Traditionally considered to be the breeding ground of the monstrous, the limen is the non-place where hybrids congeal and mutate into extraordinary amalgamations. The latest cultural phenomenon of zef as embodied in the rap rave band Die Antwoord reveals precisely such a monstrous hybridity. Zef - a term describing white (predominantly Afrikaans) trash - automatically situates Die Antwoord as liminal outsiders and interlopers. In many ways, Die Antwoord resembles a circus troupe of freaks: front man Ninja is golem-like with his tattooed torso, Yo-landi Vi$$er resembles an acidic nymph and DJ High Tek plods along in the flanks.
My analysis builds and expands on recognised correspondences between the monstrous, the liminal and the carnival. I show how liminal aspects (both monstrous and carnivalesque) are cleverly co-opted by Die Antwoord into a monstrous carnivalesque extravaganza, whereby the liminal is converted into a suspended moment of consumption. The extent to which liminality is suspended and advanced as a consumable entity by Die Antwoord forms the primary focus of this investigation, after which the possibility of understanding the liminal in terms of affects is briefly explored. I argue that even that which is supposedly outside consumerist instrumentality, namely the limen, with its life-altering and transformative possibilities, can, to some degree, be aligned and made subservient to consumerist ideals.


The rate of seismic activity of moderate-size (M > 5.5) earthquakes in the San Francisco Bay (SFB) region has varied considerably during the past 150 years. As measured by the rate of seismic moment release, seismic activity in the SFB region is observed to accelerate prior to M > 7.0 earthquakes in 1868, 1906, and 1989, and then to decelerate following them. We examine these seismicity changes in the context of the evolution of the stress field in the SFB region as a result of strain accumulation and release using a model of dislocations in an elastic halfspace. We use a Coulomb failure function (CFF) to take into account changes in both shear and normal stresses on potential failure planes of varying strike and dip in the SFB region. We find that the occurrence of a large or great earthquake creates a "stress shadow": a region where the stress driving earthquake deformation is decreased. Interseismic strain accumulation acts to reverse this process, gradually bringing faults in the SFB region out of the stress shadow of a previous large or great earthquake and back into a state where earthquake failure is possible. As the stress shadow generated by a large or great earthquake disappears, it migrates inward toward the fault associated with that large or great event. The observed changes in the rate of occurrence of moderate earthquakes in the SFB region are broadly consistent with this model. In detail, the decrease in seismicity throughout most of the SFB region and a localized increase in the Monterey Bay region following the great 1906 earthquake is consistent with our predicted stress changes. The timing and location of moderate-size earthquakes when the rate of seismicity increases again in the 1950s is consistent with areas in which the 1906 stress shadow had been eliminated by strain accumulation in the SFB region. Those earthquakes that are most inconsistent with our stress evolution model, including the 1911 earthquake southeast of San Jose, are found to occur in regions where dip-slip faulting is common in addition to strike-slip. The 1906 earthquake brought that zone of dip-slip faulting closer to failure, suggesting that the 1911 event may have been a reverse faulting earthquake rather than a strike-slip one similar to the 1984 Morgan Hill earthquake. The occurrence of activity on faults very close to the San Andreas, such as the Lake Elsman earthquakes of 1988 and 1989, appear to be associated with the last disappearence of the stress shadow on the Loma Prieta segment of the San Andreas fault. Thus events of that type may represent an intermediate-term precursor to a large earthquake, such as the 1989 Loma Prieta event. Much of the moderate-size earthquake activity in the SFB region appears to be modulated in time by the buildup and release of stress in large and great earthquakes. A tensorial approach to earthquake prediction, i.e., taking into account changes in the components of the stress tensor, has several advantages over examining scalar changes such as those in seismic activity and moment release rates. This tensorial approach allows for both activation and quiescence (but in different subregions) prior to as well as after large earthquakes.


The performance of various statistical models and commonly used financial indicators for forecasting securitised real estate returns are examined for five European countries: the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Italy. Within a VAR framework, it is demonstrated that the gilt-equity yield ratio is in most cases a better predictor of securitized returns than the term structure or the dividend yield. In particular, investors should consider in their real estate return models the predictability of the gilt-equity yield ratio in Belgium, the Netherlands and France, and the term structure of interest rates in France. Predictions obtained from the VAR and univariate time-series models are compared with the predictions of an artificial neural network model. It is found that, whilst no single model is universally superior across all series, accuracy measures and horizons considered, the neural network model is generally able to offer the most accurate predictions for 1-month horizons. For quarterly and half-yearly forecasts, the random walk with a drift is the most successful for the UK, Belgian and Dutch returns and the neural network for French and Italian returns. Although this study underscores market context and forecast horizon as parameters relevant to the choice of the forecast model, it strongly indicates that analysts should exploit the potential of neural networks and assess more fully their forecast performance against more traditional models.


Research on the use of ICTs for international development, or information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) research, has a history going back some 30 years. The purpose of this paper is to take stock of the ICT4D research field at this important juncture in time, when ICTs are increasingly pervasive and many different disciplines are involved in researching the area. The paper first provides some reflections on the history of the field broken down into three phases from the mid-1980s to the present day. This is followed by a detailed discussion of future research agenda, including topic selection,  and the role of theory.  ICT4D research started largely in the academic field of information systems but it is concluded that the future lies in a multidisciplinary interaction between researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers.


The purpose of this book is to present ongoing research from the universities involved in the project Creating the Network of Knowledge Labs for Sustainable and Resilient Environments (KLABS). The papers published in this book show that the recent and current research in those institutions focuses on the directions of development of IUP, the processes that support sustainable use of natural resources and their application in the Western Balkan and some other European countries. Each essay aims to provide an overview of key aspects of the research topic. Over the first two decades of the 21st century, some significant changes have been taking place in the natural environment (climate change, loss of biodiversity), societies (increased migrations, population growth and aging, increasing gap between poor and rich), and economy (globalisation, financial crash, digital revolution and increasing automatisation), new directions are emerging for sustainable human development with the aim to overcome those problems. Some novel research directions are reviewed by Maura Benagiamo whose chapter provides an overview of the critiques of the resilience paradigm, the recurrent concept of de-growth, as well as of the political ecology approaches towards the potential resolutions related to the problems of implementing IUP. When a significant and not yet fully functional political restructuring takes place, as in the case of Republic of Srpska within Bosnia and Herzegovina, a certain situation arises: the barriers to implementing IUP and the directions for their removal by improving the IUP methodology, the related professional education, and the training, as well as strengthening of the institutional and socioeconomic capacities, are analysed by Brankica Milojevic. Following an outline of the concept of a new urban governance model required for IUP and the application of IUP as an instrument for creating sustainable public policies on urban development, the chapter by Marija Maruna, Danijela Milovanovic Rodic, and Ratka Colic provides information on the implementation of the IUP principles in the teaching of master students at the University of Belgrade. The key issues in the use of natural resources in order to plan efficient and productive cities are explored by investigating the relationship between the concepts of resource efficiency and resilience in the chapter by Antonio Girardi. One of the aspects of resource efficiency, that of waste reduction, reuse, and recycling in Serbia, is analysed in the chapter by Marina Nenkovic-Riznic and demonstrated by presenting innovative approaches to waste management in the municipality of New Belgrade. As natural resources and the built environment made of those resources need to be protected from natural disasters such as flooding, two chapters by Žana Topalovic and Đurica Markovic provide an overview of integrated flood management approaches and flood risk management procedures, policies, and practice. The final group of chapters focuses on how territories are affected by economic, political, and social pressures and what governance instruments should be improved to address them. The negative impacts on cities of neo-liberal economy through market-driven global investments are investigated by Dan Narita who proposes ecologically driven urban development approaches that increase the resilience of natural and built environments. The pressure of informal city growth and how to resolve this challenge through responsive master planning are key issues explored in the chapter by Biserka Mitrovic, Jelena Maric, and Tamara Vukovic. Participatory approaches instead of state-led land use planning are proposed as a way forward for IUP of urban-rural communities in the chapter by Martin Broz, who discusses how they can support a balanced agricultural production and strengthen relationships between urban and rural areas. The above essays provide evidence of the research on some of the key problems that must be solved when applying IUP. The need for improving governance systems and instruments that will enable the application of IUP principles to emerge as a cross-sectional theme. The researchers' engagement in real-life case studies demonstrates that their proposals for improvements in policies, practice, and professional education are founded on valuable insights. We believe that the presented research outputs will be an important source of knowledge for the students at various new MSc courses that focus on sustainable and resilient built environments in Western Balkan countries, as well as for policymakers, urban planners, and other researchers in this field.


In the fall of 2010, in one of the largest scandals to ever hit the American court system, information gathered from lawsuits across the country revealed that tens of thousands of foreclosure filings were likely fraudulent - if not outright criminal. These revelations sparked a nation-wide investigation by all 50 state attorneys general to assess not only the extent of the scandal and its potential impacts but also potential legal and policy responses to such behavior. One of the tools at the state attorneys general's disposal that might rein in this behavior includes each state's Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices (UDAP) laws. Such laws typically prohibit "unfair" and "deceptive" practices and often give consumers, as well as state attorneys general, the ability to bring affirmative litigation to rein in practices that violate their terms. UDAP laws serve a critical consumer protection function by filling in gaps in the law where other, more targeted statutes might not cover practices that have a harmful impact on consumers. Since their inception, UDAP laws have been used to rein in abusive practices in such areas as used car sales, telemarketing and even the sale of tobacco products. This paper explores the availability of UDAP laws and the remedies they provide to rein in the range of practices revealed in the so-called "robo-sign scandal." It concludes that such practices - the false affidavits, reckless claims and improper notarizations - all violate the essence of most state UDAP laws; accordingly, the remedies available under such laws may be wielded by state attorneys general to halt abusive foreclosure practices throughout the nation. Such remedies include civil penalties, actual and punitive damages, attorney's fees and injunctions. What's more, UDAP actions in light of robo-sign abuses could help chart a path towards a more robust mortgage modification regime, one that would result in principal reduction, which is the clearest path out of the current crisis.


