Additive manufacturing techniques have made AM Ti-6Al-4V parts a reality in many industries. However, despite the optimism, their poor fatigue performance especially in high cycle regime is the major hurdle for the industry accepting it as mainstream. One of the reasons owes to the widely distributed internal defects inherent to the AM process, which create a hotbed for fatigue crack initiation. Available investigations on lack of fusions, regarded as the most detrimental defects, are very limited. Regarding this, we conducted finite element analysis to evaluate the fatigue performance of Ti-6Al-4V alloys with an individual lack-of-fusion defect. Three different lack-of-fusion defects, directly scanned from Selective Laser Melting Ti-6Al-4V coupons using Micro-Computed Tomography with different geometry features, have been numerically analyzed. We compare the mechanical results (e.g., stress, strain, and elastic stress concentration factors) of the lack-of-fusion defects to the results of gas-entrapped pores, which share the same height and the same volume, to reveal the detriment of lack-of-fusion defects. Furthermore, we conduct a parametric study on lack-of-fusion defects orientation and size, as well as the aspect ratios. The results provide a better understanding of the mechanical behavior of the lack-of-fusion defects in additive manufactured Ti-6Al-4V alloys, paving the way for further research of additive manufactured metallic alloys.


From the Publisher:
"The Internet revolution has come. Some say it has gone. What was responsible for its birth? Who is responsible for its demise?" "In The Future of Ideas, Lawrence Lessig explains how the Internet revolution has produced a counterrevolution of devastating power and effect. The explosion of innovation we have seen in the environment of the Internet was not conjured from some new, previously unimagined technological magic; instead, it came from an ideal as old as the nation. Creativity flourished there because the Internet protected an innovation commons. The Internet's very design built a neutral platform upon which the widest range of creators could experiment. The legal architecture surrounding it protected this free space so that culture and information - the ideas of our era - could flow freely and inspire an unprecedented breadth of expression. But this structural design is changing - both legally and technically." This shift will destroy the opportunities for creativity and innovation that the Internet originally engendered. The cultural dinosaurs of our recent past are moving to quickly remake cyberspace so that they can better protect their interests against the future. Powerful forces are swiftly using both law and technology to "tame" the internet, transforming it from an open forum for ideas into nothing more than cable television on speed. Innovation, once again, will be directed from the top down, increasingly controlled by owners of the networks, holders of the largest patent portfolios, and, most invidiously, hoarders of copyrights.


The reaction of N,N'-diarylselenoureas 16 with phenacyl bromide in EtOH under reflux, followed by treatment with NH3 , gave N,3-diaryl-4-phenyl-1,3-selenazol-2(3H)-imines 13 in high yields (Scheme 2). A reaction mechanism via formation of the corresponding Se-(benzoylmethyl)isoselenoureas 18 and
subsequent cyclocondensation is proposed (Scheme 3). The N,N'-diarylselenoureas 16 were conveniently prepared by the reaction of aryl isoselenocyanates 15 with 4-substituted anilines. The structures of 13a and 13c were established by X-ray crystallography.


My Ph.D. research examined the establishment of a National Park in American Samoa by the United States, which administrates this Polynesian territory. The research focused on the possible impacts the protected areas may have on the local communities. At the end of my fieldwork in 2006 and 2007, I concluded that the Park is affecting two pillars of this society: the communal land which is intrinsically associated with the Samoan extended family and its internal organization and the chieftainship organization. In this paper, I argue that the original project for this protected area was based on a virtual construction of both nature and indigenous peoples. Virtual constructions, or attempts to make the practical world align with the world of the conceptual, may lead to strong disjunctions between the initial conservation project and its on-site execution, and thus to a project that does not meet all of its intended objectives. Environmentalism itself, as a vision of the world and a discourse, has been used to construct a virtual reality of what biodiversity conservation and sustainable development should be. These are the issues my paper will address in light of the ethnographic research I conducted in American Samoa. Many contemporary social scientists have recently challenged this environmentalist discourse and the imposition of its view on others. I hope this paper will contribute to this debate.


Background and Purpose— The International Subarachnoid Aneurysm Trial (ISAT) reported that endovascular coiling yields better clinical outcomes than surgical clipping at 1 year. The high cost of the consumables associated with the endovascular coiling procedure (particularly the coils) led health care purchasers to conclude that coiling was a more costly procedure overall. To examine this assumption and provide evidence for future policy, accurate and comprehensive data are required on the overall resource usage and cost of each strategy. Methods— We provide detailed results of patient treatment pathways, resource utilization, and costs up to 24 months postrandomization for endovascular and neurosurgical treatment of aSAH. We report data on costs related to initial and subsequent procedures (ward days, ITU, equipment, staff, consumables, etc), adverse events, complications, and follow up. The data are based on a subsample of all patients randomized in ISAT, containing all patients across 22 UK centers (n=1644). Results— There was a nonsignificant difference −£1740 (−£3582 to £32) in the total 12-month cost of treatment in favor of endovascular treatment. Endovascular patients had higher costs than neurosurgical patients for the initial procedure, for the number and length of stay of subsequent procedures, and for follow-up angiograms. These were more than offset by lower costs related to length of stay for the initial procedure. In the following 12- to 24-month period, costs for subsequent procedures, angiograms, complications, and adverse events were greater for the endovascular patients, reducing the difference in total per patient cost to −£1228 (−£3199 to £786) over the first 24 months of follow-up. Conclusions— No significant difference in costs between the endovascular and neurosurgery groups existed at 12- or 24-month follow up.


Author(s): Conway, Jon Robert | Advisor(s): Keller, Arturo A | Abstract: The majority of the current production, use, and disposal of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) occur in terrestrial environments, and consequently terrestrial ecosystems are and will increasingly be some of the largest receptors of ENMs at all stages of their life cycles. In particular, soil is predicted to be one of the major receptors of ENMs due to ENM-contaminated biosolid fertilizer and nanopesticide application to agricultural fields, runoff from landfills or ENM-bearing paints, or atmospheric deposition. Both agricultural and natural systems are at risk to ENM contamination via these release scenarios, which makes it necessary to understand the interactions between ENMs, soils, and soil organisms such as plants in order to predict their impacts in real-world scenarios. Gravity-driven vertical transport of TiO2, CeO2, and Cu(OH)2 engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) and their effects on soil pH and nutrient release were measured in three unsaturated soils. ENM transport was found to be highly limited in natural soils collected from farmland and grasslands, with the majority of particles being retained in the upper 0-3 cm of the soil profile, while greater transport depth was seen in a commercial potting soil. Physical straining appeared to be the primary mechanism of retention in natural soils as ENMs immediately formed micron-scale aggregates, which was exacerbated by coating particles with Suwannee River natural organic matter (NOM). Changes in soil pH were observed in natural soils contaminated with ENMs that were largely independent of ENM type and concentration. These changes may have been due to enhanced release of naturally present pH-altering ions (Mg2+, H+) in the soil, likely via substitution processes. This suggests ENMs will likely be highly retained near source zones in soil and may impact local communities sensitive to changes in pH or nutrient availability.Few studies have investigated the influence of environmental conditions on ENM uptake and toxicity, particularly throughout the entire plant life cycle. Here, soil-grown plants (Clarkia unguiculata, Raphanus sativus, and Triticum aestivum) were exposed until maturity to TiO2, CeO2, or Cu(OH)2 ENMs under different illumination intensities, in different soils, and with different nutrient levels. Fluorescence and gas exchange measurements were recorded throughout growth and tissue samples from mature plants were analyzed for metal content. ENM uptake was observed in all plant species, but was seen to vary significantly with ENM type, light intensity, nutrient levels, and soil type. Light intensity in particular was found to be important in controlling uptake, likely as a result of plants increasing or decreasing transpiration in response to light.Significant impacts on plant transpiration, photosynthetic rate, CO2 assimilation efficiency, water use efficiency, and other parameters related to physiological fitness were seen. The impacts were highly dependent on environmental conditions as well as ENM and soil type. Notably, many of these effects were found to be mitigated in soils with limited ENM mobility due to decreased uptake. These results show that abiotic conditions play an important role in mediating the uptake and physiological impacts of ENMs in terrestrial plants.


Introduction: The burden of lifestyle disorders is rapidly increasing worldwide. Modernization, affluence, science and technological development lead to still more sedentary life styles. By exposing oneself to all these factors human being unknowingly invited a number of diseases, out of which Sthaulya (obesity) is one which disturbs physical, mental and social health of an individual. Aims and Objectives: To identify the main lifestyle related Aharatmaka (dietary factors), Viharatmaka (physical activities) and Manasika (psychological) factors associated with Sthaulya (obesity) among the patient aged in between 20-60 years. Material and Methods: Cross-sectional survey study was done among 250 patients of Sthaulya (obesity) visiting outpatient department of the Institute from the period May 2013 to June 2014. The patients were selected using simple random sampling method. Ethical clearance was obtained from the Institute and Lifestyle related questionnaire was used for survey study which was based on the etiological factors mentioned in the Ayurvedic classics. Observations and Conclusions: The survey study revealed that intake of Guru and Snigdha Ahara (heavy fatty food), Avyayama (lack of involvement in physical activities), Divasvapna (day sleep) and psychological distress are the main lifestyle related factors strongly associated with the Sthaulya (Obesity)


Most retailers suffer from substantial discrepancies between inventory quantities recorded in the system and stocks truly available to customers. Promising full inventory transparency, radio frequency identification (RFID) technology has often been suggested as a remedy to the problem. We consider inventory record inaccuracy in a supply chain model, where a Stackelberg manufacturer sets the wholesale price and a retailer determines how much to stock for sale to customers. We first analyze the impact of inventory record inaccuracy on optimal stocking decisions and profits. By contrasting optimal decisions in a decentralized supply chain with those in an integrated supply chain, we find that inventory record inaccuracy exacerbates the inefficiencies resulting from double marginalization in decentralized supply chains. Assuming RFID technology can eliminate the problem of inventory record inaccuracy, we determine the cost thresholds at which RFID adoption becomes profitable. We show that a decentralized supply chain benefits more from RFID technology, such that RFID adoption improves supply chain coordination.


