Historically, Open Innovation Communities (OICs), such as those who make free and open source software (FOSS), have opted out of the patent system for three main reasons: Patents are expensive to acquire and enforce; they are philosophically, culturally, and politically anathema to many OIC members; and even when they appear to be acquired for "defensive" or other altruistic purposes, there has been no guarantee against someone later "weaponizing" them for use in an offensive attack.In this article, we first analyze how and why various OICs have approached strategic concerns about intellectual property and then make a case for why OICs should – and indeed must – opt back into the patent system if they wish to protect themselves from the growing threats that patents pose, including threats from the increasingly complex "thicket" of patents on software, standards, and ecosystems that have become the battlegrounds over technologies such as smartphones, online video, and social media. We support our argument with a proposal for a new OIC patent license – the Defensive Patent License. Built on legal and normative approaches similar to the GNU General Public License and Creative Commons licensing, the DPL directly addresses the three reasons for OIC opt-out and provides several positive reasons for opting in, including increasing access and interoperability between OIC technologies, improving the prior art, imposing legally-binding restrictions that require DPL patents to remain "defensive," and preventing patent trolls, "bullies," or others from ever asserting DPL patents against those who use the license. We end with a comparison of the DPL to other OIC patent strategies to situate it within the current set of options OICs face in dealing with patent threats.


We draw on the concept of episodic volunteering (EV) from the general volunteering literature to identify practices for managing EV in free/libre/open source software (FLOSS) communities. Infrequent but ongoing participation is widespread, but the practices that community managers are using to manage EV, and their concerns about EV, have not been previously documented. We conducted a policy Delphi study involving 24 FLOSS community managers from 22 different communities. Our panel identified 16 concerns related to managing EV in FLOSS, which we ranked by prevalence. We also describe 65 practices for managing EV in FLOSS. Almost three-quarters of these practices are used by at least three community managers. We report these practices using a systematic presentation that includes context, relationships between practices, and concerns that they address. These findings provide a coherent framework that can help FLOSS community managers to better manage episodic contributors.


Previous research on relationship quality concepts suggests they are not as distinct as expected. What aspects are similar and distinct across these concepts? Using a prototype approach, this research identified the commonalities and uniqueness of 7 relationship quality concepts: commitment, intimacy, love, passion, satisfaction, trust, and relationship quality. The results indicated that (a) 4 features were shared across all 7 concepts, and some were exclusive to each concept, and (b) shared features were rated as more important for romantic relationship functioning than unique features both explicitly and implicitly. This research provides a framework to understand overarching and distinct aspects of relationship quality concepts and how this is reflected in people's evaluation of what is important in romantic relationships.


Personal and yet utterly universal, inevitable and yet unknowable, death has been a dominant theme in all cultures, since earliest times. Different societies address death and the act of dying in culturally diverse ways; yet, remarkably, across the span of several millennia, we can recognize in the customs of ancient Greece and Rome ceremonies and rituals that have enduring present-day resonance. For example, preparing the corpse of the deceased, holding a memorial service, the practice of cremation and of burial in 'resting places' are all liminal processes that can trace their origin to ancient practices. Such rites - described by Cicero and Herodotus, among others - have defined traditional modern funerals. Yet of late there has been a shift away from classical ritual and sombre memorialization as the dead are transformed into spectacles. Ad hoc roadside shrines, 'virtual' burials, online guest-books and even jazz memorial processions and firework displays have come to the fore as new modes of marking, even celebrating, bereavement. What is causing this change, and how do urbanisation, economic factors and the rise of individualism play a part? Mario Erasmo creatively explores the nexus between classical and contemporary approaches to dying, death and interment. From theme funerals in St Louis to Etruscan sarcophagi, he offers a rich and insightful discussion of finitude across the ages.


Opioid use disorder (OUD) is a chronic relapsing condition which is characterized by problematic pattern of opioid use despite of physical, mental and social distress. It is important individual and public health problem worldwide, especially in USA due to increased non-medical use of prescription opioids. Medication assisted treatment (MAT) is a gold standard for treatment of OUD which includes pharmacological treatment combined with psychosocial therapies. Though these treatments are effective, there are barriers for successful outcomes. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a safe, simple and effective technique to modulate neuronal excitability. It has been used to reduce craving in substance use disorder (SUD). tDCS may be used in opioid use disorder to reduce craving and drug use. We are proposing pilot, randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled trial protocol to assess effects of anodal tDCS over left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), in OUD. We will randomize 80 subjects in parallel group design to either active or sham group. Five stimulation sessions of 2 mA for 20 minutes, will be provided. Primary outcome is cue induced craving score on VAS of 0 -10. Measures of feasibility, safety and effectiveness will be assessed at baseline and at different time points over 6 weeks. Aim of this trial is to assess feasibility of tDCS to reduce cue induced craving in OUD and to provide data for future fully powered trials, if trend of effectiveness observed.


From a financial economic perspective, the governing condition of a meritorious civil action is the uncertainty of outcome. Expectation and outcome deviate, and the spread is the measure of uncertainty (or variance). During litigation each party has an option to settle or select trial. The decision standard can be seen as an option strike price and a finding of liability as an "in-the-money" call option. This apparent optionality suggests the application of an option pricing model to legal valuation, and a small but growing body of scholarship endorses this concept. However, option theory is not the only concept. Under an asset pricing model, the value of an asset is the sum of its expected cashflow discounted by its risk. Uncertainty is the key variable in the values of an option and an asset, but risk has a bipolar effect on value. Greater risk increases option value, but decreases asset value. At issue is the essential nature of a disputed right: is a lawsuit conceptually an option or an asset? This article argues that the essential nature of a lawsuit is best viewed as an asset. Uncertainty diminishes lawsuit value consistent with the prediction of asset pricing principles. This article shows that expected value, which has been a durable concept in law and economic literature, does not equal true economic value. The assumption of risk neutrality assumes away the most difficult aspect of the valuational analysis and fails to account for a risk-adjusted discount reflecting the quality of the forecast. Thus, two cases with the same expected value are not valuational equivalents if the variance of returns is perceived differently, and this article analyzes how parties account for different perceptions of risk in valuation.


In today's dynamic business environment, companies are under tremendous pressure to become more innovative and maintain a steady stream of ideas that can lead to new and improved products and services. Companies have begun to explore the possibility of capturing consumers' "collective intelligence" by establishing firm-sponsored online brainstorming sites where individuals can share their ideas and offer comments on the ideas contributed by others. We term these sites "Company-Sponsored Online Co-Creation Brainstorming" (COCB). The value of this open and voluntary co-creation depends largely on members' contribution levels, the quality of the contributions, and sustained participation. In this paper, utilizing Zwass's taxonomy of co-creation value as a base, we structure a taxonomic framework of COCBs and an accompanying basic model of COCBs. We then present a series of hypotheses concerning the relationships between the model's various factors and specific COCB activities. We validate the model using empirical data collected over two and a half years, starting from the initiation of a pioneering company-sponsored online brainstorming site. Our analyses demonstrate that the level of peer feedback and the responsiveness (speed) of sponsor company feedback have significant influences on both members' contribution levels and duration of active participation. The sponsoring company's feedback, however, seems to influence only the quality of member's contribution level. On the practical side, the outcomes suggest that sponsoring companies should develop efficient processes for reviewing and responding to submitted ideas. Regarding theory, our findings provide an initial piece of contextualized research that offers implications for theory building in the COCB context, most notably the identification of key relationships between feedback (both peer and company) and participant activity levels and duration of participation.


Title of Thesis: BENEFICIAL REUSE OF DREDGED SEDIMENTS FOR VERTICAL CUTOFF WALL BACKFILL MATERIAL Anika Crawford, Master of Science, 2004 Thesis directed by: Professor Ahmet H. Aydilek Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Dredged sediments are obtained from the process of dredging coastal areas and harbors in order to maintain navigable waterways. This study focuses on the potential of using dredged sediments as vertical cut-off wall backfill material. Materials used as vertical cut-off wall material are expected to have low hydraulic permeability and good workable characteristics. The Baltimore Harbor dredged sediments used for this study were plastic in nature and finer than the commonly encountered wall materials, and a research study was needed to evaluate their beneficial reuse in such an application. The objective of this study was to find an appropriate mix of sediment and bentonite that will be able to function as a vertical cut-off wall backfill material. The preliminary tests on the bentonite were carried out for screening purposes and to find an appropriate water content that will satisfy the desired viscosity range. Bentonite was then added to the dredged sediment in ratios of 1%, 2% and 3% of the total dredged sediment weight. The preliminary tests were repeated for each of these mixes to determine applicable trends and at what percentages of bentonite, the viscosity of the mixture was still in the workable range. The 1% bentonite mix was additionally modified with the addition of 5% and 8% fly ash by weight. These mixtures were then subjected to API filter press tests to determine the effect these mixes would have on the hydraulic conductivity. Adsorption testing was also carried out on the dredged sediment and all the mixes to determine their adsorption capacities to see if they can potentially be employed in reactive cut-off wall applications. The results show that a suitable moisture content and viscosity of the dredged sediments can be obtained that makes it usable in the mix design. Increased bentonite content, to the percent tested (3%), lead to a decrease in the hydraulic conductivity and increased fly ash content, to the percent tested (8%), lead to an increase in the hydraulic conductivity. For the metals tested, an increased bentonite content enhanced the adsorption capacity of the mix and an increased fly ash content diminished the adsorption capacity of the mix. With the appropriate mix design, dredged sediments can serve as an effective inhibitor to the flow of ground water and hence serve as an in-situ containment and remediation system. BENEFICIAL REUSE OF BALTIMORE DREDGED SEDIMENTS AS VERTICAL CUTOFF WALL BACKFILL MATERIAL


Abstract The research on highly mobile military adolescents has produced mixed findings. Whereas early descriptive studies reported that adolescents experiencing multiple residential moves exhibited symptoms of what was termed military family syndrome, more recent quantitative studies have found few negative effects after controlling for prior status. However, most of the extant research has been conducted during peacetime, and thus may not generalize to today's mobile military students, whose parents are facing deployment at increasing rates. The current study used qualitative methods to (a) describe the transition-related stressors experienced by mobile military students; (b) describe the efforts employed to help these students cope with their stress; and (c) identify strategies that schools can use to ease the transition process for mobile military students, as reported through 11 focus groups conducted with military students, their parents, and school staff. The findings suggest that the move-related stressors experienced by mobile military students affected their adjustment to the new school environment. Recommendations for supporting mobile military students are provided.


