ABSTRACT OBJECTIVE Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), being a protective of dopaminergic neurons, is reported to modulate addictive behaviours and have a role as a negative regulator for biochemical and behavioural adaptations to drug abuse. We aimed to reveal impulsivity and serum GDNF levels in patients with heroin addiction and investigate their relationships in order to contribute to the understanding of behavioural aspects and biological mechanisms in heroin addiction via this study. METHODS This study was performed at the Department of Psychiatry of Ankara Numune Training and Research Hospital, Turkey. We recruited 129 heroin-dependent patients and 90 age, sex, and smoking-matched healthy controls with no major psychopathology. Barratt Impulsivity Scale-11, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and sociodemographic data form were applied to all participants. Laboratory analysis for serum GDNF levels was performed for each participant's blood sample. RESULTS Total impulsivity scores and scores of Attentional Impulsivity, Motor Impulsivity, and Unplanned Impulsivity subscales were all higher in heroin addicts compared to the controls. Heroin addicts had also lower serum GDNF levels and lower GDNF levels were associated with high impulsivity and high HADS scores in heroin addicts. CONCLUSION Decrement in GDNF levels in heroin addiction seems as to be an important data which could be associated with impulsivity, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. GDNF could find a prominent place among the target molecules in the treatment of heroin addiction.


Deleterious effects of Standardized Achievement Tests, such as those taken at Key Stage 2, on the emotional and physical wellbeing, educational experiences and outcomes of primary school pupils in England have recently been documented (e.g. Tymms & Merrell, 2007), yet there is a lack of empirical evidence supporting these claims. This paper reports on the outcomes of a mixed methods study, involving 120 Year 6 pupils and their teachers, from 3 English primary schools, which examined pupils' experiences of SATs and SAT related anxiety as well as the extent to which differences in pupils' resilience moderate the effects of test anxiety. Using hierarchical regression analyses to control for differences in pupils' general ability, it was found that poorer SAT grades in English, maths and science were significantly associated with higher levels of self-reported test anxiety and lower levels of resilience and that the negative effects of worry, off task behavior and autonomic reaction components of test anxiety were moderated by differences in pupils' resilience. Qualitative data provided further evidence of SAT related anxiety and its various sources, but also highlighted both positive and negative attitudes towards the tests.


While the design step should be free from computational related constraints and operations due to its artistic aspect, the modeling phase has to prepare the model for the later stages of the pipeline.
This dissertation is concerned with the design and implementation of a framework for local remeshing and optimization. Based on the experience gathered, a full study about mesh quality criteria is also part of this work.
The contributions can be highlighted as: (1) a local meshing technique based on a completely novel approach constrained to the preservation of the mesh of non interesting areas. With this concept, designers can work on the design details of specific regions of the model without introducing more polygons elsewhere; (2) a tool capable of recovering the shape of a refined area to its decimated version, enabling details on optimized meshes of detailed models; (3) the integration of novel techniques into a single framework for meshing and smoothing which is constrained to surface structure; (4) the development of a mesh quality criteria priority structure, being able to classify and prioritize according to the application of the mesh.
Although efficient meshing techniques have been proposed along the years, most of them lack the possibility to mesh smaller regions of the base mesh, preserving the mesh quality and density of outer areas.
Considering this limitation, this dissertation seeks answers to the following research questions:
1. Given that mesh quality is relative to the application it is intended for, is it possible to design a general mesh evaluation plan?
2. How to prioritize specific mesh criteria over others?
3. Given an optimized mesh and its original design, how to improve the representation of single regions of the first, without degrading the mesh quality elsewhere?
Four main achievements came from the respective answers:
1. The Application Driven Mesh Quality Criteria Structure: Due to high variation in mesh standards because of various computer aided operations performed for different applications, e.g. animation or stress simulation, a structure for better visualization of mesh quality criteria is proposed. The criteria can be used to guide the mesh optimization, making the task consistent and reliable. This dissertation also proposes a methodology to optimize the criteria values, which is adaptable to the needs of a specific application.
2. Curvature Driven Meshing Algorithm: A novel approach, a local meshing technique, which works on a desired area of the mesh while preserving its boundaries as well as the rest of the topology. It causes a slow growth in the overall amount of polygons by making only small regions denser. The method can also be used to recover the details of a reference mesh to its decimated version while refining it. Moreover, it employs a geometric fast and easy to implement approach representing surface features as simple circles, being used to guide the meshing. It also generates quad-dominant meshes, with triangle count directly dependent on the size of the boundary.
3. Curvature-based Method for Anisotropic Mesh Smoothing: A geometric-based method is extended to 3D space to be able to produce anisotropic elements where needed. It is made possible by mapping the original space to another which embeds the surface curvature. This methodology is used to enhance the smoothing algorithm by making the nearly regularized elements follow the surface features, preserving the original design. The mesh optimization method also preserves mesh topology, while resizing elements according to the local mesh resolution, effectively enhancing the design aspects intended.
4. Framework for Local Restructure of Meshed Surfaces: The combination of both methods creates a complete tool for recovering surface details through mesh refinement and curvature aware mesh smoothing.