The thesis proposes, defends, and applies a new model of inter-theoretic reduction,
called "Neo-Nagelian" reduction. There are numerous accounts of inter-theoretic
reduction in the philosophy of science literature but the most well-known and
widely-discussed is the Nagelian one. In the thesis I identify various kinds of
problems which the Nagelian model faces. Whilst some of these can be resolved,
pressing ones remain.
In lieu of the Nagelian model, other models of inter-theoretic reduction have
been proposed, chief amongst which are so-called "New Wave" models. I show
these to be no more adequate than the original Nagelian model.
I propose a new model of inter-theoretic reduction, Neo-Nagelian reduction.
This model is structurally similar to the Nagelian one, but differs in substantive
ways. In particular I argue that it avoids the problems pertaining to both the
Nagelian and New Wave models.
Multiple realizability looms large in discussions about reduction: it is claimed
that multiply realizable properties frustrate the reduction of one theory to another
in various ways. I consider these arguments and show that they do not undermine
the Neo-Nagelian of reduction of one theory to another.
Finally, I apply the model to statistical mechanics. Statistical mechanics is
taken to be a reductionist enterprise: one of the aims of statistical mechanics is to
reduce thermodynamics. Without an adequate model of inter-theoretic reduction
one cannot assess whether it succeeds; I use the Neo-Nagelian model to critically
discuss whether it does. Specifically, I consider two very recent derivations of
the Second Law of thermodynamics, one from Boltzmannian classical statistical
mechanics and another from quantum statistical mechanics. I argue that they are
partially successful, and that each makes for a promising line of future research.


We propose a paradigm called Skin-On interfaces, in which interactive devices have their own (artificial) skin, thus enabling new forms of input gestures for end-users (e.g. twist, scratch). Our work explores the design space of Skin-On interfaces by following a bio-driven approach: (1) From a sensory point of view, we study how to reproduce the look and feel of the human skin through three user studies;(2) From a gestural point of view, we explore how gestures naturally performed on skin can be transposed to Skin-On interfaces; (3) From a technical point of view, we explore and discuss different ways of fabricating interfaces that mimic human skin sensitivity and can recognize the gestures observed in the previous study; (4) We assemble the insights of our three exploratory facets to implement a series of Skin-On interfaces and we also contribute by providing a toolkit that enables easy reproduction and fabrication.


Applications that adapt to a particular end user often make inaccurate predictions during the early stages when training data is limited. Although an end user can improve the learning algorithm by labeling more training data, this process is time consuming and too ad hoc to target a particular area of inaccuracy. To solve this problem, we propose a new learning algorithm based on Locally Weighted Logistic Regression for feature labeling by end users, enabling them to point out which features are important for a class, rather than provide new training instances. In our user study, the first allowing ordinary end users to freely choose features to label directly from text documents, our algorithm was more effective than others at leveraging end users' feature labels to improve the learning algorithm. Our results strongly suggest that allowing users to freely choose features to label is a promising method for allowing end users to improve learning algorithms effectively.


The road construction industry faces a shortage of naturally occurring gravel materials that meet the requirements for base or even at times sub-base quality. This situation is exacerbated in some cases by the occurrence of mica in soils. This is reported to significantly affect the engineering properties of materials, including plasticity index and compacted density. The objective of this paper is to investigate the influence of mica on the unconfined compressive strength (UCS) and volumetric changes of a cement-treated gravel material. Free mica (muscovite) was added in predetermined percentages by mass to neat gravel (G5) and specimens subjected to a series of standard laboratory tests. The results show that UCS of greater than 3 MPa is achievable by stabilising less than 5% mica content gravel material with at least 4% cement. Mica content beyond 10% results in very low UCS, even for cement content greater than 6%.


Margaret Thatcher was the first woman to become Prime Minister of the UK. It has been claimed, however, that she did little for the cause of women. Part of the problem is Thatcher made clear that while she was a woman she thought of herself as a politician first. In this chapter we consider the linguistic consequences of adopting such a position, and we argue that Thatcher used specific discourse structures conducive to the adversarial style of the British parliament. As this style has been equated with male discourse patterns some argue that Thatcher adopted male linguistic norms. However, adversarial styles are not inherently "male" and we consider whether Thatcher was speaking like a man or merely as a politician.


Can constitutions successfully constrain the exercise of the treaty power? This article examines the French Constitution of 1958 as a case study. The founders of the Fifth Republic drafted provisions intended to protect national sovereignty, as the Gaullists understood that concept, against inroads resulting from international agreements. Looking back fifty years later, it is clear that those protective efforts did not succeed. The sequence of events by which the constraints were loosened or evaded may represent one nation's particular history, but they illustrate the limited capacity of constitutional restrictions to control international commitments in the long term.


The historical study of mercantile law has, without a question, much to teach both business and private international lawyers. Such study requires a sophisticated methodology that combines the rigour of professional historians with understanding of doctrinal complexity. However, most of the popular historical narratives about the "old" law merchant have little to contribute to historical scholarship and appear instead primarily concerned with genealogy: their principal aim is to inspire their audience or to provide argumentative weapons to their party in the modern debates about lex mercatoria and the governance of transnational business activities. In comprehensive historical accounts and casual references to a common historical consciousness alike, the "ancient" law merchant is presented as an autonomous, cosmopolitan, transnational legal system. This imagery is also recurring in the modern conflict-of-laws literature, as well as domestic commercial law. It permeates historical narratives in comparative law and doctrinal legal history. The ancient law merchant even serves as case-study material for legal and economic theorists. The power of this historical imagery masks its weak historical validation. Especially in recent years, a number of legal historians have refuted much of lex mercatoria genealogy, providing alternative stories about the legal treatment of commerce in medieval and early modern Europe. However, such historical revisionism has so far made few inroads among mercatorists or even in the mainstream of international business law: the romance of the law merchant still casts a powerful spell.That the mercatorists' historical imagery persists in spite of these refutations suggests that what matters, for the debate, is not so much what actually happened, but what projections into the past align best with present circumstances and what constructions of the past are used to justify explanations of the present. On the one hand, historical narratives as a whole support the notion of a transnational, cosmopolitan law merchant. On the other hand, when examined in detail or in contrast to each other they illustrate the internal divisions within the mercatorist alliance. In an earlier study that illustrated this point [Hatzimihail, "The Many Lives - and Faces - of the Lex Mercatoria: History as Genealogy in International Business Law", 71 L. & CONTEMP. PROBS. 169 (2008)], I examined in detail two paradigmatic narratives of lex mercatoria historiography: the principal historical accounts provided by the two founding fathers of the modern lex mercatoria, Clive Schmitthoff and Berthold Goldman. Schmitthoff and Goldman were instrumental in the formation and shaping of the lex mercatoria discourse from its beginnings in the early 1960s until the late 1980s. More generally, they played important roles in the academic elaboration of international commercial law and international commercial arbitration. They are also regarded as emblematic of the two basic approaches to lex mercatoria—with Schmitthoff emphasizing the use of state and nonstate sources, and Goldman insisting on the stateless (a-national) character of lex mercatoria. Of their many works, I chose for my textual analysis two classic essays providing a comprehensive outlook of the authors' respective worldviews and normative projects: genealogical narratives form a vital part of the argument in both essays.The present essay largely reprises my previous examination of Schmitthoff's and Goldman's historical narratives, in Sections III and IV respectively. It also includes a third case study – the mercatorist historical narrative of Friedrich Juenger, a private international lawyer sympathetic to lex mercatoria (Section V). Unlike Schmitthoff and Goldman, Juenger is not a canonical figure of lex mercatoria, but his text is characteristic of his own discourse and relates to the two canonical narratives. The three texts considered are also separated by each other chronologically by a distance of around two decades: Schmitthoff in the early 1960s, Goldman in the early 1980s and Juenger in 2000. The different point in time that each was written should probably be taken into account, as having somewhat influenced both the ideas expressed and their explicitness (indeed, the point in each author's career at the time of writing must be also be considered), but the ideas expressed here continue to represent different streams of thought that remain alive – and distinct – to this day. It would be a mistake, therefore, to see the three texts as representing a unitary evolution of thinking about lex mercatoria, old and new.The three case studies are preceded by another sort of genealogy in Section II: a survey of historical invocations from the early modern era to the early twentieth century, i.e. the period prior to the emergence of a new lex mercatoria.