In this study, the parametric effects of the EMM process were studied by both numerical simulation and experimental tests. The numerical simulation was performed using commercial software, FEMLAB, to establish a multi-physics model which consists of electrical field, convection and diffusion phenomena to simulate the parametric effects of pulse rate, pulse duty, electrode gap and inflow velocity. From the simulated results, the relationship between parameters and the distribution of metal removal could be established. Proper process variables were also chosen to conduct the EMM experiments. After the experiments, the profile of the processed rectangular slot was measured by a Keyence digital microscope. Comparing profile of the processed rectangular slot with the profile of the cathode, the machining accuracy of EMM process could be determined. It could also verify the efficacy of the multi-physics model for predicting machining accuracy. From this study, the effects of parameters such as pulse rate, pulse duty, electrode gap and inflow velocity are better understood. The simulation model could be employed as a predictive tool to provide optimal parameters for better machining accuracy and process stability of the EMM process.


Focusing on adolescent sexuality, this issue of Adolescent Medicine: State of the Art Reviews is a stand-alone reference and practice tool. This widely respected resource continues to deliver high-quality, evidence-based information needed for day-to-day diagnostic and management problem-solving. Topics in Adolescent Sexuality include "Puberty," "Understanding Sexual Behaviors of Adolescents Within a Biopsychosocial Framework," "Development of Intimate Relationships in Adolescence," "Parental Influences on Adolescent Sexual Behaviors," "Adolescents, Sex, and the Media," "Sexual Orientation," "Relationship Violence in Adolescence," and "Approaches to Adolescent Sexuality Education."


While research documenting the impacts of direct marketing locally produced foods find positive impacts across the food supply chain (i.e. producers, chefs, consumers, and the overall economy), significant barriers to efficient farm-to-chef connections remain. Lack of knowledge and communication regarding product availability and quality are primary barriers. This paper outlines the activities and impacts of the Utah Farm-Chef-Fork program, who's primary goal is to enhance community vitality and reduce food miles by connecting Utah producers and restaurants through workshops, mingles, farm and restaurant tours, and other locally-sourcing food events. In 2013-2014, the program conducted six farmer/chef workshops and six mingles statewide, with 172 farmers, 73 chefs, and 24 educators participating. Workshop materials specifically addressed common barriers and benefits experienced by farmers and chefs in local sourcing. Mingles provided producers and small food processors the opportunity to showcase their products to chefs and specialty store owners in attendance. Impact measures show significantly increased understanding and confidence among participants in establishing localsourcing relationships, as well as plans for increased activity in the future.


The United States Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) uses a simulation model known as the 24-month Study Model for planning monthly and seasonal operations for the Colorado River Basin. The model has a long history of development and use and, therefore, has become quite institutionalized. Unfortunately, the model has run only in a 'batch mode' on a large mainframe computer at Reclamation's Denver office, limiting access to the few experts trained in its operation. To enhance the model's decision support capabilities, it has been ported to a desktop workstation and a graphics-based interface has been developed. By utilizing a multi-tasking operating system, the interface provides the functionality to interactively display and edit input data, run the model, and analyze the results in a seamless environment. Data is shared between Reclamation's two regional offices (the Lower and Upper Colorado Regions) through a wide-area computer network. This allows both regions to effectively coordinate the planning for the entire basin. The model can now be directly accessed by the planning managers as the detailed knowledge of the input and output data structures is embedded within the interface. A further benefit is that the system can be used to explain operational and policy decisions to other technical and managerial personnel.


In the last 20 years quite a few mature workflow engines and workflow editors have been developed to support communities in managing workflows. While there is a trend followed by the providers of workflow engines to ease the creation of workflows tailored to their specific workflow system, the management tools still often necessitate much understanding of the workflow concepts and languages. This paper describes the approach targeting various workflow systems and building a single user interface for editing and monitoring workflows under consideration of aspects such as optimization and provenance of data. The design allots agile Web frameworks and novel technologies to build a workflow dashboard offered in a web browser and connecting seamlessly to available workflow systems and external resources like Cloud infrastructures. The user interface eliminates the need to become acquainted with diverse layouts. Thus, the usability is immensely increased for various aspects of managing workflows.


As cloud technology continues to evolve with vast amount of data being transmit daily, it has added another form of complexity in forensic investigation. It is very difficult to analyse system logs during forensic investigation as cloud service providers may not be willing to share their customers' information with investigators. Furthermore a virtual machine set up in the cloud which hosts attacks might be shut down and thus logs associated with software and network access from the virtual machine would be lost. Additionally, cloud system logs transmitted over UDP or TCP packets without a robust encryption mechanism can be tampered. A further issue is that of dependency chains in the cloud where a user may use a service in one particular cloud, which in turn uses a service provided by another cloud and so on. Time and location disparities add further to the complexity. In a traditional physical network, users have significant control on their service providers (ISP) through contract agreements and policies. Cloud users lose control due to their dependency on the services which in turn depend on other services. The keynote presentation will outline the difficulties of Cloud forensics and offer some solutions.


Some programs and research networks are dealing with topics associated to the automtive sector and they observe one of the most significative sectores of modern economies. Because of that is so interesting to forecast some possible changes in an horizon of 10 to 20 years.
But this exercse must not be centred only on technical aspects of automobile construction, or on the design, or even on the mobility systems.
How one can face these problems, and how it can be so decisivelly important, is what we will try to answer in this paper that resumes some of the debates on the foresight exercises in Germany (Futur) and on the automotive sector in Portugal (WorTiS).


Equine rhinopneumonitis is an equine respiratory disease
caused by equine herpesvirus type 4 (EHV -4). This study provides the first information on the disease status in Malaysia. Serological survey conducted on 1,023 blood samples, representing 23% of equid population in Malaysia (including Sabah and Sarawak) reveals a moderate seroprevalence rate of 60%. However, the prevalence ranges
between 0 and 100%. The state that has 0% prevalence maintained the ponies as a closed herd in contrast the states that have 100% prevalence, which are active in importing equids. Sero-prevalence to EHV-4 varies significantly between states, districts, stables, horse and pony types and age but not affected by upgrading of pony blood through cross breeding. Based on the equid types, thoroughbred racehorse has the highest prevalence of 100%,
followed by the warm-blooded horse at 46.8% while pony and pony crosses has the lowest prevalence of 36.9%. Intranasal infection of EHV-4 on serologically negative local yearling ponies results in a disease characterised by clinical signs of nasal discharge and fever. The fever is not typical of the hyperthermia caused by viral infection since the biphasic temperature increment is absent. Transient leukopaenia is absent while the arterial oxygen and carbon dioxide partial pressures are not altered. All the changes
reflect the mild nature of the EHV-4 infection. The histological and ultra-structural examinations of the
mucosa of the respiratory tract indicated a substantial damage of the upper respiratory tract and tracheal mucosa. Multifocal erosion and extensive accumulation of serous, mucus and dead cells on epithelial surface have been observed. Changes in the nucleus include swelling, nucler lysis, nuclear membrane disintegration and dilation of perinuclei membrane. In the cytoplasm, the changes observed
include vacuolar degeneration, mitochondria swelling with
disintegrated cristaea and accumulation of fluid in cytocavity. Following intra-nasal inoculation, the infectious virus is rapidly transported to the upper respiratory tract and primary bronchiole. By day 7 post-infection, expression of antigen in sub-mandibular lymph node is markedly reduced as compared to day 3, suggesting a quick elimination of EHV-4 antigen. Successful detection of EHV-4 antigen from the nasal swab samples using nested peR at 24-48 hours post-race provides
evidence that racing could reactivate latent infection and increase the risk of pony contracting the disease. The EHV-4 infection is found to have a negative effect on racing performance. Racehorses that are sero-negative had higher chances of improving or maintaining finishing position. The effect is more prominent in pony where seropositive pony is less likely to win the race.


Water discharges in small turbulent streams are determined by injecting concentrated salt solutions at constant feed-rate and measuring the dilution level downstream by conductivity readings in situ . This new-formed method is comparable with the traditional relative salt-dilution method, as well as with other methods, with respect to accuracy. In small streams with complicated hydrodynamic structures the new-formed method seems to be most practical and reliable.


This Checklist of Galapagos Marine Arachnids includes a total of all 57 taxa reported from the Galapagos Islands. For each name, detailed information is provided: its Galapagos distribution in islands groups or bioregions generated from the specimen records, comments about the taxonomy (especially synonyms), the origin (native and introduced), taxon status (accepted vs. rejected records) and relevant literature references.


