidis and Rutledge (2006) found evidence for co-integration between oil and gas prices in the United Kingdom in the period 1996 to 2003. Bachmeier and Driffin (2006) presented evidence for weak co-integration between natural gas, crude oil, and coal process in the US. …


Understanding the mechanisms of toxicity of ionic liquids at the molecular level is crucial for their conscious design as to promote higher acceptability as green solvents in a wide range of applications. In this systematic study, we investigated the effects of three families of ionic liquids on the plasma membrane of the filamentous fungus Aspergillus nidulans. Using fluorescence microscopy and gene expression analysis, we were able to demonstrate that the widely studied 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium chlorides with long alkyl substituents cause membrane permeabilisation. In opposition, the biocompatibility of cholinium alkanoates was reinforced here, even though their toxicity also increases with the elongation of the anion. Further investigating the effects of charge on membrane permeabilisation, we observed that a series of alkyl-(2-hydroxyethyl)-dimethylammonium bromides led to permeabilisation of the fungal plasma membrane by increasing the length of one alkyl substituent in the cholinium cation. We hypothesise that the chemical nature of the plasma membrane, which presents a heterogeneous charge distribution along its surface, is pivotal for the membrane permeabilising effects of ionic liquids. This study may inspire a new trend in the ionic liquid field: to give preference for the development of compounds carrying functionalised anions as greener alternatives to those carrying functionalized cations.


Social welfare programs and policies can have a variety of anticipated and unexpected effects on the human capital investments of young adults at-risk of living in poverty in the United States. My dissertation investigates how three large-scale public programs – meanstested, cash welfare (e.g., Aid to Families with Dependent Children and Temporary Aid to Needy Families), Medicaid health insurance for children, and the Social Security Student Benefit Program – affected the educational attainment and work experience of vulnerable young adults. In the first chapter, I examine how public policies encouraging labor force participation by low-skilled single mothers during welfare reform unintentionally led to labor supply declines by young, less-educated single males. While the labor market woes of low-skilled male workers over the past several decades have been well documented, the academic literature on the identification of causal factors leading to the decline in labor force participation (LFP) by young, low-skilled males is relatively scant. In this paper, I use a fixed-effects, instrumental variable research design to exploit the timing and characteristics of welfare reform policies to explore whether policies targeted to increase LFP rates for low-skilled single mothers inadvertently led to labor force exit of young, low-skilled males. Using data from the Current Population Survey and the series of work inducements enacted by states throughout the 1990s as a source of exogenous variation in a quasi-experimental design, I find that a welfare-reform-generated 10 percentage point (pp) increase in LFP for low-skilled single mothers resulted in a statistically significant 2.6 pp decline in LFP rates by young, low-skilled single males. Furthermore, after a series of alternative model specifications and robustness checks, I find that this result is driven entirely by the decline in labor supply for white males; young black males and other groups of workers appear to be unaffected by the labor supply response of less-educated single mothers to welfare reform. The second essay in my dissertation studies one of the long-term effects of the child Medicaid health insurance expansions. Prompted by the legislative decision to decouple child Medicaid benefits from cash welfare receipt, the number of young children qualifying for public health insurance grew markedly throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. This chapter extends the academic literature examining early childhood investments and longer-term human capital measures by exploring whether public health insurance expansions to low-income children led to a greater number of high school completers in the 2000s. Using a technique developed by Currie and Gruber (1994, 1996) to simulate the generosity of a state's Medicaid program during early childhood, I find large and significant effects on completion rates, which are examined in two forms: the dropout rate and the traditional four-year high school graduation rate. Intent-to-treat estimates range from a 1.9 to 2.5 pp decrease in the dropout rate for each 10 pp increase in early childhood years covered by the state-level Medicaid program. The same 10 percentage point increase in child Medicaid program generosity reveals increases of 1.0 to 1.3 pp when applied to four-year graduation rates, indicating that dropout reductions are propelled by increases in traditional diplomas. In addition, results appear to be driven by Hispanic and white students, the two groups which experienced the greatest within-group eligibility increases due to the decoupling of child Medicaid from the AFDC cash assistance program. My final dissertation chapter investigates how a particular college fund guarantee affected achievements in higher education. Utilizing data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979) and a difference-in-differences model, this work re-examines the impact of the Social Security Student Benefits Program (SSSBP) on post-secondary educational attainment, a topic first studied by Dynarski (2003). By exploiting a larger panel of data and exploring degree attainment at various ages, my coauthor and I find that disadvantaged youth potentially qualifying for SSSBP funds – e.g., those losing a father before they turned 18 – were over 20 pp more likely to obtain higher education degrees beyond their high school diploma than similar students who would have qualified for benefits, but-for the program's termination in May 1982. Initial program impacts – i.e., those by age 23 – show an increase in Associate's degree attainment. As these respondents age, however, many go on to obtain four year degrees. Impacts are large and statistically significant, and suggestive that social programs seeking to reduce the financial costs of Associate's degrees – such as the one announced by President Obama in his 2015 State of the Union Address – could be well-targeted. THREE ESSAYS ON U.S. SOCIAL POLICY'S IMPACT ON THE HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT OF YOUNG ADULTS AT-RISK OF POVERTY by Lincoln H. Groves B.S., Binghamton University, 2000 M.A., Johns Hopkins University, 2010


Vertisols are clayey, shrink-swell soils that are widely recognized in the rock record, thus generating the need to better understand the dynamics of elemental concentrations on the development of weathering indexes for climate interpretations. We assessed the weathering performance of the four major base-forming oxides (CaO, MgO, Na 2 O, K 2 O) along a modern Vertisol climosequence spanning a strong precipitation gradient, and discovered that the concentration of bulk soil CaO and MgO yields the strongest correlation to mean annual precipitation (MAP). Based on this fi nding, we introduce the CALMAG weathering index, defi ned as Al 2 O 3 / (Al 2 O 3 + CaO + MgO) × 100, which improves rainfall estimates for Vertisols relative to the wellestablished CIA-K (chemical index of alteration minus potassium) weathering index. Rather than documenting the hydrolysis of weatherable minerals common in many other soil orders, in Vertisols CALMAG principally tracks the fl ux of calcium and magnesium sourced from calcium carbonate, detrital clay, and exchangeable Ca 2+ and Mg 2+ . Application to two Mesozoic paleosols reveals that in drier climates CIA-K yields higher MAP estimates than CALMAG, but that the reverse is true in wetter climates. This work improves paleorainfall estimates from Vertisols and suggests that a family of weathering indexes is needed for different paleosol types.


Thermal histories derived from apatite fission-track data are remarkably consistent irrespective of tectonic setting and overall rate of cooling. Rapid cooling through the partial annealing zone is typically followed by slower cooling, and such histories can only be explained by systematic errors in the experimentally derived annealing rates used to determine the thermal histories, or a consistent geotherm shape characterized by a relatively low geothermal gradient in the uppermost crust. Differences between the cooling paths characterizing individual tectonic settings indicate that geotherm shape influences the cooling histories. This suggests that crustal geotherms, especially those in orogenic belts, are characterized by a shallow zone of high permeability, allowing the rapid transfer of heat by fluid advection, perhaps together with a near-surface zone affected by enhanced heat loss due to topographic effects. The influence of such controls on cooling histories must be considered prior to using thermochronology data to constrain denudation histories.