In the last few years various formats of digital communication on the internet have created new opportunities for scientific critique and controversy. Based on detailed case studies conducted within the framework of a major project, the present article discusses the possible impact of such formats on the practice of scientific controversy. In addition to providing a space for factual scientific information, formats like mailing lists, blogs, and open peer review journals are used as platforms for critical reviews and polemical exchanges. These new media have the potential to change three important aspects of scientific communication, the spread of scientific information, the speed of publication, and the amount of interactivity between scholars. For example, some forms of open peer review not only organize an accelerated and publicly visible reviewing process, but also encourage authors to reply to criticism and permit a wider scientific public to join in the critical discussion. So this format potentially contributes to an increase in transparency and interactivity of the reviewing process, thereby offering opportunities for clarification and further development of ideas. In these new digital formats traditional rules and patterns of controversy are often retained, but there are also new communicative tasks which call for new or modified principles and strategies. The article aims to show characteristic structures, opportunities and problems of polemical interactions conducted in these formats.


Intentional cruelty to animals (CTA) by children and the implications thereof have been examined theoretically and empirically for many years, and there is now a well-developed literature base suggesting that this type of aberrant behavior warrants close (and immediate) attention, especially from clinicians, for a number of reasons. Research suggests there may be links between CTA and later aggression and/or violence towards humans as well as other problematic behaviors. Despite this the main diagnostic tool for most practising psychologists in Australia, the
 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV-TR
 (
 American Psychological Association (APA), 2000
 ), only includes CTA as a diagnostic feature in Conduct Disorder (CD). One implication of this limited inclusion may be that psychologists overlook disclosures of CTA in cases where CD is not indicated, thereby missing an important 'red flag' for other behavioral and emotional disturbances and/or abuse. The current study presents the findings from a survey completed by a sample of practicing psychologists in Queensland, Australia (n=69) that uses two vignettes (drawn from real case studies) to investigate the attention paid, and importance ascribed, to disclosures of intentional animal harm and the psychologists' intentions to treat CTA. While there was a high level of agreement across the sample regarding the key clinical indicators (and suggested diagnosis) for each vignette, most of the participants endorsed CTA as a key indicator only within the vignette that met the criteria for a CD diagnosis. Even when CTA was acknowledged as a significant indicator, few listed it as a primary area for intervention. The implications of this along with the differing patterns of endorsement across regional/rural and metropolitan-based psychologists are discussed.


This paper searches to understand the developmental state and its historical role in the industrial revolution and after it. First, the developmental state is defined as an alternative to the liberal state. Second, it was in the framework of a developmental state that industrial revolutions took place, and four models of developmental state are defined. Third, after the industrial revolution, the state withdraws partially from the economy, but the developmental state continues to have a major role in assuring the general conditions that make competitive the competent business enterprises in each country – in conducing an active macroeconomic policy, particularly an exchange rate policy, in coordinating the non-competitive industries, and in conducing strategic industrial and technological policy. The paper concludes by comparing developmentalism with nationalism.


Due to their low cost and small form factors, a large number of sensor nodes can be deployed in redundant fashion in dense sensor networks. The availability of redundant nodes increases network lifetime as well as network fault tolerance. It is, however, undesirable to keep all the sensor nodes active at all times for sensing and communication. An excessive number of active nodes lead to higher energy consumption and it places more demand on the limited network bandwidth. We present an efficient technique for the selection of active sensor nodes in dense sensor networks. The active node selection procedure is aimed at providing the highest possible coverage of the sensor field, i.e., the surveillance area. It also assures network connectivity for routing and information dissemination. We first show that the coverage-centric active nodes selection problem is NP-complete. We then present a distributed approach based on the concept of a connected dominating set (CDS). We prove that the set of active nodes selected by our approach provides full coverage and connectivity. We also describe an optimal coverage-centric centralized approach based on integer linear programming. We present simulation results obtained using an ns2 implementation of the proposed technique.


The cerebral wall of the human fetal brain is composed of transient cellular compartments, which show characteristic spatiotemporal relationships with intensity of major neurogenic events (cell proliferation, migration, axonal growth, dendritic differentiation, synaptogenesis, cell death, and myelination). The aim of the present study was to obtain new quantitative data describing volume, surface area, and thickness of transient compartments in the human fetal cerebrum. Forty-four postmortem fetal brains aged 13–40 postconceptional weeks (PCW) were included in this study. High-resolution T1 weighted MR images were acquired on 19 fetal brain hemispheres. MR images were processed using in-house software (MNI-ACE toolbox). Delineation of fetal compartments was performed semi-automatically by co-registration of MRI with histological sections of the same brains, or with the age-matched brains from Zagreb Neuroembryological Collection. Growth trajectories of transient fetal compartments were reconstructed. The composition of telencephalic wall was quantitatively assessed. Between 13 and 25 PCW, when the intensity of neuronal proliferation decreases drastically, the relative volume of proliferative (ventricular and subventricular) compartments showed pronounced decline. In contrast, synapse- and extracellular matrix-rich subplate compartment continued to grow during the first two trimesters, occupying up to 45% of telencephalon and reaching its maximum volume and thickness around 30 PCW. This developmental maximum coincides with a period of intensive growth of long cortico-cortical fibers, which enter and wait in subplate before approaching the cortical plate. Although we did not find significant age related changes in mean thickness of the cortical plate, the volume, gyrification index, and surface area of the cortical plate continued to exponentially grow during the last phases of prenatal development. This cortical expansion coincides developmentally with the transformation of embryonic cortical columns, dendritic differentiation, and ingrowth of axons. These results provide a quantitative description of transient human fetal brain compartments observable with MRI. Moreover, they will improve understanding of structural-functional relationships during brain development, will enable correlation between in vitro/in vivo imaging and fine structural histological studies, and will serve as a reference for study of perinatal brain injuries.


Most of us have been taught in school that the heart is constantly responding to "orders" sent by the brain in the form of neural signals. However, it is not as commonly known that the heart actually sends more signals to the brain than the brain sends to the heart! Moreover, these heart signals have a significant effect on brain function—influencing emotional processing as well as higher cognitive faculties such as attention, perception, memory, and problem-solving. In other words, not only does the heart respond to the brain, but the brain continuously responds to the heart.


Popular science fiction often proffers the Holodeck vision for future immersive media: a seamless and transparent interface connecting users to a virtual world where they transform into a story character and influence unfolding events. In my dissertation, I offer empirical observations on a discussion that has been largely theoretical to this point. I explore the psychological concept of user engagement through an immersive and interactive story experience called AR Facade. In the experience, the "player" interfaces with an animated married couple through an augmented reality (AR) interface that allows for unconstrained body movement and speech communication. The player finds herself in the middle of a marital conflict and can influence how the social scenario plays out through her actions and statements. I have studied the AR Facade experience from the user perspective by conducting mixed-method investigations in two instantiations: our proof of concept lab demo at Georgia Tech and an eleven-week gallery installation at the Beall Center for Art and Technology in Irvine, CA.
My thesis challenges the assumptions ingrained in the Holodeck vision by offering empirical evidence that immersive display technology both supports and counteracts the experiential pleasures sought by proponents of the Holodeck medium. Focusing on the experiential aspects of the human-computer interface, I examine how a media experience changes when going from traditional desktop interaction to immersive augmented reality. While the goal of many presence researchers is to strive for an "illusion of non-mediation," I conclude that explicit mediation may be required for reaching embodied narrative engagement. An immersive interface should be mediated to provide clear mechanics to support player agency (the feeling of empowerment over events) and allow the player to manage their distance from the designated character role. In the process of presenting evidence for my claim, I clarify the terminology across the stakeholder disciplines and present an empirical case study that spans media theory, design practice, and computer science.


Macbridea alba (Lamiaceae) is a Federally threatened plant endemic to Florida. Seedlings are rarely observed in natural populations, but seed production has been documented. We assessed the germinability of dry-stored seeds and of experimentally buried seeds, and sampled soil to detect a persistent seed bank. More than 20% of recorded seeds germinated prior to collection, either within the calyx (viviparous seedlings) or after dispersal into the collection bag. This pre-collection germination indicated that a significant percentage of seeds lack innate dormancy. An estimated 87% of dry-stored seeds were germinable for six months following dispersal, but viability of dry-stored and of buried seeds was negligible after one year. No seedlings emerged from soil that was field collected just prior to seed dispersal, indicating no persistent seed bank. Seed viability does not appear to limit establishment, but dry conditions coincident with likely autumn establishment may limit seedling safe site availability.


In this paper we explore a new approach to estimation for autoregressive panel data models, based on projecting the unobserved individual effects on the vector of observations on the lagged dependent variable. This approach yields estimators which coincide with known generalised method of moments (GMM) estimators for models where stationarity is not imposed on the initial conditions and for models which satisfy mean stationarity. Our approach allows us to obtain a simple linear estimator for models which satisfy covariance stationarity, which although not fully efficient performs very well in simulations.