Histological studies have demonstrated a relationship between the amount of subgingival plaque and the magnitude and extension of gingival tissue reactions. The objective of the present study was to evaluate inflammatory reactions in the gingival tissues facing plaque accumulation at a diamond and curet-instrumented root surfaces. Experimental, deep periodontal defects were established at buccal surfaces of mandibular and maxillary canine teeth in 5 beagle dogs. The root surfaces were instrumented by a flame-shaped, fine-grained. rotating diamond point, or by a sharp curet. Next, the dogs were fed a plaque-inducing diet for 70 days. The animals were then sacrificed, and tissue blocks of the experimental sites including teeth, alveolar bone, and gingival tissues were secured. The gingival soft tissue was processed for histomorphometric analyses at 3 levels. Epithelium and connective tissue area measurements showed no differences between the two instrumentations. Junctional epithelium (JE) cell point counts exhibited a higher proportion of inflammatory cells (IC)in specimens facing diamond compared to curet-instrumented defects. A higher proportion of IC was present within the coronal compared to the apical aspect of the JE for both instrumentations (P < 0.05). A significant difference in IC density between instrumentations was detected for non-infiltrated (P < 0.05), as well as for infiltrated (P < 0.01) connective tissue. The infiltrated connective tissue (ICT) inflammatory cell density was significantly (P < 0.01) and positively correlated to the JE inflammatory cell density (r = 0.75), and to area measurements of ICT (r = 0.55). The overall results demonstrate that the character of subgingival root instrumentations significantly affects gingival inflammatory reactions, most likely by influencing subgingival plaque formation.


Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are expected to be used in greatly increasing numbers in the near future. To safely integrate them into the National Airspace System (NAS) [1] requires highly reliable communication links for control and nonpayload communications (CNPC) [2]. Although spectrum allocations for UAS appear to be in place, UAS missions can differ markedly from those of conventional piloted aircraft, and new challenges will appear. One of these challenges is the potential detrimental effects of the air-ground (AG) channel [3]. For past systems that used elevated ground site (GS) antennas in open areas, multipath propagation was minimal. Data rates and bandwidths of past systems were also small, rendering the multipath issue either inconsequential or easily overcome by (sometimes large) transmit power increases or longer latencies. Legacy voice communication systems are also comparatively low rate and forgiving of delay and can usually resort to repetition to improve reliability.


This paper seeks to contribute to the debate relative to industrial technological capability building in association with changes into a liberalised and globalized economic regime implemented from the early 1990s in several late-industrialising countries. During the past few years certain generalisations have held that such policy changes had a pervasive negative impact on industrial technological capabilities in Southern Latin American countries, particularly in Brazil. Such issue is examined here in three sets of manufacturing firms in the Industrial Pole of Manaus (Northern Brazil) – a total of 46 firms. The paper draws on first-hand empirical evidence collected through extensive fieldwork. The technological capability of most foreign subsidiaries and local firms, far from being static and confined to basic levels, have been upgraded to carry out diverse types of innovative activities. These capability levels are strongly associated with local decision-making and control. Inter-firm technological learning links have contributed to building such capability levels. Exporter firms are those with deeper capability levels. At least within the sample scrutinized in this study, firms have been responding to a fast pace of globalisation, trade liberalisation, and outward-looking industrialisation by deepening their capability levels and increasing exports. The findings do not point to a pervasive erosion of technological capabilities and low industrial dynamism as a result of changes in policy regime. Nevertheless, more space in the government policy agenda should be given to industrial strategies to accelerate firms' move into deeper technological capability levels.


Purpose: To implement Toyota Production System (TPS) lean tools and techniques in the Department of Radiation Oncology to maximize the individual productivity, process efficiency, deliver high level of quality and safe patient treatments. Methods: To continuously and relentlessly improve the performance of individuals and processes to an acceptable level of operation we have categorized the departmental operations into safety, quality, deliverability, cost and morale. We had issues with all aspects of the radiation therapy process that affect the quality and deliverability of treatment to our patients. To address these areas we adopted TPS lean principles and tools with existing resources such as gemba walk, visual controls and daily huddle where therapists, dosimeterists, physicists and physicians participate towards the lean management of the processes until the requested resources are available. These issues are addressed with clear communication through simple tools and with individuals in the department. To make this process and progress transparent, we have placed a huddle boards consisting of daily update of issues, actions needed to address the issues, and progress in safety, quality, deliverability, cost and morale, and effects of these progressions to the department. Results: With the implementation of simple, direct and effective TPS lean techniques in the department and hard stop policy of postponing IMRT patients not ready by the noon of the day before the first treatment, the work flow has become more streamlined and has helped in timely start of the patient treatments. With the availability of an assigned physicist to answer questions during the clinical hours, physicians, dosimeterists, and therapists concerns were also addressed in timely and orderly fashion and boosted the morale among the departmentConclusion: TPS lean techniques have been effective in decreasing the patient delays while increasing quality and safety to the patients with same cost and improved staff morale.


The Russian empire was based on strength, and the survival of any of the state's institutions was possible only if the country was protected by a powerful and efficient army. In order for the army to exist as a force, it needed iron discipline and a one-man management. In other words, as the support of power, the army should be led by a strong and recognized authority. Russian soldiers refused to recognize the authority of their commanders in 1917, thereby destroying the army's base and leading to its complete collapse. This collapse led to the famous Order No. 1 being issued on March 1; this order became the point of no return for the Russian army. The points of this Order were highlighted by discipline and a one-man management. Further military legislation only aggravated the situation. This article analyzes the main initiatives of the Provisional Government concerning the reform of the army's institutions. The article also emphasizes that these initiatives did not help to save the combat-capability of the Russian army weakened in the battlefields of the First World War, but that the Order's initiatives in total were a good basis of the spreading of anti-government sentiments and the successful propaganda of the Bolsheviks. In using anti-government agitation, the Bolsheviks bet on inciting "class hatred" between officers and soldiers, which would make the unconditional fulfillment of the commander's orders impossible. The author of the article underlines the point that further military legislation of revolutionary democracy only aggravated the situation.


Abstract On 29 August 2016, in a claim by Pakistani survivors and legal heirs against German retailer KiK for injuries and deaths during a fire at a factory supplying jeans in Karachi, German judges accepted jurisdiction and granted legal aid to the Pakistani claimants to cover the legal fees. The case pending before the German court thus poses the question of supply chain liability. Taking the lawsuit by the Pakistani plaintiffs against KiK in Germany as a case study, this article provides an analysis of the available legal grounds for such liability. Economic changes have ushered in linkages between purchasers and suppliers that call for strong principles of liability – principles that are already embedded in the law but which need fresh articulation and application. English courts have only recently recognised that under certain circumstances, liability might attach to a parent company under the tort of negligence for damage to third parties ostensibly caused by its subsidiary. The KiK case is testing the extension of such liability to certain supply chain relationships. Beyond that, the case is also testing the application of the rules on non-delegable duties and vicarious liability in the supply chain context. Even if the court disagrees with the claimants' position, the novel arguments advanced in this case are likely to be the starting point for an important debate about the proper fit between traditional tort law and the fast changing commercial and employment relationships of the 21st century.


The following thesis in library- and information science is a qualitative, comparative analysis of the relationship between the minority populations in Sweden and Finland and the library. The objective with the thesis is to investigate how the state is working to promote minority groups at the library and what lead to today's situation. The investigation starts, as regards time, with the European charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which was published 1992 and ends with the establishment of the Swedish library law 2014. The method that is used will be a comparative analysis that aims to compare Sweden and Finland. The study is based on Edmund Dahlstroms theories regarding ideologies and politics that have been ruling society's social and legal framework for minorities. The analysis consists of one chapter where both comparison and conclusions are included. It's discovered that Sweden and Finland have a similar legislation regarding minority languages, with the exception that Finland doesn't have a universal legislation for the national minorities and therefore, to a degree, excludes the territorially boundless minorities. This is also the case in their library law. Sweden has in their new library law a paragraph where the national minorities are included. This despite the fact that Finland had a system for national minorities before Sweden, who started working towards that first until after the European charted had been decreed.


This study contributes to the understanding of young adults' concepts of death and subjective life expectancy, especially in an era when HIV and AIDS significantly raise morbidity and mortality levels and lower life expectancy. It was meant to inform theory building about subjective life expectancy and its potential impact on individual decision-making. The sample for this specific paper consisted of ten African adolescents aged between fifteen and twenty-two, all of whom living in areas of Cape Town most heavily affected by the AIDS pandemic, as well as by other environmental factors, such as high poverty and crime rates, and high levels of violent deaths especially among young men. Findings show that young people are extremely aware of high death rates in their environments, especially deaths of a premature nature. Causes indicated were HIV and AIDS, but even more prominently crime and violence. Although confronted with the daily reality of death, participants did not consider these high death rates to be part of "a normal life", yet related them often to a general feeling of social and moral chaos in the townships. Different psychosocial mechanisms of dealing with the threat of death showed, with often very high levels of resilience and a focus on the future, but also fear and lack of clarity about that future in general. Subjective life expectancy (SLE) for oneself, however, was generally high and not influenced by the uncontrollable threat of violent deaths; Instead, the motivation behind SLE showed young adults' belief in personal choice and control exercised within their environments characterised by the complex interaction of poverty, crime, HIV and AIDS, peer pressure and modernisation. HIV and AIDS was mostly taken into account as a factor of influence that one had control over and therefore did not influence SLE. Peers' SLE, however, was rated far lower than their own, taking into account those factors that participants considered controllable.