The New England Literacy Resource Center (NELRC) at World Education has been supporting efforts by adult literacy and ESOL programs to engage students in civic participation projects since 1996. Whether to prepare adults to be informed voters or to help them develop the knowledge and skills needed to participate in community efforts, small groups of educators have come together to explore the possibilities of integrating civic participation and adult education. This paper will outline the NELRC's efforts to develop a guiding process for civic participation projects that reflects the lessons learned from dozens of past projects. The model is informed by current discussions in civic education, developments in adult learning theory and research, and our own work with a diverse set of adult programs, including citizenship, ABE, ESOL, and bilingual ESOL classes.


Periodic variations in correlated cellular activity have been observed in many regions of the cerebral cortex. The recent discovery of stimulus-dependent, spatially-coherent oscillations in primary visual cortex of the cat has led to suggestions of neural information encoding schemes based on phase and/or frequency variation. To explore the mechanisms underlying this behavior and their possible functional consequences, we have developed a realistic neural model, based on structural features of visual cortex, which replicates observed oscillatory phenomena. In the model, this oscillatory behavior emerges directly from the structure of the cortical network and the properties of its intrinsic neurons; however, phase coherence is shown to be an average phenomenon seen only when measurements are made over multiple trials. Because average coherence does not ensure synchrony of firing over the course of single stimuli, oscillatory phase may not be a robust strategy for directly encoding stimulus-specific information. Instead, the phase and frequency of cortical oscillations may reflect the coordination of general computational processes within and between cortical areas. Under this interpretation, coherence emerges as a result of horizontal interactions that could be involved in the formation of receptive field properties.


SUMMARY Australia has a role to play in future global food security as it contributes 0·12 of global wheat exports. How much more can it contribute with current technology and varieties? The present paper seeks to quantify the gap between water-limited yield potential (Yw) and farmer yields (Ya) for wheat in Australia by implementing a new protocol developed by the Global Yield Gap and Water Productivity Atlas (GYGA) project. Results of past Australian yield gap studies are difficult to compare with studies in other countries because they were conducted using a variety of methods and at a range of scales. The GYGA project protocols were designed to facilitate comparisons among countries through the application of a consistent yet flexible methodology. This is the first implementation of GYGA protocols in a country with the high spatial and temporal climatic variability that exists in Australia. The present paper describes the application of the GYGA protocol to the whole Australian grain zone to derive estimates of rainfed wheat yield gap. The Australian grain zone was partitioned into six key agro-climatic zones (CZs) defined by the GYGA Extrapolation Domain (GYGA-ED) zonation scheme. A total of 22 Reference Weather Stations (RWS) were selected, distributed among the CZs to represent the entire Australian grain zone. The Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM) Wheat crop model was used to simulate Yw of wheat crops for major soil types at each RWS from 1996 to 2010. Wheat varieties, agronomy and distribution of wheat cropping were held constant over the 15-year period. Locally representative dominant soils were selected for each RWS and generic sowing rules were specified based on local expertise. Actual yield (Ya) data were sourced from national agricultural data sets. To upscale Ya and Yw values from RWS to CZs and then to national scale, values were weighted according to the area of winter cereal cropping within RWS buffer zones. The national yield gap (Yg = Yw–Ya) and relative yield (Y% = 100 × Ya/Yw) were then calculated from the weighted values. The present study found that the national Yg was 2·0 tonnes (t)/ha and Y% was 47%. The analysis was extended to consider factors contributing to the yield gap. It was revealed that the RWS 15-year average Ya and Yw were strongly correlated (R 2 = 0·76) and that RWS with higher Yw had higher Yg. Despite variable seasonal conditions, Y% was relatively stable over the 15 years. For the 22 RWS, average Yg correlated positively and strongly with average annual rainfall amount, but surprisingly it correlated poorly with RWS rainfall variability. Similarly, Y% correlated negatively but less strongly (R 2 = 0·33) with RWS average annual rainfall, and correlated poorly with RWS rainfall variability, which raises questions about how Australian farmers manage climate risk. Interestingly a negative relationship was found between Yg and variability of Yw for the 22 RWS (R 2 = 0·66), and a positive relationship between Y% and Yw variability (R 2 = 0·23), which suggests that farmers in lower yielding, more variable sites are achieving yields closer to Yw. The Yg estimates appear to be quite robust in the context of estimates from other Australian studies, adding confidence to the validity of the GYGA protocol. Closing the national yield gap so that Ya is 0·80 of Yw, which is the level of Yg closure achieved consistently by the most progressive Australian farmers, would increase the average annual wheat production (20·9 million t in 1996/07 to 2010/11) by an estimated 15·3 million t, which is a 72% increase. This indicates substantial potential for Australia to increase wheat production on existing farmland areas using currently available crop varieties and farming practices and thus make a substantial contribution to achieving future global food security.


et al. ; they describe correctly that placebocontrolled studies with tamsulosin showed a higher incidence of abnormal ejaculation than those with other a 1 -adrenoceptor antagonists such as alfuzosin [8]. However, they fail to mention the only two randomized, double-blind, and direct comparative studies with alfuzosin and tamsulosin. In an initial study comparing the immediate-release formulation of alfuzosin with tamsulosin, sponsored by the manufacturer of tamsulosin, both drugs caused similarly low rates of abnormal ejaculation, which were not statistically significant [9]. More recently there was a direct comparison between the once-daily formulation of alfuzosin and tamsulosin, sponsored by the manufacturer of alfuzosin. Unfortunately, that study was never published in a scientific journal but the results can be accessed as part of the registration information of alfuzosin in the USA, at http://www.fda.gov/cder/approval/ index.htm (Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, USA Food and Drug Administration). Similar to the previous study, incidences of abnormal ejaculation were low with both treatments and there were no statistically significant differences between them.


[1] The diurnal cycle of rainfall over the central Tibetan Plateau was investigated by examining data acquired by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission Precipitation Radar during the summer monsoon season (June–August) from 1998–2007. High-spatial-resolution data (∼5 km × 5 km) were used to identify the role of complex topographic features of the plateau. Diurnal variations in rain rate, frequency of rain, conditional rain rate, and storm-height were analyzed on a monthly basis to determine the characteristics of precipitation. The results are interpreted as precipitation characteristics in a semiarid region with weak prevailing winds. Distinct diurnal variation was seen over hilly regions, valleys, and lakes. Precipitation activity over the hilly region is generally strongest during the late afternoon. But in contrast, valleys and lakes show dominant late-evening peaks, and a secondary morning rainfall peak is distinctly evident over large lakes. However, the time of peak rain rate is delayed with increasing lake size. The shift in rain peak location toward lakes and valleys also appeared clearly.


This paper presents a new cost-effective hybrid GFRP-Concrete deck system that the GFRP panel serves as both tensile reinforcement and stay-in-place form. In order to understand the fatigue behavior of such hybrid deck, fatigue test on a full-scale specimen under sagging moment was conducted, and a series of static tests were also carried out after certain repeated loading cycles. The fatigue test results indicated that such hybrid deck has a good fatigue performance even after 3.1 million repeated loading cycles. A three-dimensional finite element model of the hybrid deck was established based on experimental work. The results from finite element analyses are in good agreement with those from the tests. In addition, flexural fatigue analysis considering the reduction in flexural stiffness and modulus under cyclic loading was carried out. The predicted flexural strength agreed well with the analytical strength from finite element simulation, and the calculated fatigue failure cycle was consistent with the result based on related S-N curve and finite element analyses. However, the flexural fatigue analytical results tended to be conservative compared to the tested results in safety side. The presented overall investigation may provide reference for the design and construction of such hybrid deck system.


How does political competition among domestic actors influence foreign policy choice? Studies examining this question often focus on the role of economic or partisan interests, and how they influence the preferences civilian decision-makers who are subject to the electoral pressures of their constituents. Less attention has been paid to how the preferences of other influential, unelected, actors influence state behavior. I examine the influence of one such group by looking at how the preferences of American military leaders shape decisions on American military spending and force structure. Using tools from the field of network analysis, I find support for the idea that military leaders occupying key positions can influence defense spending priorities in favor of their respective branches. Results also show how the influence of military leaders has changed over time, and is conditional upon the institutions governing the relationships between civilian decision-makers and military leaders.