Judge Richard Posner is a leading commentator on national security and terrorism. He has recently produced an overview of the constitutional aspects of national security law, (1) as well as a string of books on the optimal design of intelligence agencies and the political and institutional problems that block access to the optimum; (2) his work on catastrophes includes an analysis of the risks of catastrophic terrorism. (3) It thus seems fitting to examine his most prominent judicial encounter with themes of security and liberty: the litigation in which a group of civil liberties organizations--the Alliance To End Repression--obtained consent decrees to constrain the antiterrorism efforts and investigative practices of the United States and the City of Chicago, only to have the consent decrees narrowly construed or modified by Judge Posner and his colleagues. Two major decisions resulted ("the Alliance To End Repression cases"), one in 1984, (4) the other in 2001. (5) I focus on the 2001 decision, which contains a more expansive discussion of Judge Posner's views on security and liberty. I begin with a positive claim. The Alliance To End Repression cases are best understood as a judicial contribution to a larger trend in national security law: the loosening of constraints on executive power set in place after Watergate. Turning then to normative questions, the largest claim of the Alliance To End Repression cases is that, as of 2001, increasing the risk of executive abuse of civil liberties is the inevitable byproduct of moving toward the best overall set of security policies. Executive abuses are just a cost; they should not be minimized, but optimized. This approach--what we may call the tradeoff theory of security and liberty--is conceptually problematic but has pragmatic appeal. It is thus authentically Posnerian. Finally, and more broadly, I use the Alliance To End Repression opinions to illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of the pragmatic approach to adjudication that Posner the legal theorist has championed. The 2001 opinion that liberated Chicago officials to take more aggressive antiterrorist measures seems not only forward-looking but almost prescient in light of the events of 9/11. However, the opinion may not have had an adequate basis in then-extant evidence about terrorist threats; there is a whiff of armchair empiricism about it. Relatedly, the opinion embodies a style of judging that may well misfire in the hands of judges of average competence. Despite these concerns, Judge Posner was undeniably right, in hindsight, and being right is the ultimate pragmatic virtue. I. BACKGROUND Here is Judge Posner's arresting description of the historical background of the Alliance To End Repression litigation: From the 1920s to the 1970s the intelligence division of the Chicago Police Department contained a unit nicknamed the "Red Squad" which spied on, infiltrated, and harassed a wide variety of political groups that included but were not limited to left- and right-wing extremists. Most of the groups, including most of the politically extreme groups, were not only lawful, and engaged in expressive activities protected by the First Amendment, but also harmless. The motives of the Red Squad were largely political and ideological, though they included a legitimate concern with genuine threats to public order. Demonstrations against U.S. participation in the Vietnam War that climaxed in the disruption of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, race riots in Chicago and other major cities in the same period, and the contemporaneous criminal activities of the Black Panthers, the Weathermen, and Puerto Rican separatists, all against a backdrop of acute racial and Cold War tensions, political assassinations (notably of President Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr.), and communist subversion, fueled a widespread belief in the need for zealous police activity directed against political militants. …


In this comment a challenge Kerr's claim that a coherent expression of a 'liberalism of freedom' needs an extended first Rawlsian principle of justice incorporating the principle of fair equality of opportunity for two reasons. First, such an extended first principle leads to illiberal consequences by narrowing down the scope of individual responsibility for choice and effort way too much. Second, such an extended first principle misses a main Rawlsian insight, namely that in a theory of justice the principle securing basic liberties and the principle of fair equality of opportunity serve different purposes.


The interactions between heterotrophic microbes and high‐molecular‐weight (HMW) dissolved organic carbon in estuaries are complex and poorly understood. This study examined the coupling between hydrolysis of HMW carbohydrates (polysaccharides) and uptake of monosaccharides by bacterioplankton along a salinity gradient in the Chesapeake Bay water column and nearby coastal waters in order to evaluate the potential importance of polysaccharides as a carbon source for the estuarine microbial loop. We measured the rates of enzymatic hydrolysis of six polysaccharides (arabinogalactan, chondroitin sulfate, fucoidin, laminarin, pullulan, and xylan) as well as total carbohydrate and monosaccharide concentrations, bacterioplankton abundance, and monosaccharide assimilation rates. Enzymatic hydrolysis rates were sufficiently rapid to produce on a daily basis 40‐62% of the monosaccharides present in Chesapeake Bay surface waters but a lower percentage (23%) of monosaccharides present in surface water on the continental shelf. Rates of both monosaccharide assimilation and polysaccharide hydrolysis were markedly lower on the continental shelf than in the Chesapeake Bay. These measurements suggest that at the time of sampling, polysaccharides in the Chesapeake Bay were rapidly recycled, while rates of cycling were considerably slower on the nearby continental shelf. In contrast to the apparently rapid turnover of bulk polysaccharides, hydrolysis of two polysaccharides, pullulan and chondroitin sulfate, was essentially undetectable, implying that those substrates would be unavailable to the microbial communities sampled on a timescale of 10 d.


In this paper, we investigate the long run dynamics of the intraday range of the GBP/USD, JPY/USD and CHF/USD exchange rates. We use a non-parametric filter to extract the low frequency component of the intraday range, and model the cyclical deviation of the range from the long run trend as a stationary autoregressive process. We find that the long run trend is time-varying but highly persistent, while the cyclical component is strongly mean reverting. This has important implications for modelling and forecasting volatility over both short and long horizons. As an illustration, we use the cyclical volatility model to generate out-of-sample forecasts of exchange rate volatility for horizons of up to one year under the assumption that the long run trend is fully persistent. As a benchmark, we compare the forecasts of the cyclical volatility model with those of the two-factor intraday range-based EGARCH model of Brandt and Jones (2006). Not only is the cyclical volatility model significantly easier to estimate than the EGARCH model, but it also offers a substantial improvement in out-of-sample forecast performance.


Universal fast broadband is currently being implemented by the Australian government. It is the largest single project in Australia's history. Represented as a nation-building exercise by the government and many public and private promoters, it is vilified by others as a massive waste of taxpayers' money. Ultimately the target of successful universal availability will require that metropolitan installations subsidize rural adoption. The take-up of these facilities, particularly in regional and remote areas, constitutes a complex, multifactorial scenario in which political, personal, and organizational decisions are shaped by physical, cultural, economic, and ideological elements. Critical realism is proposed here as an aid for examining the complex reality of rural adoption for communities and small businesses in the regions. This article highlights the importance of considering individual reflexivity in explaining the adoption decision and potential adoption barriers.


Many Networked Control Systems (NCS) comprise several control loops that are closed over a network of computation nodes. In those systems, periodic, sporadic and non-periodic packets share the network bandwidth, complex timing behavior and communication lead to delay and jitter, which both degrade the control performance. That is to say the performance of NCS is determined not only by control algorithms, but also by the quality of serves (QoS) of network. Therefore, the network QoS must be considered during the controller synthesis. Also, the control performance should be taken into account during system scheduling. In this paper, a control–scheduling co-design method that integrates controller and scheduler design is proposed. The transmission periods of control packets are calculated to optimize the overall performance of control loops. The transmission phases and resource utilization of sporadic and non-periodic packets are controlled by the resource reservation server running on each node to guarantee the temporal requirements of those data and also to limit the effect on the transmission of control packets. Further more, a harmonization algorithm of transmission periods of packets is also presented to improve the bandwidth utilization. An integrated simulation platform based on Truetime is present, and the experimental results show that the scheme is more effective than the former ones.


Heritage in its very diverse forms has become a significant force in contemporary society. This is manifested by the importance of heritage in shaping identities, the use of heritage by political forces, and the increasing interconnectedness of heritage, the entertainment business and tourism. Heritage is a part of tangible reality while at the same time being an intangible phenomenon. Heritage connects people to each other and to the environment, both its material and natural aspects, therefore forming part of our world. By relying on heritage, recreating it and attributing important meanings to it, people shape the way societies function.
The aim of this article is to create a conceptual framework for treating the preservation of intangible cultural heritage. In order to do that, I will use the concept of heritage on the one hand and the information ecological approach on the other hand. The article proposes to create a clearer conceptual framework for treating intangible cultural heritage, with the main emphasis on the preservation aspect. Heritage can be considered from very different aspects, from its philosophical meaning to highly technical conservation proceedings. In this article, I proceed from the idea that heritage is a phenomenon currently being created by people, i.e. from the principle of socio-cultural construction. Of course, this is just one possible way to interpret and utilise the past.
It is clear that the treatment of heritage in this way poses a serious challenge to preservation – how should the heritage process be preserved? In my discussion of the heritage process, I use the information ecology framework, mainly drawing on ideas of Bonnie Nardi and Vicky O'Day. Information ecology is a system of people, activities, and technologies in a specific local environment. The information ecologic system is an intertwined network of a specific group of people and their tools and activities. The information ecological approach is characterised by systematicity, diversity, co-evolution and locality. All these aspects are also very important when it comes to intangible heritage.
It is evident from the information ecological perspective that preservation of heritage is not a neutral technical activity but rather a social process, in the course of which values and meanings are created, changed and preserved. In preserving heritage, it is important to consider both the heritage itself and the level of society in the framework of which the management takes place. With intangible heritage, it is important to differentiate between individuals and families, groups and communities who practice it. At the national and international levels, specific heritage practices can be recognised and supported, but determining these practices and their actual preservation takes place at the community and individual levels.
In order to preserve intangible heritage, we need to support the people, groups and communities who use and develop the given tradition. This means supporting a social and cultural process, in the event that such support is needed in the first place. Communities use intangible heritage to fix their current problems. These aims might not overlap with the national and international goals of preservation.
To sum up information ecological principles from the aspect of preserving intangible heritage, what has to be emphasised is the importance of systemic treatment. People practicing heritage skills, their clients, researchers, preservers of heritage and community activists, to name just a few stakeholders, should form an integral system. Different parties are bound to see the system from different perspectives; on the one hand, this cannot be avoided, on the other hand, it is a barrier that needs to be overcome. What is extremely important is the reflection of the so-called grass-roots level perspective, expressed in the subjective view of the person with heritage skills, when determining and preserving heritage. When treating the functions of heritage skills, in addition to their economic significance, which often prevails, what needs to be observed is also the role of these skills in shaping community identities and in creating and preserving social cohesion, but also as parts of education and the wider social communication system. Via heritage skills, meanings are created and values are presented to the community and to society as a whole. I think the fact that heritage participates in the creation of value environments is what guarantees heritage a place in contemporary information society.