This study, prepared under EU funding and on request by the Indonesian government, has the ambition to understand the inter-regional dynamics in terms of economics, but also in terms of employment and Decent Work (DW) dimensions. It tries to showcase, with the help of simulations, on how to combine macro policy instruments more effectively with inter-regional characteristics, i.e. by identifying the most important "within" region activities, main natural resources, strategic or privileged location and how each region relates to the other regions. Its ultimate goal is to provide insight into how to enhance different types of regional programmes and investments of certain main regional sectors and how such investments relate to higher region's growth and regional employment creation for different types of workers. The study uses the Social Accounting Matrix methodology for ex-ante "decent employment" impact assessment of key sectoral policies in Indonesia. Such approach builds on work developed by the ILO, EMPINVEST, on Dynamic SAM and Inter-Regional SAM and the indicators compiled and analyzed in the case of Indonesia.


At the centre of this article are two physicians active in Rome between 1600 and 1630 who combined medical practice with broader involvement in the dynamic cultural, economic and political scene of the centre of the Catholic world. The city's distinctive and very influential social landscape magnified issues of career-building and allows us to recapture physicians' different strategies of self-fashioning at a time of major social and religious reorganization. At one level, reconstructing Johannes Faber and Giulio Mancini's medical education, arrival in Rome and overlapping but different career trajectories contributes to research on physicians' identity in early modern Italian states. Most remarkable are their access to different segments of Roman society, including a dynamic art market, and their diplomatic and political role, claimed as well as real. But following these physicians from hospitals to courts, including that of the Pope, and from tribunals to the university and analysing the wide range of their writing – from medico-legal consilia to political essays and reports of anatomical investigations – also enriches our view of medical practice, which included, but went beyond, the bedside. Furthermore, their activities demand that we reassess the complex place of anatomical investigations in a courtly society, and start recovering the fundamental role played by hospitals – those quintessential Catholic institutions – as sites of routine dissections for both medical teaching and research. (pp. 551–567)


Repurposing Legacy Data: Innovative Case Studies takes a look at how data scientists have re-purposed legacy data, whether their own, or legacy data that has been donated to the public domain. Most of the data stored worldwide is legacy data-data created some time in the past, for a particular purpose, and left in obsolete formats. As with keepsakes in an attic, we retain this information thinking it may have value in the future, though we have no current use for it. The case studies in this book, from such diverse fields as cosmology, quantum physics, high-energy physics, microbiology, psychiatry, medicine, and hospital administration, all serve to demonstrate how innovative people draw value from legacy data. By following the case examples, readers will learn how legacy data is restored, merged, and analyzed for purposes that were never imagined by the original data creators. Discusses how combining existing data with other data sets of the same kind can produce an aggregate data set that serves to answer questions that could not be answered with any of the original data Presents a method for re-analyzing original data sets using alternate or improved methods that can provide outcomes more precise and reliable than those produced in the original analysis Explains how to integrate heterogeneous data sets for the purpose of answering questions or developing concepts that span several different scientific fields


This paper compares the research on ethnolects in two regions of Europe, the German (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) and Netherlandic (Flanders and the Netherlands) speaking areas. We compare the research on this topic with the social constellations (immigration) and political debate (public perceptions of and reactions to this immigration) in the context of which these outcomes are produced and interpreted.


The clinical diagnosis and symptoms of major depressive disorder (MDD) have been closely associated with impairments in reward processing. In particular, various studies have shown blunted neural and behavioral responses to the experience of reward in depression. However, little is known about whether depression affects individuals′ valuation of potential rewards during decision-making, independent from reward experience. To address this question, we used a gambling task and a model-based analytic approach to measure two types of individual sensitivity to reward values in participants with MDD: ′risk preference,′ indicating how objective values are subjectively perceived and ′inverse temperature,′ determining the degree to which subjective value differences between options influences participants′ choices. On both of these measures of value sensitivity, participants with MDD were comparable to non-psychiatric controls. Both risk preference and inverse temperature were also stable over four laboratory visits and comparable between the groups at each visit. Moreover, neither value sensitivity measure varied with severity of clinical symptoms in MDD. These data suggest intact and stable value processing in MDD during risky decision-making.


Preface A Brief History of Game Theory Why Study Games? Rapid Discoveries in the Twentieth Century Recognition Introduction to Game Theory Concepts and Strategy Game Theory, Strategic Behavior, and Strategy Consumer Behavior, Utility Theory, and Game Theory Game-Theoretic Models and Illustration Rules of the Game Strategy and Equilibrium Complex Games and Games by Categories Other Key Game Theory Concepts Modeling Games with MATLAB and Experimenting Games Prisoner's Dilemma Battle of the Sexes A Sample Game of Dominated Strategies with MATLAB Theory of Strategic Value Introduction: The Game of Business Strategy and Value States of Nature State Variables for Business: Control Variables The Event Tree and Dynamic Payoffs The Firm Real Options and Management Flexibility What Is "Value" for a Firm? A Dynamic Game of Asymmetric Information in the Beer Industry A Game between a Global Brewer and a Growing National Beer Importer Regulated Alcoholic Beverages Industry and Three-Tier System in the United States Sales Performance of Gambrinus: General Import Market Incentives at the Time of the 1996 Decision Strategic Options Available in 1996 and the Game Game-Theoretic Model Consolidation in the Wine and Spirits Industry Economic Structure of the Industry The Wine and Spirits Industry and Consolidation A Hypothetical Consolidation Description of the Game A Regulatory Game: CAFE Standards and Competing Automakers Introduction History of Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) Current Debates Statement of the Problem and the Strategic and Game Theoretical Motivation behind CAFE Building the Game and Players, Strategies, Payoffs, and Solution On Auto Industry Crisis of 2008 and Analysis of a Potential Merger: Strategic Approach Introduction and Cause of the 2008 Auto Industry Crisis Likely Scenarios for the Automotive Industry Economic and Industry Conditions Key Events to Date Discussion of Potential Scenarios Strategic Approach to a Potential Merger: Strategies of Key Players Game Theory and Law Introduction Game Theory Examples in Law Antitrust Case Study: United States of America, et al., v. Microsoft Corporation Game-Theoretic Model in Microsoft Antitrust Case and Players The Trial and Conclusions of Law Bibliography Index


This unique compendium offers an article-by-article commentary on the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States. Providing a comprehensive explanation of the functioning of this important mechanism for the settlement of investor-State disputes, it incorporates the preparatory work, the Convention's text, various rules and regulations adopted under the Convention, the practice of arbitral tribunals under the Convention, and academic writings on the subject. The first and second editions of this Commentary have been relied upon by numerous arbitral tribunals. This third edition follows the same system and approach, but extensive updates and revisions reflect the vast increase in arbitral practice since the publication of the second edition. A number of novel issues that have emerged through this practice are now addressed, making this practice-oriented guide an indispensable tool for anyone dealing with the ICSID Convention. Likewise, the number of contributors to and editors of the third edition has increased.


The analysis of innovation, industrial dynamics and the evolution of industries has witnessed major progress in several areas. The paper discusses the progress made in the industrial dynamics tradition and in the more recent stream of studies centred on the evolution of sectoral systems. It identifies some key challenges: the analysis of knowledge, actors, demand, networks, institutions and coevolution. JEL Classification: L20, O30, R00.


The fingerprint-based localization technique is one of the most popular indoor localization technologies. There are quite a few localization algorithms that use the RSS distance of position pairs to characterize their physical distance. In this paper, we introduce two coefficients to measure the relationship between RSS distance and physical distance. Based on the definition of tree-ring distance, we found that the characterization capability of RSS distance to physical distance is closely related to APs' tree-ring distance. To exploit this, through an in-depth analysis of the relationship between tree-ring distance and physical distance, we pointed out that the APs sets composed of APs at the edge positions of the positioning area makes the RSS distance better to characterize the physical distance. Further, we proposed a novel RSS distance calculation algorithm based on the comparison of tree-ring distances. In the algorithm, for each pairwise position, the abnormal APs are eliminated by the Mean+3S method, and the APs with larger tree-ring distance are selected to participate in the calculation of RSS distance, namely, for different pairwise positions, different APs subsets of all APs are selected to participate in RSS distance calculation. We evaluate the algorithm in a simulation study and initial results show that an APs set with 3 APs is sufficient to guarantee very strong correlation (the correlation coefficient>0.8) and very high consistency (the consistency coefficient>0.8) between RSS distance and physical distance, which demonstrates the effectiveness and the practicability of the algorithm.


In this paper, we characterize the performance of and develop thermal management solutions for a DC motor-driven resonant actuator developed for flapping wing micro air vehicles. The actuator, a DC micro-gearmotor connected in parallel with a torsional spring, drives reciprocal wing motion. Compared to the gearmotor alone, this design increased torque and power density by 161.1% and 666.8%, respectively, while decreasing the drawn current by 25.8%. Characterization of the actuator, isolated from nonlinear aerodynamic loading, results in standard metrics directly comparable to other actuators. The micro-motor, selected for low weight considerations, operates at high power for limited duration due to thermal effects. To predict system performance, a lumped parameter thermal circuit model was developed. Critical model parameters for this micro-motor, two orders of magnitude smaller than those previously characterized, were identified experimentally. This included the effects of variable winding resistance, bushing friction, speed-dependent forced convection, and the addition of a heatsink. The model was then used to determine a safe operation envelope for the vehicle and to design a weight-optimal heatsink. This actuator design and thermal modeling approach could be applied more generally to improve the performance of any miniature mobile robot or device with motor-driven oscillating limbs or loads.