The synonyms 'dilation' and 'dilatation' are used frequently in ophthalmology and other disciplines. The first recorded examples of early forms of the two words in English date from the end of the 14th century.1 'Dilatation' is etymologically more sound,2 preserving the Latin dilatatio (corresponding to the verb dilatare , with the stem dilatat , from which the word 'dilate' also derives), but 'dilation' could be justified by arguing that –tion is a live suffix in English and so can be added to the verb 'dilate' to give 'dilation'.2

We examined trends in usage in medical and wider English-language literature using three open access digital databases: the PubMed database (http://www.pubmed.com) provides data for citations per year; the Google Scholar search engine (http://scholar.google.com) searches more widely, including non-medical literature and patents; and the Google Books Ngram Viewer (http://books.google.com/ngrams) searches corpora of several million digitised books, taken from over 40 university libraries, stretching …


This article asks to what extent and by what processes should international legal norms be incorporated into domestic constitutions particularly in developing countries. It raises several concerns about the democratic legitimacy of many international legal norms and therefore about the wisdom of the developing countries incorporating international legal norms into domestic law without extensive political deliberation. The internationalization of constitutional interpretation rests on several problematic assumptions. First, proponents of internationalization of constitutional interpretation assume that several international norms, originally only human rights but now increasingly environmental norms, are universal and should be incorporated without specific democratic approval. Second, other international norms, delineated as customary international norms, are perceived to be formed by the consent of the world community of nations and are therefore obligatory.The importation of international norms by developing countries is especially problematic because they have so little input into international norms and institutions. Developing countries are receivers of international law, not makers of international law. Such norms may be of questionable legitimacy in these societies, and may be inappropriate policy choices in countries at a different stage of economic development than more developed western countries. My concern is that with globalization and the increased dominance of the western democracies in international law formation there has been a turn away from consent as the basis of international law making and towards Naturalism. Premature international legalism takes normative development and sensible trade-offs out of the realm of both international and domestic politics without the necessary political deliberation. Rights have costs both in financial resources and political resources that should be assessed along with competing claims.


Microsimulation (MS) is distinguished from other approaches to distributional analysis in that it relies primarily on a theoretical framework built up from the characteristics economic, social and demographic of individuals. However, changes in the incomes of individuals generally depend not only on changes which apply to them directly (such as a change in income tax rates) but also on changes which are mediated by the operation of markets (such as a change in the terms of trade). Applied general equilibrium (AGE) models can be characterised as economy-wide models which include disaggregated commodity and factor markets. For distributional modelling, the disaggregated treatment of factor markets is especially relevant because most individuals receive most of their income in the form of factor payments. Moreover, particular individuals derive their factor incomes from particular industries and occupations, and the implications of a change in the economic environment for different industries and occupations may deviate quite widely from the implications for the economy as a whole. In this paper we present a research program for integrating MS and AGE approaches to distributional analysis and report results for a preliminary application. In particular, we employ the MONASH dynamic AGE model of the Australian economy to investigate the likely impact of a raft of microeconomic reforms on (inter alia) output and employment in more than 100 industries over the period 1994-95 to 2004-05. By applying the forecast average annual rates of growth for selected variables to income data from the 1990 Income and Housing Survey, an estimate is obtained of the effect of the reforms on the distribution of income between nine groups of persons differentiated by family type.


Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were collected from damaged and intact mulberry leaves (Morus alba L., Moraceae) and from Hyphantria cunea larvae by headspace absorption with Super Q columns. We identified their constituents using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, and evaluated the responses of male H. cunea antennae to the compounds using gas chromatography-flame ionization detection coupled with electroantennographic detection. Eleven VOC constituents were found to stimulate antennae of male H. cunea moths: β-ocimene, hexanal, cis-3-hexenal, limonene, trans-2-hexenal, cyclohexanone, cis-2-penten-1-ol, 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one, 4-hydroxy-4-methyl-2-pentanone, trans-3-hexen-1-ol, and 2,4-dimethyl-3-pentanol. Nine of these chemicals were released by intact, mechanically-damaged, and herbivore-damaged leaves, while cis-2-penten-1-ol was released only by intact and mechanically-damaged leaves and β-ocimene was released only by herbivore-damaged leaves. Results from wind tunnel experiments conducted with volatile components indicated that male moths were significantly more attracted to herbivory-induced volatiles than the solvent control. Furthermore, male moths' attraction to a sex pheromone lure was increased by herbivory-induced compounds and β-ocimene, but reduced by cis-2-penten-1-ol. A proof long-range field trapping experiment showed that the efficiency of sex pheromone lures in trapping male moths was increased by β-ocimene and reduced by cis-2-penten-1-ol.


The option of community service has been in use for many years. Some consider it to offer many possibilities, in terms of both punishment and rehabilitation. Depending on the legal framework, community service can be understood in various ways. It can be seen as an alternative to incarceration, as a special educational tool, as a rehabilitative measure, or as a keystone in a system of restorative justice. The status and use of community service in Belgium reflects much of this variety. Hence, while juvenile justice in Belgium is generally oriented around an educational and protective approach, the variety of perspectives on community service has resulted in many different programs and practices. Delens-Ravier takes this context and examines how juvenile offenders in Belgium perceive community service, especially with respect to all the relationships he or she has experienced in the community. The question is the extent to which community service helps the young offender re-establish social links or reintegrate into the community.


markdownabstractExperiences with sexual behaviors and intimate relationships typically start during adolescence. These experiences are a normative and integrated part of overall development, yet they may have consequences for adolescents' sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and psychological wellbeing. Worldwide, estimates of the World Health Organization indicate that about 333 million sexually transmitted infections occur yearly, of which a considerable part affects adolescents aged 15–19 years. In addition, globally, about 17 million teenage girls younger than 20 years give birth every year. SRH problems among adolescents are a challenge for most countries, and are not restricted to low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). Understanding the factors that affect adolescents' SRH behaviors and outcomes is a fundamental step towards the improvement of adolescents' SRH.
In the current thesis, we applied a holistic approach to understanding adolescent sexuality (ecological systems theory). The studies presented in this thesis investigate adolescents' SRH behaviors and outcomes and various predictors thereof. Specifically, the SRH behaviors and outcomes included: adolescents' experiences with early sexual behaviors, timing of first sexual intercourse, number of sexual partners, condom use, contraceptive use, and teen pregnancy.
The predictors were classified into:
1) individual factors (e.g., gender, ethnic background, depression);
2) social factors (e.g., mother– and father–adolescent relationship quality, parental monitoring, in-school sexuality education).
The studies described in this thesis illustrate the relevance of factors from diverse levels, from individual to social. Overall, our findings support that various stakeholders (e.g., parents, health professionals, and schools), and adolescents themselves, can contribute to a positive sexual development.


BACKGROUND
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been identified as a risk marker for self-injurious behaviour. In this study we aimed to describe the prevalence, topography and correlates of self-injury in individuals with ASD in contrast to individuals with Fragile X and Down syndromes and examine person characteristics associated with self-injury across and within these groups.

METHOD
Carers of individuals with ASD (n = 149; mean age = 9.98, SD = 4.86), Fragile X syndrome (n = 123; mean age = 15.32, SD = 8.74) and Down syndrome (n = 49; mean age = 15.84, SD = 12.59) completed questionnaires relating to the presence and topography of self-injury. Information was also gathered regarding demographic characteristics, affect, autistic behaviour, hyperactivity, impulsivity and repetitive behaviour.

RESULTS
Self-injurious behaviour was displayed by 50% of the ASD sample: a significantly higher prevalence than in the Down syndrome group (18.4%) but broadly similar to the prevalence in Fragile X syndrome (54.5%). Self-injury was associated with significantly higher levels of autistic behaviour within the Down and Fragile X syndrome groups. Within the ASD group, the presence of self-injury was associated with significantly higher levels of impulsivity and hyperactivity, negative affect and significantly lower levels of ability and speech.

CONCLUSIONS
Self-injurious behaviour is prevalent in individuals with ASD and the presence of ASD phenomenology increases the risk of self-injury in individuals with known genetic disorders but without a diagnosis of idiopathic autism. Person characteristics associated with self-injury in ASD indicate a role for impaired behavioural inhibition, low levels of ability and negative affect in the development of self-injurious behaviour.


ABSTRACT The essays collected in this forum discuss the geopolitical legacy of the Russian Revolution of 1917, one of the most momentous political events of the twentieth century. From a range of different academic disciplines and perspectives, the authors consider how the profound transformations in society and politics were refracted through space and geography, and how enduring these refractions proved to be. The authors focus on three themes that have been dominant in Russian affairs over the past century: 1)the problem of center-periphery relations, 2)the civilizational dynamics of Russia's self-identification in relation to Europe and to Asia, and 3)the geopolitics of national identity.


The initial step in glycerolipid biosynthesis, especially in diverse allopolyploid crop species, is poorly understood, mainly due to the lack of an effective and convenient method for functional characterization of genes encoding glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferases (GPATs) catalyzing this reaction. Here we present a novel complementation assay for quick and specific characterization of GPAT-encoding genes. Its key design involves rational construction of yeast conditional lethal gat1Δgat2Δ double mutant bearing the heterologous Arabidopsis AtGPAT1 gene whose leaky expression under repressed conditions does not support any non-specific growth, thereby circumventing the false positive problem encountered with the system based on the gat1Δgat2Δ mutant harboring the native episomal GAT1 gene whose leaky expression appears to be sufficient for generating enough GPAT activities for the non-specific restoration of the mutant growth. A complementation assay developed based on this novel mutant enables quick phenotypic screen of GPAT sequences. A high degree of specificity of our assay was exemplified by its ability to differentiate effectively GPAT-encoding genes from those of other fatty acyltransferases and lipid-related sequences. Using this assay, we show that Arabidopsis AtGPAT1, AtGPAT5, and AtGPAT7 can complement the phosphatidate biosynthetic defect in the double mutants. Collectively, our assay provides a powerful tool for rapid screening, validation and optimization of GPAT sequences, aiding future engineering of the initial step of the triacylglycerol biosynthesis in oilseeds.