The present study investigates adult imitations of infant vocalizations in a cross-linguistic perspective. Japanese-learning and Swedish-learning infants were recorded at ages 16-21 and 78-79 weeks. Vowel-like utterances (n=210) were selected from the recordings and presented to Japanese (n=3) and Swedish (n=3) adults. The adults were asked to imitate what they heard, simulating a spontaneous feedback situation between caregiver and infant. Formant data (F1 and F2) was extracted from all utterances and validated by comparing original and formant re-synthesized utterances. The data was normalized for fundamental frequency and time, and the accumulated spectral difference was calculated between each infant utterance and each imitation of that utterance. The mean spectral difference was calculated and compared, grouped by native language of infant and adult, as well as age of the infant. Preliminary results show smaller spectral difference in the imitations of older infants compared to imitations of the younger group, regardless of infant and adult native language. This may be explained by the increasing stability and more speech-like quality of infants' vocalizations as they grow older (and thus have been exposed to their native language for a longer period of time), making their utterances easier for adults to imitate.


Melody estimation algorithms are typically evaluated by separately assessing the task of voice activity detection and fundamental frequency estimation. For both subtasks, computed results are typically compared to a single human reference annotation. This is problematic since different human experts may differ in how they specify a predominant melody, thus leading to a pool of equally valid reference annotations. In this paper, we address the problem of evaluating melody extraction algorithms within a jazz music scenario. Using four human and two automatically computed annotations, we discuss the limitations of standard evaluation measures and introduce an adaptation of Fleiss' kappa that can better account for multiple reference annotations. Our experiments not only highlight the behavior of the different evaluation measures, but also give deeper insights into the melody extraction task.


Abstract The concept of reurbanisation is discussed in this article from theoretical and methodological perspectives. Reurbanisation has been defined as one of the stages of urban development recently, but it is also tied to processes of gentrification, or perceived as a policy aimed at the revitalisation of inner cities. The main objective of this contribution is to discuss three principal and different perspectives of reurbanisation: firstly, reurbanisation as defined on the macro-scale of settlement system development; secondly, the concept as elaborated at the micro-scale of the transformation of inner cities; and, thirdly, reurbanisation viewed as a specific urban policy at the local government scale of analysis. The authors' singular understanding of the reurbanisation process – as suburban-to-urban migration – is then presented as an alternative conceptualization of reurbanisation. This paper presents and evaluates the use of the reurbanisation concept in research on residential environments in current conditions in the Czech Republic and relates it to the broader domain of research on post-socialist cities.


Spatial and temporal variation in recruitment can be the leading determinant of popu- lation fluctuations in species with pelagic larval stages. Characterizing and identifying the causes of such variation is, therefore, necessary to understand population dynamics, and to develop conserva- tion and management strategies. We examined spatial patterns in settlement and recruitment of the intertidal barnacles Jehlius cirratus, Notochthamalus scabrosus and Notobalanus flosculus, and their relationships with environmental variables operating at meso- (sea surface temperature, SST) and small (local topography) scales. Settlement and recruitment were studied over 6 mo at biweekly intervals at 16 sites along 120 km of coastline in central Chile. All species showed similar temporal patterns, with a peak in settlement and recruitment during austral spring. We decomposed the spa- tial patterns into their corresponding meso-scale trend (from a few to 10s of kilometers) and into their small-scale (site) residual variation. Recruitment of chthamaloid species was highly and positively correlated at meso- and small-scales, and the among-site rankings showed consistency of the spatial structure throughout the recruitment season. SST explained a significant fraction of the variance in recruitment of the chthamaloids at the meso-scale, and spatial analysis showed coincident decorrela- tion scales of about 35 km for SST and recruitment. In contrast, recruitment of balanoid species did not show a clear spatial structure, was not associated with meso-scale variation in SST, and local topography seemed to play a significant role in their settlement. Topographically modified upwelling dynamics over scales of 10s of kilometers is the most plausible factor shaping meso-scale variation in recruitment of chthamaloid barnacles, whereas settlement and recruitment of balanoid species seem more strongly influenced by processes acting at local scales. The spatial scale and structure of recruitment provide guidelines for the placement and spacing of protected areas in the region.


The goal of this Master's thesis film project was twofold. First, I wanted to explore the problem, huge but relatively unknown, of the ownership of exotic pets in the United States of America. Second, in conjunction with that problem, I wanted to see how Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge (TCWR) approached it and what, as an organization, they do to help resolve this problem locally and nationally. In turn, the film also provides an in-depth look at a very unique refuge in the state of Arkansas. Using my own equipment, I shot and edited a short-form documentary about TCWR. The film is comprised of interviews and footage of the refuge and staff located just outside of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. The idea for this film came from a combination of two completely different subjects: nuclear missiles and elephants. During my coursework at the University of Arkansas, I completed another film about a now defunct nuclear missile program that was located in Arkansas. The idea that something so powerful, yet unknown to the general public, existed in this state, made me want to find any other secrets that Arkansas still had. As I was posing this idea, I stumbled upon a painting by Sue Coe called "The Death of Jumbo." The scene depicts the once famous circus elephant Jumbo being hit by a locomotive. It brought up the question, what happens to these exotic animals after their "show days" are over? With some guidance from my professors, I was encouraged to investigate two such sanctuaries that existed in Arkansas: Riddle's Elephant and Wildlife Sanctuary and TCWR. After talking with the staff at TCWR, I knew I had a story. What followed was two years of research and filming about a little refuge on top of a hill that has one message: Big cats do not make good pets.


The purpose of this action research project was to determine commonly reported barriers impacting inclusion in a child care setting. Data was collected through qualitative survey responses via an electronic survey and a small focus group of child care providers. Analysis of the data collected suggested that low wages in child care, home child care, and other communitybased settings made it difficult to recruit qualified personnel to support quality inclusion in child care. Additionally, transportation and limited funding opportunities were challenges for inclusion in child care programs.


In this work, we propose a parallel algorithm for image segmentation. Our method is an unsupervised image segmentation procedure, which is a combination of a graph based image segmentation algorithm and parallel Fiedler vector computation algorithm. In this work, whole image is handled as a weighted graph, whose vertices are the pixels. As the segmentation method, we use Fiedler vector, which is the eigenvector which corresponds to the second smallest eigenvalue of the graph Laplacian matrix. Laplacian matrices belonging to big images can be undesirably large, thus the Laplacian matrix of an M ×N sized image has the size of (M × N) × (M × N). Parallelization is needed since the calculation of Fiedler vector with a serial algorithm is time consuming and the Laplacian matrix is large. The visual results of segmentation process is satisfactory and also scale-up for parallelization is well for at least 64 processors.


Orthogonal subspace projection (OSP) has been successfully applied in hyperspectral image processing. In order for the OSP to be effective, the number of bands must be no less than that of signatures to be classified. This ensures that there are sufficient dimensions to accommodate orthogonal projections resulting from the individual signatures. Such inherent constraint is not an issue for hyperspectral images since they generally have hundreds of bands, which is more than the number of signatures resident within images. However, this may not be true for multispectral images where the number of signatures to be classified is greater than the number of bands such as three-band pour l'observation de la terra (SPOT) images. This paper presents a generalization of the OSP called generalized OSP (GOSP) that relaxes this constraint in such a manner that the OSP can be extended to multispectral image processing in an unsupervised fashion. The idea of the GOSP is to create a new set of additional bands that are generated nonlinearly from original multispectral bands prior to the OSP classification. It is then followed by an unsupervised OSP classifier called automatic target detection and classification algorithm (ATDCA). The effectiveness of the proposed GOSP is evaluated by SPOT and Landsat TM images. The experimental results show that the GOSP significantly improves the classification performance of the OSP.


Discussion in the community has begun to question whether RFC 3683 and
RFC 3934 provide the appropriate flexibility for managing Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF) mailing lists. This document is an RFC
3933 experiment designed to allow the community to experiment with a
broader set of tools for mailing list management while trying to
determine what the long-term guidelines should be. This memo defines
an Experimental Protocol for the Internet community.


This review puts a corporate finance lens on microfinance. Microfinance aims to democratize global financial markets through new contracts, organizations, and technology. We explain the roles that government agencies and socially minded investors play in supporting the entry and expansion of private intermediaries in the sector, and we disentangle debates about competing social and commercial firm goals. We frame the analysis with theory that explains why microfinance institutions serving lower-income communities charge high interest rates, face high costs, monitor customers relatively intensively, and have limited ability to lever assets. The analysis blurs traditional dividing lines between nonprofits and for-profits and places focus on the relationship between target market, ownership rights, and access to external capital.