Abstract: There is a long-running debate among legal scholars regarding the propriety and enforceability of SEC attempts to mandate disclosures of antisocial or illegal corporate activities that do not materially impact a company's financial statements. This debate was recently revived by the issuance of SEC Staff Accounting Bulletin 99, Materiality in Financial Statements (SEC 1999), which suggests that quantitatively immaterial information relating to unlawful transactions or regulatory non-compliance should be considered for disclosure. This issue has important implications for the accounting profession, although it has generally been ignored in the accounting literature. This paper reviews legal and ethical considerations raised by the issue of qualitative disclosures, and also presents the results of a preliminary empirical test of the impact of such disclosures on financial statement users' judgments. The results of this study indicate that investors consider the nondisclosure of immaterial illegal acts to be unethical, and reject suggestions that such information lacks moral intensity. The results also suggest that immaterial illegal acts have a significant effect on investors' perceptions of the quality of corporate management and the likelihood of investment in a company. This effect was more pronounced when the illegal act was combined with self-dealing on the part of corporate executives.


This
paper explores politics on the consumer side and how they shape the electricity
market within the Nigerian context. Using mixed method approach, quantitative
data from news reports and government records, together with informal
interviews of some targeted energy consumers were used to gain understanding on
the motives of political consumption in Nigeria's electricity sector. The study
reveals that there are four salient energy consumer groups in Nigeria
categorized based on their willingness-to-pay and ability-to-pay for
electricity bills. The study further reveals the origins and evolution of
unwillingness-to-pay for electricity by certain consumer groups and their
impact on the workings and development of the Nigerian electricity market. The
study concludes by stressing the importance of value-added services by energy
businesses as a way to start to engage with customers which leads to the
establishment of trust and a gradual transition to a customer-driven energy
future.


CRISPR/Cas systems provide bacteria and archaea with adaptive immunity against viruses and plasmids by using crRNAs to guide the silencing of invading nucleic acids. We show here that in a subset of these systems, the mature crRNA base-paired to trans-activating tracrRNA forms a two-RNA structure that directs the CRISPR-associated protein Cas9 to introduce double-stranded (ds) breaks in target DNA. At sites complementary to the crRNA-guide sequence, the Cas9 HNH nuclease domain cleaves the complementary strand while the Cas9 RuvC-like domain cleaves the non-complementary strand. The dual-tracrRNA:crRNA, when engineered as a single RNA chimera, also directs sequence-specific Cas9 dsDNA cleavage. Our study reveals a family of endonucleases that use dual-RNAs for site-specific DNA cleavage and highlights the potential to exploit the system for RNA-programmable genome editing.


Railway accidents that usually cause numerous property and life losses occurred in recent years all around the world. In general, resources such as financial supports and incident rescue programs are required to minimize the losses after an accident. Due to lack of comprehensive information collected from accident sites, most railway emergency management departments face a predicament in setting up rescue schemes. To tackle the issue, realistic three-dimensional virtual accident scene reconstruction technology is developed, which provides and visualises supplementary materials and information about a train accident and can offer assistance to emergency crews when making decisions. We propose a photo-based three-dimensional reconstruction framework of vehicles for measuring the positions and poses of carriages involved in an accident. We implement and examine two case studies to validate this reconstruction method, which performs well in the assigned tasks.


Published in conjunction with a major exhibition organized by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in collaboration with the Menil Collection, Houston, and the Art Institute of Chicago, Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938 focuses on the breakthrough surrealist years of Rene Magritte, creator of some of the 20th century's most extraordinary images. Bringing together nearly 80 paintings, periodicals and early commercial work, it offers fresh insight into Magrittes identity as a revolutionary painter and surrealist artist. Beginning in 1926, when Magritte first aimed to create paintings that would, in his words, challenge the real world, and concluding in 1938 a historically and biographically significant moment just before the outbreak of World War II the publication traces central strategies and themes from this seminal period, particularly those of displacement, transformation, metamorphosis, the misnaming of objects, and the representation of visions seen in half-waking states. The publication also presents new conservation research on Magrittes materials and techniques, and an illustrated chronology outlining significant moments in the artists life during this significant period, including travel, connections with other surrealist artists and writers, contributions to journals, and important exhibitions and reviews.


"This landmark book" "(San Francisco Chronicle)" dispels the common myths about the causes and uses of anger -- for example, that expressing anger is always good for you, that suppressing anger is always unhealthy, or that women have special "anger problems" that men do not. Dr. Carol Tavris expertly examines every facet of that fascinating emotion -- from genetics to stress to the rage for justice. Fully revised and updated, "Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion" now includes: * A new consideration of biological politics: Should testosterone or PMS excuse rotten tempers or aggressive actions? * The five conditions under which anger is likely to be effective -- and when it's not. * Strategies for solving specific anger problems -- chronic anger, dealing with difficult people, repeated family battles, anger after divorce or victimization, and aggressive children.


Obtaining the fatigue properties of sandwich core materials is a particularly difficult issue. This work evaluates the ASTM C 394 test procedure for determining the fatigue properties of core materials using compression-compression loading. The stress concentration at the ends of the specimen where the specimen meets the fixture has been suggested to lead to premature failures. A geometric optimization of specimen ends was attempted to minimize the effects of the stress concentration. This resulted in removing a circular arc of material from the specimen ends. While this allowed the stress concentration to be shifted away from the corner interface of the specimen and fixture, it did not seem to positively influence the fatigue life for the load levels tested. Fatigue results obtained using the compression-compression loading compared well with data obtained using other test methods, including four-point bending. This suggested that the current ASTM C 394 test standard, when used with compression-compression loading, allows acceptable fatigue data to be obtained for foam core materials.


This study investigates context effects in general and the compromise effect in particular. It is argued that earlier research in this area lacks realism which is a major drawback to research conclusions and stated management implications. The importance of this issue is stressed by previous research showing that behavioral anomalies found in hypothetical experimental settings tend to be significantly reduced when real payoff mechanisms are introduced. Therefore, to validate the compromise effect, an enhanced experimental design is presented with participants making choices in the laboratory that are binding. We find that the compromise effect holds for real purchase decisions, and therefore is validated and not an artificial effect in surveys on hypothetical buying decisions. While conclusions and implications for marketing managers derived in previous work assume that context effects hold for real market decisions, the results created by this enhanced design close this gap in marketing literature.


When Mierle Laderman Ukeles (b. 1939) performed Mikva Dreams at New York's Franklin Furnace Gallery in 1977, it was the first time the immersion of a Jewish woman in the mikvah had been presented to an audience for American art. Seated in the gallery, Ukeles read aloud from a text she had written, while covering herself with a white sheet, "to preserve," in her words, "an aura of sacred mystery and privacy" (fig. 1).1 In her performance, she described the immersion in the mikvah as an act of rebirth and a return to the Garden of Eden, extolling it as a ritual that connects a woman with her inner being.


CANADA: EXPERTS WANT HEALTH ON LITIGATION AGENDA In the early 19800s, Canada had one of the globe's highest rates of per capita tobacco consumption. But in less than two decades, in response to aggressive campaigning by health NGOs, Canada experienced arguably the largest decline in use anywhere. Gains were made on many fronts: through increases in tobacco taxation, a world precedent-setting ban on tobacco advertising, breakthroughs in smoke-free air travel and federally-regulated workplaces, and from landmark tobacco package warnings. But Canada can no longer claim that it is at the forefront of responses to the tobacco epidemic. In 2010, the neo-liberal federal government cancelled longstanding plans for a renewal of stale package warnings. Then, in the face of fierce opposition, it reversed itself and a year later mandated new warnings which discarded several of the precedent-setting elements of Canada's ground-breaking 1994 and 2001 warning systems. Then, the health minister cancelled the entire grants and contributions component of the national tobacco strategy. This cut millions of dollars of funding from troublesome NGOs which had pressed the government to produce the updated warnings. Needless to say, plain packaging is no longer on the government's agenda. One of the most severe criticisms of the federal government, said Western University law professor Robert Solomon, "stems from the sweetheart tobacco smuggling settlements that it negotiated with Big Tobacco in 2008 and 2010. In those settlements, health remedies to deal with the illness caused by the smuggling fraud appear not to have been given any consideration." Unlike American tobacco litigation, criminal investigations and civil lawsuits in Canada produced settlements of pennies on the dollars claimed, no disclosure of industry documents and no real incentives for the manufacturers to change their behaviour. Tobacco executives facing jail time had their charges stayed. According to William Marsden of Montreal's The Gazette, the tobacco executive who planned much of the smuggling told him that the federal police knew "all about this. They could have walked in and just handcuffed everybody at Imperial [Canada's largest tobacco company. The government]...did not have the guts of a field mouse to go after the executives of the company...." Now, Canada's provinces are suing tobacco manufacturers and their international parents to recover the health care costs associated with smoking which resulted from industry fraud and conspiracy over five decades. The governments allege that the companies involved lied about risks, addiction, 'light' and 'mild' cigarettes, and second-hand smoke. The claims filed to date by nine provinces exceed CDN $110 billion. If this wrongful behaviour is proven in court, as it was in the USA, it will constitute the largest fraud in the history of Canadian business. It certainly was the most destructive with estimates that industry deception caused or contributed to up to two million deaths in Canada since 1964. The smuggling settlements trivialised the harms caused by the fraud. So the Campaign for Justice on Tobacco Fraud (CJTF) was incorporated, to advocate for positive health outcomes from the health care cost recovery litigation. As mentioned in the September 2014 Tobacco Control, the CJTF pressed provincial and territorial governments to take Big Tobacco to trial, insist on the disclosure of industry documents, and allocate a significant portion of monies recovered to an arms-length-from-government agency with a mandate to reduce tobacco industry-caused disease. The CJTF submission was signed by the heads of 60 health organisations, by the deans of schools of public health, and by professors of medicine and law, 137 signatories in all. It will take a determined health community to put public health into the litigation deliberations and to offset years of federal government back-sliding. This story is also published on the Tobacco Control website at http://blogs. bmj.com/tc/2014/09/25/canada-what-werethey-smoking-experts-want-health-ontobacco-litigation-agenda/