Molecular communication exploits functional molecular systems travelling along fluid media to deliver messages encoded as concentration pulses, e.g. molecular bits. As the bits are naturally broadened by diffusion, limiting the distance along which information can be transferred, by careful design and optimization of the molecular messengers, is required. A new paradigm, exploiting the chemical reactivity of a suitable molecular messenger, has been developed to achieve long range information transfer with variable transmitter-receiver distances. The experimental results and theoretical simulations, carried out by using fluorescent molecules switched by pH-driven hydrolysis, are reported here. In particular, we simulated the information transport process by using numerical solutions of differential equations governing information swapping and we show that by exploiting the reactivity of the chemical messenger, a stable signal at the receiver is maintained within a wide range of distance. This theoretical prediction was fully experimentally verified by using a prototypal molecular communication platform.


Heteroepitaxial SiGe(C) layers have attracted immense attention as a material for performance boost in state of the art electronic devices during recent years. Alloying silicon with germanium and carbon add exclusive opportunities for strain and bandgap engineering. This work presents details of epitaxial growth using chemical vapor deposition (CVD), material characterization and integration of SiGeC layers in MOS devices. Non-selective and selective epitaxial growth of Si1-x-yGexCy (0≤x≤0.30, 0≤y≤0.02) layers have been performed and optimized aimed for various metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) applications. A comprehensive experimental study was performed to investigate the growth of SiGeC layers. The incorporation of C into the SiGe matrix was shown to be strongly sensitive to the growth parameters. As a consequence, a much smaller epitaxial process window compared to SiGe epitaxy was obtained. Incorporation of high boron concentrations (up to 1×1021 atoms/cm3) in SiGe layers aimed for recessed and/or elevated source/drain (S/D) junctions in pMOSFETs was also studied. HCl was used as Si etchant in the CVD reactor to create the recesses which was followed (in a single run) by selective epitaxy of B-doped SiGe. The issue of pattern dependency behavior of selective epitaxial growth was studied in detail. It was shown that a complete removal of pattern dependency in selective SiGe growth using reduced pressure CVD is not likely. However, it was shown that the pattern dependency can be predicted since it is highly dependent on the local Si coverage of the substrate. The pattern dependency was most sensitive for Si coverage in the range 1-10%. In this range drastic changes in growth rate and composition was observed. The pattern dependency was explained by gas depletion inside the low velocity boundary layer. Ni silicide is commonly used to reduce access resistance in S/D and gate areas of MOSFET devices. Therefore, the effect of carbon and germanium on the formation of NiSiGe(C) was studied. An improved thermal stability of Ni silicide was obtained when C is present in the SiGe layer. Integration of SiGe(C) layers in various MOSFET devices was performed. In order to perform a relevant device research the dimensions of the investigated devices have to be in-line with the current technology nodes. A robust spacer gate technology was developed which enabled stable processing of transistors with gate lengths down to 45 nm. SiGe(C) channels in ultra thin body (UTB) silicon on insulator (SOI) MOSFETs, with excellent performance down to 100 nm gate length was demonstrated. The integration of C in the channel of a MOSFET is interesting for future generations of ultra scaled devices where issues such as short channel effects (SCE), temperature budget, dopant diffusion and mobility will be extremely critical. A clear performance enhancement was obtained for both SiGe and SiGeC channels, which point out the potential of SiGe or SiGeC materials for UTB SOI devices. Biaxially strained-Si (sSi) on SiGe virtual substrates (VS) as mobility boosters in nMOSFETs with gate length down to 80 nm was demonstrated. This concept was thoroughly investigated in terms of performance and leakage of the devices. In-situ doping of the relaxed SiGe was shown to be superior over implantation to suppress the junction leakage. A high channel doping could effectively suppress the source to drain leakage.


theories of justice (see Elster 1995) and to explore the structure of distributive justice behavior, both to un-Published Distributive justice has been the focus of political theory with the postwar rise of the social welfare state, and Rawls' A Theory of Justice (1971) is arguably the most important work of political philosophy during that period. Parallel to this theoretical literature is a body of empirical research into distributive justice. We offer a synthesis of the theoretical and empirical approaches with an experimental study of how individuals use allocation principles in making judgments concerning income distribution under conditions of strict impartiality. Our experiment is designed in part to examine the extent to which they prioritize them consistent with Rawls' theory. We fi nd that distributive justice judgments are complex but structured, with individuals tending to use several principles simultaneously and weighing them according to predictable factors, with sex and race being particularly important. We also fi nd that individuals use several strategies in using competing allocation principles and that a considerable minority prioritize them consistent with a Rawlsian maximin strategy.


Nursing process is a systematic, patient-oriented and purposive approach which provides a framework for nursing performance. On the other hand, nursing process causes the nursing care to develop from traditional method into a scientific and patient-oriented approach. The present paper aims to study the impact of training on nursing process implementation skill of surgical ward nurses in Shahid Beheshti Hospital of Yasuj in 2012. The present paper is a quasi-experimental study with one-sample t-test method conducted as a pre-test and post-test design. The studied unit included 48 nurses who had been active in surgical awards during research and were selected using purposive sampling method. The data collection instruments included checklist and nursing process questionnaire. The data was analyzed by paired-sample t-test in SPSS.16. The results indicate that, with regard to questionnaire, there is significant difference between using the nursing process before and after intervention (P=0.031). According to checklist, the paired-sample t-test showed no significant difference in implementation of nursing process (P=0.064). The results showed that nursing process has been more desirable from the point of view of nurses. The higher points given by nurses showed that using the checklist to evaluate the nursing process in this study may be more authentic compared to questionnaire.


This paper describes a writing retreat project funded by the Creativity CETL (Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching). The project involves running two writing retreats for lecturers from the University of Brighton and the University of Sussex. We explain how we are using methods adopted on a creative writing module at the University of Brighton, to help academic staff develop the confidence, motivation and inspiration to write, and to guide them to adopt effective writing habits.

Writing and publishing are increasingly crucial to the development of a successful academic career. However, academics typically receive little guidance and support on how to establish and maintain this strand of their job. Any advice that does exist tends to focus on the technical and practical aspects of writing for scholarly publication. This often makes writing seem a challenge to be endured for the sake of one's career rather than enjoyed and used for vocational and personal development. Instead of gaining a sense of achievement and pride from their writing, academics often view writing as an unwanted pressure, and experience the process of writing as demoralising and damaging to self-confidence.

In this paper we briefly outline the format of our writing retreats and the ethos behind their design. We discuss the relationship we perceive between creativity and learning, and the false divide we often see between 'the academic and 'the creative'. We end the paper by offering a writing exercise – Laudation Poem – as an example of the work that our retreat participants are expected to undertake.


A thesis submitted to the College of Health Sciences in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the award for the degree of Master of Science, 2005


Nowadays, transportation problems (such as freight transportation, routing problem, etc.), became an important issue for the international and locals economic. In this article, we are interesting on the term service network design which covers the tactical planning issues for consolidation transportation. In this paper, we will propose a hyperheuristic (HH) method in order to design paths for data packets, taking into consideration certain parameters of Quality of Service (QoS) such as packets priorities, packets types, etc.


In the Information Age, keeping secrets has become increasingly problematic, as both elected officiates and clandestine groups the world over, demonstrate on an almost daily basis. Yet mystery schools, secret societies and occult practices lose none of their popularity; indeed, arguably occulture has enjoyed somewhat of a revival. As the line between private and public life continues to blur, how do such groups, which have long held concealment at the very heart of both their identity and functionality, navigate the sharing culture of the World Wide Web? Within the discourse of Western Esoteric Studies, we frequently find that members of the occult community are oath-bound, even on pain of death and destruction, not to reveal that which Google will instantly share. This paper will pay particular attention to the rise of the esoteric group Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn (OSOGD), founded in 2002 by Sam Webster, and to Thelema, the philosophy/religion of renowned twentieth century occultist Aleister Crowley. His particular blend of "Scientific Illuminism" provided Webster with a perfect philosophical underpinning, along with principles from within the open-source software movement, to inform the manifesto of the OSOGD, an online and new Aeonic approach to the old esoteric traditions. Has the time come for the 'occult' to become the 'open' and might the revealing of all secrets be a method of maintaining the mysteries?


Objective: Magnitude and duration of the hypotensive response after a strength training (ST) session may in part depend on the manipulation of ST variables. This review examines the effect of the ST variables on the hypotensive response after a ST session.
Data sources: Thirty-two studies were included in this review. Studies concerning the post-exercise hypotensive response of ST session were searched on MEDLINE, Science Citation Index, National Library of Medicine, Scopus, Sports Discus, Scielo, and CINAHL utilising the following keywords and respective abbreviations: circulation, hypotensive effect, hypotensive response, hypotension, hypertension, high blood pressure, combined with resistance training, resistive exercises, resistance exercises, resistive exercise, strength training, weight training and weight lifting. Names of authors cited in some studies were also utilised in the search. Hand searches of relevant journals and reference lists obtained from articles were also conducted at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro libraries, Brazil. The last search was performed in July 2012.
Conclusions: The majority of acute studies support that ST produces a post-exercise hypotensive response after a single session. Larger hypotensive responses to ST are observed using higher loads (6RM, 80% 1RM) with trained subjects, moderate loads (40% 1RM) with untrained subjects, higher volumes (number of exercises), multiple sets (3 sets or more), large muscle groups (total body), circuit training programs, longer rest intervals with a traditional training format and shorter rest intervals with a circuit training format, and alternated exercise orders (upper body x lower body). The effect of age on the hypotensive response indicates that older compared to younger subjects show a greater hypotensive response after ST. In addition, some studies indicate that young trained subjects have a greater and longer hypotensive response after ST compared to young untrained subjects, while this latter population may show a momentary blood pressure elevation after ST, especially with higher training intensities (80% 1RM).