Abstract Data on 324 Holstein bulls from the July 1983 USDA Sire Summary and Holstein Association type evaluations were analyzed using multiple regression to determine which traits or combination of traits in a sire evaluation are most important in determining the price of a straw of semen. Over all bull studs, type was a major economic influence in determining price of semen. When bulls with outlier prices ($100 or more) were excluded, relative economic values over all bull studs were 4.31:2.63:1 for milk, type, and fat test. For three bull studs with more than 35 bulls with evaluations for milk, type, and fat test, relative economic values (values per phenotypic standard deviation) were 3.16:1.35:1, 4.81:1.93:1, and 4.06:2.15:1. With so much economic emphasis on type and fat test, genetic gain in milk production from the sire of cow path would be substantially less than if selection were for milk production alone. Unusual bulls (outlier prices) were associated with nonlinear economic values. When outliers were excluded, models including functions of sire evaluations accounted for 50 to 75% of the variation in semen prices.


Short Message Service (SMS) has become a very commonly used service. It does not only work as a substitute for voice telephony, but is also used for automated services. Some of these service are related to security issues like SMS banking, or one time passwords, even though SMS messages can be spoofed or eavesdropped. We propose a design where we add security to SMS by making an easily configurable module that utilizes a fast cryptographic scheme called Elliptic Curve Signcryption. To prove our concept, we implement an SMS client for Android smart phones that utilizes our security module and serves end-to-end data protection of SMS messages with the same security level as Top Secret content.


Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1) plays an important role in the cellular response to stress and DNA damage. However, excessive activity of PARP-1 exacerbates brain injury via NAD+ depletion and energy failure. The purpose of this study was to determine if tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms (tSNPs) covering multiple regions of the PARP-1 gene are related to outcome after traumatic brain injury (TBI) in humans. DNA from 191 adult patients with severe TBI was assayed for four tSNPs corresponding to haplotype blocks spanning the PARP-1 gene. Categorization as favorable or poor outcome was based on Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS) score assigned at 6 months. PARP-1 enzyme activity was indirectly evaluated by quantifying poly-ADP-ribose (PAR)-modified proteins in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. In multiple logistic regression analysis controlling for age, initial Glasgow Coma Scale score, and gender, the AA genotype of SNP rs3219119 was an independent predictor of favorable neurologic outcome. This SNP tags a haplotype block spanning the automodification and catalytic domains of the PARP-1 gene. SNP rs2271347 correlated with CSF PAR-modified protein level. This SNP, which did not correlate with outcome, tags a haplotype block spanning the promoter region of the PARP-1 gene. We conclude that after severe TBI in humans, a PARP-1 polymorphism within the automodification-catalytic domain is associated with neurological outcome, while a polymorphism within the promoter region was associated with CSF PAR-modified protein level. These findings must be replicated in a prospective study before the relevance of PARP-1 polymorphisms after TBI can be established.


Hypertextuality has been a fundamental characteristic of the Web since its inception. It also impacts on journalism: the ability to link pages, sites and documents stands out as one of the features that essentially differentiates online news from other media. This paper investigates how prescriptive discourses about online journalism deal with hypertextuality. Focusing on hyperlinks as a concrete embodiment of the vague notion of hypertextuality, this project discusses how hyperlinks have been incorporated within the body of journalistic shared knowledge. We draw on a qualitative content analysis of journalism textbooks, as well as interviews with journalism educators in French-speaking Belgium. Analysing them qualitatively, we discuss how different traditional journalistic values are invoked and articulated when it comes to give guidelines about the ideal use of hyperlinks. Results highlight inherent contradictions between the values that are summoned, but we argue that such inconsistencies are constructive and that they are crucial for journalistic collective identities.


Since the early 1990's the World Bank has utilized the multi-pillar framework as a model for the design and evaluation of pension systems. This model is derived from the principle that the primary functions of pension systems, (poverty alleviation, consumption smoothing and insurance) are most effectively and sustainably performed when they are made transparent through separate and distinctive elements of the system. The model emphasizes the advantages of private management, pre-funding and managing risk through diversification among the pillars. The pension system of the Netherlands is considered in relation to this multi-pillar model. It is found to be well aligned with the anticipated structure and main principles of the model. It diverges from the ideals of the design primarily in the balance among the pillars and in the complex forms of hidden redistribution that are inherent to the collective occupational funds that are the dominant element of the Dutch system. Overall, the pension system of the Netherlands, consistent with other recent evaluations, is found to be among the most consistent with the benefit adequacy, sustainability and affordability objectives of the model and among the closest to the ideals of the framework to be found in the world today.


A cascaded-ring-resonator-loaded Mach–Zehnder modulator (CRR-MZM) is presented in which a number of cascaded ring resonators (RRs) are loaded in the interferometer as phase modulators. The ability of the design to provide enhanced modulation efficiency at a wide optical bandwidth is demonstrated in comparison with a conventional single-RR-type modulator without an interferometer. The optimization of RRs for the CRR-MZM is investigated experimentally by measuring the transmission spectra in both intensity and group delay of RRs having various structural parameters. Using the optimized parameters, we fabricated a CRR-MZM with 10 cascaded RRs loaded on each arm of the interferometer on a silicon-on-insulate substrate. The RRs had pin-diodes along the waveguides, which were operated with forward bias voltage. Its modulation efficiency was enhanced by a factor of 4.4 at the expense of additional loss of less than 3.5 dB compared with a standard non-resonant MZM. 10 Gb/s-operations of CRR-MZM were successfully demonstrated using pre-emphasized RF signals with amplitude of 1.5 Vpp in a wavelength range of 2 nm.


This research uses variance ratio analysis to test whether Middle Eastern, North African (MENA) and Pacific Basin emerging equity markets follow a martingale behavior during the period1980-2004. The conventional Lo and MacKinlay variance ratio test, the multiple variance ratio test of Chow and Denning, rank- and sign-based test of Wright, and wild bootstrap of Kim are used for the monthly return series. The problem of thin trading was addressed using Miller, Muthuswamy, and Whaley's adjusting procedure. Results have shown traces of a martingale behavior at high holding horizons. However, overall conclusions indicate that the null martingale hypothesis is strongly rejected for the whole sample and considered sub-periods at a 5% significance level. The pattern of the variance ratio estimates signify that the selected stock markets exhibit persistent mean-reverting and predictable behavior in their monthly adjusted returns series. The results expose the ineffectiveness of economic liberalization and privatization measures implemented in the early 1990s to improve their market efficiency. The Asian crisis did not affect the outcomes of the variance ratio analysis. Moreover, it sounds as if the perceptible development in terms of size and liquidity was not sufficient to exhibit a martingale behavior in these markets.


Several bird species feed on a variety of external parasites and epibionts, organic debris, dead and wounded tissue, clots and blood, and secretions from the body of other vertebrates (hosts or clients). We present an overview of so called cleaner birds from the Neotropics based on field records, literature, and photo survey. We found that 33 bird species in 16 families practice cleaning even if some of them do so very occasionally. The birds range from the Galapagos ground finch Geospiza fuliginosa to the widespread black vulture Coragyps atratus. Clients mostly are large herbivores such as capybaras, deer, and livestock, but also include medium-sized herbivores such as iguanas and tortoises, and carnivores such as boobies and seals - a few bird species associate with these latter marine mammals. No carnivorous terrestrial mammal client is recorded to date except for a domestic dog, from whose hair black vultures picked organic debris. Some clients adopt particular inviting postures while being cleaned, whereas others are indifferent or even disturbed by the activity of cleaner birds. Capybaras, giant tortoises, and iguanas are among the inviting clients, whereas boobies try to dislodge the 'vampire' finch Geospiza difficilis. Most of the Neotropical cleaner birds may be lumped in one broad category (omnivores that dwell in open areas and associate with large to medium-sized herbivores). A second, restricted category accommodates some species from Patagonia and the Galapagos Islands (omnivores that dwell in open areas and associate with carnivorous marine mammals, or seabirds and marine reptiles). Two still more restricted categories accommodate the following: 1) forest-dwelling cleaner birds; and 2) marine coastal cleaners. Additional records of Neotropical cleaner birds will mostly fall in the broad category.


The "default mode" for too many historians is a discredited view of time. Uncomfortable with disciplinary uncertainty and distrustful of disorder, historians resort to linear chronology and a conception of a neutral temporal framework whose origin is Newtonian. The author first draws on a variety of postmodern theorists to argue for the legitimacy of "multiple temporality" and a plurality of non-hegemonic cultural narratives. He then surveys developments in photography, the Western novel, Third World literature, sculpture, and recorded music. These aesthetic contexts display an extraordinary richness of temporal representation, a richness that historians would do well to attend to. Our technological environment, he concludes, has "refigured" both time and space in very Einsteinian ways. Thus, as post-modern culture multiplies temporal and narrative possibilities, it will become untenable to embrace conventional senses of linear chronology. Theorists discussed include Raymond Williams, Walter Benjamin, Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth and Roland Barthes. Analysis is of such artists as Faith Ringgold, Jenny Holzer, Ann Hamilton and Barbara Kruger.