The actin cytoskeleton is required for cell expansion and is implicated in cellular responses to the plant growth hormone auxin. However, the molecular and cellular mechanisms that coordinate auxin signaling, cytoskeletal remodeling, and cell expansion are poorly understood. Previous studies have examined actin cytoskeleton responses to long-term auxin treatment, but plants respond to auxin over short timeframes, and growth changes within minutes of exposure to the hormone. To correlate actin arrays with degree of cell expansion, we used quantitative imaging tools to establish a baseline of actin organization, as well as of individual filament behaviors in root epidermal cells under control conditions and after treatment with a known inhibitor of root growth, the auxin indole-3-acetic acid (IAA). We found that cell length was highly predictive of actin array in control roots, and that short-term IAA treatment stimulated denser, more longitudinal, and more parallel arrays by inducing filament unbundling within minutes. By demonstrating that actin filaments were more "organized" after a treatment that stopped elongation, we show there is no direct relationship between actin organization and cell expansion and refute the hypothesis that "more organized" actin universally correlates with more rapidly growing root cells. The plasma membrane-bound auxin transporter AUXIN RESISTANT 1 (AUX1) has previously been shown necessary for archetypal short-term root growth inhibition in the presence of IAA. Although AUX1 was not previously suspected of being upstream of cytoskeletal responses to IAA, we used aux1 mutants to demonstrate that AUX1 is necessary for the full complement of actin rearrangements in response to auxin, and that cytoplasmic auxin in the form of NAA is sufficient to stimulate a partial actin response. Together, these results are the first to quantitate actin cytoskeleton response to short-term auxin treatments and demonstrate that AUX1 is necessary for short-term actin remodeling. One sentence summary The Arabidopsis AUX1 auxin transport protein is necessary for actin cytoskeleton reorganization in response to phytohormone treatment.


Combined sewer overflows (CSOs) are a part of the combined storm water and foul sewer system. CSOs should protect the downstream sewer system against overloading during heavy rainfall and snow melting. This report investigates how three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can be applied to evaluate the quality performance of combined sewer overflows (CSOs). Separation efficiency is a performance indicator defined as the fraction of sediments that are treated and not overflowing. Emissions from poorly constructed CSOs have a harmful impact on receiving water quality. Predicted increase in rainfall in the northern hemisphere due to climate change is enhancing stresses imposed on these structures. EU established the Water Framework Directive (WFD) in 2000 to ensure good ecological and chemical quality for receiving streams and lakes. To meet this standard, a reduction in emissions of pollutants is required through improvement of separation efficiency of CSOs. Numerical modelling creates new opportunities for detailed analyzes of existing and new structures as such tools where not available when the first CSOs where built. In this report, the assessment of a CSO with CFD is presented in the context of a geometry from Arhus. The CSO is one of the case studies in the EU project PREPARED Enabling Change, which aims to adapt Europe's water supply and sanitation systems to climate change. It is a complex device with one inlet, four overflow chambers and two outlet pipes. Prior to the modelling, a literature review was carried out to identify the characteristics of combined sewage. The purpose was to determine what particles that should be modelled and find appropriate boundary conditions. The sewer quality showed large variations dependent on flow rate, locations inside the system and between different systems. The combined sewage consists of a mixture of organic and inorganic material and no unique relationship between density and particle size could therefore be found. A wide range of sediments with size 100m - 5mm and densities 1002kg/m3, 1170kg/m3, 1400kg/m3, 1720kg/m3, 2000kg/m3 and 2650kg/m3 were therefore selected to represent sewer sediments in the numerical model. At the bed of the CSO a criteria was needed to determine if a particle settled or was suspended in the fluid. A bed shear stress (BSS) boundary condition was found to be appropriate. The shear stress at the bed was compared to a critical value specified by the user. A study by Berg (1988) showed that the critical value for settling of particles in a combined sewer with sand traps was 1.0Pa. The numerical modelling was done with the commercial software FLUENT. Analyzes where carried out for two scenarios; (1) filling of the CSO with throughflow to the treatment plant, and (2) during overflow to receiving waters. Three velocities was used (0.3m/s, 0.5m/s and 0.7 m/s) to test the influence of velocity on the separation efficiency. The paper demonstrates how the discrete phase model (DPM) can be utilized to predict particle trajectories and final destination of particles and how this can be used to calculate separation efficiency. The conclusion is that the particle tracking routine was found to be suitable for analyzes of sediment transport and separation efficiency. Overall the CSO in Arhus showed a good separation efficiency higher than 50% for all velocities. The exception was sand particles with size 0.1mm and organic material with density 1170kg/m3 and diameters up to 0.5mm. The results showed that velocity had a strong influence on separation efficiency and flow streamlines on the distribution of particles on the different overflows. It was crucial to define appropriate boundary conditions as it has a significant effect on the result. Difference in separation efficiency for different types of particles was most significant during slow flow conditions. A references to previous work has shown that the particle tracking routine probably overestimates the separation efficiency for high velocities (Stovin & Saul, 1998). In future work the results from Arhus should be compared with measurements, to determine if this is the case for the Arhus results as well. CFD modelling in combination with modern measurement techniques provide great opportunities for optimization of CSOs. The intention is that this can serve as a pilot project for future research and work with adaption of CSOs under climate change.


The Kuhtai reservoir is planned as an addition to the existing Sellrain-Silz group of HPPs. Two natural hazards relevant in terms of potential impulse wave impact on the dam were identified: a snow avalanche near the dam axis and a possible landslide further upstream. A preliminary analytical evaluation of impulse wave heights and wave run-up based on empirical equations showed that dam overtopping could not be excluded. However, several limitations of this evaluation were not satisfied, resulting in a reduced validity of the prediction. Thus, impulse wave generation was investigated in a 1:130 hydraulic scale model. Beside tests related to the relevant events, an additional systematic parameter variation validated the quality of the results. However, as no overtopping occurred even for the parameter variation, no measures such as breakwater or increase of the freeboard were required. The model test results are compared to a further analytical evaluation based on the recently published VAW-manual on landslide generat-ed impulse waves.


This paper describes histological findings in the liver of Lutjanus guttatus after an acute mortality event in fish cultivated by river fishermen from Colima, Mexico, who were making their first attempt to cultivate this species. During 187 days, divided into two stages, 20,000 juveniles (6 g) were randomly distributed in three floating cages (125 m 3 ). During the first 110 days (pre-fattening), the fish were fed commercial feed. From days 111 to 180 (fattening), the fish were given a test feed, high in fat (20.4%) and low in protein (30.2%). At the end of the first stage, the fish showed good biometric parameters as well as normal behavior and healthy appearance. During the second stage, starting on day 175, a strange behavior was observed followed by an acute mortality event; this alarmed the group of fishermen, who requested our intervention. In the necropsy and the histopathological analysis, the liver of the fish showed clear evidence of hepatocellular steatosis, possibly as a result of the nutritional stress to which they were subjected during cultivation. The present work can serve as a basis for future research, given the scarce information of this pathology in this fish species.


Tragically, the victims of eminent domain takings for private development tend to be those least prepared to fight against it. The Supreme Court exacerbated this unfortunate fact in the landmark case Kelo v. City of New London, where it held that the government can use the power of eminent domain to take a person's home for the purpose of private development that might improve the community's economy. While Kelo generated many effective eminent domain reform bills in the states, this seminal case foreclosed a golden opportunity to restore meaningful protection for property rights under the Public Use Clause. This ruling made challenging eminent domain takings for private development under the Fifth Amendment a daunting, if not impossible, task. Because eminent domain takings incongruously fall on the poor, uneducated, or minorities who have difficulty competing in the political process, Kelo greatly impacted the ability of the weakest parts of society to keep their own homes free from the path of the bulldozer. This Article proposes a novel alternative avenue to challenge these takings and guarantee equal protection from eminent domain.In 2000, five years before Kelo, the Supreme Court held in Village of Willowbrook v. Olech that plaintiffs can establish a class of one under the Equal Protection Clause. Historically, equal protection suits required that the plaintiff define a class based on certain inherent conditions, such as race, nationality, or gender. Under the class of one approach, a single person can present himself as a class irrespective of these characteristics. Despite the recency and prominence of Olech, the scholarly literature has largely overlooked this significant ruling, having underestimated its ability and propensity to implement a fundamental revolution in modern equal protection jurisprudence. This Article seeks to shed light on this powerful but largely neglected precedent.Prior to Olech, plaintiffs arguably could only establish classes based on inherent characteristics, such as race or religion. However, after Olech, homeowners can establish a class of one (i.e., the person whose home the government takes) if their property is singled out for eminent domain while other similarly situated properties are not. The singled-out homeowner or homeowners can bring suit to challenge the arbitrariness of the decision to take the property.While many plaintiffs have used Olech to challenge zoning and other land use restrictions, none to date have proposed using the Olech rule to challenge an eminent domain taking for private development. This Article argues that an Olech claim is an essential mechanism to enable homeowners — especially the poor, uneducated, or minority citizens whose participation in the political process is more difficult and less effective than political insiders — to challenge the different treatment and rationality of an eminent domain taking for private development.