This article
attempts to propose critical reflections on "historical" models of Constitutional
Review. The gradual depletion of the simplified classification system of constitutional
review has been identified, by some scholars, as a failure of the bipolar American-European
model. This means that it is necessary to rethink the approach to analysing constitutional review, in light of
legal traditions, positive law within legal systems, and comparative methodologies.
Consequently, judicial review could be studied according to the internal perspectives
of the Supreme and Constitutional Courts' decision-making processes, rather than
externally observable legal characteristics. As of recently, legal studies have
been converging with other sciences, such as cognitive science. They have been considering
the relationship between consciousness and comparison, and even the field of cognitive
errors in judgment, and the development of decisions taken by Courts.


The agriculture and natural resources (ANR) sectors are facing many complex and controversial issues today, including animal health, biotechnology, climate change, food safety, food security, invasive species, marketing and trade, and water. Undergraduate students, as the future ANR workforce, must use critical thinking skills to find solutions to these issues. This study sought to determine if a course that integrated case studies, as opposed to a classroom with no case study integration, influenced students' critical thinking. A pretest/posttest, quasi-experimental research design was used to determine if undergraduate students' critical thinking styles changed as a result of the case study integration. Three undergraduate communication courses focused on issues education at three universities were the sample. Based on the results, students were more willing to seek out information and engage with their peers about the issues facing ANR after the course with the case studies integrated. Case studies should be integrated into the classroom to encourage critical thinking based on these findings. Future research should include investigating the effects of using case studies in other undergraduate courses not focused on issues, in graduate courses, and extension education programs that could determine the effect in a non-formal education setting.


The article aims to show how ritual efficacy may rely on an intentionally produced, constitutive uncertainty. Drawing on the Bassari male initiation ritual, I argue that the central feature of initiation is not so much the achievement of an ontological transformation, than it is the creation of an unsettling context in which the uninitiated cannot but recognize the complex character of the initiates' identity. I describe two different devices whereby this is accomplished. The first relies on the donning of masks which enable initiated men to exhibit themselves in an opaque body associated with a highly predictable agency. The second is their presence as ritual tricksters characterized by an unproblematic body and disturbingly erratic behavior. In both cases, ordinary interactive scripts are perturbed. Initiation thus provides initiates with the means of mastering techniques that allow them to appear simultaneously as themselves and as not themselves. In doing so, they convey to the uninitiated the very idea of transformation itself.


The burden of occupational asthma is underestimated partly due to the lack of knowledge regarding asthmagen exposures. To study work-related asthma in population-based cohorts, improvement of exposure assessment is crucial. An asthma-specific Job-Exposure Matrix (JEM) was developed at the end of the 1990s (Kennedy SM et al, 2000;http://asthmajem.vjf.inserm.fr/;ISCO-88 system). An update of the JEM is necessary since the number of suspected asthmagens has tripled since 2000. For this update, evaluation of exposure to 8 broad groups and 33 specific asthmagens, including 11 newly recognised, were classified into three categories: high (high probability of exposure and moderate-to-high intensity), medium (low-to-moderate probability or low intensity), no (unlikely to be exposed). A working group of three experts was assigned for each asthmagen. Important methodological aspects were kept in mind during the process: (1) within a working group, experts evaluated exposures independently from each other. Cohen's Kappa's were calculated to estimate initial agreement. If expert assessments were inconsistent the final decision was taken by consensus. (2) specificity was favoured over sensitivity, i.e. jobs were classified with high exposure only if the probability of exposure was high and the intensity moderate-to-high. Initial agreement between the three experts was mostly fair-to-moderate (0.2–0.5). Out of 506 jobs, 82.4% (organic solvents) to 99.8% (persulfates) were classified as non-exposed and 0% (enzymes) to 2.5% (organic solvents) as highly-exposed. The final steps in progress include review of assigned exposures by all experts and improvement of a two-step expert re-evaluation after application of the JEM (checking ISCO code and exposure assessment for selected jobs). The JEM will soon be available for ISCO-88 and is foreseen for other classifications (ISCO-68;ISCO-08;PCS-2003). This new Asthma-specific JEM will enable improved evaluations of associations between occupational exposures and asthma phenotypes in epidemiological studies and determination of the burden of disease due to occupational asthmagens. Grant: PHC Van-Gogh


Breath figures (BFs) are patterns of liquid droplets that usually form upon condensation on a cold surface. Earlier work has shown that BFs can be used to produce continuous films of porous honeycomb‐structured patterns on various types of materials, paving the path to a number of important applications such as the manufacturing of highly ordered nano‐ and micron‐sized templates, micro lenses, and superhydrophobic coatings. It is worth noting, however, that few new findings have been reported in this area in recent years, limiting pursuits of novel architectures and key applications. In this report, an alternative method is described by which arrays of hollow silica half‐nanospheres can be produced via BF templates. In the present method, a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) protocol performed while the BF is formed on a glass substrate yields a nanostructured pattern of silica half‐spheres, which size (100–700 nm) and density across the glass surface vary with substrate modification and with the relative rates of water condensation and hydrolysis from silica precursors (a process carried out at room temperature). This method of forming arrays of hollow half‐nanospheres via the BF approach may be applicable to various other oxides and a broad range of substrates including large‐area flexible plastics.


Two experiments were conducted to evaluate modified wet distillers grains (DGS) as a supplement for roughages. Wet DGS was superior to a mixture of corn and wet DGS as a supplement with tub-ground grass hay for growing steer calves in a 112-d study. Performance of steers fed the grass hay supplemented with DGS or the mixture of corn and DGS was superior to calves fed corn silage. However when DGS was priced the same as corn on a dry basis, cost of gain was less for steers fed corn silage. When DGS was prices at 75% or less the cost of corn, cost of gain was less for calves fed the hay and DGS. Only when DGS was prices at 50% the cost of corn and when cost of corn was above $3/bu was cost of gain less for calves fed hay and the mixture of corn and DGS compared to calves fed corn silage. In the second experiment steer calves weighing 690 lbs were fed a typical corn-based finishing diet for 186 days or a diet of tub-ground corn stalks supplemented with modified wet DGS for 210 days. Steers fed the stover-DGS diet did not gain as well as steers fed the corn-based diet and produced fewer USDA Choice grading carcasses (31% vs. 83%). Cost of gain was less for steers fed the stover-DGS diet at all costs of DGS up to equal to the cost of corn on a dry basis as well as prices of corn from $2 to $4/bu. Results of these two preliminary studies indicate that modified wet DGS is a suitable supplement for mid to lower quality roughages for feeding cattle and it is possible to produce acceptable grading beef without grain. For such programs to be financially successful the price of DGS relative to corn grain on a dry basis and final weight of the cattle are important considerations.


The vadose zone can be characterized as a complex subsurface system in which intricate physical and biogeochemical processes occur in response to a variety of natural forces and human activities. This makes it difficult to describe, understand, and predict the behavior of this specific subsurface system. The TOUGH nonisothermal multiphase flow simulators are well suited to perform advanced vadose zone studies. The conceptual models underlying the TOUGH simulators are capable of representing features specific to the vadose zone, and of addressing a variety of coupled phenomena. Moreover, the simulators are integrated into software tools that enable advanced data analysis, optimization, and system‐level modeling. We discuss fundamental and computational challenges in simulating vadose zone processes, review recent advances in modeling such systems, and demonstrate some capabilities of the TOUGH suite of codes using illustrative examples.


The pace at which sustainable investing is leaving its niche to enter ordinary financial markets over the past few years is nothing short of remarkable. Especially after COP21, green finance products have rapidly grown in number, driven by demand from institutional and retail investors – that will increasingly integrate ESG considerations within their fiduciary duty. Nonetheless, it often occurs that market expansions embed ambiguities and risks that foster inadequate or ill-informed investments. To deal with the expansion of sustainable finance, the policy priority is now the elaboration of a uniform framework to clearly define it and to build a common metric to evaluate the impact of the instruments that target climate mitigation, environmental and social goals. These are the core issues in the recent European Commission's Action Plan on sustainable finance.


This systematic review builds upon the work of Authors (2006) and McGreal and Anderson (2007). It seeks to provide a synthesis and discussion of publicly available government policy documents with regard to e-learning in Canada. There is general consensus, both in public opinion and in the research literature, that the educational practices associated with rapidly advancing computer information technologies are gaining popularity and are expected to be increasingly effective in enhancing learning. The purpose of this review is to uncover and describe areas of commonality and inconsistency in e-learning policy documents dated from 2000 to 2010, and to determine where discussions about e-learning are lacking. In total, 138 policy documents from Canadian provinces and territories and several federal agencies were retrieved and analyzed using prescriptive and emergent coding approaches. The review confirmed that Canadian policy makers view technology as offering potential benefits to learners, but also revealed a troubling lack of specific details, consistency and coordination in facilitating the development of e-learning to fulfill these optimistic expectations.


