Certified industrial schools provided industrial training and residential care for destitute and vagrant children, between 1857 and 1933 in England and between 1854 and 1933 in Scotland. The industrial schools' legislation was modified and extended and brought increasing involvement by the Government and, after 1870, by school boards. The introduction of compulsory education brought a new offence of truancy, which was dealt with by the setting up of special industrial schools called truant schools.
The founders of industrial schools came from all the main Christian denominations as well as from amongst members of the Jewish faith. Most schools were primarily intended for children of the same religious persuasion as the founder or founders but there was some overlapping and some schools catered for those of different faiths. In addition to school teachers, the staff included trade teachers who provided training in skills which would help with the children's own personal care, such as shoemaking and tailoring, as well as trade skills like printing and woodwork. Other work such as wood chopping was undertaken to produce a financial return for the school.
On admission the children were, almost invariably, in a poor state of health and needed a better diet, medical care and physical exercise. The schools' regimes were not intended to be punitive but to provide a basis for their future lives. Religious instruction played an important part in the children's training and education and the provision of after-care was a primary element of the better schools.
This thesis investigates the work of industrial schools and the influence they had on the lives of the children who attended them. It also examines the question of whether the schools were the 'moral hospitals' or the 'oppressive institutions' referred to in its title.


"A critical approach to reading and writing is expected from all students in health and social care courses. However, students often find this one of the more difficult aspects. This book sets about correcting the problem, and it does so in a step by step fashion by using relevant examples, learning activities and highlighting key information. It encourages readers to think and evaluate written material for themselves, and not to take every piece of literature as Gospel. The book is very well written and laid out. It uses plain English and relies on very little on jargon, therefore making it very readable. I will definitely use it going into my course and would have no hesitation recommending it to course tutors and peers." Conor Hamilton, Student Nurse, Queen's University Belfast, UK Ever struggled to write a critical essay? Ever wondered what critical thinking actually is and how you can apply it in your academic work and your practice? This beginner's guide introduces the skills of critical thinking, critical writing and critical appraisal in health and social care, and talks you through every stage of becoming a critical thinker. Each chapter tackles a different aspect of the process and shows you how it's done using examples and simple language. The book begins with a broad overview of critical thinking before building in subsequent chapters to discuss specific areas including: How to think critically about different types of information as potential evidence How to demonstrate critical thinking in written work and presentations How to adopt critical thinking in practiceTools including 'six questions to trigger critical thinking' and 'questions for critical thinking in practice' will assist you in developing the skills to help you in both academic work and practice. Written by a bestselling author team, this book is a fantastic resource for both students and qualified healthcare staff.


In the Conflict Resolution field (CR), communal level dispute resolution practices are studied within the context of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), which includes a variety of techniques, processes, and institutions of conflict management and settlement, as alternatives to formal legal procedures. This thesis examines the mediation practices of Alims as examples of the consent based third party intervention practices of ADR processes. Alims are mainly guided by the principles and the normative assumptions of Islam in their mediation practices. This study is one of the first empirical studies on the communal level dispute resolution practices within the Islamic networks of the Turkish society. Semi structured interviews are conducted with a focused group of Alims for the generation of empirical data about their mediation practices. Cultural characteristics and normative orders of the societies, or communities significantly influence the natures, underlying assumptions, and mechanisms of the dispute resolution processes. The recent popularity of the cross-cultural comparative CR researches facilitates the study of the role of norms and culture on the techniques, methods, and underlying assumptions of the mediation practices. While approaches to the study of comparative aspects of cultures have been emphasized in the CR field, analysis of the deeper more unique aspects of however, is not yet commonly employed in the field. This study proposes a broader theoretical notion of culture in CR studies by emphasizing theoretical and research approaches from the fields of Legal Anthropology and Cultural Anthropology. Key determinants of mediation procedure such as dispute types, mediator roles, and mediator techniques, are also systematically analyzed with reference to empirical data.


Katuk (Sauropus androgynus (L) Merr) is belonged to the Family of Euphorbiacea. It is a herb plant with 2-3 m height. It is a tropical plant having many benefits for livestock productivity including for poultry production. The experiment was carried out according to completely randomized design. The number of cages used in this study was nine, in which the size of each cage was 1 m x 0.5 m. Three chickens were placed randomly in each cage. Once a week, the measurement for egg weight was conducted for the whole egg, including yolk weight, eggshell weight, yolk color intensity. All measured data were calculated for getting the average value. At the last week of the experiment (on the 55th week), samples were randomly taken from each treatment. The findings of research showed that adding 15% of katuk leaves meal into the laying ration resulted in positive effects on carcass and egg quality, indicated by an increase in egg yolk weight and vitamin A and a decrease in egg yolk cholesterol up to 16.82%. The content of estradiol hormone of the egg increased following the increase level of katuk leaves meal in the ration


The EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) initially treated power producers and energy-intensive industries similarly, despite clear structural differences between these industries regarding e.g. pass-through of costs. Hence, the energy-intensive industries could be seen as losing out in the internal distribution. In the January 2008 proposal for a reformed ETS post-2012, a differentiated system was proposed where the energy-intensive industries would come out relatively much better. Why is this? Although power producers still have a dominant position in the system, the increasing consensus about windfall profits has weakened their standing. Conversely, increasing attention to such profits and not least the possibility of global carbon leakage has strengthened the case of energy-intensive industries at both national and EU levels. These industries have become more active in EU processes and somewhat better organized. Finally, growing fear of lax global climate policies has strengthened the case of these industries further. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.


Litigants are unrealistically optimistic with regard to the probability of prevailing at trial. This systematic bias is well documented, and has been often invoked to explain breakdowns in pre-trial settlement negotiations. Contrary to existing models that allow for optimism as an exogenous assumption, the present study derives this cognitive bias endogenously. It thus provides a theoretical foundation for optimism in litigation. Quasi-evolutionary forces - market pressure (in the market for legal services) and imitation processes - are shown to favor cautiously optimistic litigants. Moreover, the endogenous optimism model enables an examination of the factors that determine the magnitude of the optimism bias. In particular, it is shown that the legal environment influences the equilibrium level of optimism. Focusing on rules for the allocation of litigation costs, the American rule induces a higher level of optimism, as compared to the British rule. This finding qualifies the conventional wisdom regarding the advantage of the American rule in fostering settlements. Finally, the present analysis is offered as an illustration of a broader theme, that the law can play an important role in determining the types and magnitudes of prevailing cognitive biases. The identification, characterization and analysis of this perception-shaping role of legal institutions are a novelty of the present study. Behavioral law and economics is revealed as a two-way, rather than a one-way street. Not only do cognitive biases affect the operation of legal rules, but also the legal rules themselves influence the types and magnitudes of observed biases.


Upon cooling, branched line defects develop in epitaxial graphene grown at high temperature on Pt(111) and Ir(111). Using atomically resolved scanning tunneling microscopy, we demonstrate that these defects are wrinkles in the graphene layer, i.e. stripes of partially delaminated graphene. With low energy electron microscopy (LEEM), we investigate the wrinkling phenomenon in situ. Upon temperature cycling, we observe hysteresis in the appearance and disappearance of the wrinkles. Simultaneously with wrinkle formation a change in bright field imaging intensity of adjacent areas and a shift in the moiré spot positions for micro diffraction of such areas takes place. The stress relieved by wrinkle formation results from the mismatch in thermal expansion coefficients of graphene and the substrate. A simple one-dimensional model taking into account the energies related to strain, delamination and bending of graphene is in qualitative agreement with our observations.


[1] Differences in composition and phenocryst assemblages between dikes and lavas collected from 1-m.y.-old oceanic crust exposed at the Hess Deep Rift have important implications for density filtering of magmas ascending through the upper crust in mid-ocean ridge settings. The majority of crystalline lavas collected have lower FeOT and MgO, and elevated Al2O3 and CaO concentrations compared to crystalline samples of dikes. These chemical differences, as well as associated modal variations, can be attributed to the accumulation of plagioclase in the magmas that ultimately erupt as lavas on the seafloor. The accumulation of plagioclase combined with the fractionation of mafic phases lowers the magma density by more than 0.04 g/cm3 relative to most magmas represented by the dikes. We suggest that these lower-density magmas are preferentially erupted because of their increased buoyancy, resulting in the predominance of this magma type as lavas. Conversely, the majority of dikes are crystallized from the higher-density magma type, which is rarely represented by lavas. These relationships suggest that most dikes never reach the surface and erupt lava. Examination of phenocryst contents and modal abundances in mid-ocean ridge basalts worldwide indicates that magma density variations and crustal heterogeneity may influence magma eruptibility across a range of spreading rates. Specifically, lavas from slow spreading ridges have a wider range of modal phenocryst proportions compared to lavas from intermediate or fast spreading ridges. Presumably, these lavas will have a greater range of densities and their eruption on the seafloor may reflect the heterogeneous upper crust of slow spreading ridges compared to that of fast spreading ridges.