Celiac disease (CD) is one of the most common chronic disorders in childhood. Autoimmune and nonautoimmune disorders including dermatitis herpetiformis, type 1 diabetes mellitus, and autoimmune thyroiditis can be encountered associated with CD. Common hematologic manifestations of CD include anemia owing to iron, folate, or vitamin B12 deficiency. We report a case with CD associated with Evans syndrome of whom to our knowledge, is the first child to be reported in the literature.


AbstractA new wall shear stress model to be used as a wall boundary condition for large-eddy simulations of the atmospheric boundary layer is proposed. The new model computes the wall shear stress and the vertical derivatives of the streamwise velocity component by means of a modified, instantaneous, and local law-of-the-wall formulation. By formulating a correction for the modeled shear stress, using experimental findings of a logarithmic region in the streamwise turbulent fluctuations, the need for a filter is eliminated. This allows one to model the wall shear stress locally, and at the same time accurately recover the correct average value. The proposed model has been applied to both unique high Reynolds number experimental data and a suite of large-eddy simulations, and compared to previous models. It is shown that the proposed model performs equally well or better than the previous filtered models. A nonfiltered model, such as the one proposed, is an essential first step in developing a universal wa...


eHealth can be defined as health care field that is using Information and Communication Technologies. There is variety of different technologies that can be used in eHealth and the field is evolving via new inventions. Users in eHealth are coming from several user groups from health care professionals to patients and external users. Development of eHealth technology solutions can fill increasing demands of health care field that are caused by longer life expectancy. Despite all the benefits that utilization of eHealth technology can bring for health care sector, it has also some barriers that are delaying adoption of eHealth technology solutions. To overcome these barriers CeHRes Roadmap was created to support and guide eHealth technology development and it is meant for developers, researchers, policy makers, and for educational purposes. CeHRes Roadmap is visualizing Holistic framework and it is based on participatory development approach, persuasive design techniques, and business modelling. Objective of this master's thesis is to identify, collect, and characterize all relevant research that is using CeHRes Roadmap in developing eHealth technologies published from year 2011 onwards. Research articles are analysed geographically, in terms of technology and medical domain, and characterizing and categorizing CeHRes Roadmap elements and attributes. Research method in this thesis was Scoping review that is literature review method that aim to map rapidly relevant literature and is suitable for broad topics. Literature search was done from Scopus, Web of Science, IEEE, PubMed, and Cinahl. Due to multidisciplinary nature of topic search was done for databases that contain material from Information processing science and/or medical science. 26 studies were identified to be relevant for this research. Results of this master's thesis indicate that usage of CeHRes Roadmap has been most common in Netherlands, but it has been recognized and referenced in hundreds of studies. As the roadmap is not restricting usage to particular technology area, variety of used technologies were wide and several different medical domains using CeHRes roadmap were found. When analysing CeHRes Roadmap characteristics, participatory development was found to be the key characteristic that was visible in almost every selected study. This thesis provides inventory of studies that have used CeHRes Roadmap in development work and give insight how it has been used.


By 1300, England and other West-European countries had undergone a significant degree of commercialisation. More and more communities, both urban and rural, depended on an efficient network of local markets to obtain the goods they needed, in particular for their food. Yet in spite of this, some landed lords and, most notably, monasteries and convents continued to rely on the produce of their own estates, even though there were significant costs and risks associated with the production, transportation and storage of their own food. Philip Slavin sets out to account for this puzzling situation through an in-depth study of the changing patterns and fortunes of the provisioning of Norwich Cathedral Priory between c.1260 and 1536. Close analysis of contemporary archival sources reveals that the Priory made a deliberate choice, dictated by various economic, social and environmental factors and which, altogether, made isolation from the market a profitable, and very rational, option. This is a new sort of estate study that considers questions of both production and consumption as well as health issues, including the problems of overeating and obesity occurring in late-medieval monastic populations. Particular attention is given to the production, transportation, storage and consumption by the Priory household of grain-based products. In the late-medieval period, grains were the single most important component in the daily diet, for both commoners and the higher echelons, accounting for between 50 and 80 per cent of total calorific intake. Although focusing on one specific region, this is more than just a regional study, analysing as it does a microcosm of the late-medieval English economy and society at a time of political, socio-economic and biological shocks and crises, including years of bad weather, famine, pestilence (both human and bovine), warfare and revolts. The study of the food supply of late-medieval conventual households sheds much light on the wider process of decline and eventual collapse of direct demesne management in particular, and feudalism in general, in the post-Black Death era.


In recent years the prevalence of obesity, physical inactivity, sedentary behaviour and low cardiorespiratory fitness in Western countries has increased rapidly. These variables are independently associated with cardiovascular disease risk and/or mortality. Atherosclerosis begins in childhood and endothelial dysfunction is its earliest detectable manifestation. Endothelial dys/function can be quantified using flow mediated dilation (FMD). The primary aim of this thesis was to investigate childhood associations between endothelial function and a range of modifiable and non-modifiable CV risk factors. We sought to provide novel information regarding relationships between physical activity, sedentary behaviour, body composition, cardiorespiratory fitness and the heritability of endothelial function. In addition, we sought to explore the issue of the scaling of vascular outcomes for body size and composition. Study one (Chapter 4) addressed the question of scaling, by evaluating the efficacy of scaling vascular dimensions and FMD for different body composition variables using allometric and ratio procedures, with the aim of producing size independent vascular indices. Our data indicate that, if between-group comparisons of baseline brachial artery diameter are to be undertaken, appropriate, allometric scaling for measures of lean or total mass may need to be adopted. The application of such scaling to FMD data is debatable as the associations between FMD and body composition variables were very weak. We therefore concluded that the adoption of scaling FMD for body composition variables cannot be advocated until further research has been undertaken. Studies 2 and 4 (Chapters 5 and 7) assessed cross-sectional relationships between FMD and modifiable CV risk factors in young people. We examined associations between FMD and objective measurements of body composition, cardiorespiratory fitness, physical activity levels and sedentary behaviour. We observed a weak association between percentage body fat and FMD and no further relationships across cohort. However, depressed endothelial function was significantly related to, and predicted by high intensity physical activity. The relationship between FMD and high intensity PA was further reinforced by the findings from studies 3 and 4 (Chapters 6 and 7), which aimed to address the issue of seasonal variation in FMD and determine its predictors. The studies demonstrated that seasonal decline in vascular function was associated with, and predicted by, a change in high intensity PA but no other variables. These findings demonstrate, for the first time, that high-intensity PA may be an important determinant of vascular dys/function in children. The ramifications of these findings are that interventions aimed at improving vascular health in children may need to be refocused to bring about a progressive increase in physical activity, specifically high intensity physical activity, rather than reducing obesity or sedentary time per se. Finally, studies 5 and 6 (Chapters 8 and 9) utilised a classic twin study design to explore the role of genetics in the modulation of FMD. Through the comparison of intra-twin pair differences in mono- and di-zygotic twins, we were able to provide information relating to the genetic influence on FMD and calculate a heritability estimate. We concluded that, although a one-off measurement of endothelial function is under some level of genetic control, environmental factors may have a larger influence in the determination of FMD in young people (study 5).In study 6, twins undertook 8 weeks of aerobic exercise training. In this study, intra-twin differences in the adaptation of FMD were compared to changes in other variables. The results highlighted a greater similarity between MZ twins than DZ twins in the change in FMD, suggesting that exercise-induced improvements in FMD may be highly genetically determined. Taken together, the findings of this thesis infer that, whilst a genetic predisposition to endothelial dysfunction may exist, interventions that aim to increase high intensity physical activity have the potential to enhance vascular health in young people at risk of endothelial impairment and future development of atherosclerotic diseases


This book is the first general history of Russian "businessmen" from Peter the Great to the Revolution of 1917. It is also a challenging new interpretation of the nature of social change in tsarist Russia. Alfred Rieber seeks to explain how Russia developed a capitalist economy and launched a major industrialization without giving rise to a mature bourgeoisie. His analysis concentrates on the deep-seated social divisions that prevented the political unity of the Russian middle classes even when their vital interests were threatened by powerful bureaucrats and a workers' revolution. He concludes that the fate of the Russian merchants and industrialists was part of a larger social fragmentation in Russia on the eve of World War I. Rieber argues that the merchantry was throughout its history the most unstable and politically passive group in Russian society. Periodically swamped by an influx of peasants, the merchants were never able to free themselves from state tutelage or their own traditional values. Surrounded by ethnic rivals, the Great Russian merchantry adopted the mentality of a besieged camp. The real innovators in Russia's industrialization were social deviants--Old Believer peasants, declasse nobles, and non-Russian peoples on the periphery of the empire. But even these "entrepreneurial groups" failed to provide the leadership for a strong middle class because they were deeply marked by competing regional and ethnic attachments. In Rieber's analysis the Russian bureaucracy shares much of the blame for the absence of a cohesive class structure in Russia. It feared and opposed the emergence of a bourgeoisie, and it was deeply split over the question of industrialization. Rieber concludes that the bureaucracy helped to maintain the legal distinctions within Russian society that contributed to its fragmentation. This work touches on almost every aspect of imperial Russian society--its political and legal institutions, social movements, intellectual currents, and economic development. Rieber has drawn on a wide range of sources including Soviet archives, merchant memoirs, contemporary journals, pamphlets and newspapers, and the proceedings and reports of many specialized societies and organizations. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.