Environment Canada's Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS), Quebec Region, has conducted a pilot project to develop and test a method to identify priority sites for migratory bird conservation within Bird Conservation Region (BCR) 13, located in the Mixedwood Plains ecozone. The approach is based on the landscape ecology theory, making it possible to associate habitat needs of priority bird species with a finer description of habitat composition and spatial distribution. This landscape-based approach is more integrative and allows for work on a broader scale instead of the more conservative approach based on known priority sites (hot spots) traditionally used in conservation planning. A logic model illustrating the steps for preparing a conservation plan was developed and tested. The Lake Saint-Pierre region (included within BCR 13) was selected as the study area. The goal of the project was to determine the current and potential structure of the landscape in order to maintain and restore functional and viable habitats for the priority species for this project. A total of 48 species identified in the BCR 13 conservation plan as species of conservation concern were selected, including species at risk for which critical habitat was proposed or designated. The issue regarding those priority species is for the most part associated with breeding habitat availability. A land cover map of the study region has been produced and validated. A total of 7 general (anthropogenic, shrubland, annual crops, perennial crops, water, forest, wetland) and 21 detailed land cover classes were delineated. Data on the protected areas and species at risk present in the study area were also compiled. The analysis performed with ArcGIS and FRAGSTATS software was divided into two major components: 1, descriptive analysis; and 2, landscape functionality. The analysis was performed at the study area level, at the regional county municipality (RCM) scale and at the watershed scale. The last two spatial units were selected because they foster effective implementation of the conservation recommendations whereby priority sites can be considered in regional land-use planning activities. The study area is largely dominated by agriculture: annual and perennial crops cover 31% and 20% of the study area respectively, followed by forest (24%), open water (10%), wetlands (10%), anthropogenic areas (4%) and shrubland (which accounts for only 1% of the area). A detailed analysis also identified portions of the study area most suitable for forest birds, where forest fragmentation is reduced and where forest interior habitats still prevail. Landscape functionality was analyzed by comparing the composition of the landscape with known habitat thresholds, by identifying movement corridors for forest birds, and by assessing the availability of certain classes of priority habitat. The thresholds used to compare the landscape of the study area, RCM and watersheds were taken from the document How Much Habitat is Enough? and focused on forest habitat, wetlands and riparian buffer strips. Forest habitats are under-represented in the study area, though forest interior habitats could probably support forest bird populations. Wetlands are abundant around Lake Saint-Pierre, but their presence is limited in the rest of the area. Furthermore, the integrity of these habitats is at risk because the adjacent habitats are strongly influenced by human activity. The same is true for riparian buffer strips. The identification of movement corridors for forest birds focused on connecting forest patches > 1000 ha. Using Corridor Designer software, 14 movement corridors were selected based on pre-established criteria (width > 300 m; distance between woodlots 100 ha, perennial crops > 40 ha, shrubland > 5 ha, marsh > 5 ha, shrub swamp > 5 ha, peatland > 20 ha). All patches of forest swamp and wet meadow were considered priority sites because no minimum area threshold is known for those habitat classes. The best patches in each habitat class were then prioritized according to a series of criteria related to their significance for the establishment and maintenance of nesting bird populations (e.g. patch shape, % of interior habitat) or their ecological role in the landscape (e.g. creation of a buffer zone around protected areas, presence of species at risk). Finally, other habitat components specific to certain species (fine-filter approach) such as sand pits and rocky outcrops in forest environments were also identified. A diagnosis of the ability of the landscape to provide functional habitat for priority bird species was performed. The deficiencies noted in the study area included the limited surface area occupied by shrubland (1%), the lack of forest cover (< 30%), the inadequate distribution of wetlands (few are located outside the immediate vicinity of Lake Saint-Pierre), severe disturbance of riparian buffer strips, and forest corridors that do not meet the established criteria. A conservation plan for migratory bird and species at risk habitat was developed taking into account the description and analysis of landscape functionality, as well as regional development issues. The conservation plan proposes detailed conservation actions at the RCM and watershed scales: prioritization of spatially explicit habitat patches (habitat of avian species at risk, coarse- and fine-filter patches, forest corridors), protection of non-spatially explicit habitat components (e.g. large-diameter snags, Purple Martin nest boxes), and landscape attributes to be considered for the maintenance of ecological processes (e.g. vegetated riparian buffer strips). The conservation plan must be validated at the site level because the data on certain habitats may be outdated. Possible actions and proposals for the implementation of the conservation plan are also presented. Lastly, a general summary of the project points out the benefits and some shortcomings of the landscape-based approach that was used and highlights some problems encountered. A suite of recommendations are proposed to help with the application of the approach and to support a joint involvement of partners and stakeholders in land use planning.


Transcriptome Sequencing, Characterization, and Polymorphism Detection in Subspecies of Big Sagebrush (Artemisa tridentata) Prabin Bajgain Department of Plant and Wildlife Sciences, BYU Master of Science Big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) is one of the ecologically most important shrub species in western North America. The species serves as a major source of food and habitat for the near-threatened sage grouse and various other fauna. Habitat loss due to a combination of disturbances followed by establishment of invasive plant species is considered as a serious threat to sustainability of the big sagebrush ecosystem. Because of its importance, restoration of this species is very crucial to those dependent on big sagebrush community. However, restoration of big sagebrush carried out by using diverse seed source can lead to imbalance and degradation in the native ecosystem. Therefore, restoration works aided by understanding of adaptive traits of big sagebrush using molecular markers will aid successful restoration. The major objective of this research was to create a substantial resource of nuclear sequence data and identify markers that can be used in future studies in big sagebrush. We report the development and annotation of the first expressed sequence tag (EST) collection for big sagebrush based on 454 sequencing of leaf tissue. Expressed genes of subspecies tridentata and vaseyana were sequenced using the 454 GS-FLX titanium platform, which produced 823,392 reads with an average read length of 404 bp and 702,001 reads with an average read length of 333 bp for sspp. tridentata and vaseyana, respectively. Assembly of the reads resulted in 212,102 consensus sequences in ssp. tridentata and 199,439 in ssp. vaseyana. A combined assembly of both subspecies sequences generated 29,541 contigs with an average length of 796 bp and 275,866 singletons with an average length of 370 bp. A BLASTx search against the non-redundant (NR) protein database using the contigs obtained from a combined assembly resulted in 21,436 sequences with significant blast alignments (≤ 1e -15 ). Gene Ontology (GO) IDs were assigned to 18,397 sequences. A total of 20,952 SNPs were detected between the two subspecies and 1,182 SNPs were confirmed in tetraploid ssp. wyomingensis. In addition, 1,003 and 507 SSRs were detected in ssp. tridentata contigs and ssp. vaseyana contigs, respectively.


Writing in the first and second centuries AD, the Roman senator and historian Tacitus warned that in the corruption and decadence of the ever-expanding Roman Empire already lay the foundation for its eventual demise. It would not be powerful enemy armies, Tacitus predicted, so much as extravagant banquets, eroding moral standards, and unadulterated lust for power that would lead to the downfall of one of the greatest historical empires. It is no coincidence that the story of the most extravagant banquet, overflowing with every kind of perversion and gluttony, is followed immediately in Tacitus' Annals by the story of the Great Fire that devours Rome. Today, almost 2,000 years later, it seems that another hedonistic leader on the Italian peninsula, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, may be facing the end of his own empire. Berlusconi, who has served as Prime Minister three times, is coming under fire from all sides for his blatant manipulation of the media, poor treatment of women, and lack of concern for effective governance and the rule of law. The confluence of these trends may be enough to finally end his time atop Italy's political system. Perhaps most troubling to Italians and the international community alike has been Berlusconi's blatant use of the media as a tool of the state. Berlusconi and his family run a media empire estimated to be worth US$9 billion; these holdings, combined with the state's de facto control over the largest public broadcaster, give Berlusconi effective control over five of the seven national channels. A number of magazines and newspapers under Berlusconi's control also serve as his own personal propaganda machine. According to James Walston, a professor of international relations at the American University of Rome, every political leader meets with staff to plan his media strategy; what makes Berlusconi different is that his "staff" is comprised of editors of newspapers and television channels that reach more than half the population. In fact, the battle for Italy's future is not being waged in the Parliament, or even in the courts--rather, it is one Berlusconi has chosen to let the media decide. During the week of February 11, Berlusconi called numerous prominent figures from the Italian press to his office to discuss coverage of the scandals surrounding his leadership. The newspaper Il Giornale ran a headline exclaiming, "Justice, Italian Style: Free to Attack the Prime Minister." The sensational headline was not surprising given its ownership by Mr Berlusconi's brother. Berlusconi has also received a great deal of well-deserved criticism for his attitude toward women and his penchant for hosting parties with underage girls. A judge in Italy recently announced that Berlusconi must stand trial for two charges: first, for having sex with a 17-year-old nightclub dancer named Kharima el Mahroug at one of his infamous parties; and second, for abuse of power after Berlusconi called the Milan police station where el Mahroug was being held on unrelated charges and ordered her released. Together, the charges carry a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. Berlusconi makes no secret of these events; he has survived such scandals before and counts on surviving this one as well. Yet public frustration is mounting. Berlusconi's so-called "bunga bunga" parties--orgies arranged at Berlusconi's mansion outside of Milan for him and his friends--have been well-known in Italy for months now, but the worst suspicions of the Italian people are only now being confirmed. Prosecutors in Milan recently presented the Italian Parliament with a 389-page report, including taped conversations between women present at the parties. The behavior described rivals anything even the decadent Roman emperor Nero could have imagined. Berlusconi would hand out bracelets, jewelry, and money to the woman present in exchange for sexual favors. …


This book selects from twenty years of Glyn Maxwell's poetry, and provides a concise introduction to one of the most imaginatively gifted poets of the age. Maxwell's is perhaps the most immediately recognizable voice in British poetry: wry, wise, compellingly rhythmic, and everywhere carrying a sense of the dramatic line no other British poet has won for their verse since W. H. Auden. While wholly contemporary in their social and political concerns, these poems are haunted by forgotten histories, traditional fairytale and myth, parallel worlds which mirror or merge with our own. As Joseph Brodsky noted early in his career, the beating heart of this imaginative risk is the syntax itself: in Maxwell's hands the poetic sentence becomes a fluid, new and protean thing, a means by which the very structure of time, voice and location may be questioned and made strange. Maxwell is a poet essential to understanding our own unstable times, and few other contemporary writers give us such pause before the world we thought we knew.