Since the EC Block Exemption Regulation (BER) went into force in June 2000, companies are required to undertake a self-assessment of the possible consequences of their vertical agreements that is, of agreements that arise in a channel of distribution between firms at different levels of trade or industry, i.e., between a manufacturer and wholesaler, between a supplier and customer, or between a licensor of technology and his licensee. Such an assessment can be extremely complex. Although the European Commission has issued regulatory guidelines to facilitate the self-assessment process, there can be little doubt that the in-depth analysis and guidance provided in this book will be greatly welcomed by business people and their counsel. "Economic Analyses of Vertical Agreements" clarifies the steps, tests, determinations, and evaluations entailed in assessing vertical agreements, especially when an individual examination under Article 81 EC Treaty is required (as it is for all companies with more than a 30 per cent market share in a relevant market). Among the terms and factors thoroughly explained, from the various pertinent points of view, are the following: vertical restraints and their components; exclusive and selective distribution agreements; channel strategies; single branding; free rider rationale; and, the European structured rule of reason in Article 81 EC Treaty. The presentation is particularly notable for its wide-ranging discussion of types of vertical restraints and combinations of vertical restraints and how each is impacted by the new vertical agreement rules. The author also discusses the relevant case law of the EC Courts. Companies doing business in Europe and their legal and economic advisers will find here an absorbingly detailed overview of requirements and procedures, a clear analysis against which to measure strategic choices, and an enormously useful handbook to consult at every turn for expert guidance through the assessment of their vertical agreements.


Water distribution systems (WDSs) recovery methods have been assessed primarily using hydraulic deficit. However, hydraulic deficit does not reflect all performance goals needed to effectively guide resilience strategies. In this paper, a new approach is presented to measure resilience based on the idea of economic consequence loss in businesses due to WDS failure. Economic consequence loss of industry, classified by the NAICS code, are defined by relating GDP value added and water usage. Three different resilience objectives were investigated using a hypothetical water network: (1) identification of pipe criticality; (2) defining recovery strategies for different failure scenarios; and (3) development of recovery pathways by considering system resilience. Hydraulic analysis was performed using pressure driven analysis based on EPANET2.0. Results of pipe criticality proved high hydraulic deficit not always translated to high economic productivity loss. Also, the proposed system resilience quantification measure effectively serves as a guide for recovery pathways more resilient than other measures tested. In conclusion, considering both hydraulic resilience and economic consequence provides a more effective approach toward enhancing overall system resilience.


Moral teaching programs, such as character education, have been implemented nationwide in order to curb the growing trend of violence, abuse, and moral relativism within schools, both public and private. These programs represent a variety of moral training philosophies, and current research is revealing some "best practices" within the field. However, these programs do little to address the needs of distinctively Christian educators who seek to train their students toward the character of Jesus Christ. The research in this study promotes the development of a curriculum to meet this need. The following research indicates that character education's premise and many of its practices are worthy of consideration when developing a Christian character curriculum. However, the foundation of the character traits promoted by a Christian character curriculum must not be based on the consensus of a pluralistic society. The foundation must be established solely on the person of Christ. Best practices within the field of character education are emerging through current research. These practices and the theories behind them are also examined in light of the development of a Christian character curriculum. Recommendations and implications for a Christian character curriculum are made in both theory and practice. Document Type Thesis Degree Name Master of Education (MEd) Department Graduate Education First Advisor Dennis Vander Plaats


A recent survey shows that members of Gen Y are walking 37 percent more than a decade ago, biking 122 percent more and taking public transit 100 percent more. Still, the legacy of the car culture persists. Raised on the notion that driving equals freedom, too many of us just don't realize that a personally rewarding alternative even exists. Just over three years ago, author Kevin Klinkenberg moved to Savannah, Georgia, from Kansas City, Missouri. In large part, he chose his new home because he was seeking a truly walkable place to live. In Why I Walk, Kevin goes beyond the typical arguments against suburbia, showing how walking on a daily basis actively benefits: * His finances * His sense of personal freedom * His social life * His health The majority of us still cling to the belief that a house in the suburbs, with good schools, low crime, and easy parking is the American Dream. By focusing directly on the real, measurable advantages of choosing to be a pedestrian, Why I Walk makes a convincing case for ending our love affair with the automobile. This highly readable, first-person narrative handily provides the answer to the pressing question, "Why do I walk?" Why? Because getting there is twice the fun. Kevin Klinkenberg is the principal designer at K2 Urban Design. For more than two decades he has been working to create sustainable, sociable environments and walkable communities in cooperation with developers, cities, nonprofits, and public agencies.


Smallholder farmers in Honduras and the Trifinio region of Central America contend with poor roads and high transportation costs when making production decisions. Farmers select crop activities based on cost, revenue and profit but are constrained by labor requirements, cash requirements, food security concerns, and input and output market access. Market access is directly related to distance to market. Distance to market increases the cost of inputs, increases transportation costs, and reduces the effective price farmers receive for outputs. We conduct two analyses to study the impact of distance to market on crop and technology choices. We utilize a household survey to analyze the determinants of fruit and vegetable production and market participation. Probit and multinomial logit models are employed to analyze the impact of distance to market and other variables on fruit and vegetable production. Results indicate that as distance to market increases, the probability of fruit and vegetable production for consumption increases and the probability of fruit and vegetable production for sale at market decreases. In a second paper, we utilize data from extension agencies, research institutions, a household survey, and expert opinions to model a representative Honduran farm. With linear programming, we analyze the crop and technology mix selected by the farm given changes in distance to the output market, changes in distance to the input market, food security concerns, and labor market participation. We focus specifically on integrated pest management (IPM) technologies. Results indicate that beyond a specific distance, vegetable production ceases, while staple crop production remains profitable. Additionally, a combination of low, medium, and high-technology crop activities is selected by a profit-maximizing farm. Even far away from the market, medium and high-technology crop activities are selected. Overall, these two studies indicate that distance to market is negatively related to fruit and vegetable production. A reduction in transportation costs and an increase in the prevalence of less input-intensive integrated pest management techniques may increase the incidence of fruit and vegetable production and market participation in Trifinio and Honduras.


It is shown that by monitoring longwall leg pressures in real time, warning can be given for significant weighting events and the formation of roof instabilities, such as roof cavities, several hours in advance. Longwall Visual Analysis (LVA) is a software package that continuously monitors shield pressures and shearer position in longwall mines. LVA has been running on 22 Australian longwalls for up to five years, and as a result a very substantial database of shield pressure trends in a wide range of longwall situations has been collected. This database has been analysed to develop indicators that will give operators and geotechnical engineers advance warnings of developing conditions such as weighting events and difficult roof conditions. LVA displays live charts of data, such as shield leg pressures, loading rates, and yield frequencies. Data analysis techniques were applied to historical data records from multiple longwall sites in order to develop a "Cavity Risk Index" (CRI). The CRI indicates the relative risk of roof cavities developing, and it is based on pressure trends that indicate significant yielding and loading rates spanning a region of relatively low support. Case studies from two different longwalls are given, showing how the CRI can give real-time advance warning of the formation of roof cavities.


Human perception must deal in many cases with dynamism. In face processing dynamism conveys rich social information including facial expression, eye gaze and mouth movements. To examine the response to dynamism within the neural face-processing system, we first identified several face-selective regions using a dynamic face localizer. In addition to the "core" face network, which includes the OFA, FFA and pSTS-FA, the dynamic localizer revealed two additional face areas - the anterior Superior Temporal Sulcus (aSTS-FA) and the Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG-FA). A few recent electrophysiology studies in monkeys and neuroimaging studies in humans have shown that areas in the STS and IFG are responsive to voices suggesting a common mechanism for the processing of dynamic visual and auditory information from faces. To assess this predication, we presented subjects with dynamic stimuli of mute faces and audio clips of human speech. Our results show no significant response to human speech in the OFA and FFA while the pSTS-FA, aSTS-FA and IFG-FA showed a significant response to human speech. To further assess whether these areas are selective to human voices we examined their response to human vs. non-human auditory stimuli. The pSTS-FA, aSTS-FA and IFG-FA showed a significantly higher response to human auditory stimuli. In conclusion, our data suggest a clear distinction between two face-selective pathways - the ventral face-selective network including the OFA and FFA, encoding uni-modal, static form information and the dorsal network including the pSTS-FA, aSTS-FA and IFG-FA, encoding dynamic multi-modal information. These findings are inconsistent with the prevalent neural model that defines the pSTS-FA as part of the core face system and instead suggest a clear functional distinction between the pSTS-FA, which is part of a separate network that additionally encodes vocal information, and the OFA and FFA, which represent the visual aspects of a face. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


Hyaluronidase 2 displaces the splicing machinery to favor the production of an antifibrotic isoform of the cell surface protein CD44. A nuclear function for hyaluronidase 2 Alternative splicing produces distinct isoforms of the cell surface protein CD44. Whereas the standard isoform [standard CD44 (CD44s)] is associated with the differentiation of the myofibroblasts that drive fibrosis, the CD44v7/8 isoform is associated with the prevention and reversal of myofibroblast differentiation. CD44 acts as a receptor for various ligands, including the extracellular matrix component hyaluronan. Midgley et al. found that hyaluronidase 2 (HYAL2), an enzyme that degrades hyaluronan, promoted the production of CD44v7/8 through a mechanism that appeared to be independent of its enzymatic activity. When primary human lung fibroblasts were stimulated with bone morphogenetic protein 7 (BMP7), which prevents the differentiation of myofibroblasts, HYAL2 translocated to the nucleus. HYAL2 displaced components of the splicing machinery on CD44 pre–messenger RNA (mRNA), thus preventing the splicing events that generate CD44s mRNA and promoting the production of CD44v7/8 mRNA. These findings identify a potentially important switch in fibrosis and a nuclear role for HYAL2. The cell surface protein CD44 is involved in diverse physiological processes, and its aberrant function is linked to various pathologies such as cancer, immune dysregulation, and fibrosis. The diversity of CD44 biological activity is partly conferred by the generation of distinct CD44 isoforms through alternative splicing. We identified an unexpected function for the ubiquitous hyaluronan-degrading enzyme, hyaluronidase 2 (HYAL2), as a regulator of CD44 splicing. Standard CD44 is associated with fibrotic disease, and its production is promoted through serine-arginine–rich (SR) protein–mediated exon exclusion. HYAL2 nuclear translocation was stimulated by bone morphogenetic protein 7, which inhibits the myofibroblast phenotype. Nuclear HYAL2 displaced SR proteins from the spliceosome, thus enabling HYAL2, spliceosome components (U1 and U2 small nuclear ribonucleoproteins), and CD44 pre-mRNA to form a complex. This prevented double-exon splicing and facilitated the inclusion of CD44 exons 11 and 12, which promoted the accumulation of the antifibrotic CD44 isoform CD44v7/8 at the cell surface. These data demonstrate previously undescribed mechanisms regulating CD44 alternative splicing events that are relevant to the regulation of cellular phenotypes in progressive fibrosis.