Several recent high-profile criminal cases have highlighted the dynamic nature of identity crimes in a modern digital era and the boundaries prosecutors sometimes push to squeeze arguably wrongful conduct into an outdated legal framework. In many cases, two federal statutes — 18 U.S.C § 1028 and § 1028A — provide prosecutors with potent tools to aggressively pursue online identity thieves. But the broadly defined terms of these provisions may also expose innocent parties to criminal liability.This Note argues that broadly defined federal identity-fraud statutes facilitate unconstitutional restrictions on protected speech. Specifically, this Note maintains that § 1028 and § 1028A are defined in vague and overbroad statutory terms that criminalize expressive conduct and chill protected speech. Left unchecked, these statutes expose institutional journalists, online commentators, and ordinary citizens to criminal liability for nothing more than sharing a hyperlink. This Note then concludes by presenting three potential routes to eliminate these unconstitutional restrictions and protect the Internets role as a unique communication medium.


This paper is concerned with input adaptation in dynamic processes in order to guarantee feasible and optimal operation despite the presence of uncertainty. For optimal control problems having terminal constraints, two sets of directions can be distinguished in the input function space: the so-called sensitivity-seeking directions, along which a small input variation does not affect the terminal constraints, and the complementary constraint-seeking directions, along which a variation does affect the terminal constraints. Two selective input adaptation scenarios are thus possible, namely, adaptation along each set of input directions. This paper proves the important result that the cost variation due to the adaptation along the sensitivity-seeking directions is typically smaller than that due to the adaptation along the constraint-seeking directions.


Abstract. From 10 May through 17 June 2007 and 6 June through 9 July 2008 intensive sampling campaigns at Summit, Greenland confirmed that active bromine chemistry is occurring in and above the snow pack at the highest part of the Greenland ice sheet (72°36´ N, 38°25´ W and 3.2 km above sea level). Direct measurements found BrO and soluble gas phase Br − mixing ratios in the low pptv range on many days (maxima −3 of gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) to reactive gaseous mercury (RGM) and enhanced OH relative to HO 2 plus RO 2 confirm that active bromine chemistry is impacting chemical cycles even at such low abundances of reactive bromine species. However, it does not appear that Br y chemistry can fully account for observed perturbations to HO x partitioning, suggesting unknown additional chemical processes may be important in this unique environment, or that our understanding of coupled NO x -HO x -Br y chemistry above sunlit polar snow is incomplete. Rapid transport from the north Atlantic marine boundary layer occasionally caused enhanced BrO at Summit (just two such events observed during the 12 weeks of sampling over the two seasons). In general observed reactive bromine was linked to activation of bromide (Br − ) in, and release of reactive bromine from, the snowpack. A coupled snow-atmosphere model simulated observed NO and BrO at Summit during a three day interval when winds were weak. The source of Br − in surface and near surface snow at Summit is not entirely clear, but concentrations were observed to increase when stronger vertical mixing brought free tropospheric air to the surface. Reactive Br y mixing ratios above the snow often increased in the day or two following increases in snow concentration, but this response was not consistent. On seasonal time scales concentrations of Br − in snow and reactive bromine in the air were directly related.


Chemical and emission spectrographic analyses of three Apollo 11 samples, 10017-29, 10020-30, and 10084-132, are given. Major and minor constituents were determined both by conventional rock analysis methods and by a new composite scheme utilizing a lithium fluoborate method for dissolution of the samples and atomic absorption spectroscopy and colorimetry. Trace constituents were determined by optical emission spectroscopy involving a d-c arc, air-jet controlled.


The nature of the electronic structure of electrochemically formed iridium oxide films (EIROF) is investigated by in-situ conductivity measurements in an electrochemical cell and ex-situ current-sensing atomic force microscopy (CS-AFM). A direct demonstration of changes in the conductivity for electrochemically formed iridium oxide films (EIROF) with the applied potential of EIROF electrodes in an electrochemical cell is presented. The in-situ conductivity shows a single step-like change at a potential of approximately 1 . 2 V in 0 . 5 mol dm − 3 H 2 SO 4 vs. a reversible hydrogen reference electrode. The change in conductivity is also reflected in results of ex-situ CS-AFM for EIROF electrodes emersed at different potentials. At an emersion potential of 0 V the CS-AFM current-voltage characteristics are non-linear and similar to those of diodes. At an emersion potential of 1 . 6 V the CS-AFM current-voltage characteristics are approximately linear, consistent with metallic behavior. Mott-Schottky analysis shows that at low potentials the oxide behaves as a p-type semiconductor with a flatband potential approximately 500 mV below the transition to high conductivity from the in-situ conductivity measurements. These results allow for an interpretation of changes in the relative magnitudes of the III/IV and IV/V (or IV/VI) voltammetric peaks during film growth through a block-release behavior involving space-charge layers in the oxide.


The basic idea behind the provision of a service is to hide the service implementation details from the client in such a way that more value is provided to the client. Very often support services allow too much of their implementation details to be visible to customers resulting in poor value proposition. In this paper we describe a project that aimed towards the requisite abstraction of the support service implementation for the research funding at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL). We show the current service, the problem it creates for its customers, and propose four patterns for improving the value that customers receive from a requisite service abstraction. The four patterns are: provide a simple service interface, incorporate needed external actors into the service view of the organization, recognize new customers and use data and process linking technology. These patterns are applied in a to-be model.


Genetic and genomic analysis of nucleic acids from environmental samples has helped transform our perception of the Earth's subsurface as a major reservoir of microbial novelty. Many of the microbial taxa living in the subsurface are under-represented in culture-dependent investigations. In this regard, metagenomic analyses of subsurface environments exemplify both the utility of metagenomics and its power to explore microbial life in some of the most extreme and inaccessible environments on Earth. Hitherto, the transfer of microbial samples to home laboratories for DNA sequencing and bioinformatics is the standard operating procedure for exploring microbial diversity. This approach incurs logistical challenges and delays the characterization of microbial biodiversity. For selected applications, increased portability and agility in metagenomic analysis is therefore desirable. Here, we describe the implementation of sample extraction, metagenomic library preparation, nanopore DNA sequencing and taxonomic classification using a portable, battery-powered, suite of off-the-shelf tools (the "MetageNomad") to sequence ochreous sediment microbiota while within the South Wales Coalfield. While our analyses were frustrated by short read lengths and a limited yield of DNA, within the assignable reads, Proteobacterial (α-, β-, γ-Proteobacteria) taxa dominated, followed by members of Actinobacteria, Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes, all of which have previously been identified in coals. Further to this, the fungal genus Candida was detected, as well as a methanogenic archaeal taxon. To the best of our knowledge, this application of the MetageNomad represents an initial effort to conduct metagenomics within the subsurface, and stimulates further developments to take metagenomics off the beaten track.


Abstract The facile and controlled synthesis of narrowly dispersed molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) microspheres with both photo- and thermo-responsive template binding properties in pure aqueous media is described. Narrowly dispersed "living" core polymer microspheres with surface-immobilized dithioester groups were firstly prepared via reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) precipitation polymerization (RAFTPP). The polymer microspheres were then successively grafted with an azobenzene (azo)-containing MIP layer and thermo-responsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm) brushes via surface-initiated RAFT polymerization to provide the desired product. The successful grafting of the azo-containing MIP layer and PNIPAAm brushes was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and static contact angle experiments. The attachment of an azo-containing MIP layer onto the "living" core polymer beads with a narrow size distribution allows the direct generation of narrowly dispersed photoresponsive core-shell MIP microspheres. Moreover, the introduction of PNIPAAm brushes onto the core-shell MIP microspheres has been shown to significantly improve their surface hydrophilicity leading to pure water-compatibility. Additionally, this modification confers thermo-responsive template binding properties upon the microspheres.


From an early age Swedish students typically use and learn English as a second language in out-of-school contexts, for example when watching TV and video clips and playing computer games online. This is an important premise for learning English in school. It is hence of interest to understand relations between learning in and out of school, especially considering the digitalization of Swedish schools and new media technologies becoming available for all students.This study aims at describing students' accounts of learning English in out-of-school contexts and their reasoning of how this learning relates to learning English in school. The data consists of interviews with 47 eleven-year-olds. Goffman's concept of framing is used as an analytic tool. The results are presented in terms of two dimensions of reasoning; Accepted and Non-Accepted Language Learning Environments and Language Learning as Intention or Side-Effect. Results on what environments students regard as important for learning English are also reported.