Do efficient financial markets and institutions promote economic growth? Have they done so in the past? In this essay, to be included in the Handbook of Finance and Development (edited by Thorsten Beck and Ross Levine), I survey a large and diverse historical literature that explores the connection between finance and growth in US history. The US financial system was important in mobilizing savings, allocating capital, exerting corporate control, and mitigating borrower opportunism. US finance was characterized by a wide variety of intermediaries – commercial banks, savings banks, building and loan associations, mortgage companies, investment banks and securities markets – that emerged to fill specific financial niches, compete with and complement the activities of existing intermediaries. The weight of the evidence is consistent with the interpretation that finance facilitated and encouraged growth. Despite the breadth and diversity of approaches, there remain many potentially fruitful lines of further inquiry.


The high elevation and considerable length of the Transantarctic Mountains have led to speculation about their origin. To date, no model has been able to adequately reconcile the juxtaposition of the high, curvilinear Transantarctic Mountains with the adjacent West Antarctic Rift System, a broad region of thin extended continental crust exhibiting wide rift characteristics. We present a fi rst-order investigation into the idea that the West Antarctic Rift System‐ Transantarctic Mountains region was a high-elevation plateau with thicker than normal crust before the onset of continental extension. With major Cretaceous extension, the rift underwent a topographic reversal, and a plateau edge with thickened crust, representing the ancestral Transantarctic Mountains, remained. In the Cenozoic, minor extension and major denudation reduce the crustal root while simultaneously uplifting peak heights in the mountains. The Cretaceous stage of this concept is investigated using two-dimensional numerical models to determine under what conditions plateau collapse is plausible. Model results indicate that elevation of a remnant plateau edge decreases with increasing initial Moho temperature. Very cold initial Moho temperatures, <675 °C, under the plateau leave a thick plateau edge but do not exhibit wide rifting. A cold to moderate initial thermal structure, Moho temperatures of 675‐850 °C, is needed to retain the plateau edge and still exhibit wide rifting in the middle of the plateau. We conclude that this plateau collapse concept is possible using these numerical experiments, and that application of this idea to the West Antarctic Rift System‐Transantarctic Mountains system is also supported by geological and geophysical evidence.


We present a new rigorous integral formalism for the theoretical study of dielectric coated gratings and grating couplers. It applies in the resonance domain, where the wavelength of the incident field and the groove spacing are of the same order of magnitude. The computed program issued from this theory extends the domain of application of the previous differential or integral theories. It can be used to investigate, with a very good accuracy, the properties of bare or dielectric coated gratings, for any groove shape and any polarization, in the entire visible, ultraviolet, and infrared regions. Various classical criteria are used to control the validity of the numerical results and comparisons are made with the numerical results obtained using the previous integral and differential formalisms. Two examples of applications are given. First, we show that the new possibilities of our program lead to a better agreement between theoretical results and experimental data. Second, a theoretical study of a certain type of grating coupler is given.


Background Previous studies suggest that the fear of crime is associated with worse mental health, with social capital potentially having a mediating influence. However, no studies could be identified on this issue in countries of the former Soviet Union, despite them experiencing increasing rates of crime and profound social change. The aim of this study is to explore the relationship between concern about crime and levels of psychological distress in eight countries of the former Soviet Union. Methods Cross-sectional surveys were conducted in eight former Soviet countries using a standardised questionnaire containing items on psychological distress and concern about five criminal activities. Regression analysis was used to investigate the association between concern about criminal activities and psychological distress. Separate regression models were run to explore the influence of social capital on this relationship. Results The first model (excluding social capital) produced significant positive coefficients of association for all five types of criminal activity with psychological distress, with a range from 0.39 (95% CI 0.24 to 0.54) for suffering abuse because of nationality to 0.56 (95% CI 0.42 to 0.70) for being sexually molested. The second model (including social capital) also showed significant associations for all five criminal activities, but coefficients were slightly smaller. Conclusion This study provides preliminary evidence of a relationship between fear of crime and psychological distress in the study countries, with possibly a small mediating influence of social capital. Further studies are required to explore the relationship between fear of crime, social capital and mental health in the region.


Leucospermum conocarpodendron (L.) Beuk. and Mimetes fimbriifolius Salisb. ex J.Knight co-occur in the southern Cape Peninsula, where we studied their distribution patterns, demography and fire responses. Leucospermum conocarpodendron has relatively larger seedlings and is therefore the likely competitive dominant. Adults and seedlings of both species are widely spaced and interspecific competition is unlikely to cause competitive exclusion. Differences between the two species in recruitment levels and fire-mortality are small. Thus their size-class distributions are very similar. They are restricted to shallow-soil rocky habitats, not only because of reduced fire intensity in these sites, but because these are habitats avoided by the faster growing more competitive reseeding Proteaceae. Co-existence of these two species appears to mainly be due to fire keeping populations sparse, and ants keeping individuals fairly isolated.


PARIS: A PArallel RSA-prime InSpection tool Joseph White Modern-day computer security relies heavily on cryptography as a means to protect the data that we have become increasingly reliant on. As the Internet becomes more ubiquitous, methods of security must be better than ever. Validation tools can be leveraged to help increase our confidence and accountability for methods we employ to secure our systems. Security validation, however, can be difficult and time-consuming. As our computational ability increases, calculations that were once considered " hard " due to length of computation, can now be done in minutes. We are constantly increasing the size of our keys and attempting to make computations harder to protect our information. This increase in " cracking " difficulty often has the unfortunate side-effect of making validation equally as difficult. We can leverage massive-parallelism and the computational power that is granted by today's commodity hardware such as GPUs to make checks that would otherwise be impossible to perform, attainable. Our work presents a practical tool for validating RSA keys for poor prime numbers: a fundamental problem that has led to significant security holes, despite the RSA algorithm's mathematical soundness. iv Our tool, PARIS, leverages NVIDIA's CUDA framework to perform a complete set of greatest common divisor calculations between all keys in a provided set. Our implementation offers a 27.5 times speedup using a GTX 480 and 33.9 times speedup using a Tesla K20Xm: both compared to a reference sequential implementation for sets of less than 200000 keys. This level of speedup brings this validation into the realm of practicality due to decreased runtime.


Abstract. Extratropical cyclones of type Vb, which develop over the western Mediterranean and move northeastward, are major natural hazards that are responsible for heavy precipitation over central Europe. To gain further understanding in the governing processes of these Vb cyclones, the study explores the role of soil moisture and sea surface temperature (SST) and their contribution to the atmospheric moisture content. Thereby, recent Vb events identified in the ERA-Interim reanalysis are dynamically downscaled with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. Results indicate that a mean high-impact summer Vb event is mostly sensitive to an increase in the Mediterranean SSTs and rather insensitive to Atlantic SSTs and soil moisture changes. Hence, an increase of +5 K in Mediterranean SSTs leads to an average increase of 24 % in precipitation over central Europe. This increase in precipitation is mainly induced by larger mean upward moisture flux over the Mediterranean with increasing Mediterranean SSTs. This further invokes an increase in latent energy release, which leads to an increase in atmospheric instability, i.e. in convective available potential energy. Both the increased availability of atmospheric moisture and the increased instability of the atmosphere, which is able to remove extra moisture from the atmosphere due to convective processes, are responsible for the strong increase in precipitation over the entire region influenced by Vb events. Precipitation patterns further indicate that a strong increase in precipitation is found at the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea for increased Mediterranean SSTs. This premature loss in atmospheric moisture leads to a significant decrease in atmospheric moisture transport to central Europe and the northeastern flanks of the Alpine mountain chain. This leads to a reduction in precipitation in this high-impact region of the Vb event for an increase in Mediterranean SSTs of +5 K. Furthermore, the intensity of the Vb cyclones, measured as a gradient in the 850 hPa geopotential height field around the cyclone centre, indicates that an upper bound for intensity might be reached for the most intense Vb event.