Most of the biological effects of cannabis are due to the activation of specific cannabinoid receptors. To date, two such receptors have been discovered and are found predominantly in the central nervous system (the CB1 receptor) or the immune system (the CB2 receptor). Endogenous cannabinoid receptor ligands, the endocannabinoids, have also been isolated and the mechanisms of their synthesis and degradation postulated. By modulating the activation of cannabinoid receptors and endocannabinoid metabolism, synthetic cannabimimetic compounds have enormous therapeutic potential for the treatment of such diverse symptoms and diseases as pain, inflammation, cancer, hypertension, schizophrenia and multiple sclerosis. This thesis describes the design, synthesis and subsequent biological evaluation of three classes of novel, potentially cannabimimetic drugs, namely aryl ethanolamides, phenylphosphinic acids and alkylphosphinic acids. In order to assess cannabimimetic activity, the ability of these compounds to bind to the cannabinoid receptors and to inhibit endocannabinoid uptake and enzymatic hydrolysis was examined.
Affinity for the CB1 receptor was assessed using radioligand binding assays in rat brain membranes. Although none of the compounds proved to be high-affinity CB1 receptor ligands, two aryl ethanolamide compounds exhibited some affinity for this receptor, suggesting that this general class of compound may have cannabimimetic potential.
In order to ascertain whether the test compounds had affinity for the CB2 receptor, a radioligand binding assay was developed using porcine spleen membranes. To date, only the human, murine and rat CB2 receptors have been cloned and there has been no detailed examination of the cannabinoid binding profile of the porcine CB2 receptor. The Kd of the radiolabelled cannabinoid [3H]-CP-55,940 was determined in porcine spleen membranes and the Bmax subsequently calculated. The Ki values of a number of cannabinoid receptor ligands were then determined. These values were shown to be similar to the corresponding values obtained using cloned CB2 receptors. However, when the test compounds were assessed in this assay system, no affinity for the CB2 receptor was observed.
To determine the effect, if any, of the test compounds on the endocannabinoid uptake system, accumulation of the radiolabelled endocannabinoid [3H]-anandamide into N18TG2 mouse neuroblastoma cells was examined. [3H]-Anandamide accumulation had previously been reported in this cell line but, until now, this mechanism had not been characterized. This accumulation was shown to be time-, temperature- and concentration-dependent and was inhibited by AM404 and bromocresol green, known inhibitors of the endocannabinoid carrier system. [3H]-Anandamide accumulation exhibited a Km value similar to those previously described for rat astrocytes and neurones and the time taken to achieve half maximal rate was shown to be considerably greater than in these rat cells. None of the test compounds significantly inhibited [3H]-anandamide uptake by N18TG2 cells although one phenylphosphinic acid compound, with structural similarities to AM404, appeared to be inhibitory at high concentrations.
The final biological target examined was fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH), the enzyme that catalyses the hydrolysis of endocannabinoids. For FAAH studies, a novel, inexpensive and rapid spectrophotometric assay was developed as an alternative to the traditional radiochemical- and chromatography-based assays. Using this novel assay system, the Km and Vmax values of rat liver FAAH were determined and shown to be similar to those published in the literature. Known FAAH inhibitors were shown to inhibit FAAH in a concentration-dependent manner with IC50 values comparable to previously published data. In addition, this
assay was used to demonstrate differences in FAAH activity between soluble and insoluble membrane preparations from rat liver and brain, possibly indicating the presence of, as yet, unknown FAAH enzymes. Attempts were also made to adapt this assay for use on a microtiter plate, where it was possible to detect FAAH inhibitors. Therefore, this spectrophotometric assay may prove to be of use in the high-throughput screening of chemical libraries for drugs that cause cannabimimetic effects via FAAH inhibition. None of the test compounds synthesized inhibited FAAH activity and this, combined with their lack of biological activity at the other targets tested, showed that they exerted no cannabimimetic effects.


This thesis focuses on women's group organising (WG) in British unions. WGs are broadly defined as collective organising by women that responds to their concerns and need for access to empowering (social) positions. As a 'radical' form, WGs contrast with the formal liberal democratic principles underpinning much union organisation. The need for their examination is stressed by the continued feminisation of the workplace and many union memberships; growing realisation of the need for unions to connect their revitalisation to being responsive to women; and women's on-going experience of inequities in various settings.

While existing works provide insights into why women collectivise in union and other contexts, a review of the related literature in industrial relations, women's studies, political studies, sociology and social psychology revealed the absence of an integrated body of work on union WGs. Consequently, the main objective of this study is to provide an empirical and conceptual contribution by addressing the following major questions:

• What union factors influence the number and overall 'shape' ofWGs?;
• What aims do WGs pursue, how do they address them and what equality ideas inform them?; and
• What impacts do WGs make on gender equality in their union?

A study of two major British unions, MSF and USDA W, examining seven of their WGs was undertaken from a constructivist-feminist standpoint. Analyses of interview, observational and documentary evidence were guided by two frameworks: i) the dimensions of Hyman's (1994) model of union organisation which were extended by this study's iterative data collection-analysis process, and ii) an independently-derived typology of gender equality ideas which could inform WGs' pursuit of their substantive aims. Criteria for assessing WGs' impact on women's situation in the union setting were developed from existing literature and the data sources.

The findings illuminated hitherto unchartered aspects of union operations, and specifically, how WGs influence, and are influenced, by them. Four main conclusions emerge from the findings. First, particular features of the union setting have a key, if not often exclusive, influence on WG arrangements. Second, different WG types emphasise different aims but there is also some overlap in their aims and the equality ideas which inform them. This stresses the complex character and relations between the studied phenomena, and their location within a wider women's structure. Third, WGs pursue a wider range of aims, via uncoordinated equality approaches, than is formally recognised. Their impacts are more extensive than is officially reported, relating to union structure and democracy, agendas, interest representation, power, and social processes and modes of operating. This emphasises how the under-exposure of women's activism can act to under-estimate their efforts and effects for women in the union. Furthermore, each WG aim is usually underpinned by a mixture of unarticulated and dynamic conceptions of gender equality though a slow shift by WGs toward more ambitious ideas about equality is identified. Fourth, while WGs pursue and achieve more than was previously realised for union women, their current operations still seem unlikely to achieve the fundamental union transformation that is needed to achieve 'long' equality (see Cockburn 1989). Equal power sharing by male and female unionists will require the centring of WGs in union strategies that question the basis of union organisation. WGs also need to pursue considered, if multidimensional, approaches to gender equality. This may necessitate that WGs and unions undertake more innovative measures than is currently the case (e.g. more extensive links with community and social movements, WG organisation outside the union).


Using social security administrative records, we estimate indicators of incentives to retire in a sample of males affiliated to the main Uruguayan social security program and we assess their impact on retirement and pension claims observed between 1996 and 2004. In line with standard results in the literature, we find that social security wealth has a highly significant positive impact on the probability of retirement. However the usual indicators of incentives to retirement do not have the expected impact. In some specifications the indicators are not statistically significant and in others the indicators do not present the expected sign.


Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly infectious and devastating disease of livestock that has affected Zambia's potential to boost the economy through trade in livestock commodities. The inadequate understanding, due to limited research based epidemiology data, of the disease dynamics has impacted negatively on its prevention and control. The aim of this study was to determine specific elements of FMD epidemiology that are important for understanding disease dynamics in Zambia. To conduct this study, firstly a retrospective analysis of FMD outbreaks between 1933 and 2012 was carried out in order to elucidate the temporal and spatial patterns that contributed to their occurrence. This was followed by a cross sectional study involving collection of sera and probang samples from cattle and buffalo including administration of a questionnaire at selected livestock/wildlife interface areas that was carried out to determine the seropositivity and associated risk factors. Included was molecular characterization of the circulating foot and mouth disease virus (FMDV) strains in these species. Furthermore, a transmission model incorporating carrier status was developed. Results of the study confirmed that FMD outbreaks remain confined to three high risk areas of Kafue Flats, lower Zambezi basin and northern Zambia. However, the patterns of occurrence of the disease varied in space and time (relative risk range 2.23 to 29.62) as well as in the causative serotypes and topotypes. Namwala district recorded the highest number of outbreaks with SAT 1 being the most predominant serotype in the district and across country (43.7 percent of the recorded outbreaks). And that agro-ecological zone, rainfall, distance away from buffalo migratory routes and international borders were significant factors of FMD occurrence. Furthermore, FMD animal seropositivity ranging from zero to 23 percent and transhumant husbandry practice as the main risk factor were identified. The study further isolated topotype II of SAT 2 from buffalo in Kafue National Park, a strain previously unknown to exist in Zambia. Furthermore, SAT 1 topotype I, closely related to the FMD outbreak virus of 2004/08, was isolated from vaccinated cattle in the livestock/wildlife interface of Monze and Lochnivar National Park. SAT 1 and SAT 2 were also isolated from buffalo in Lower Zambezi and Luambe National Parks. The FMD transmission model predicted an epidemic to peak by day 40 to 100 and die down by day 140 with an inter-epidemic period of nine to 23 years. The study provides significant elements of FMD epidemiology in Zambia including the spatial and temporal patterns, the subclinical infection and characterisation of circulating FMDV in cattle and buffalo at selected livestock/wildlife interface areas. Other elements included the carrier status in cattle, duration of epidemics and inter-epidemic periods. These elements may be considered in targeted risk surveillance, movement control, risk assessments and other disease prevention strategies at national and regional levels. Further work is recommended for better understanding of circulating FMDV in buffalo, carrier status in cattle within ecosystems and the role of livestock value chains in perpetuation of FMD outbreaks. Included is the optimization of the serological tests in use with antigens that are closely matched to the circulating field strains.


What is the moral of the human trafficking story, and how can the narrative be shaped and evolved? Stories of human trafficking are prolific in the public domain, proving immensely powerful in guiding our understandings of trafficking, and offering something tangible on which to base policy and action. Yet these stories also misrepresent the problem, establishing a dominant narrative that stifles other stories and fails to capture the complexity of human trafficking.

This book deconstructs the human trafficking narrative in public discourse, examining the victims, villains, and heroes of trafficking stories. Sex slaves, exploited workers, mobsters, pimps and johns, consumers, governments, and anti-trafficking activists are all characters in the story, serving to illustrate who is to blame for the problem of trafficking, and how that problem might be solved. Erin O'Brien argues that a constrained narrative of ideal victims, foreign villains, and western heroes dominates the discourse, underpinned by cultural assumptions about gender and ethnicity, and wider narratives of border security, consumerism, and western exceptionalism.

Drawing on depictions of trafficking in entertainment and news media, awareness campaigns, and government reports in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, this book will be of interest to criminologists, political scientists, sociologists, and those engaged with human rights activism and the politics of international justice.


Objectives: Our laboratory has been studying the role of infection with the obligate intracellular bacterium Chlamydia pneumoniae in sporadic late-onset Alzheimer disease (LOAD). This infection may be a trigger for the pathology observed in LOAD as a function of initiating changes in gene regulation following entry of the organism into the brain. As such, we are analyzing how this infection can promote changes in autophagy and inflammasome gene regulation as both have been shown to be altered in LOAD. Methods: Human SKNMC neuronal cells and THP1 monocytes were infected in vitro for 24-72 hrs with a laboratory strain of Chlamydia pneumoniae followed by RNA extraction, cDNA synthesis and analysis using Real-Time PCR microarrays for autophagy and inflammasome genes. Results: Gene expression for autophagy and inflammasome pathways was altered dramatically following infection. Genes encoding for co-regulation of autophagy, apoptosis, and the cell cycle that were significantly changed included: BCL2L1, FAS, PIK3CG, APP, and TP53. In addition, ATG3, and GABARAP, genes encoding for protein transport & ubiquitination and autophagic vacuole formation were significantly deregulated. Of the inflammasome genes, 4 NOD-like receptor genes were significantly up-regulated. IL-1beta, AIM2, CCL2, and CCL7 genes were all dramatically up-regulated in monocytes during the 72 hrs of infection. Conclusions: Our data suggest that Chlamydia pneumoniae-infected human SKNMC neuronal cells and THP1 monocytes exhibit specific changes in gene regulation for both autophagy and inflammasome pathways. These gene changes appear to correlate with pathologic changes previously reported in AD and further support the contention that infection with Chlamydia pneumoniae plays a role in LOAD pathogenesis. Abstract


There are quite a number of linear algorithms to compute 3-edge connected components of a multi-graph. In this thesis, we study the three most efficient algorithms and exclude other algorithms that are obviously inferior as they use different types of transformation in multiple phases. We present a data structure model for cut-pair deletion in order to save space and to be able to handle larger input sizes on a platform. Using complexity arguments we also present a modification to one of the three algorithms that does not look for cut-pairs. We then show through our experimental results that this algorithm and another one that does not distinguish between cut-pairs have the fastest execution time, and each of them is better than the other for some cases. To the best of our knowledge, till now, there is no such an effort to show how the performance of the algorithms varies as the type and the size of given graph changes. Correctness proofs of the proposed way for cut-pair deletion and the modification are presented as well.


Almost 50 million people in the world, a third of whom children, suffer from epilepsy. Up to 30% of them develop refractory epilepsy. In this group, there is a need for more efficacious antiepileptic drugs. This study was undertaken to evaluate the efficacy and safety of oxcarbazepine a new antiepileptic drug, as an adjunction therapy in children with refractory epilepsy. From February, 2004 until September 2006, 30 patients with refractory epilepsy aged between 4 and 14 years, were evaluated in a before and after type (pre-post) study in the department of neurology of Mofid children's hospital. Patients had at least one seizure per month to over 10 seizures daily and none of them had used oxcarbazepine previously. They received oxcarbazepine with a maximum dose 50 mg/kg/day orally in combination with their current antiepileptic drugs. The parents kept seizure diaries and the patients were regularly assessed for seizure frequency and side effects. The follow -up period was for 10 months. We compared the daily seizure frequency before and after starting the new medication. After 10 months of oxcarbazepine adjunction therapy, 10% of the patients became seizure-free, 36.6% experienced more than 50% reduction in seizure frequency and 13.3% had increasing seizures. The drug was especially effective in the patients with partial seizures. Within the first days of treatment, brief and transient adverse effects including somnolence, dizziness and headache were seen in 36.6% of the patients which disappeared with continuation of treatment. In one patient with history of hypersensitivity to carbamazepine, skin rash occurred and resulted in withdrawal of the drug. Wilcoxon signed ranks test showed that oxcarbazepine was effective in the treatment of refractory seizures in children (P = 0.003) and as shown by Fisher's exact test, it is more effective in partial seizures. (P = 0.0043).The results showed that Oxcarbazepine is a useful medication in the treatment of refractory epilepsy especially partial type in children.


The mode-spacing of the fiber Bragg grating Fabry-Perot (FBG F-P) cavity is calculated by using the effective cavity length which contains the effective length of the FBG. The expression of the effective length, defined by using the phase-time delay, is obtained and simplified as a function of the peak reflectivity at the Bragg wavelength, the band edges, and the first zero-reffectivity wavelength. The effective length is discussed from the energy penetration depth point of view. Three FBG F-P cavities are fabricated in order to validate the effective length approach. The experimental data fits well with the theoretical predictions. The limitation of this method is also pointed out and the improved approach is proposed.


The relatively new field of open educational resources (OER) is just now receiving more widespread attention and study. As such, there have been few opportunities thus far to share knowledge across program, organizational and national boundaries. This article presents a case study of the development of the South African project Free High School Science Texts (FHSST). Based on observations of project activities, a survey and interviews with project participants, and analyses of project documents and web-based content, the study sheds light on the challenges and successes of creating OER content within a process built from the ground up. On the whole, the case study revealed that project sustainability is an iterative, evolutionary process that works best when able to adapt to a continuously changing environment and shifting community needs. Ultimately this involves instilling practices within the organization or project that imitate the very characteristics of the resources that OER projects serve to create and support. Editors: Stephen Godwin (Open University, UK). Reviewers: Stephen Godwin (Open University, UK) and Agnes Kukulska-Hulme (Open University, UK).


The characteristics of a rubidium metal vapor filter (MVF) for its use as a laser scatter filter for single molecule detection (SMD) were investigated. This investigation was done by a simulation along with experimental observation. A monochromator was used to elucidate the spectral components of the background in SMD. The major contributors to the background were laser transmission and fluorescence of the rubidium vapor. Experiments on the filter's performance under varying conditions such as MVF temperature, MVF pressure, and laser power were done. It was found that the integrated transmission intensity decreased with increasing pressure and temperature while it increased for increasing laser powers. The computer simulation modeled the experimentally observed profiles very well. Through the simulation, it was determined that the limitation on the attenuation by the MVF was due to the transmission of the broad-band stimulated emission "wings" of the Ti:sapphire laser.