The purpose of this study was to compare the peer relationships of highly gifted and highly gifted-highly creative primary students in a gifted classroom of a public school. The study was conducted using thirty-one highly gifted first, second, and third graders who had scores of 140 or better on the WISC-R, WPPSI, or Otis-Lennon.
At the beginning of the school year, the Creativity Assessment Packet was administered to the class. The top 20 percent scorers in the class (termed gifted-creative) and those who scored in the bottom 20 percent of the class (termed gifted) on the CAP were targeted for observation. In addition, a sociogram was administered to each student individually for the purpose of determining each child's social status. A bivariate correlation coefficient was employed to express the degree of any relationship between creativity scores and rankings on the class sociogram. Observational anecdotes were used in the discussion of the
sociometric results.
The following findings resulted from the study. The gifted-creative students, as a group, ranked higher on a class sociogram on measures of friendship and choice of academic work partners than did the gifted group. On sociometric measures of choice of creative work partners, there was no significant difference. During observations, the gifted students displayed approximately the same amount of positive verbal behaviors as the gifted-creative students. The gifted students did exhibit more isolated behavior, especially during academic tasks, than.did their gifted creative counterparts. The gifted-creative group displayed much more verbal and physical aggression than the gifted group.
This report concludes that in the gifted classroom under investigation, gifted-creative and gifted pupils differ in their peer relationships thus supporting findings documented in past research. However, information from the sociogram seemed to suggest that the gifted-creative students, as a group, achieved higher social status within this gifted classroom than the gifted students.


New technologies?digitalization, artificial intelligence, and machine learning?are changing the way work gets done at an unprecedented rate. Helping people adapt to a fast-changing world of work and ameliorating its deleterious impacts will be the defining challenge of our time. What are the gender implications of this changing nature of work? How vulnerable are women's jobs to risk of displacement by technology? What policies are needed to ensure that technological change supports a closing, and not a widening, of gender gaps? This SDN finds that women, on average, perform more routine tasks than men across all sectors and occupations?tasks that are most prone to automation. Given the current state of technology, we estimate that 26 million female jobs in 30 countries (28 OECD member countries, Cyprus, and Singapore) are at a high risk of being displaced by technology (i.e., facing higher than 70 percent likelihood of being automated) within the next two decades. Female workers face a higher risk of automation compared to male workers (11 percent of the female workforce, relative to 9 percent of the male workforce), albeit with significant heterogeneity across sectors and countries. Less well-educated and older female workers (aged 40 and above), as well as those in low-skill clerical, service, and sales positions are disproportionately exposed to automation. Extrapolating our results, we find that around 180 million female jobs are at high risk of being displaced globally. Policies are needed to endow women with required skills; close gender gaps in leadership positions; bridge digital gender divide (as ongoing digital transformation could confer greater flexibility in work, benefiting women); ease transitions for older and low-skilled female workers.


According to Health Canada, foodborne disease is responsible of more than 4 million cases per year. In United States, more than 48 million people get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized and 3000 die every year in United States due to foodborne diseases according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Cross-contamination from the raw materials, during the process or on working surface has to be rapidly detected. Good manufacturing practices (GMP) and hazard analysis critical control point (HACCP) can help to reduce the incidence of contamination. However, the development of sensitive and rapid methods of detection is still an important need. Standard culture-based methods request the consumption of large amounts of media, are time-consuming and interferences can occur when samplings are done in complex food matrices. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based methods are new technologies. These methods show high level of specificity and sensitivity because they can detect nucleic acid sequences of target bacteria. However, they require an expensive instrumentation and trained scientific technicians. This review is focusing on the development of new simple, sensitive, specific, and time-saving technologies in order to detect quickly foodborne pathogens for application in food industries.