Beste of bon and blod: Embodiment in Middle English Lyric Sarah Kathryn Moore Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Míċeál Vaughan English This dissertation argues that Middle English lyric is uniquely successful at connecting readers and hearers with our own bodies and with the bodies of medieval textual subjects. This effect occurs on the levels of content, form, and tone, although my emphasis is primarily on the formal components through which the connection is achieved, and my evidence is drawn largely from formal analysis of the songs. The methods through which the lyrics connect us with our bodies are sophisticated and include especially the carefully managed use of the linguistic category of deixis; nuanced, intentional portrayal and evocation of affect, or physically demonstrated emotion; and implicit and explicit reference (via form and content respectively) to the ways in which lyrics were literally embodied by medieval subjects through danced performance. I argue that Middle English lyrics construct and maintain the "I" of an uttering subject while also reinforcing an embodied sense of self in the text's reader or hearer. The corpus of surviving lyrics uniquely demonstrates how language, subjectivity, the body, and poetic form are related, speaking to the profound utility of verse (both in the medieval period and today) in constructing a sense of self and in relating to and empathizing with others.


The taxonomic position of a lemon-yellow-pigmented actinobacterium, strain JF-6T, isolated from Aurelia aurita, the moon jellyfish, collected from the Bay of Bengal coast, Kanyakumari, India, was determined using a polyphasic approach. The strain had phenotypic and chemotaxonomic properties that were consistent with its classification in the genus Microbacterium. Alignment of the 16S rRNA gene sequence of strain JF-6T with sequences from Microbacterium arthrosphaerae CC-VM-YT, Microbacterium yannicii G72T, Microbacterium trichothecenolyticum IFO 15077T, Microbacterium flavescens DSM 20643T, Microbacterium insulae DS-66T, Microbacterium resistens DMMZ 1710T and Microbacterium thalassium IFO 16060T revealed similarities of 98.95, 98.76, 98.43, 98.41, 98.41, 98.26 and 98.22 %, respectively. However, the levels of DNA-DNA relatedness with its closest phylogenetic neighbours confirmed that it represents a novel species within the genus. The major polar lipids were phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol and an unknown glycolipid. The major menaquinones detected for strain JF-6T were MK-13 and MK-12. The diamino acid in the cell-wall peptidoglycan was ornithine and the peptidoglycan was type B2β (Glu/Hyg-Gly-d-Orn). The DNA G+C content was 69.4 mol%. Based on these differences, strain JF-6T (=MTCC 11843T=JCM 30060T=KCTC 39828T) should be classified as the type strain of a novel species of Microbacterium, for which the name Microbacterium aureliae sp. nov. is proposed.


Background and Objectives: Enjoining good and forbidding (EGFE) evil are two fundamental topics in Islam. Many verses and narratives underscore the social, religious and political duties implied by enjoining good and forbidding evil. After all, these two divine treasures have been neglected because of indulgence and forgetfulness. The prime reason for this negligence seems to be the obliviousness of employees in different organizations throughout the country. The purpose of this study is to assess a hospital employees' knowledge of enjoining good and forbidding evil. Methods: This cross-sectional analytic descriptive study was done in a hospital of Isfahan province in 2012. The data were collected from the employed staff of the hospital in all the organizational ranks. No sampling was done in this census study and the data were elicited from all the members of the population. The data collection instrument was a 28-item questionnaire whose validity and reliability were confirmed. The data were analyzed using SPSS 16 software. Results: In the current study, 50.9% of the participants were men and 49.1% were women. The percentage scores of the staff knowledge of the bounden duties of EFGE were 72%; effects of EFGE 73%; moralities of EFGE 85%; virtue examples 78%; and evil examples 72%. The overall knowledge of EFGE turned out to be 76%. There was a meaningful difference between the moral dimension in men and women as the women's knowledge was higher (P=0.045). Based on the analytical results of analysis of variance (ANOVA) test, there was no meaningful difference between the scores of the EFGE with demographic variables (P> 0.05). Conclusion: The results indicated that the knowledge of the hospital staff of enjoining good and forbidding evil was satisfactory. Requisite training of the knowledge of enjoining good and forbidding evil, its effects, and the evil examples could result in the promotion of their knowledge score.


The two parameter Poisson-Dirichlet process is also known as the PitmanYor Process and related to the Chinese Restaurant Process, is a generalisation of the Dirichlet Process, and is increasingly being used for probabilistic modelling in discrete areas such as language and images. This article reviews the theory of the Poisson-Dirichlet process in terms of its consistency for estimation, the convergence rates and the posteriors of data. This theory has been well developed for continuous distributions (more generally referred to as nonatomic distributions). This article then presents a Bayesian interpretation of the Poisson-Dirichlet process: it is a mixture using an improper and infinite dimensional Dirichlet distribution. This interpretation requires technicalities of priors, posteriors and Hilbert spaces, but conceptually, this means we can understand the process as just another Dirichlet and thus all its sampling properties fit naturally. Finally, this article also presents results for the discrete case which is the case seeing widespread use now in computer science, but which has received less attention in the literature.


A group of travellers chance to meet, first in a castle, then a tavern. Their powers of speech are magically taken from them and instead they have only tarot cards with which to tell their stories. What follows is an exquisite interlinking of narratives, and a fantastic, surreal and chaotic history of all human consciousness.


The classification of G-Protein Coupled Receptor (GPCR) sequences is an important problem that arises from the need to close the gap between the large number of orphan receptors and the relatively small number of annotated receptors. Equally important is the characterization of GPCR Class A subfamilies and gaining insight into the ligand interaction since GPCR Class A encompasses a very large number of drug-targeted receptors. In this work, we propose a method for Class A subfamily classification using sequence-derived motifs which characterizes the subfamilies by discovering receptor-ligand interaction sites. The motifs that best characterize a subfamily are selected by the Distinguishing Power Evaluation (DPE) technique we propose. The experiments performed on GPCR sequence databases show that our method outperforms state-of-the-art classification techniques for GPCR Class A subfamily prediction. An important contribution of our work is to discover key receptor-ligand interaction sites which is very important for drug design.


This paper describes the design and implementation of a low power 2D DCT chip for portable multimedia terminals. The chip architecture based on direct 2D approach reduces computational complexity and the power dissipation can be reduced accordingly. In the implementation of the direct 2D algorithm, a parallel distributed arithmetic (DA) architecture at reduced supply voltage is adopted. In the real circuit implementation of the chip, an adder of low power consumption is designed, as well as a power-saving ROM and a low-voltage two-port SRAM with sequential access. The resultant 2D DCT chip is realized by 0.6 /spl mu/m single-poly double-metal technology. Critical path simulation indicates a maximum input rate of 133 MHz, and it consumes 138 mW at 100 MHz. The measured chip speed is around 100 MHz.