The relationship between parenting styles and sexual attitudes of young people in Nigeria was assessed in this study. In doing this, 852 secondary school students selected from two ethnic groups and two states (Yoruba- Oyo state, & Efik – Cross River state), with ages ranging between 11 and 24 yrs responded to parenting styles and sexual attitudes questionnaires. It was hypothesized that: 1. Authoritative and the hybrid authoritative/authoritarian parenting styles would be more characteristic of Yoruba Parents than the Efik Parents 2. The young people of Yoruba decent would report more restraint sexual attitudes while those from Efik decent would report more liberal and permissive sexual attitudes. 3. Males would have more liberal and permissive sexual attitudes while females would have more restraint sexual attitudes 4. There would be positive and significant correlation between the parenting styles and the sexual attitudes of young people in Nigeria Results obtained confirmed three of the hypotheses fully and the fourth partially. In addition authoritarian and permissive parenting styles predicted liberal, permissive, promiscuous, and loose attitudes to sexuality issues, while authoritative parenting style predicted restraint attitude.


We located almost 130 000 critical localities near to urban areas where eroded material can enter the urban area. These localities were divided into five threat categories. Detailed modelling by WaTEM/SEDEM provided an extensive database of almost 130 000 micro catchments with outlet profiles threatened by intensive erosion runoff, and classified by five categories of threat for infrastructure damages.


Along with tRNAs, enzymes that modify anticodon bases are a key aspect of translation across the tree of life. tRNA modifications extend wobble pairing, allowing specific ("target") tRNAs to recognize multiple codons and cover for other ("non-target") tRNAs, often improving translation efficiency and accuracy. However, the detailed evolutionary history and impact of tRNA modifying enzymes has not been analyzed. Using ancestral reconstruction of five tRNA modifications across 1093 bacteria, we show that most modifications were ancestral to eubacteria, but were repeatedly lost in many lineages. Most modification losses coincided with evolutionary shifts in non-target tRNAs, often driven by increased bias in genomic GC and associated codon use, or by genome reduction. In turn, the loss of tRNA modifications stabilized otherwise highly dynamic tRNA gene repertoires. Our work thus traces the complex history of bacterial tRNA modifications, providing the first clear evidence for their role in the evolution of bacterial translation.


66 ieee pulse ▼ september/october 2017 3D Printing in Medicine Edited by Deepak M. Kalaskar, Elsevier Press, 2017. ISBN 978-0-08-100717-4, ix + 226 pages, US$215. This heavily referenced text is a recommended read for anyone wishing to get up to speed in the area of threedimensional (3-D) (also called additive manufacturing here) printing applications in the field of medicine. The ten-chapter text is the work of 20 contributors, one of whom is the editor. Each chapter is preceded by the chapter outline and closes with an extensive list of references. The text opens with a history of 3-D printing in medicine, from a discussion of the initial stereolithography work in the 1980s to a list of requirements for useful bioprinting, and provides an overview of the remainder of the text. Chapter 2 covers laser-, powder-, and nozzle-based techniques used currently in biomedicine; a timeline here serves to orient the reader to the use of these techniques in printing bladder cells (1999) and cranial implants and heart valves (2013). Materials are covered next (Chapter 3). Metals (such as titanium for implants), polymers (sutures and ligaments), ceramics (bone defects), and hydrogels (for printing cell constructs) are overviewed. Chapter 4 discusses the techniques used to visualize pertinent human structures (including heart valves and brittle bones), select relevant sections or volumes of tissues, create the proper build files (in the STL file format), and print. Re gulatory aspects based on U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines and future trends are also covered in this excellent overview. Chapter 5 gives a distillation of patient-specific in situ 3-D printing. Reviewed here are 3-D organ and tissue manufacture (heart valves, ears, and spinal disks), prosthetic manufacture ( jaws, windpipes, and dental implants), and surgical training devices (including jaw repair mockups). Chapter 6 gives an excellent summary of 3-D printed in vitro disease models. The hope here is to replace animal models of disease with human cell constructs that may more closely (and inexpensively) allow one to study human disease models and their response to intervention. To allow for presurgical planning (Chapter 7), the 3-D printing process has several attributes that allow the creation of constructs for analyses of approaches, the development of specialized surgical tools, and the creation of models appropriate for physician and lay education regarding a patient's condition (e.g., bone defects). Three-dimensional printing of pharmaceutical products is considered in Chapter 8; the possibilities of patient-specific dosing and specialized capsule design are considered. The high-resolution printing techniques needed to make organ generation a real possibility are discussed in Chapter 9. Four-dimensional printing in health care, i.e., the development of 3-D constructs that change shapes based upon a stimulus (such as pH, light, humidity, etc.), is reviewed in the final chapter. It has been quite a while since I have read such a terse text. Of the roughly 226 pages, only about 160 are chapter text (at a cost of over a dollar a page!). This is offset by the elaborate and comprehensive referencing of the chapters; I estimate that there are over 900 references cited. Overall, this text is nicely done; it provides excellent coverage of the topic at hand and is worth adding to your knowledge base if you are considering work in this area. I will add as a personal note that, if you plan to work in this field, then you should consider placing yourself on several relevant mailing lists (such as those from 3DMedNet.com and mdtmag.com) to keep up to date on recent industrial and institutional news in the 3-D printing fields. Review by Paul H. King, Ph.D., P.E., Vanderbilt University Practicing Medicine in Three Dimensions


ABSTRACT Family business research has identified contributing factors to the dominance of family firms in the tourism industry worldwide. The tourism literature, however, has focused more on start-ups than on long-term survival, especially in areas of rural tourism. Thus more knowledge is needed of how family ownership contributes to the resilience of hospitality firms. In rural Europe, many family-owned hotels that have existed for generations are now struggling to survive. However, some family-owned rural hotels are still performing well. This study uses interviews with ten former and present hotel owners to explore how family businesses respond to various challenges and how family ownership has influenced the survival of rural hotels. Drawing on research into tourism business resilience and family businesses, the study suggests that the resilience of rural hotels depends on family capital. This is in line with previous studies of family firm resilience outside of the tourism and hospitality context. The scientific contribution of this paper is the identification of components of human and social capital that build resilience in rural hospitality. The findings may advance hospitality management by recognising the family members' important contributions to long-term survival of family firms.


This project presents a library that automates the parallelisation of several higherorder functions, originally provided within the Ruby standard-library. The library distributes computation across many compute-units, following an annotation specifying that primitives are solely operating on numerical data. RubiCL harnesses the OpenCL framework in order to allow execution to occur on CPU or GPU devices. The library provides a simple interface to parallel processing, without the need for the user to specify orchestration specifics. This reduces barriers-to-entry concerning the exploitation of massively-parallel hardware. Utilising the development system's APU, the project achieved an execution speed-up of up to 9 times the standard Ruby implementation of higher-order computation pipelines. System performance was benchmarked and presented over a variety of task formulations, target systems, and input-data quantities.


This paper tackles the combined problem of trajectory planning and tracking control of planar underactuated marine vehicles with different dynamic models. A reference feasible trajectory for the position and orientation is planned so as to be consistent with each of the three dynamic models. Using these reference values the dynamics of the vehicles is transformed to the error one. Partial state-feedback linearization, backstepping and non-linear damping techniques are utilized to stabilize the above system and force the tracking error to a set of zero that can be made arbitrarily small. Simulation results are presented and discussed.


Jonathan Bate's "Soul of the Age" brings us closer than ever to understanding what being Shakespeare was actually like. How did plague turn Shakespeare from a jobbing hack into a courtly poet? How did Bottom's dream rewrite the Bible? How did Shakespeare's plays lead to the deaths of an earl and a king? And why was he the one dramatist of his generation never to be imprisoned? Weaving a dazzling tapestry of Elizabethan beliefs and obsessions, private passions and political intrigues, "Soul of the Age" leads us on an exhilarating tour of the extraordinary, colourful and often violent world that shaped and informed Shakespeare's thinking. It is written by one of the world's leading experts, it combines almost everything there is to know about the man and his work in one sensational narrative. "Bate probably knows as much as any single person can know about Shakespeare...Surprising, fresh, exhilarating, brilliant". ("Guardian"). "Intensely enjoyable ...you find yourself gasping with pleasure". (John Carey, "Sunday Times"). Jonathan Bate is Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature at the University of Warwick, chief editor of "The RSC Shakespeare: Complete Works" and the author of many books, including most recently "John Clare: A Biography", which won the Hawthornden Prize for Literature and the James Tait Black Prize for Biography. A Fellow of the British Academy, he was awarded a CBE in 2006.


The aim of this study was to explore the role of the NOD-like receptor family, pyrin domain containing (NLRP3) inflammasome and autophagy in Astragaloside IV (AS IV)-mediated protection against cisplatin-induced liver and kidney injury in rats. Rats were intraperitoneally administered cisplatin at a dose of 15 mg/kg and orally administered AS IV for 7 days. Histopathological and biochemical analysis were used to assess liver and kidney function. The levels and localization of NLRP3 and autophagy-associated protein were determined by Western blot and immunohistochemistry. Intraperitoneal administration of cisplatin induced acute liver and kidney injury, and activated the NLRP3 inflammasome. Oral administration of AS IV for 7 days protected against the cisplatin-induced injury, and inhibited the expression of NLRP3, as well as the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Moreover, cisplatin modulated the conversion of LC3 II and the expression of p62, thereby inhibiting autophagy and the activation of NLRP3. AS IV effectively protected against cisplatin-induced injury by inducing autophagy and limiting the expression of NLRP3. Autophagy-mediated NLRP3 inhibition might play a crucial role in AS IV-mediated protection against cisplatin-induced toxicity. These results provide evidence of a novel therapeutic that may be used to alleviate the toxic effects of platinum-based chemotherapy.