This page provides a look at key resources for anyone interested in applied behavioral analysis (ABA). Many of these resources are pertinent to students in the ABA graduate program in the College of Community and Behavioral Sciences.


The distinguishing feature of the Internet of Things is that many devices get interconnected. The threat of side-channel attacks in this setting is less understood than the threat of traditional network and software exploitation attacks that are perceived to be more powerful.This work is a case study of Thread, an emerging network and transport level stack designed to facilitate secure communication between heterogeneous IoT devices. We perform the first side-channel vulnerability analysis of the Thread networking stack. We leverage various network mechanisms to trigger manipulations of the security material or to get access to the network credentials. We choose the most feasible attack vector to build a complete attack that combines network specific mechanisms and Differential Electromagnetic Analysis. When successfully applied on a Thread network, the attack gives full network access to the adversary. We evaluate the feasibility of our attack in a TI CC2538 setup running OpenThread, a certified open-source implementation of the stack.The full attack does not succeed in our setting. The root cause for this failure is not any particular security feature of the protocol or the implementation, but a side-effect of a feature not related to security. We summarize the problems that we find in the protocol with respect to side-channel analysis, and suggest a range of countermeasures to prevent our attack and the other attack vectors we identified during the vulnerability analysis.In general, we demonstrate that elaborate security mechanisms of Thread make a side-channel attack not trivial to mount. Similar to a modern software exploit, it requires chaining multiple vulnerabilities. Nevertheless, such attacks are feasible. Being perhaps too expensive for settings like smart homes, they pose a relatively higher threat to the commercial setting. We believe our experience provides a useful lesson to designers of IoT protocols and devices.


Organizations today can use both crowds and experts to produce knowledge. While prior work compares the accuracy of crowd-produced and expert-produced knowledge, we compare bias in these two models in the context of contested knowledge, which involves subjective, unverifiable, or controversial information. Using data from Encyclopedia Britannica, authored by experts, and Wikipedia, an encyclopedia produced by an online community, we compare the slant and bias of pairs of articles on identical topics of U.S. politics. Our slant measure is less (more) than zero when an article leans toward Democratic (Republican) viewpoints, while bias is the absolute value of the slant. We find that Wikipedia articles are more slanted toward Democratic views than are Britannica articles, as well as more biased. The difference in bias between a pair of articles decreases with more revisions. The bias on a per word basis hardly differs between the sources because Wikipedia articles tend to be longer than Britannica articles. These results highlight the pros and cons of each knowledge production model, help identify the scope of the empirical generalization of prior studies comparing the information quality of the two production models, and offer implications for organizations managing crowd-based knowledge production.


Structural sandwich panels have been shown to be effective for use as building cladding materials due to their low weight and high relative strength and stiffness. To increase the sustainability of these panels natural and recyclable materials can be used in place of the traditional synthetic materials such as metals, synthetic fiber-reinforced polymers (FRPs) and foams. In this study, a total of six large-scale sandwich panels with flax fiber-reinforced polymer (FFRP) faces and cardboard cores were fabricated and tested under quasi-static and impact loads. The FFRP faces were made using two layers of a bidirectional woven flax fabric and a bio-based epoxy with a reported bio-content of 30%. The cores were made of sections of corrugated cardboard. The panels were tested under both quasi-static three-point bending and using a drop weight impact. The drop weight impact was designed such that the energy matched the failure energy observed during the static tests. The specimens were 150 mm wide, 75 mm thick and 1200 mm long and were impacted by a 150 mm impact surface at midspan. A string potentiometer was used to measure deflection at the midspan and strain gauges were applied to the top and bottom faces at midspan. The data was acquired at a rate of 10 Hz for the static tests and 25 kHz for the impact test. The aim of this project is to provide data to the growing field of study, present a deeper understanding of impact on FFRP sandwich panels and to show the viability of natural and recycled materials for use in sustainable sandwich panels as cladding in new infrastructure. Another aim of this research is to show that materials which are often not considered due to limiting factors, such as moisture resistance, can be used with minor modifications and should not be discounted. This is on-going research and results will be available for the submission of the full paper.


Chen, G. D., J. YanG, F. Qin, h. Liu, S. Shen, W. Y. Chen, X. B. Ma, 2011. Direct plant regeneration from stem explants of Swainsona salsula Taubert: the stimulatory effect of silver nitrate and sucrose on shoot induction. Bulg. J. Agric. Sci., 17: 339-347 An efficient regeneration system for large-scale propagation of Swainsona salsula Taubert was developed using stem explants. Stem segments were cultured on Murashige and Skoog's medium containing Ba, naa, and silver nitrate in various concentrations, and it was found adventitious shoots regenerated directly from explants on most media with silver nitrate. The best response in terms of frequency of shoot induction (79.62%) and shoot number per explant (6.32) was observed on medium supplemented with 3.0 mg·L-1 Ba, 0 mg·L-1 naa, and 2.0 mg·L-1 agnO3. Based on the optimal combination of the aforementioned three factors, single factor experiment showed that 60g·L-1 sucrose was optimum for shoot induction. The rate of shoots induction rose up to 86.67%, and the average shoot number increased from 6.32 to 8.36. after transferred to half strength MS medium, 85.14% shoots rooted easily on medium with 2.0mg·L-1 iBa. in vitro propagated plants could be transferred to soil with 82.5% survival rate.


A detailed, fundamental understanding of the surface properties of molecular crystals and their interaction with adsorbing molecules (e.g. excipients) is important for tailoring the stability of formulations and the bioavailability of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (APIs). Few fundamental experimental studies with surface sensitive probes have been carried out for organic molecular crystals. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is an established surface analysis method in the fields of adsorption, catalysis and surface chemistry of inorganic crystals. It has high surface sensitivity, probing approximately the top 1-3 nm of a crystal, and allows surface elemental analysis combined with the determination of the chemical state of the elements. To explore the possibilities and limitations of XPS for the surface characterisation of molecular crystal systems, investigation has been made on a range of paracetamol systems, three different poloxamers and blends of paracetamol with poloxamer 188. It was found by investigations of a range of polycrystalline paracetamol forms that the C1s, N1s and O1s core level emissions from the amide group of paracetamol allow to quantify, for the first time, the influence of surface contamination and adsorbed species on the paracetamol XPS data. Results of quantitative XPS analyses must be critically evaluated taking the material and energy-specific escape depth of the photoelectron signals into account. Analysis of the polycrystalline powder samples, including two different polymorphs and various partially amorphous forms of paracetamol, indicated that the core-level shifts associated with varying intermolecular interactions do not perturb the local electronic structure variations in paracetamol enough to become detectable through chemical shifts in the core level photoemission spectra. Subsequently, large, high quality single crystals of the monoclinic form I (with facet diameters between ~5 and ~10 mm) were obtained from different solvents (methanol, ethanol, acetone) to examine the influence of the crystallisation medium on the surface properties. Small spot XPS analysis was performed in several areas across facets to examine the possible influence of roughness and other lateral inhomogeneities. Careful curve-fitting of all results reveals only minor variations in the XPS data as a function of facet orientation, crystallisation medium or degree of crystallinity. Moreover, results indicate that any variations seen in XPS data very likely stem from low-level surface contamination, which is very difficult to avoid, even in a clean-room laboratory environment. In fact, the results indicate that the level of surface contamination depends significantly on the crystallisation apparatus cleanliness. Even minute concentrations of surface active components in the solutions, i.e. below the detection level of techniques for routine analytical methods, are likely to cause significant surface concentrations on crystal facets emersed from the solutions. The study thus highlights the paramount importance of microscopic surface cleanliness when assessing macroscopic facet-specific phenomena such as contact angles. Finally, XPS was employed to analyse milled and physical mixtures of paracetamol with poloxamer 188 at different percent. At minimum mass percentages poloxamer 188 adsorbs on the paracetamol surfaces; in the presence of poloxamer 188 excess the conformation of adsorbed poloxamer on the paracetamol surface changes. Studies of radiation damage on the poloxamer samples were performed both for several pure polxamers as well as for milled mixtures with paracetamol. They allowed the proposal of radiation-induced degradation mechanisms.