Naturally occurring deletions that remove sequences located 6 0 kb upstream of the human adult {3-globin gene result in the failure to transcriptionally activate the cis-linked globin genes in erythroid cells. In addition, transfection, transgenic, and somatic cell hybrid studies have revealed that sequences within this region are essential for the developmentally regulated high-level expression of c/s-linked globin genes. This regulatory region located at the 5' end of the {3-globin locus has been termed the locus activation region (LAR). Using somatic cell hybrids, we have studied the chromatin structure and timing of DNA replication of the normal human I~-globin locus and a locus containing a de novo 25-kb deletion that removes elements of the LAR. As a result of this deletion, the entire 13-globin locus and sequences 1 0 0 kb 5' and 3' of the adult 13-globin gene are DNase I-resistant and do not form characteristic distant hypersensitive sites. These sequences also replicate late in S phase in an erythroid cell background. In contrast, the sequences of the normal locus are DNase I sensitive and early replicating. These results suggest that the LAR is required for both the erythroid-specific chromatin structure and timing of DNA replication over a large physical distance.


An effective approach to structure learning and parameter estimation for Gaussian graphical models is to impose a sparsity prior, such as a Laplace prior, on the entries of the precision matrix. Such an approach involves a hyperparameter that must be tuned to control the amount of sparsity. In this paper, we introduce a parameter-free method for estimating a precision matrix with sparsity that adapts to the data automatically. We achieve this by formulating a hierarchical Bayesian model of the precision matrix with a noninformative Jeffreys' hyperprior. We also naturally enforce the symmetry and positive-definiteness constraints on the precision matrix by parameterizing it with the Cholesky decomposition. Experiments on simulated and real (cell signaling) data demonstrate that the proposed approach not only automatically adapts the sparsity of the model, but it also results in improved estimates of the precision matrix compared to the Laplace prior model with sparsity parameter chosen by cross-validation.


The GKB Editor is a generic editor and browser of knowledge bases (KBs) and ontologies -- generic in the sense that it is portable across several frame knowledge representation systems (FRSs). This generality is possible because the GKB Editor performs all KB access operations using a generic application programming interface to FRSs called the Generic Frame Protocol (GFP). To adapt the GKB Editor to a new FRS, we need only to create a GFP implementation for that FRS - a task that is usually considerably simpler than implementing a complete KB editor. The GKB Editor also contains several relatively advanced features, including three different viewers of KB relationships, incremental browsing of large graphs, KB analysis tools, extensive customizability, complex selection operations, cut-and-paste operations, and both user- and KB-specific profiles. The GKB Editor is in active use in the development of several ontologies and KBs. This paper discusses the design of the GKB Editor from a graphical user interface point of view, and describes the difficulties encountered in achieving true portability across multiple FRSs.


The Virtual Physiological Human (VPH) project aims to develop integrative, explanatory and predictive computational models (C-Models) as numerical investigational tools to study disease, identify and design effective therapies and provide an in silico platform for drug screening. Ultimately, these models rely on the analysis and integration of experimental data. As such, the success of VPH depends on the availability of physiologically realistic experimental models (E-Models) of human organ function that can be parametrized to test the numerical models. Here, the current state of suitable E-models, ranging from in vitro non-human cell organelles to in vivo human organ systems, is discussed. Specifically, challenges and recent progress in improving the physiological realism of E-models that may benefit the VPH project are highlighted and discussed using examples from the field of research on cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal disorders, diabetes and Parkinson's disease.


Ecological restoration in marine ecosystems is considered strategic to recover environmental conditions and ecosystem services. However, the traditional single-discipline perspectives followed for analyzing the results of both restoration projects (focused in the analysis of biophysical changes) and valuation of ecosystem services (focused in economic valuation), do not provide useful theoretical frameworks when working with cultural ecosystem services, where socio-economic and environmental components are complexly interrelated. We propose an interdisciplinary approach for analyzing changes in cultural ecosystem services in restored marine ecosystems, based on the DAPSI(W)R(M) framework and following a social-ecological system approach. Our methodology considers environmental, social and economic elements that may be contributing to changes in the provision and demand for cultural ecosystem services in restored ecosystems. Our approach was tested in the Nerbioi estuary, a system that, after the implementation of a wastewater treatment plant at the end of the 20th Century, changed from being one of the most polluted estuaries in Europe to a nearly recovered system. Based on previous studies that have analyzed partial components of the restoration process and of the recreational ecosystem services, here we provide an interdisciplinary picture of the changes occurred in the last 25 years, directly linking the management measures adopted to an increase in human well-being. In the applied methodology, the three discipline domains (social, economic, and environmental) transcend each other to provide a new holistic view, completely different from what one would expect from the addition of the parts. In conclusion, this interdisciplinary approach provides a systematic framework for studying changes in cultural ecosystem services in restored systems, with a practical application for valuing human benefits as outcomes of marine restoration projects.


This is the definitive guide for Symbian C++ developers looking to use Symbian SQL in applications or system software. Since Symbian SQL and SQLite are relatively new additions to the Symbian platform, Inside Symbian SQL begins with an introduction to database theory and concepts, including a Structured Query Language (SQL) tutorial. Inside Symbian SQL also provides a detailed overview of the Symbian SQL APIs. From the outset, you will get your hands dirty writing Symbian SQL code. The book includes snippets and examples that application developers can immediately put to use to get started quickly. For device creators and system software developers, Inside Symbian SQL offers a unique view into the internals of the implementation and a wealth of practical advice on how to make best and most efficient use of the Symbian SQL database. Several case studies are presented these are success stories 'from the trenches', written by Symbian engineers. Special Features: The book assumes no prior knowledge of databases Includes detailed and approachable explanations of database concepts Easy to follow SQL tutorial with SQLite examples Unique view into the Symbian SQL internals Troubleshooting section with solutions to common problems Written by the Symbian engineers who implemented SQLite on Symbian, with more than 40 years combined Symbian C++ experience, this book is for anyone interested in finding out more about using a database on Symbian.