Biological Distance Analysis: Forensic and Bioarchaeological Perspectives synthesizes research within the realm of biological distance analysis, highlighting current work within the field and discussing future directions. The book is divided into three main sections. The first section clearly outlines datasets and methods within biological distance analysis, beginning with a brief history of the field and how it has progressed to its current state. The second section focuses on approaches using the individual within a forensic context, including ancestry estimation and case studies. The final section concentrates on population-based bioarchaeological approaches, providing key techniques and examples from archaeological samples. The volume also includes an appendix with additional resources available to those interested in biological distance analyses.Defines datasets and how they are used within biodistance analysisApplies methodology to individual and population studiesBridges the sub-fields of forensic anthropology and bioarchaeologyHighlights current research and future directions of biological distance analysisIdentifies statistical programs and datasets for use in biodistance analysisContains cases studies and thorough index for those interested in biological distance analyses


The paper shows an investigation of the availability of the fast time-domain algorithms to process data collected by synthetic aperture radar systems with circular apertures (CSAR). In the investigation, the reconstruction of CSAR images from data is suggested to be in a ground plane instead of a slant-range plane. The Fast Backprojection (FBP) algorithms are considered to examine the availability of time-domain algorithms for CSAR data processing. However, the availability is also applied to the Fast Factorized Backprojection (FFBP) algorithms. The simulated CSAR data with respect to the CARABAS-II parameters is used. (6 pages)


There is need to preserve and popularise African languages and scholars like Momanyi (2007) call for research, documentation and preservation ofthe languages by the native speakers. This work is a response to this need. It is a work divided into five chapters. The first chapter is the introduction which provides a background to the study and the statement of the problem. The section also shows the need to study the emphatic structures of Gikuyu, being an area that has been neglected in the past. Also noted is the need to analyse the Gikuyu emphatic clauses functionally, another relatively neglected area since many of the
past scholars have used a formal approach. The study has established the categories of Gikuyu emphatic structures, described the order of the linguistic elements in them, identified the kind of prominence they achieve and established how they can be analysed functionally. The chapter also highlights the significance of the study, justifying it in terms of its applied, practical and theoretical significance. It closes with the scope and
limitations of the study. The second chapter provides a review ofliterature relevant to the study. The literature includes studies on Gikuyu and other Bantu languages. Some studies that have applied Functional Grammar theories have also been reviewed. The section then provides a description ofthe theory to be applied, Functional Grammar Theory by Halliday (1985). The methodology used is described in the third chapter. It starts with the research design, which is qualitative, followed by the sampling size and procedure. Purposive sampling has been applied. Data collection procedure follows. The chapter ends with data analysis and presentation method. The data is analysed thematically. Chapter four presents and analyses the data. It is divided into two sections. Section one presents the syntactic emphatic categories that have been identified in Gikuyu. They are classified into three broad categories: the reordering class, the postponement class and the dislocation class. Categories under each class are discussed in details, giving the order of elements in the categories and the kinds of prominence assigned to the highlighted elements in them. The second part applies Halliday's Functional Grammar Theory (1985) to analyse the clauses in terms of clause as exchange. The last chapter, chapter five, summarizes the findings ofthe study. It further draws the conclusion, gives recommendations and finally suggests some areas related to the study for further research.


Tort plaintiffs regularly bring cases in U.S. courts seeking damages for harms that have occurred abroad, attracted by higher expected returns than are available in the jurisdiction where the harm arose. Such claims are especially likely to be filed by plaintiffs from developing countries, who commonly argue that the remedies available to them in their home jurisdictions are deficient or non-existent. This paper focuses on a potential inefficiency of forum shopping that is of special importance in transnational tort litigation against business defendants ? the potential distortion of trade and investment patterns that can result from implicit discrimination in the applicability of legal rules to producers or investors of different nationalities. These distortions are akin to those associated with discriminatory tariff or tax policies. They can reduce global economic welfare, and afford a potentially important argument for limiting foreign tort plaintiffs to the law and forum of the jurisdiction in which their harm arose. The problem arises even if the substantive or procedural law of the foreign jurisdiction in question is demonstrably inferior to U.S. law from an economic standpoint. The analysis has implications for a number of areas of legal doctrine, including the construction of the Alien Tort Statute, the rules governing choice of law in transnational tort cases, and the doctrine of forum non conveniens.


Throughout modern-day Israel, over four hundred Palestinian villages were depopulated in the 1947-1949 war. With houses mostly destroyed, mosques and churches put to other uses, and cemeteries plowed under, Palestinian communities were left geographically dispossessed. Palestinians have since carried their village names, memories, and possessions with them into the diaspora, transforming their lost past into local histories in the form of "village memorial books". Numbering more than 100 volumes in print, these books recount family histories, cultural traditions, and the details of village life, revealing Palestinian history through the eyes of Palestinians. Through a close examination of these books and other commemorative activities, Palestinian Village Histories reveals how history is written, recorded, and contested, as well as the roles that Palestinian conceptions of their past play in contemporary life. Moving beyond the grand narratives of 20th century political struggles, this book analyzes individual and collective historical accounts of everyday life in pre-1948 Palestinian villages as composed today from the perspectives of these long-term refugees.


People invest time, attention, and emotion while engaging in various activities in the real-world, for either purposes of awareness or participation. Social media platforms such as Twitter offer tremendous opportunities for people to become engaged in such real-world events through information sharing and communicating about these events. However, little is understood about the factors that affect people's Twitter engagement in such real-world events. In this paper, we address this question by first operationalizing a person's Twitter engagement in real-world events such as posting, retweeting, or replying to tweets about such events. Next, we construct statistical models that examine multiple predictive factors associated with four different perspectives of users' Twitter engagement, and quantify their potential influence on predicting the (i) presence; and (ii) degree — of the user's engagement with 643 real-world events. We also consider the effect of these factors with respect to a finer granularization of the different categories of events. We find that the measures of people's prior Twitter activities, topical interests, geolocation, and social network structures are all variously correlated to their engagement with real-world events.


Although in the last decades a rich literature around Social Innovation has emerged, Social Innovation Education (SIE) is a new concept and has been relatively under-investigated, while there is no clear definition explaining what SIE entails. This paper presents the first attempts of the EU funded NEMESIS project to design a non-prescriptive learning framework for embedding social innovation in education. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to discuss how SIE is conceptualised; its underlying educational philosophy; the principles informing its design; and how it differentiates from other contemporary educational approaches. The insights generated by investigating these points offer the basis for designing a Social Innovation Learning Framework which is envisaged to have a dual scope; from a practical point of view, it will act as a tool for educators, supporting them to deliver SIE in their contexts; from a research point of view, it will contribute to the scientific and policy discourse on the future of social innovation in education by providing evidence and clarity on what SIE entails and how it can benefit the field of education.


This essay, written for a symposium on fair use sponsored by the Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts, offers an alternative theory of the concept of transformativeness in the fair use analysis in copyright law. Drawing on literary reader-response theory, the essay suggests that courts might determine whether a claimed fair use is transformative by considering not whether the defendant has engaged in certain activities with respect to the copyrighted work but, rather, whether the defendant's work engages with a different discursive community from the plaintiff's work. Previous analyses have, not surprisingly, focused on section 107's directive to consider the purpose and character of the use as a suggestion to evaluate not how the work is perceived or interpreted but what the defendant creator intended or hoped to achieve. But virtually all work building on or incorporating another work is transformative to some extent because all creative expression is, to some degree, representational. Thus, if the goal of the transformativeness inquiry is to determine whether the second work has contributed a new expression, meaning, or message, then it might be more fruitful to ask the transformativeness question from the reader's perspective. By considering the degree of transformativeness to align with the amount of interpretive distance that the defendant's use of the plaintiff's work creates, courts may reach different, and more appropriate, results with respect to categories of expressive work that have occasionally been deemed not transformative enough: appropriation art, in which a work is incorporated wholesale or nearly so, and satire, in which the target of the defendant's work is typically something other than the plaintiff's work. By suggesting that virtually everything is transformative, I do not mean to suggest that nothing is infringing. But shifting the focus from author to reader may serve to remind us both of the limits of transformativeness as a key to fair use and of the fact that facilitating dissemination of multiple meanings of the same work can achieve the goal of copyright law just as well as the dissemination of multiple works. Thus, if we are to retain transformativeness as a relevant answer, let us at least ask the right question - as Foucault suggests, not Who is speaking? but Who is listening?


We view the problem of estimating the defect content of a document after an inspection as a machine learning problem: The goal is to learn from empirical data the relationship between certain observable features of an inspection (such as the total number of different defects detected) and the number of defects actually contained in the document. We show that some features can carry significant nonlinear information about the defect content. Therefore, we use a nonlinear regression technique, neural networks, to solve the learning problem. To select the best among all neural networks trained on a given data set, one usually reserves part of the data set for later cross-validation; in contrast, we use a technique which leaves the full data set for training. This is an advantage when the data set is small. We validate our approach on a known empirical inspection data set. For that benchmark, our novel approach clearly outperforms both linear regression and the current standard methods in software engineering for estimating the defect content, such as capture-recapture. The validation also shows that our machine learning approach can be successful even when the empirical inspection data set is small.