Ghana, as the second largest global producer of cocoa, is strategically positioned on the world market. Consumer concerns over ethical and environmental issues associated with cocoa production are a potential threat to its position. These concerns have given rise to certification. Certification dictates the way cocoa can be produced and consequently affects producers' incomes and environmental services. The expected profitability, yield, and environmental impact of Rainforest Alliance certified shade-grown cocoa production (RA-Cocoa) is estimated and compared to an extensive shaded production system (Ext-Cocoa) and an intensified full sun production system (High-Tech). Ext-Cocoa represents most cocoa production systems in Ghana, while High-Tech is promoted by the government as a tool for attaining its target output of 1 million tons. Under the baseline assumptions High-Tech was the most profitable; RA-Cocoa generated positive returns, while Ext-cocoa was a break even proposition. Simulation of different policy scenarios did not affect the rank order of the baseline outcome. The Ext-Cocoa yield was 28% of the RA-Cocoa yield, which was 78% of the High-Tech yield. The environmental services maintained at the plot level of RA-Cocoa production system are greater than those of the High-Tech production system. However, the 228,000 ha of additional forest land required to produce 1 million tons with RA-Cocoa questions which system would impact environmental services the least.


Background The 2000 Vietnamese National Nutrition Survey showed that the population's dietary intake had improved since 1987. However, inequalities were found in food consumption between socioeconomic groups. As no national data exist on the prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies, a survey was conducted in 2010 to assess the micronutrient status of randomly selected 1526 women of reproductive age and 586 children aged 6–75 mo. Principal Findings In women, according to international thresholds, prevalence of zinc deficiency (ZnD, 67.2±2.6%) and vitamin B12 deficiency (11.7±1.7%) represented public health problems, whereas prevalence of anemia (11.6±1.0%) and iron deficiency (ID, 13.7±1.1%) were considered low, and folate (<3%) and vitamin A (VAD, <2%) deficiencies were considered negligible. However, many women had marginal folate (25.1%) and vitamin A status (13.6%). Moreover, overweight (BMI≥23 kg/m2 for Asian population) or underweight occurred in 20% of women respectively highlighting the double burden of malnutrition. In children, a similar pattern was observed for ZnD (51.9±3.5%), anemia (9.1±1.4%) and ID (12.9±1.5%) whereas prevalence of marginal vitamin A status was also high (47.3±2.2%). There was a significant effect of age on anemia and ID prevalence, with the youngest age group (6–17 mo) having the highest risk for anemia, ID, ZnD and marginal vitamin A status as compared to other groups. Moreover, the poorest groups of population had a higher risk for zinc, anemia and ID. Conclusion The prevalence of anemia and ID in Vietnam has been markedly reduced over the last decade, but a large part of the population is still at risk for other deficiencies such as zinc, vitamin A, folate and vitamin B12 especially the youngest children aged 6–17 mo. Consequently specific interventions to improve food diversity and quality should be implemented, among them food fortification of staple foods and condiments and improvement of complementary feeding.


Southern memoirs often follow a conventional pattern: a writer grows up in the South, experiences a crisis of identity with the cultural values, and eventually overcomes this tension by migrating North, through education, or both. A pattern typified in Katherine Du Pre Lumpkin's The Making of a Southerner and Lillian Smith's Killers of the Dream, southern memoirs often depict a writer who flees to find herself, only later to emerge as a more objective critic of the South. Such memoirs by southern whites often come to terms with a moment of crisis centered on race. While these moments of racial awareness may center on pivotal childhood experiences--Lumpkin witnessing her father abusing a black servant and Smith being told that white and colored children cannot play together--they are recounted by an adult who has fled the South and metaphorically returned through the writing of the memoir. In the second paragraph of Killers of the Dream, Smith explains: This haunted childhood belongs to every southerner of my age. We ran away from it but we came back like a hurt animal to its wound, or a murderer to the scene of his sin. The human heart dares not stay away too long from that which hurt it most. There is a return journey to anguish that few of us are released from making. (25-26) While these childhood moments set such writers on a path for understanding themselves and southern culture, the literal and figurative separation from the South enables these writers to write about race in such a forthright manner. Depicting the South as antagonistic to their development, such memoirs make it imperative that the writer transcend cultural constraints in order to achieve a sense of vision. Dennis Covington's Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia documents a spiritual journey into the heart of a marginalized religious culture, offering an inversion of this prototypical approach to southern memoirs. From the opening pages of Salvation on Sand Mountain, Covington centers on not race but religion as a key to understanding the South's identity, and he takes great pains to present a fair and sympathetic perspective of snake handlers and rural southerners alike. Covington's initial interest in snake handling culture begins when he is a journalist for The New York Times covering the Scottsboro, Alabama, trial of Reverend Glen Summerford, who is eventually convicted to serve ninety-nine years in prison for attempting to murder his wife with the same rattlesnakes used in the services of his church. Rather than viewing the trial as an amusing spectacle of southern freaks, Covington becomes fascinated with the earnest faith of the snake handlers. Covington's interest is not driven by mere curiosity; he becomes charmed with the snake handling culture in what amounts to gonzo journalism at its finest. Attracted to "the passion and abandon of their worship," Covington engages in a compassionate investigation into a culture that has been derided as grotesque (67). In what follows, I reveal how Covington employs a rhetorical approach of self-writing that is typical of southern identity memoirs while differing from their epistemology of cultural isolation. While many of these memoirs differ from Salvation on Sand Mountain in their writing about racial injustice and violence, I will show how Covington's focus on spiritual issues enables him to grapple with the same cumbersome history and social issues that have long plagued the South. By inverting the conventional pattern of transcendence, Covington generates a vision of southern identity in memoir that comes at a price: his descent into soul and south will involve a decentering of self, a disorientation that results from engaging in a snake-handling culture that also holds the key to his identity. In "Open Secrets: Memory, Imagination, and the Refashioning of Southern Identity," Jacquelyn Dowd Hall argues that Lumpkin's The Making of a Southerner perfectly exemplifies the memoir's dual function of self-expression and social commentary. …


I study selected fiscal policy issues both in the short-run and long-run using empirical methods. In Chapter 2, I investigate the effects of increases in U.S. government expenditures on the private sector in a real business cycle framework using maximum likelihood. I distinguish between the consumption and the investment expenditure components of government purchases. This makes the model sufficiently flexible to admit crowding-in and crowding-out effects of the two government expenditures separately. I show that a 1% increase in government consumption increases output by 1.5%, while a 1% increase in government investment increases output by 0.0085%. In Chapter 3, I analyze the international transmission of shocks to public expenditures in a two-country business cycle model of saving and investment under perfect international capital mobility. I test the model for its ability to account for some puzzles identified in the international real business cycle literature, specifically the low cross-country consumption correlations, and the positive correlation between national saving and investment over time. I show that a model with technology and government spending shocks quantitatively explains the low consumption correlations across countries and the high investment-saving correlation. In Chapter 4, we develop a new index which provides early warning signals of fiscal sustainability problems for advanced and emerging economies. We use the index to assess the build-up of fiscal stress over time since the mid-1990s in advanced and emerging economies. We show that fiscal stress has increased recently to record-high levels in advanced countries, reflecting raising solvency risks and financing needs. In emerging economies, we show that risks are lower than in mature economies owing to sounder fiscal fundamentals, but fiscal stress remains higher than before the crisis.


Introduction As a way to improve student academic performance, educators have begun paying special attention to computer games (Gee, 2005; Oblinger, 2006). Reflecting the interests of the educators, studies have been conducted to explore the effects of computer games on student achievement. However, there has been no consensus on the effects of computer games: Some studies support computer games as educational resources to promote students' learning (Annetta, Mangrum, Holmes, Collazo, & Cheng, 2009; Vogel et al., 2006). Other studies have found no significant effects on the students' performance in school, especially in math achievement of elementary school students (Ke, 2008). Researchers have also been interested in the differential effects of computer games between gender groups. While several studies have reported various gender differences in the preferences of computer games (Agosto, 2004; Kinzie & Joseph, 2008), a few studies have indicated no significant differential effect of computer games between genders and asserted generic benefits for both genders (Vogel et al., 2006). To date, the studies examining computer games and gender interaction are far from conclusive. Moreover, there is a lack of empirical studies examining the differential effects of computer games on the academic performance of diverse learners. These learners included linguistic minority students who speak languages other than English. Recent trends in the K-12 population feature the increasing enrollment of linguistic minority students, whose population reached almost four million (NCES, 2004). These students have been a grieve concern for American educators because of their reported low performance. In response, this study empirically examined the effects of math computer games on the math performance of 4th-graders with focused attention on differential effects for gender and linguistic groups. To achieve greater generalizability of the study findings, the study utilized a US nationally representative database--the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The following research questions guided the current study: 1. Are computer games in math classes associated with the 4th-grade students' math performance? 2. How does the relationship differ by linguistic group? 3. How does the association vary by gender? 4. Is there an interaction effect of computer games on linguistic and gender groups? In other words, how does the effect of computer games on linguistic groups vary by gender group? Literature review Academic performance and computer games According DeBell and Chapman (2004), of 58,273,000 students of nursery and K-12 school age in the USA, 56% of students played computer games. Along with the popularity among students, computer games have received a lot of attention from educators as a potential way to provide learners with effective and fun learning environments (Oblinger, 2006). Gee (2005) agreed that a game would turn out to be good for learning when the game is built to incorporate learning principles. Some researchers have also supported the potential of games for affective domains of learning and fostering a positive attitude towards learning (Ke, 2008; Ke & Grabowski, 2007; Vogel et al., 2006). For example, based on the study conducted on 1,274 1st- and 2nd-graders, Rosas et al. (2003) found a positive effect of educational games on the motivation of students. Although there is overall support for the idea that games have a positive effect on affective aspects of learning, there have been mixed research results regarding the role of games in promoting cognitive gains and academic achievement. In the meta-analysis, Vogel et al. (2006) examined 32 empirical studies and concluded that the inclusion of games for students' learning resulted in significantly higher cognitive gains compared with traditional teaching methods without games. …