Small noncoding RNA are known to play a regulatory role in various biological processes including development. Here we aimed to investigate the spatiotemporal expression pattern of the miR-130 microRNA family (miR-130a, miR-130b, and miR-301b) throughout the bovine pre-implantation- stage embryos and to experimentally validate the target of miR-130b. For this, triplicate pools of in vitro-produced immature or mature oocytes (n = 100), zygote (n = 100), 2-cell (n = 50), 4-cell (n = 30), 8-cell (n = 30), morula (n = 20), and blastocyst (n = 20) stage embryos were used to profile the 3 miRNA and one of the predicted target gene MSK1 using SYBR green-based real-time PCR system. Furthermore, based on its expression profile result, miR-130b was selected for localization in all stages of embryos using 3′digoxigenin labeled, LNA-modified oligonucleotide probes. Reporter assay was conducted in cultured bovine cumulus cells to validate the target of miR-130b. The predicted MSK1 gene 3′ untranslated region- containing dual-luciferase miRNA target expression vector (pmirGLO; 600 ng), having renilla luciferase as a control reporter (Promega, Madison, WI, USA), was cotransfected with miR-130b precursor (20 pmol) and/or miR-130b inhibitor (20 pmol) using Lipofectamine 2000 (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA, USA) in Opti-MEM1 Medium with 4 independent transfections. Cells were lysed 48 h post-transfection, and luciferase assay was performed in luminometer. Normalization of firefly luciferase activity was based on renilla luciferase activity, and data were presented as mean ± SD. The expression profiling result shows that miR-130b was abundant (>8 to 12-fold) at morula and blastocyst stages. This was further validated by in situ localization, where high fluorescent intensity was seen in the same stages. Greater abundance of miR-301b was evident immediately after fertilization at zygote stage, whereas miR-130a was abundant in equal amount from oocyte until 8-cell stage, after which expression reduced at morula and blastocyst stages. Verification of MSK1 as target of miR-130b using MSK1-pmirGLO-vector showed a significant reduction (>45%) in expression of luciferase when cells were cotransfected with miR-130b precursor compared with cotransfection with miR-130b inhibitor (95%) or only MSK1 construct transfection (100%). MSK1, which was validated as target of miR-130b in the current study for the first time, is known to regulate the phosphorylation of CREB and ATF1 and is required for inhibits of Wnt-fi-catenin pathway and cell proliferation in colon cancer cells (Moran OP et al. 2008 J. Cell Biol. 183(4), 697-710). The results from this study evidenced the spatiotemporal expression of members of the miR130 family during bovine embryo development and their potential regulatory mechanism in the expression of developmentally important gene. The overexpression or inhibition of these miRNA in bovine oocytes and embryos might help in fully understanding their specific role in bovine embryogenesis.


Crohn's disease is a chronic relapsing inflammatory bowel disease that may affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract. The ileum, colon, and perineum are most commonly affected. It is characterised by transmural inflammation, and granulomata may be present. Whilst the aetiology of Crohn's disease is not completely understood, it is thought to be caused by the complex interplay between genetic, immunological, microbiological, and environmental factors. Current opinion is that, in genetically susceptible individuals, there is an immune dysregulation to an environmental factor, and the intestinal microbiota plays a central role. Genetic studies of patients with Crohn's disease have found several gene mutations which affect the innate immune system. Two important mutations contributing towards the pathogenesis of Crohn's disease are Nucleotide-binding oligomerisation domain-containing protein 2 (NOD2) and autophagyrelated 16-like 1 (ATG16L1). The most common symptoms of Crohn's disease are diarrhoea, abdominal pain, weight loss, and fatigue. Symptoms reflect the site and behaviour of disease, and the presence or absence of strictures and fistulae. Extraintestinal manifestations may be present and typically affect the eyes, skin, joints, or biliary tree. Investigations are performed to map the disease location, assess disease severity, and survey for complications of the disease or treatment. Management is with smoking cessation, steroids, immunomodulators, anti-tumour necrosis factor (TNF) therapy, or surgery.


"Am I so smart or are you so stupid?" (Louis van Gaal). I started out wanting to write a book about Marco van Basten. I still do, but I dread the moment when I have to write something I know will make him unhappy. He's not a man you wage war on. With Louis van Gaal it's different: as a journalist he leaves you no choice. You're not worthy of the name if you aren't prepared to return fire when he starts yelling. Hugo Borst is an award-winning writer, journalist and TV pundit. He is also a close friend of Louis van Gaal. Well, he used to be. O, Louis is Hugo's attempt to get to grips with this larger-than-life character. Full of outrageous stories and unintentionally hilarious encounters, Borst details his quest to understand the man and the breakdown in their friendship. He interviews an array of experts who each interpret the great manager from the perspective of their own field - a cleric, a politician, a psychiatrist, an impersonator, a theatre director, writers, poets and a trio of keen comic minds. Through these meetings as well as through his own encounters with Van Gaal, Borst is finally able to unlock the personality of this exceptional, talented, infuriating and even, occasionally, loveable man. "This book will sell well. Everything that has my face on it sells well". (Louis van Gaal).


Current R&D in media technologies such as Multimedia, Semantic Web and Sensor Web technologies are advancing in a fierce rate and will sure to become part of our important regular items in a 'conventional' technology inventory in near future. While the R&D nature of these technologies means their accuracy, reliability and robustness are not sufficient enough to be used in real world yet, we want to envision now the near-future where these technologies will have matured and used in real applications in order to explore and start shaping many possible new ways these novel technologies could be utilised.

In this talk, some of this effort in designing novel applications that incorporate various media technologies as their backend will be presented. Examples include novel scenarios of LifeLogging application that incorporate automatic structuring of millions of photos passively captured from a SenseCam (wearable digital camera that automatically takes photos triggered by environmental sensors) and an interactive TV application incorporating a number of multimedia tools yet extremely simple and easy to use with a remote control in a lean-back position. The talk will conclude with remarks on how the design of novel applications that have no precedence or existing user base should require somewhat different approach from those suggested and practiced in conventional usability engineering methodology.


Many of the emerging market economies in Europe are presently running current account deficits which are quite high relative to any global or historical standard and are fundamentally unsustainable. This includes the three poorer European Union (EU) members of the old Europe (Greece, Portugal, and Spain), many of the EU's new member states (largely the former transition economies which have joined since 2004), most of those non-EU members in south-east Europe, and a number of the CIS economies in eastern Europe and the Caucasus. The unweighted average current account deficit for this group has more than doubled from under four percent of GDP in 2003 to well over eight percent in 2007. This trend is significantly different than what has evolved in many of the world's other emerging markets; these other economies have generally been running current account surpluses. This paper documents this development, describes the underlying factors that have brought it about, assesses the underlying vulnerability that has been created, and discusses the implications of this development for other emerging markets and global financial stability more generally. In addition, how these risks have evolved since the appearance of the global credit crisis beginning in the summer of 2007 is examined.


This case note analyzes the decision of the Supreme Court of India in Iridium India Telecom Ltd. v. Motorola Incorporated & Ors (AIR 2011 SC 20, [2010] 160 Comp Cas 147). The decision is momentous as it clarifies the position under Indian law that a legal person such as a company is capable of having mens rea. It is an important step in promoting the use of criminal sanctions to regulate corporate behavior. At the same time, it is crucial to note that the Supreme Court stops short of ruling convincingly on the methods by which mens rea of a company can be proved. It places reliance on the anthropomorphic approach of the English courts in Tesco Supermarkets Ltd. v. Nattrass ([1972] AC 153 (HL)) without in any way considering the subsequent crucial development in the form of the more flexible approach in Meridian Global Funds Management Asia Ltd. v. Securities Commission ([1995] 2 AC 500 (PC)). Similarly, the Supreme Court does not conclusively deal with the effect of Risk Factors in determining the existence of 'deception' as an ingredient of an offence of cheating due to misrepresentation in a private placement offering document. Of course, the Supreme Court was concerned only with an appeal on preliminary aspects relating to an order of quashing under section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. In this note, the authors argue that while Iridium must hold the field on the ability of a company to have mens rea, its rulings on the other aspects must be accepted in measured terms only as possible guidance for further specific judicial determination.


Supporting Sucking Skills in Breastfeeding Infants, Second Edition is the essential resource for healthcare professionals working with new mothers and infants. Using a skills approach, it focuses on normal sucking function in addition to anatomical variations, developmental respiratory issues, prematurity, and mild neurological deficits. Completely updated and revised with new photos and images, this edition contains a new chapter, "Hands in Support of Breastfeeding: Manual Therapy." Written by an internationally renowned IBCLC and deliberately multidisciplinary, it provides the entire team with both the research background and clinical strategies necessary to help infants with successful sucking and feeding.