For over 70 years studio-based learning (SBL) continues to have a powerful influence on the creation of environments for teaching and learning in art and design on an academic level. A similar philosophy is followed by the Virtual Design Studio (VDS), a form ofvirtualworkshop that addresses the needs of online design education. The increasing exploitation of social network platforms (SN) as instruments of learning has also lead to their integration into VDS, due to the fact that these technologies transfer communication, teamwork, social engagement, responsibility, and classroom interaction away from the design tutors to the participants. The present paper discusses a pilot use of thedeviantArtplatform - an open and dynamic online community that promotes artisticexpression,facilitates cross-culturaldialogue,and features work in a variety of disciplines - as a VDS environment. This allowed design work to be posted and commented on a public platform as a means to facilitate peer learning and distance assessment. The conducted study facilitated a distance learning course in Graphic Design of the Hellenic Open University (HOU). At the end of the academicyearan evaluation was carried out in order to assess its validity as a distance teaching method for design and identify its weaknesses, strengths and improvement opportunities.


Load-balancing algorithms play a key role in improving the performance of practical distributed systems that consist of heterogeneous nodes. The performance of any load-balancing algorithms and its convergence-rate is affected by the structural factors of the network that executes the algorithm. The performance deteriorated as the number of system nodes, the network-diameter, the communication-overhead increased. Moreover, additional technical-factors of the algorithm itself significantly affect the performance of rebalancing the load among nodes. Therefore, this paper proposes an approach that improves the performance of load-balancing algorithms by considering the load-balancing technical-factors and the structure of the network executes the algorithm. We applied the proposed method to a cafeteria system in a university campus and compared our approach with two significant methods presented in the literature. Results indicate that our approach considerably outperformed the original neighborhood approach and the nearest neighbor approach in terms of response time, throughput, and communication overhead.


In Australia, riverine biodiversity (as judged by species diversity) is threatened by an array of anthropogenic effects common in industrialised countries (e.g. in-stream barriers, mining and sewage effluents, increased nutrient inputs, introduced species) as well as more diffuse, widespread phenomena characteristic of most of the arid and semi-arid areas of the world (e.g. salinisation and alteration of flows). Although much has been learned from specific case studies in the more populated areas, the nationally systematic efforts at quantifying these threats rely mostly on measures of river "condition" or "health" because measuring species diversity across areas as large as Australia is too expensive. However, these measures are incomplete representations of biodiversity, and some of the auditing processes compound other human values into their summaries of river condition or health. Furthermore, public perceptions of what rivers in Australia can deliver in terms of "ecosystem services" may not be feasible in many areas owing to the way that the Australian landscape has evolved. To avoid making the mistake of assuming that "good river health" automatically means "all biodiversity is conserved," three advances are needed: appropriate conceptual frameworks of how a given river system functions, more research that clarifies the links between processes and biodiversity, and an understanding of the historical biogeography of the river biota so that we can provide a clear context for the first two items. Substantial progress has been made in developing and adapting conceptual models of river systems, research into processes is being initiated even in some remote, sparsely populated catchments, and much has been learned about the history and distribution of the flora and fauna. Key challenges remain in consolidating reliable empirical relationships between biodiversity and the surrogate variables used to measure it, estimating the rates of biodiversity change likely to accrue from climate change over the next millennium, and identifying biodiversity "hot spots" particularly for less than charismatic species.


This volume of Hungarian studies was compiled as part of the UNESCO Major Programme I (Reflection on World Problems and Future-oriented Studies) within the framework of the contract concluded between UNESCO and IIASA. The subject of the contract was the preparation of a study entitled World Problems and their Perceptions. The study was compiled in coordination with the Hungarian National Member Organization of IIASA. The Report, in addition to the State of the Art part, contains information about the Task Force Meeting which UNESCO and IIASA organized in Budapest, February 1985, on a theme in accordance with the title of the report and the contributions of which will appear later in book form.

This Collaborative Paper is part of the background material of the Report. It shows a possible perception and interpretation of a group of problems, and the implications arising therefrom.

The Report sets out to show what concealed cultural or professional presuppositions there are behind the weight of the different conceptions of so-called global or world problems and how they differ in relation to each other. In this connection it reflects on the UNESCO Medium-Term Plan: "Whatever the approaches adopted, studies on world problems are inevitably linked, by the very nature of the field they cover -- which is none other than the present and future of societies -- to choices based on presuppositions regarding standards or on systems of values or even on ideological choices. They seem to require, as their necessary complement, an open-minded examination carried out in a context which promotes intellectual cooperation and within which all currents of thought can be freely expressed; and no organization seems to offer such a context more successfully than UNESCO."

The Report tries to justify the hypothesis formulated in UNESCO's Medium-Term Plan and make clear the necessary existence of differing cultural and professional world views in this respect. It shows that there is no one correct point of view, that many rational conceptions of equal value to each other exist, and that in relation to these problems only the acceptance of plural rationality can lead to common solutions. While this conception seems trivial, practice shows that in seeking solutions this approach is not unique and not at all self-explanatory. The Report and the Collaborative Paper show how the economic, social and cultural conditions, as well as practice, determine the world view, how wide the differences are, and that they necessarily lead to various problem formulations and action plans. In actual fact these outlined differences and knowledge of their explanation can lead the international organizations to the formulation of fuller and, probably, more successful action programmes than previously.

In the Collaborative Paper we offer a selection of Hungarian studies prepared recently in various specialized fields, we give an insight into the workshop debates and results of the Hungarian research teams, and last but not least, we try to show the options formed an different topics by Hungarian researchers.

The volume is not a homogeneous-topic selection, but at the same time we endeavored, by examining the facts, to concentrate on different features of the unequal development taking place globally and to indicate the interconnection between the studies. The authors of the studies examine, in a complex way, the world economic. and world political changes of the past years, the present state and tendencies of world factors and draw conclusions as to the expected developments.

Naturally, as with all selections, the content of our volume cannot cover the wide range of problems -- also formulated by UNESCO's programmes, even though we plan several selections during the programme period. With this initiative, while wishing to give a sample of the work and opinions of Hungarian researchers, we would also like to encourage other national research teams to make a similar statement of opinion, so that we can contribute directly to the dialogue in the range of topics of the world problems programme being discussed also in international organizations.

The range of studies closes with a summary, in which in addition to a summing up of the contents and conclusions of the studies, a sharper formulation is made of those questions to which we want particularly to draw attention at the present stage of the World Problems Programme, covering an extremely wide range of topics.


Abstract: In this study, an automatic three‐dimensional computer‐aided detection system for colonic polyps was developed. Computer‐aided detection for computed tomography colonography aims at facilitating the detection of colonic polyps. First, the colon regions of whole computed tomography images were carefully segmented to reduce computational burden and prevent false positive detection. In this process, the colon regions were extracted by using a cellular neural network and then the regions of interest were determined. In order to improve the segmentation performance of the study, weights in the cellular neural network were calculated by three heuristic optimization techniques, namely genetic algorithm, differential evaluation and artificial immune system. Afterwards, a three‐dimensional polyp template model was constructed to detect polyps on the segmented regions of interest. At the end of the template matching process, the volumes geometrically similar to the template were emhanced.


Learning a near optimal policy in a partially observable system remains an elusive challenge in contemporary reinforcement learning. In this work, we consider episodic reinforcement learning in a reward-mixing Markov decision process (MDP). There, a reward function is drawn from one of multiple possible reward models at the beginning of every episode, but the identity of the chosen reward model is not revealed to the agent. Hence, the latent state space, for which the dynamics are Markovian, is not given to the agent. We study the problem of learning a near optimal policy for two reward-mixing MDPs. Unlike existing approaches that rely on strong assumptions on the dynamics, we make no assumptions and study the problem in full generality. Indeed, with no further assumptions, even for two switching reward-models, the problem requires several new ideas beyond existing algorithmic and analysis techniques for efficient exploration. We provide the first polynomial-time algorithm that finds an $\epsilon$-optimal policy after exploring $\tilde{O}(poly(H,\epsilon^{-1}) \cdot S^2 A^2)$ episodes, where $H$ is time-horizon and $S, A$ are the number of states and actions respectively. This is the first efficient algorithm that does not require any assumptions in partially observed environments where the observation space is smaller than the latent state space.


Background The treatment of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) in individuals at risk of reactivation is essential for tuberculosis control. However, blood biomarkers associated with LTBI treatment have not been identified. Methods Blood samples from tuberculin skin test (TST) reactive individuals were collected before and after one and six months of isoniazid (INH) therapy. Peripheral mononuclear cells (PBMC) were isolated, and an in-house interferon-γ release assay (IGRA) was performed. Expression of chemokine ligand 4 (CCL4), chemokine ligand 10 (CXCL10), chemokine ligand 11 (CXCL11), interferon alpha (IFNA), radical S-adenosyl methionine domain-containing 2 (RSAD2), ubiquitin-specific peptidase 18 (USP18), interferon-induced protein 44 (IFI44), interferon-induced protein 44 like (IFI44L), interferon-induced protein tetratricopeptide repeats 1(IFIT1), and interleukin 2 receptor subunit alpha (IL2RA) mRNA levels were assessed by qPCR before, during, and after INH treatment. Results We observed significantly lower relative abundances of USP18, IFI44L, IFNA, and IL2RA transcripts in PBMC from IGRA-positive individuals compared to levels in IGRA-negative individuals before INH therapy. Also, relative abundance of CXCL11 was significantly lower in IGRA-positive than in IGRA-negative individuals before and after one month of INH therapy. However, the relative abundance of CCL4, CXCL10, and CXCL11 mRNA was significantly decreased and that of IL2RA and USP18 significantly increased after INH therapy, regardless of the IGRA result. Our results show that USP18, IFI44L, IFIT1, and IL2RA relative abundances increased significantly, meanwhile the relative abundance of CCL4, CXCL11, and IFNA decreased significantly after six months of INH therapy in TST-positive individuals. Conclusions Changes in the profiles of USP18, IL2RA, IFNA, CCL4, and CXCL11 expressions during INH treatment in TST-positive individuals, regardless of IGRA status, are potential tools for monitoring latent tuberculosis treatment.