Telepsychiatry, the practice of psychiatry over distance using information and communication technologies is, after teleradiology, the most practiced form of telemedicine in the world. As with any new technology, clinical service, or intervention in medicine, it is prudent to have guidelines for the safe and efficacious use of the technology in clinical practice. Guidelines facilitate best practice and provide both clinicians and patients with a set of standards and procedures that serve to protect their interests. Protection is particularly important when dealing with vulnerable groups.


Rapid identification of disease-causing pathogens at the point-of-care enables immediate treatment and infection control. However, existing rapid diagnostic devices fail to detect the low concentrations of pathogens present in the early stages of infection, causing delayed and even incorrect treatment. A delay in antibiotic treatment of as few as 24 hours after infection onset will drastically decrease a patient's chance of survival. The transport of a patient's sample to a centralized testing laboratory can contribute hours to this delay. For instance, the most sensitive assay, nucleic acid detection, can only be performed at centralized laboratories. The multistep sample preparation and costly instrumentation required to analyze samples has prohibited nucleic acid detection assays from reaching the point-of-care. There remains a critical need to bring rapid and sensitive pathogen identification technologies out of the laboratory to ensure effective treatment.Paper-based devices have emerged as a portable platform for nucleic acid detection but are limited by their imperfect control of reagent incubation and false positive results. Here, I have developed mechanisms to specifically and automatically detect the nucleic acids of pathogens on paper-based devices. First, I characterize wax-ink valves that enable controlled incubation and delivery of reagents through device stages. Next, I implement toe-hold mediated strand displacement reactions to increase the specificity of nucleic acid detection with paper-based devices. Lastly, I functionalize polymers with nucleic acid probes and explore their potential integration into paper-based devices as bio-responsive valves. I demonstrate how such novel valving mechanisms enable the automatic and multi-step analysis of bacteria and viruses on paper-based platforms, improving the detection of infectious diseases at patients' point-of-care.


This paper documents a 2015 Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for Mozambique. The SAM is built using unpublished Instituto Nacional de Estatistica (INE) industry-level production accounts, commodity-level supply–demand balances and a supply matrix, together with national accounts, National Directorate of Planning and Budget (DNPO) government statistics and IMF balance of payment statistics (all for the year 2015), INE household and labour market survey data for 2014–15 and a use matrix from a 2007 SAM for Mozambique. It provides a detailed representation of the Mozambican economy and identifies 55 activities and commodities. Labour is disaggregated by education attainment level and household income and expenditure by per capita expenditure quintiles both for urban and rural areas. The SAM features production for home consumption as reported in the unpublished INE accounts and the INE household survey data and also presents government, investment, and foreign accounts. The SAM is a useful database for conducting economy-wide impact assessments, including multiplier analysis and computable general equilibrium (CGE) modelling.general equilibrium (CGE) modelling.


In an attempt to meet ever-changing users' needs, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) Libraries implemented virtual reference services such as e-mail, chat, and, most recently, instant messaging, in increments and via various services and vendors. Each option consistently met with a lukewarm response and less-than-desirable reference transaction numbers. After investigating the virtual reference experiences of other academic institutions, and after the advent of a more flexible Webpage design, the UNL Libraries decided to pilot strategic placement of the QuestionPoint Instant Message Qwidget on multiple pages of the library Website. Data collected in the Fall 2008 and 2009 semesters test the hypothesis that 2009 sessions utilizing the strategically placed Qwidget resulted in significantly higher sessions than 2008. The strategic placement of the Qwidget resulted in a drastic increase in reference interactions in the 2009 academic year when compared to the 2008 academic year. The overall increase in reference transactions, along with a consistent increase throughout the academic year, indicate that instant messaging reference service is of interest to our users, as long as placement of the service is prominent.