Of the sixteen known Oklo and the Bangombe natural fission reactors (hydrothermally altered elastic sedimentary rocks that contain abundant uraninite and authigenic clay minerals), reactors 1 to 6 at Oklo contain only traces of organic matter, but the others are rich in organic substances. Reactors 7 to 9 are the subjects of this study. These organic-rich reactors may serve as time-tested analogues for anthropogenic nuclear-waste containment strategies. Organic matter helped to concentrate quantities of uranium sufficient to initiate the nuclear chain reactions. Liquid bitumen was generated from organic matter by hydrothermal reactions during nuclear criticality. The bitumen soon became a solid, consisting of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and an intimate mixture of cryptocrystalline graphite, which enclosed and immobilized uraninite and the fission-generated isotopes entrapped in uraninite. This mechanism prevented major loss of uranium and fission products from the natural nuclear reactors for 1.2 b.y. 24 refs., 4 figs.


In the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, Spinoza presents the knowledge of God as the Supreme Good, and this is because he sees this knowledge as the only possible source for a continuous and eternal joy. Spinoza will never change his mind about the intuition that only the knowledge of God can provide eternal joy, and he will remain faithful to this understanding of the Supreme Good and its supreme desirability. The following reflections are devoted to exploring in detail Spinoza's motivations in the Treatise. The purpose is to uncover the mistake that undermines Spinoza's overall solution to the problem he faces, and ultimately affects the main goal of his philosophical project. The mistake can be spelled out quite straightforwardly: no affect (including love and joy) can be eternal. The most interesting aspect of this mistake is not what it affirms, but the reasons behind it that pushed Spinoza to blindly embrace it for his whole life. Bringing into relief this mistake is not a way of dismissing Spinoza's philosophy. On the contrary, a great thinker is one who makes great mistakes, and from them much can be learned.


In written recollections of her past Virginia Woolf organises events into theatrical scenes that she witnesses as an observer watching the action from a darkened auditorium. 'I can reach a state where I seem to be watching things happen as if I were there' she claims in her memoir paper 'Reminiscences' and goes on to admit that: 'Scene making is my natural way of marking the past'.

Drawing on the work of performance theorists, Richard Schechner, Bruce Wilshire and Erving Goffman I will explore why Woolf 'stages' her memories rather than 'reliving' them. Why, instead of re-experiencing her past in the first person, she places herself in the audience from which she observes the scene and herself as character within it. Woolf's theatricalisation of memory is linked to the periods of mourning which punctuated her childhood and adolescence. The deaths of her parents, brother and half sister, her alleged sexual abuse at the hands of her half-brothers and bouts of insanity complicated her relationship with the past and it is likely that this dramatisation process was a method of dealing with unhappy, painful and disturbing events.

However, the process that initially developed out of a need to mourn past events eventually became crucial to Woolf's creative process, such that this ability to recreate the past in her mind as a series of animated 'sight[s]… mixed with sound' ('Reminiscences') formed the basis of many of her novels. This compartmentalisation of the past, and of present and future, into dramatic scenes helped Woolf to make the transition between her sentient reality and her written fiction. This paper will examine Woolf's dramatic imagination and her process of dealing with memories through aesthetic projects.


: Jerusalem is a city of extremes, where tourists and pilgrims come to see the sights and pray, but where violence is also a daily aff air. In the square kilometer called the Old City, which is part of East Jerusalem and thus considered by the international community as occupied territory, the tensions accumulate as (Jewish) Israeli settlers move into houses in the middle of the Muslim and Christian quarters. In order to secure them, numerous cameras have been installed by the police that show all that happens in the narrow streets of the quarter and private security personnel are stationed on many roofs to watch the area. Furthermore, undercover police offi cers patrol the streets and at times check IDs of Palestinians. In this article, we focus on policing strategies that Israeli private and public security agents use to control this small and controversial urban space. We argue that the constant presence and movement of police, security personnel, and their surveillance tech-nologies in and through the heart of the Muslim quarter should be analyzed within a colonial context and as a deliberate strategy to control and discipline the local population and to legitimize the larger settler project of the Israeli state. Th is strategy consists of diff erent performances and thus relationships with policed audiences. First, their (undercover) presence is visible for Palestinians with the eff ect or intention of intimidating them directly. At the same time they also serve to reassure the Israeli settlers living in the Old City and when in uniform foreign tourists. Both Palestinians and settlers will recognize agents and other security arrangements through experience and internalization of the Israeli security mentality, while tourists see them only when in uniform. However, simultaneously, when undercover, their presence remains largely unseen for this third "audience"; the tourists who are not to be alarmed. By showing their presence to some while remaining invisible to others, security actors and technology "perform" for diff erent audiences, manifest-ing their power within urban space and legitimizing the Israeli occupation.


In the last decade, smartphones have gained widespread usage. Since the advent of online application stores, hundreds of thousands of applications have become instantly available to millions of smart-phone users. Within the Android ecosystem, application security is governed by digital signatures and a list of coarse-grained permissions. However, this mechanism is not fine-grained enough to provide the user with a sufficient means of control of the applications' activities. Abuse of highly sensible private information such as phone numbers without users' notice is the result. We show that there is a high frequency of privacy leaks even among widely popular applications. Together with the fact that the majority of the users are not proficient in computer security, this presents a challenge to the engineers developing security solutions for the platform. Our contribution is twofold: first, we propose a service which is able to assess Android Market applications via static analysis and provide detailed, but readable reports to the user. Second, we describe a means to mitigate security and privacy threats by automated reverse-engineering and refactoring binary application packages according to the users' security preferences.


In diploid populations, indirect benefits of sex may stem from segregation and recombination. Although it has been recognized that finite population size is an important component of selection for recombination, its effects on selection for segregation have been somewhat less studied. In this article, we develop analytical two- and three-locus models to study the effect of recurrent deleterious mutations on a modifier gene increasing sex, in a finite diploid population. The model also incorporates effects of mitotic recombination, causing loss of heterozygosity (LOH). Predictions are tested using multilocus simulations representing deleterious mutations occurring at a large number of loci. The model and simulations show that excess of heterozygosity generated by finite population size is an important component of selection for sex, favoring segregation when deleterious alleles are nearly additive to dominant. Furthermore, sex tends to break correlations in homozygosity among selected loci, which disfavors sex when deleterious alleles are either recessive or dominant. As a result, we find that it is difficult to maintain costly sex when deleterious alleles are recessive. LOH tends to favor sex when deleterious mutations are recessive, but the effect is relatively weak for rates of LOH corresponding to current estimates (of the order 10−4−10−5).


A facile and effective photo-reduction approach to deposit Pt nanoparticles on MIL-100(Fe) by using a metal–organic framework (MOF) itself as a photoactive catalyst has been developed. The synthesized samples were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and determining N2-sorption BET surface area. The as-obtained Pt/MIL-100(Fe) showed photocatalytic activity for H2 evolution under visible light irradiation and its performance is superior to that of Pt/MIL-100(Fe)–NaBH4, in which Pt was obtained via reduction by NaBH4. This work provides an effective and facile approach for the preparation of metal nanoparticles/MOF nanocomposites and demonstrates their potential in solar energy transformations.