In this paper we extend Independent Component Analysis (ICA) task to controlled dynamical systems. To our best knowledge this is the first work that considers the control task in this field, which may open the door for extended ICA applications. We treat Independent Subspace Analysis (ISA) task, the multidimensional generalization of ICA. In particular, we consider the identification problem of ARX models, i.e., hidden AutoRegressive dynamical systems subject to eXogenous control inputs. In our case, these ARX models are driven by independent multidimensional noise processes. The goal is the estimation of the hidden variables, that is, the parameters of the system and the driving noise. We aim efficient estimation by choosing suitable control values. For the optimal choice of the control we adapt the D-optimality principle, also known as 'InfoMax method'. To this end, we decouple the problem into a fully observable one and an ISA task. We solve the two problems and join the results to estimate the hidden variables. Numerical examples illustrate the efficiency of our method.


Twelve years ago, the federal government awarded hundreds of grants for broadband infrastructure with stimulus funds from the Recovery Act of 2009. In this study, I review the subsidy allocations from the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program and compare actual outcomes with those that a reverse auction or random lottery may have yielded. My analysis shows that a reverse auction might have connected nearly twice as many buildings for the same total subsidy dollars relative to the results from the grant review process. Moreover, the grant review process used by the NTIA did only slightly better in subsidy-dollars-per-building-connected than a random lottery probably would have. Lessons from the Recovery Act are drawn from public data on proposed and awarded projects from application files for stimulus funds. I conclude that the government likely overpaid for broadband by using grant review rather than a reverse auction. The analysis strongly implies that future broadband grants be distributed using market-based methods to get better returns on investment from infrastructure funds.


This monograph examines the aniconic cult stones, or baetyls, of the Aegean Bronze Age. Minoan baetyls are commonly understood by reference to the interpretive vocabularies of ancient Near Eastern traditions developed by comparative ethnographies popular in the early 20th century. This study presents and interrogates the Aegean evidence for baetyl cult, providing a catalogue of archaeological evidence attesting to this cultic practice. Contextual analysis provides the basis for interpreting and (re)constructing aspects of the cult. It is argued that the ambiguity inherent in these aniconic stones renders them uniquely flexible in serving multiple cultic, ritual and ideological functions across different contexts.


This paper brings the preliminary results of interviews with Scandinavian managers and engineers asking questions regarding their previous experiences and knowledge on diverse continuous education methods and further encourages them to gaze into the crystal ball to identify requests and expectations to future methods of continuous education. The interviews have been done within a project titled: Processer til håndtering af skræddersyede efteruddannelsesforløb (PHASE), financed by the Nordplus Programme. The partners are: Aalborg Universitet from Denmark, Reykjavik University from Iceland and KTH Royal Institute of Technology from Sweden.


Of late, the Virgin Mary has become somewhat fashionable in academic circles. This prominence reflects her long-lasting cultural influence as an international historic and spiritual figure. Miri Rubin's recent magnum opus Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary (1) provides a much needed global examination of the cultural significance of the Virgin Mary over the longue duree. On a more localised level, Bridget Heal's The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Early Modern Germany (2) and the book under review here, Carol Engelhardt Herringer's Victorians and the Virgin Mary: Religion and Gender in England, 1830–85, provides a narrower focus and allows for the confessional and cultural understandings of denominational differences to shine through. Herringer, in this fine work, aims to develop a 'comprehensive and culturally situated analysis of Victorian representations of the Virgin Mary' (p. 5) which she argues tells us much about the Victorians.


In order to adapt to and understand the context, code-switching often occurs by students who are less fluent and they have different patterns in their language of choice. Code-switching often occurs especially in their daily conversations. In ESL classroom, the pedagogical conversations between teachers and students and between
students are often littered with a combination of the second language, first language and native language which is Bahasa Melayu. Thus, while in English classroom, the occurrences of different types of code-switching from the English teacher as well as the students are observed and analysed. The teacher's perceptions may reveal the functions and factors that influence the code-switching during teaching and learning process. Qualitative research is applied in this study to observe the participants besides to gain understanding of the English teacher and students faced during ESL classroom. Therefore, classroom observations and individual interview are conducted in order to obtain data. Two classroom observations, in a total of 80-minute each are recorded to examine the pedagogical conversation between the teacher and students and among the students as well. To get information about factors and perception on code-witching, individual interview with English teacher is conducted and is
recorded too. One of the secondary schools in Port Klang is selected for this research and the participants involved are form two students and the English teacher. Understanding the types and observing the occurrences of code-switching allow the researcher to indicate each usage of code-switching by preparing the frequency table. For every five minutes, the occurrences of code-switching are checked to ensure its validity. All research questions are developed for this study in which both teacher and students use Intersentential code-switching most in their conversation, followed by Intrasentential, Borrowing and Tag-like code-switching. Lastly, the data shows that Caique is not used by participants during the English classroom.


An innovative new framework for the implementation of reliability centered maintenance (RCM) in industrial settings was developed and implemented during this study. Fuzzy reasoning algorithms were designed to evaluate and assess the likelihood of equipment failure mode precipitation and aggravation. Furthermore, an alternative to the traditional RCM decision tree for prioritizing equipment failure modes was defined through the development of an approximate reasoning scheme. This priority scheme not only takes into account the relevancy of failure modes on local and product effects, but also their possibility of occurrence, as well as associated negative consequences on adjacent machinery.
The new RCM approach was implemented through an objected-oriented expert system built to perform reliability centered maintenance analysis on industrial chemical processes. The developed expert system reads the process flowsheet generated by ASPEN Plus, a chemical process simulation package, and, based on relevant machine operating data, it provides the user with the final process RCM availability structure diagram. This availability diagram consists of a listing of all critical machine failure modes likely to occur, prioritized according to their overall negative impact on the process, as well as important information on their corresponding local and system effects, and suggested controls for their detection.
Although the chemical process industry was selected as the application domain for this research, the developed RCM framework was designed to be extensible across the entire maintenance activity spectrum, regardless of the type of industry associated.
The prototype knowledge based system was constructed and delivered on an IBM compatible Personal Computer through an object oriented computer shell, LEVEL 5 Object.


conducted on the US West Coast in the northern California Current System. Although each project had a unique scientific focus, all four addressed the mechanisms causing eastern boundary current systems in general, and the California Current System in particular, to be biologically rich, from phytoplankton to apex predators. Taken together, findings from these projects provide new insights into the canonical view that upwelling systems are simple wind-driven " conveyor belts, " bringing cold, nutrient-rich waters to the well-lit surface ocean where biological organisms flourish. We highlight new insights and advances gained from these programs, including recognition that (a) elements other than nitrogen, particularly iron, may limit the base of the food chain, and (b) the source of these nutrients is not solely a result of wind-driven Ekman transport. The importance of retentive features has clearly emerged, whether these are associated with topography, bathymetry, or more transient features such as river plumes. These new insights into the drivers and fate of this high biological productivity should greatly improve current and future generations of ecosystem models and provide a better understanding of the unique physical-biological coupling that makes the California Current System so rich.


Virtual courthouses, artificial intelligence (AI) for determining cases, and algorithmic analysis for all types of legal issues have captured the interest of judges, lawyers, educators, commentators, business leaders, and policymakers. Technology has become the "fourth party" in dispute resolution through the growing field of online dispute resolution (ODR), which includes the use of a broad spectrum of technologies in negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and other dispute resolution processes. Indeed, ODR shows great promise for expanding access to remedies, or justice. In the United States and abroad, however, ODR has mainly thrived within e-commerce companies like eBay and Alibaba, while most public courts have continued to insist on traditional face-to-face procedures. Nonetheless, e-courts and public ODR pilots are developing throughout the world in particular contexts such as small claims and property tax disputes, and are demonstrating how technology can be used to further efficiency and expand access to the courts. Accordingly, this Article explores these e-court initiatives with a critical eye for ensuring fairness, due process, and transparency, as well as efficiency, in public dispute resolution.


Tax experiments have been gaining momentum in recent years, although this literature dates back several decades. With new developments in methods and data availability, tax experiments have gradually moved away from lab settings and towards the field. This movement from the lab to the field has happened against the background of the 'credibility revolution' in applied economics, which has seen more rigorous methods applied to policy relevant questions, and of the availability to researchers of administrative data from tax returns. These developments have allowed significant advances in the experimental literature on tax compliance. This paper reviews this literature, giving particular attention to field experiments using administrative data, but putting them in the broader context of the compliance literature. A particular effort is made to take a global perspective, in a literature that is only recently seeing the emergence of evidence from Africa, Latin America and Asia.