This study measures the extent of cross-border geo-blocking and the impact on product availability and pricing for three non-audio-visual digital media products (music, e-books and games) in the EU Digital Single Market. We find that cross-border access to online media stores is generally blocked for the products and distributors surveyed in this study, though it can usually be circumvented. By contrast, cross-border availability is high, reaching around 98.6% for e-books on Amazon, 90% for downloadable music on iTunes, and 81.1% and 90.5% respectively for PS3 and PS4 PlayStation games. We could not directly verify cross-border availability of music in streaming services but a small sample test suggests that it could reach around 96% on Spotify. We find that the frequency of cross-country price differentiation is limited for games in the Sony PlayStation stores (less than 4%) but higher for downloadable music in the Apple iTunes stores (11.5%) and Amazon e-book stores (26%). Much of this price differentiation is driven by exchange rates and rounding off prices in country stores not denominated in Euro. In music, price discrimination is used mostly to extract higher prices from high-income consumers and for more popular songs with a lower price elasticity of demand. Subscription prices for main music streaming services are strongly correlated with country per capita income levels. Geographical market differentiation and geo-blocking in digital media is often attributed to the territoriality of the copyright management regime. In most cases rights holders are in a position to issue multi-territorial licenses. For commercial reasons however they may prefer to exercise their rights on a territorial basis. The welfare effect of geo-blocking on sellers can be safely assumed to be positive otherwise sellers would not apply this commercial strategy. The impact on consumer welfare is a-priori ambiguous. Geo-blocking reduces the extent of product variety available to consumers. Whether it increases or reduces consumer welfare is an empirical question. The data required to empirically estimate the impact of (lifting) geo-blocking restrictions on welfare are held by the private platform operators. A future assessment can only be made if the required data on product prices and sales are made available to independent researchers. Lifting geo-blocking restrictions will induce price arbitrage between country markets. That may put pressure on sellers to reduce price differentiation and push some prices up, others down. The price response of sellers is hard to predict and may have repercussions not only on downstream consumers but also on upstream parts of the supply chain. Price convergence is unlikely to be perfect and some differentiation may continue to exist because trade costs between country stores may not fall to zero (exchange rates, means of payment, linguistic trade barriers, etc.).


China has grown increasingly dependent on imports of oil and, as a consequence, has become a major and very visible player in the international energy markets. For a country which has traditionally been strongly committed to the principle of self-reliance, this dependence on foreign oil has been a source of vulnerability and anxiety. But it has also been a strategic opportunity for China to chart its own ambitions and objectives as a global economic and political actor. This article addresses the various ways in which China has incorporated its energy import needs within its foreign policy. There are, it is argued, three dimensions to this. There is, first, integration and cooperation with the West and other large oil-importing countries and a shift away from neo-mercantilism to a growing reliance on international markets. Second, there is a complementary strategy of balancing, which seeks to develop the energy resources close to its borders, in Russia and Central Asia, which are not so vulnerable to western intervention. And third, there is the construction, though preliminary and nascent at the moment, of a hegemonic order which challenges the US and the West in the critical maritime routes from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean and through to the Persian Gulf region.


Abstract. Modelling and monitoring of hydrological processes in the unsaturated zone of chalk, a porous medium with fractures, is important to optimize water resource assessment and management practices in the United Kingdom (UK). However, incorporating the processes governing water movement through a chalk unsaturated zone in a numerical model is complicated mainly due to the fractured nature of chalk that creates high-velocity preferential flow paths in the subsurface. In general, flow through a chalk unsaturated zone is simulated using the dual-porosity concept, which often involves calibration of a relatively large number of model parameters, potentially undermining applications to large regions. In this study, a simplified parameterization, namely the Bulk Conductivity (BC) model, is proposed for simulating hydrology in a chalk unsaturated zone. This new parameterization introduces only two additional parameters (namely the macroporosity factor and the soil wetness threshold parameter for fracture flow activation) and uses the saturated hydraulic conductivity from the chalk matrix. The BC model is implemented in the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES) and applied to a study area encompassing the Kennet catchment in the southern UK. This parameterization is further calibrated at the point scale using soil moisture profile observations. The performance of the calibrated BC model in JULES is assessed and compared against the performance of both the default JULES parameterization and the uncalibrated version of the BC model implemented in JULES. Finally, the model performance at the catchment scale is evaluated against independent data sets (e.g. runoff and latent heat flux). The results demonstrate that the inclusion of the BC model in JULES improves simulated land surface mass and energy fluxes over the chalk-dominated Kennet catchment. Therefore, the simple approach described in this study may be used to incorporate the flow processes through a chalk unsaturated zone in large-scale land surface modelling applications.


Anorexia and bulimia are on the increase in the Western world and the disease is now recognised to no longer be only a problem for teenage girls, but older women as well. Most older women either do now or did previously live with a partner and much attention has been paid to these relationships in devising therapeutic regimes. Eating Disorders and Marital Relationships takes a critical look at the evidence behind the assumption of psychiatric illness in the patients and their partners and comes up with some surprising results. Van den Broucke, Vandereycken and Norre carefully describe both the theoretical and practical implications of their work, making this book important reading for both practitioner and researcher.


After an extended period in which the European Community has merely nibbled at the edges of national contract law, the bite of a 'European contract law' has lately become more pronounced. Many areas of law, from competition and consumer law to gender equality law, are now the subject of determined efforts at harmonisation, though they are perhaps often seen as peripheral to mainstream commercial contract law. Despite continuing doubts about the constitutional competence of the Commission to embark on further harmonisation in this area, European contract law is now taking shape with the Commission prompting a debate about what it might attempt. A central aspect of this book is the report of a remarkable survey carried out by the Oxford Institute of European and Comparative Law in collaboration with Clifford Chance, which sought the views of European businesses about the advantages and disadvantages of further harmonisation. The final report of this survey brings much needed empirical data to a debate that has thus far lacked clear evidence of this sort. The survey is embedded in a range of original and up-to-date essays by leading European contract scholars reviewing recent developments, questioning progress so far and suggesting areas where further analysis and research will be required


Since 1982 standard calibration materials recommended for respirable crystalline silica analysis by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) P7 Infrared Method and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) X-ray Diffraction (XRD) Analytical Method 7500 have undergone minor changes in size distribution. However, a critical assumption has been made that the crystalline silica in ambient mine atmosphere respirable dust samples has also remained essentially unchanged in particle size distribution. The objective of this work, therefore, is to compare recent particle size distributions of underground coal mine dust and the silica component of these dusts with estimated aerodynamic particle size distributions of calibration standard materials MIN-U-SIL 5, Berkeley 5, and SRM 1878 used by two crystalline silica analysis techniques. This work provides resolution to a previously reported discrepancy involving the proper sample dilution for the particle sizing method used. Dust impactor sampling data for various locations in 13 underground coal mines were collected between 1991 and 1998 and analyzed for the respirable mass median aerodynamic diameters. The data suggest that the MSHA P7 Method will underestimate the silica content of the sample by at most 8.5 % in the median size range of 0.9–3.6 µm and that it is unlikely one would obtain any significant error in the MSHA P7 Method analysis when the method uses Berkeley 5, MIN-U-SIL 5, or SRM 1878 as a calibration standard material. The results suggest that the NIOSH Analytical Method 7500 would be more appropriate for a dust sample that is representative of the total (no cyclone classifier) rather than the respirable airborne dust, particularly since the mass fraction in the size range below 4 µm is usually a small percentage of the total airborne dust mass. However, the NIOSH Analytical Method 7500 is likely to underestimate the silica content of an airborne respirable dust sample by only 5–10%. The results of this study also suggest that any changes that may have occurred in the median respirable size of airborne coal mine dust are not significant enough to cause any appreciable error in the current methods used for respirable crystalline silica analysis.


This research employs a phenomenographic methodology to explore the variation in the views of a group of lecturers to the plagiarism detection system, Turnitin. The system was being considered as a mandatory route for all written assignments at the time of the research and the purpose of the enquiry was to uncover some of the ways in which Turnitin was viewed, experienced and had meaning to those expected to use it. Semi-structured interviews were use to gather data, and the results of the analysis highlighted the focus of these lecturers as being largely student centered. The lecturers largely appeared to be advocates of the system; they did recognise that Widening Participation and internationalisation had altered the student demographic, and that some issues may arise with a new cohort perhaps less familiar with academic integrity. In addition there was some concern over the way that management viewed the system, and the dangers of it being used for quantitative monitoring rather than qualitative feedback.


Academia and industry have only begun to explore the vast capabilities that the emerging field of mobile learning has to enrich education. To help researchers and practitioners drive the realization of the potential benefits of mobile learning technology to the next level, a thorough survey of the state of knowledge in this ascending field is vital.Innovative Mobile Learning: Techniques and Technologies is the first book to comprehensively set out opportunities presented by mobile learning technologies, collecting incisive research articles from leading international experts. Covering field challenges, practical experiences, and current technological advances, this unique contribution to the current research will benefit academics and students in a variety of education and technology-related disciplines, as well as industry specialists in the field mobile technology.