This paper examined the media and public relations coverage of e-sport in China over a 17-yr period, focusing on how the representations of e-sport as a fast-growing industry have changed in China during that time. With the theoretical underpinning of media framing, the study used content analysis and examined 400 e-sport-related reports. Specifically, it investigated the tone of coverage, the topic emphasis of e-sport-related stories, and the use of jargon and statistics in the reports. In general, findings indicated that both mainstream media and public relations gradually covered e-sport issues in a more positive way as time went by. Similar to reporting on traditional sports, the topic emphasis changed from nongame issues to player and team performance in the contemporary climate. The findings highlight the importance of live-streaming platforms in e-sport development and suggest that more traditional-sport-styled media coverage of e-sport might benefit the industry. Finally, the study calls for an evaluation of media e-sport coverage in different cultural contexts and comparisons between e-sport's and traditional sports' representation in the contemporary media climate.


In this research, university students' psychological well being and self-esteem levels are investigated in terms of a number of variables. The sample in this study is composed of 382 university students. To gather the data for this study, the Subjective Information Form, Psychological Well-Being Scale and Self-Esteem Scale are used. T tests and one-way analysis of variance are used for the independent groups to determine the difference between variables when analyzing the research data. The Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient is used to find out whether there is a linear relationship between university students' psychological well-being and their self-esteem scores. The research findings are that there is a statistically significant difference in the sub dimensions of the Psychological Well-Being Scale according to the university students' genders. However, a statistically significant difference between genders is not found in the scores obtained from Self-Esteem Scale. Again, it is revealed that there is a significant difference between the university students' psychological well being and self-esteem levels in terms of their internet connection period and their participation in social clubs. In addition, it is determined that there is a positive correlation between the self-acceptance dimension of the psychological well being scale and the self-esteem scores. The results are discussed in accordance with the related literature and presents suggestions for further research. Keywords: Psychological Well-Being, Self-respect, Internet Addiction, Personality ********** In the 21st century, rapid changes and developments have affected people's lives both positively and negatively. While people try to get used to themselves into this case, they often ignore their own general well-being, particularly at university, as a place in which adolescents study which creates an anxiety for the youth who will administrate the community in the future. The concept of psychological well-being and its relation with gender differences, social relations, internet addiction, self-respect and some other factors has therefore become an increasingly important topic for researchers. Research into psychological well-being is focused on cultural differences (Diener & Diener, 1995; Kwan, Bond, & Singelis, 1997), individual differences (Sheldon & Niemiec, 2006; Wissing & Van Eeden, 2002), changes in psychological well-being through life span (Blanchflower & Oswald, 2008; Kim & Kim, 2009; Shields & Wheatley, 2005), gender differences due to gender stereotypes (Mills, Grasmick, Morgan, & Wenk, 1992; Roothman, Kirsten, & Wissing, 2003), self-respect (Betton, 2001; Tajfel, 1981; Tuzgol-Dost, 2004), characteristics of personality (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002; Ziskis, 2010) and internet addiction (Caplan, 2007; Dallery & Glenn, 2005; Glenn & Dallery, 2007; Morahan-Martin & Schumacher, 2000; Weiser, 2001). On the one hand, social support is believed to decrease psychological distress and the levels of depression, while enhancing subjective well-being (Ensel & Lin, 1991; Holahan & Moos, 1981; Turner, 1981; VanderZee, Buunk, & Sanderman, 1997; Winefield, Winefield, & Tiggemann, 1992). In studies in Taiwan and China, receiving emotional support from spouses and children is found to be positively associated with psychological well-being (Chen, 2001; Chi & Chou; 2001; Hermalin, Ofstedal, & Chang, 1996; Silverman, Hecht, McMilin, & Chang, 2008). However, emotional support from daughters-in-law exerts a stronger effect on mental health than other family relations in Taiwan. The receipt of material and instrumental support from daughters, sons and friends contributes to an individual's psychological well-being (Silverman, Hecht, McMilin, & Chang, 2008). To examine this aspect, Holahan and Moos (1981) conducted a study to investigate the relationship between psychological distress and social support. …


Abstract. An observation product for thin sea ice thickness (SMOS-Ice) is derived from the brightness temperature data of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission. This product is available in near-real time, at daily frequency, during the cold season. In this study, we investigate the benefit of assimilating SMOS-Ice into the TOPAZ coupled ocean and sea ice forecasting system, which is the Arctic component of the Copernicus marine environment monitoring services. The TOPAZ system assimilates sea surface temperature (SST), altimetry data, temperature and salinity profiles, ice concentration, and ice drift with the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF). The conditions for assimilation of sea ice thickness thinner than 0.4 m are favorable, as observations are reliable below this threshold and their probability distribution is comparable to that of the model. Two parallel Observing System Experiments (OSE) have been performed in March and November 2014, in which the thicknesses from SMOS-Ice (thinner than 0.4 m) are assimilated in addition to the standard observational data sets. It is found that the root mean square difference (RMSD) of thin sea ice thickness is reduced by 11 % in March and 22 % in November compared to the daily thin ice thicknesses of SMOS-Ice, which suggests that SMOS-Ice has a larger impact during the beginning of the cold season. Validation against independent observations of ice thickness from buoys and ice draft from moorings indicates that there are no degradations in the pack ice but there are some improvements near the ice edge close to where the SMOS-Ice has been assimilated. Assimilation of SMOS-Ice yields a slight improvement for ice concentration and degrades neither SST nor sea level anomaly. Analysis of the degrees of freedom for signal (DFS) indicates that the SMOS-Ice has a comparatively small impact but it has a significant contribution in constraining the system (> 20 % of the impact of all ice and ocean observations) near the ice edge. The areas of largest impact are the Kara Sea, Canadian Archipelago, Baffin Bay, Beaufort Sea and Greenland Sea. This study suggests that the SMOS-Ice is a good complementary data set that can be safely included in the TOPAZ system.


type="main" xml:id="jage12044-abs-0001"> This paper explores farmers' prospective responses to the "greening" of the Common Agricultural Policy. The analysis is based on discrete choice experiments with 128 German farmers. Participants were asked to choose between a "greening" option with a given set of management prescriptions and an "opt-out" alternative with a stipulated cut of the single direct payment. A binary logit model is used to identify the variables affecting the likelihood of "greening" being chosen. In addition, latent class estimations are carried out to group respondents into latent classes of "compliers" and "non-compliers". We find that farmers' choices are driven by "greening" policy attributes, personal and farm characteristics, and interactions between these two groups of variables. Farmers perceive "greening" as a costly constraint, but not all farmers are equally affected and not all "greening" provisions are regarded as equally demanding. Specialised arable farms on highly productive land and intensive dairy farms are most likely to opt out of "greening" and voluntarily forgo part of their single payment entitlements. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations for improving the design of a second-best policy.


Cubic boron nitride (cBN) is a synthetic wide band gap material that has attracted attention due to its high thermal conductivity, optical transparency and optical emission. In this work, defects in cBN have been investigated using experimental and theoretical X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES). Vacancy and O substitutional defects were considered, with O substituted at the N site (O_N) to be the most energetically favorable. All defects produce unique signatures in either the B or N K-edges and can thus be identified using XANES. The calculations coupled with electron-irradiation / annealing experiments strongly suggest that O_N is the dominant defect in irradiated cBN and remains after annealing. This defect is a likely source of optical emission in cBN.


Multiple quasi-Bessel beams are generated by transmission of sub-30-fs pulses from a Ti:sapphire laser through refractive thin-film microaxicon arrays. Time-integrated intensity distributions at several axial positions and for pulse durations of 26 and 12.5 fs reveal significant changes of contrast, envelope function, and spatial frequency spectrum in comparison with continuous wave data. Evidence is presented that strong space-time coupling results in a time-dependent interference zone.


Sec 263 ITAA has been an important part of the federal income tax legislation for more than 60 years, and is the main investigative provision on which the ATO regularly relies, providing a statutory power of access to (broadly) records and buildings. It is therefore surprising to find that sec 263 has a number of well-known deficiencies that have not been addressed by the few amendments made to the section.

As a result, sec 263 is currently a "second-best" provision, often relying on common law principles whose content and application to the section are disputed or unclear, and which sometimes after decades of case-law still do not provide definitive "rules". The doctrine of legal professional privilege is a classic illustration of this aspect of Eisenstien's "hazards of litigation".

This article suggests that fundamental reform to sec 263 is long overdue, and that it would be comparatively simple to draw upon existing precedents from other legislation within Australia or overseas jurisdictions to remedy defects in sec 263, and thus provide clear rules and guidelines in a crucial area. A variety of possible approaches which might be taken are set out or referred to in the article, any of which would – in different ways – improve the current section.

It is sometimes suggested that there is no need to amend sec 263 because issues arise relatively infrequently. Perhaps – but when disputes do arise, the ensuing litigation can tie up years of taxpayers', government's and legal advisers' time and expertise, and may cost millions of dollars in money and lost opportunities – often to resolve an issue which could easily have been avoided by clear legislative drafting!


We study the impact of private ownership, incentive pay and local development objectives on university licensing performance. We develop and test a simple contracting model of technology licensing offices, using new survey information together with panel data on U.S. universities for 1995-99. We find that private universities are much more likely to adopt incentive pay than public ones, but ownership does not affect licensing performance conditional on the use of incentive pay. Adopting incentive pay is associated with about 30-40 percent more income per license. Universities with strong local development objectives generate about 30 percent less income per license, but are more likely to license to local (in-state) startup companies. In addition, we show that government constraints on university licensing activity are .costly. in terms of foregone license income and the creation of start-up companies. These results are robust to controls for observed and unobserved heterogeneity.