Massive adrenal haemorrhage is an uncommon finding at autopsy, but patognomonic for WaterhouseFriederichsen syndrome (WFS – described for the first time as clinical entity in 1911), ussually associated with fulminant meningococemia. Aim of our research was to analyze demographic, clinical and necroptic findings in cases of lethal WFS in infants and children (0 – 2 years). We conducted a retrospective study on forensic autopsy cases performed in Mures county between the years 2011 – 2015 by reviewing the necropsy protocols together with the clinical documentation and the reinterpretation of microscopic findings. During the period of five years, we found 133 cases of autopsies in the age group 0 – 2 years, among them in 5 cases (3.76%) WFS was revealed. Male gender prevailed (80%) and average annual incidence of fatal WFS was 5.88/100.000 relative to the population in our County of the same age group. A poor socioeconomic status was described in 4 out of 5 cases (80%). Time from onset of symptoms to death varied from 45 minutes to 8 hours. All children had earlier a form of respiratory infectious pathology. The typical rash of purple spots on the skin was described in four cases, while internal examination revealed cerebral edema and interstitial pneumonia also in four cases each. Adrenal necrosis was noticed in two cases and contrary to other reports in the literature, we found no myocardial infalmmatory involvement in any of our cases. Positive microbiological finding was noted in only one case (Neisseria meningitidis).


Debates continue to rage over whether American university students should be required to master a common core of knowledge. In The Culture of Classicism: Ancient Greece and Rome in American Intellectual Life, 1780-1910, Caroline Winterer traces the emergence of the classical model that became standard in the American curriculum in the nineteenth century and now lies at the core of contemporary controversies. By closely examining university curricula and the writings of classical scholars, Winterer demonstrates how classics was transformed from a narrow, language-based subject to a broader study of civilization, persuasively arguing that we cannot understand both the rise of the American university and modern notions of selfhood and knowledge without an appreciation for the role of classicism in their creation.


There is growing interest in life cycle thinking and the whole life sustainability of buildings. The 2011 UK Low Carbon Construction Action Plan identifies the need for clarity on the definition of life cycle "zero carbon" impact as there are various methods of assessment. How do we educate on the various methods? LCA is an established tool that is currently in use to assess this total life cycle impact; however there is no one LCA method that has universal acceptance. For the sustainable development professional this causes a problem as they are unsure as to which particular method they should use.
This paper explores the common methods used to examine the life cycle of a building, focusing on the practical stages to consider for first year through to postgraduate students. What journey should we take the students on to help them understand the importance of LCA and its applicability to sustainable development? Ultimately, we need to educate to enable students to begin work or postgraduate studies with the knowledge and confidence to enable them to improve decision making. Through this paper, an exploration of how we can align a degree program to include LCA is investigated; considering the key stages to be taught at the relevant level.


In this paper, we present a new architecture of the cache-based memory copy hardware accelerator in a multicore system supporting message passing. The accelerator is able to accelerate memory data movements, in particular memory copies. We perform an analytical analysis based on open-queuing theory to study the utilization of our accelerator in a multicore system. In order to correctly model the system, we gather the necessary information by utilizing a full-system simulator. We present both the simulation results and the analytical analysis. We demonstrate the advantages of our solution based on a full-system simulator utilizing several applications: the STREAM benchmark and the receiver-side of the TCP/IP stack. Our accelerator provides speedups from 2.96 to 4.61 for the receiver-side of the TCP/IP stack, reduces the number of instructions from 26 percent to 44 percent and achieves a higher cache hit rate. Utilizing the analytical analysis, our accelerator reduces in the average number of cycles executed per instruction up to 50 percent for one of the CPUs in the multicore system.


Motion blur due to camera motion can significantly degrade the quality of an image. Since the path of the camera motion can be arbitrary, deblurring of motion blurred images is a hard problem. Previous methods to deal with this problem have included blind restoration of motion blurred images, optical correction using stabilized lenses, and special CMOS sensors that limit the exposure time in the presence of motion. In this paper, we exploit the fundamental trade off between spatial resolution and temporal resolution to construct a hybrid camera that can measure its own motion during image integration. The acquired motion information is used to compute a point spread function (PSF) that represents the path of the camera during integration. This PSF is then used to deblur the image. To verify the feasibility of hybrid imaging for motion deblurring, we have implemented a prototype hybrid camera. This prototype system was evaluated in different indoor and outdoor scenes using long exposures and complex camera motion paths. The results show that, with minimal resources, hybrid imaging outperforms previous approaches to the motion blur problem. We conclude with a brief discussion on how our ideas can be extended beyond the case of global camera motion to the case where individual objects in the scene move with different velocities.


Determining representative material constant sets for models that can accurately predict the complex plasticity and creep behaviour of components undergoing cyclic loading is of great interest to many industries. The Chaboche unified visco-plasticity model is an example of a model that, with the correct modifications, shows much promise for this particular application. Methods to approximate material constant values in the Chaboche model have been well established; however, the need for optimisation of these parameters is vital due to assumptions made in the initial estimation process. Optimisation of a material constant set is conducted by fitting the predicted response to the experimental results of cyclic tests. It is expected that any experimental data set (found using the same values of test parameters such as temperature; the dependency of which is not accounted for in the original Chaboche model) should yield a single set of optimised material parameters for a given material. In practice, this may not be the case. Experimental test programs usually include multiple loading waveforms; therefore, it is often possible to optimise for separate, different sets of material constants for the same material operating under comparable conditions. Several optimisation strategies that utilise multiple sets of experimental data to form the objective functions in optimisation programs have been applied and critiqued. A procedure that evaluates objective functions derived from the multiple experimental data types simultaneously (i.e. in the same optimisation iteration) was found to give the most consistently high-quality fitting. In the present work, this is demonstrated using cyclic experimental data for a P91 steel at 600 °C. Similar strategies may be applied to many constitutive laws that require some form of optimisation to determine material constant values.


This paper uses generalized singular value decomposition (GSVD) to reduce decoding complexity in an amplify-andforward, multiple-input multiple-output, two-way relay channel (TWRC). The key is diagonalization of the effective channels at the source nodes; this formulation also simplifies the optimization problem of designing linear transceivers at each node to maximize the achievable sum rate (ASR). For the given diagonalized structure, we first align the entries of the diagonalized channels using a permutation followed by power allocation, provided in closed form. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed GSVD-based relaying scheme, with the signal alignment and power allocation, significantly improves the ASR while retaining the diagonalized channel structure.


The impacts of environmental change and degradation on human populations, including the possibility of sharp increases in the number of people considered "environmental migrants" have gained considerable attention. Migrating communities may try to distribute their members along particular lines of kinship, gender, marriage and/or services linked to land exploitation and agriculture. This paper explores archives and narratives of African migrants in northwestern Benin and northeastern Ghana. These regions have been marked by severe ecological change and resource deterioration over the years, as well as changes in marital patterns, family relations and customary practices. In the case of Benin, the paper looks at different ethnic groups that migrated from neighboring countries to the study region. It then focuses on the Biali, who undertake marriage journeys after practicing rituals, which are often related to agricultural activities. The Frafra (Ghana), who, in their bid to out-migrate as a livelihood/coping strategy in the advent of environmental deterioration and rainfall variability, are confronted with high bride prices, changing family relations and customary practices. The paper concludes by highlighting socio-cultural changes that ensue in the face of outmigration among different ethnic groups, especially the Biali and Frafra, and the relationship between non-environmental and environmental factors, and mobility strategies.


The effects of applications of potassium nitrate (KNO3), alone and in combination with urea at different concentrations on flowering, fruit set and fruit quality of 'Tommy Atkins' mango grown in the rift valley of Ethiopia were evaluated. The trees were characterised by erratic flowering, continuous and high intensity of vegetative growth as well as irregular bearing. Uniform trees were selected for a randomised complete block design experiment with three replications and three trees per plot. Spraying was conducted initially on the immature post-harvest flushes and then repeated after the flushes had matured and dark green leaves. Potassium nitrate concentrations especially in combination with urea (5 litre solution of 4% KNO3+0.5 g urea tree and 5 litres of 4% KNO3+1 g urea tree) produced better results for most of the flowering and yield parameters. There was a non-significant difference for the qualitative parameters between the treated and non-treated trees. The supplementation of nitrogen through the spraying of KNO3 and urea is believed to be the reason for the greater flowering and yields results of the sprayed relative to the unsprayed trees.


Abstract. Observational results of diurnal variations of humidity from Odin-SMR and AURA-MLS, and cloud ice mass from Odin-SMR and CloudSat are presented for the first time. Comparisons show that the retrievals of humidity and cloud ice from these two satellite combinations are in good agreement. The retrieved data are combined from four almost evenly distributed times of the day allowing mean values, amplitudes and phases of the diurnal variations around 200 hpa to be estimated. This analysis is applied to six climatologically distinct regions, five located in the tropics and one over the subtropical northern Pacific Ocean. The strongest diurnal cycles are found over tropical land regions, where the amplitude is ~7 RHi for humidity and ~50% for ice mass. The greatest ice mass for these regions is found during the afternoon, and the humidity maximum is observed to lag this peak by ~6 h. Over tropical ocean regions the variations are smaller and the maxima in both ice mass and humidity are found during the early morning. Observed results are compared with output from three climate models (ECHAM, EC-EARTH and CAM3). Direct measurement-model comparisons were not possible because the measured and modelled cloud ice masses represent different quantities. To make a meaningful comparison, the amount of snow had to be estimated from diagnostic parameters of the models. There is a high probability that the models underestimate the average ice mass (outside the 1-σ uncertainty). The models also show clear deficiencies when it comes to amplitude and phase of the regional variations, but to varying degrees.


Inflation is an early period of accelerated cosmic expansion, thought to be sourced by high energy physics. A key task today is to use the influx of increasingly precise observational data to constrain the plethora of inflationary models suggested by fundamental theories of interactions. This requires a robust theoretical framework for quantifying the predictions of such models; helping to develop such a framework is the aim of this thesis. We provide the first complete quantization of subhorizon perturbations for the well-motivated class of multi-field inflationary models with a non-trivial field metric, which we show may yield interesting signatures in the bispectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). The subsequent evolution of perturbations in the superhorizon epoch is then considered, via a covariant extension of the transport formalism. To develop intuition about the relationship between inflationary dynamics and the evolution of cosmic observables, we investigate analytic approximations of superhorizon perturbation evolution. The validity of these analytic results is contingent on reaching a state of adiabaticity which we discuss and illustrate in depth. We then apply our analytic methods to elucidate the types of inflationary dynamics that lead to an enhanced CMB non-Gaussianity, both in its bispectrum and trispectrum. In addition to deriving a number of new simple relations between the non-Gaussianity parameters, we explain dynamically how and why different shapes of inflationary potential lead to particular observational signatures. Candidate theories of high energy physics such as low energy effective string theory also motivate single-field modifications to the Einstein-Hilbert action. We show how a range of such corrections allow for consistency of single-field chaotic inflationary models that are otherwise in tension with observational data.


Adult judges were presented with videotape segments showing an infant displaying facial configurations hypothesized to express discomfort/pain, anger, or sadness according to differential emotions theory (Izard, Dougherty, & Hembree, 1983). The segments also included the infant's nonfacial behavior and aspects of the situational context. Judges rated the segments using a set of emotion terms or a set of activity terms. Results showed that judges perceived the discomfort/pain and anger segments as involving one or more negative emotions not predicted by differential emotions theory. The sadness segments were perceived as involving relatively little emotion overall. Body activity accompanying the discomfort/pain and anger configurations was judged to be more jerky and active than body activity accompanying the sadness configurations. The sadness segments were accompanied by relatively little body movement overall. The results thus fail to conform to the predictions of differential emotions theory but provide information that may contribute to the development of a theory of infant expressive behavior.


Forms are everywhere on the web - for registration and communicating, for commerce and government. Good forms make for happier customers, better data, and reduced support costs. Bad forms fill your organization's databases with inaccuracies and duplicates and can cause loss of potential consumers. Designing good forms is trickier than people think. Jarrett and Gaffney come to the rescue with Designing Forms that Work, clearly explaining exactly how to design great forms for the web. Liberally illustrated with full-color examples, it guides readers on how to define requirements, how to write questions that users will understand and want to answer, and how to deal with instructions, progress indicators and errors. *Provides proven and practical advice that will help you avoid pitfalls, and produce forms that are aesthetically pleasing, efficient and cost-effective. *Features invaluable design methods, tips, and tricks to help ensure accurate data and satisfied customers. *Includes dozens of examples -- from nitty-gritty details (label alignment, mandatory fields) to visual designs (creating good grids, use of color).*Foreword by Steve Krug, author of the best selling Don't Make Me Think!


This report is a systematic review of the published literature on the effectiveness of school based interventions that aim to promote mental wellbeing amongst children in primary education and that both take a universal approach and are primarily focussed on the prevention of violence or bullying. It reports data from 17 studies outside the United Kingdom. The following definitions of mental wellbeing, bullying and violence are used: •Mental wellbeing encompasses emotional, psychological and social wellbeing •Bullying is a form of aggression in which one or more children repeatedly and intentionally intimidate, harass or physically harm a victim who cannot easily defend him or herself •Violence is an act of aggression directed to another person or persons, or to property. It covers individual acts such as homicide and infliction of non-fatal injury. It may include the carrying of weapons. It usually implies physical aggression


Contributing Factors of Juvenile Delinquency among Youth of Balochistan Samreena Rose* Saima Ambreen** Waseem Fayyaz*** Abstract The main aim of the current research is to identify the causal factors of juvenile delinquency among youth of Balochistan, Pakistan. This study was conducted in Quetta, Balochistan and is based on qualitative research technique. The method of data collection was Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), which were conducted with six groups (N=45) including juvenile delinquents (n=6), Law enforcement personnel (n=6), NGO service providers (n=6), university teachers (n=5) and students (n= 22). Causes of juvenile delinquency were identified from the gathered information by using thematic analysis. The analysis involved open, axial, and selective coding. The main causal factors of juvenile delinquency in Balochistan that emerged from this analysis were social influence, personality, school related factors, and financial factors. This identification of prevailing context bound causal factors of delinquency can help in devising indigenous strategies to prevent and in turn control rising delinquency rate in Balochistan.