This paper is an empirical study of the Banco de Mexico's monetary policy during the 1970s. In particular, it studies the Mexican monetary equilibria and the extent to which capital mobility undermined monetary control. Estimates of a Banco de Mexico reaction function suggest that the Mexican central bank attempted to sterilize reserve flows through offsetting movements in domestic credit, at least over the second half of the decade. This finding suggests that estimates of the capital-account response to domestic credit expansion should be derived from a structural model, and we accordingly estimate an aggregative three-equation model of Mexican financial markets. The paper distinguishes between the short-run or one-quarter capital-account offset and a hypothetical long-run offset that would obtain under instantaneous asset-market adjustment. The model implies that, depending on the method of monetary expansion, between 30 and 50 percent of an expansion in domestic credit was offset by capital outflow in the same quarter. The implied long-run offsets range from 50 to 76 percent. These offset coefficients indicate that the Banco de Mexico's monetary control was exercised at a substantial cost in terms of reserve volatility.


Adoptive cell transfer (ACT) of ex vivo–activated autologous tumor-reactive T cells is currently one of the most promising approaches for cancer immunotherapy. Recent studies provided some evidence that IL-17–producing CD8+ (Tc17) cells may exhibit potent antitumor activity, but the specific mechanisms have not been completely defined. In this study, we used a murine melanoma lung-metastasis model and tested the therapeutic effects of gp100-specific polarized type I CD8+ cytotoxic T (Tc1) or Tc17 cells combined with autologous bone marrow transplantation after total body irradiation. Bone marrow transplantation combined with ACT of antitumor (gp100-specific) Tc17 cells significantly suppressed the growth of established melanoma, whereas Tc1 cells induced long-term tumor regression. After ACT, Tc1 cells maintained their phenotype to produce IFN-γ, but not IL-17. However, although Tc17 cells largely preserved their ability to produce IL-17, a subset secreted IFN-γ or both IFN-γ and IL-17, indicating the plasticity of Tc17 cells in vivo. Furthermore, after ACT, the Tc17 cells had a long-lived effector T cell phenotype (CD127hi/KLRG-1low) as compared with Tc1 cells. Mechanistically, Tc1 cells mediated antitumor immunity primarily through the direct effect of IFN-γ on tumor cells. In contrast, despite the fact that some Tc17 cells also secreted IFN-γ, Tc17-mediated antitumor immunity was independent of the direct effects of IFN-γ on the tumor. Nevertheless, IFN-γ played a critical role by creating a microenvironment that promoted Tc17-mediated antitumor activity. Taken together, these studies demonstrate that both Tc1 and Tc17 cells can mediate effective antitumor immunity through distinct effector mechanisms, but Tc1 cells are superior to Tc17 cells in mediating tumor regression.


The topic-chain is a typical characteristic used to distinguish Chinese discourse from other languages, such as
 English. By studying how to make use of the topic-chain, one learns how to decipher English into natural and idiomatic Chinese
 translation. The idea of using topic-chains to explore English-Chinese (E-C) textual translation is relatively new to translation
 studies. As such, this paper provides a detailed account of cross-linguistic differences between English and Chinese, with regard
 to the topic-chain, as well as the differences between the topic-chain model and the approach of thematic progression theory. This
 study, based on contrastive analysis, constructs a model consisting of specific procedures that are simple and easy to use,
 thereby making English-Chinese textual translation a more manageable process. Use of topic-chain strategies will promote the
 efficiency and quality of E-C translation, and allow for Chinese translated text to be more idiomatic. This paper provides an
 overview of effective textual translation strategies that are useful both for translators and the field of translation studies as
 a whole. It addresses how to teach translation effectively to students, providing practical theory and practice for pedagogical
 instruction. Meanwhile, an experiment conducted provides the evidence that topic-chain for pedagogical instruction is
 significantly valid. The pedagogical design of these strategies emphasizes the training of students' textual awareness and targets
 language-sensitive awareness. It is assumed that didactics can help students gain bilingual competence and strengthen their core
 transfer competence. This study, therefore, is significant not only in exploring the benefits and uses of textual translation
 studies, but has practical value when applied directly to translation learning and teaching.


This chapter, following preliminary work in Herrero (2009), adds to Lakoff's (1987) taxonomy of icms other so-called figures of speech or tropes (often disregarded within Cognitive Linguistics) such as irony, oxymoron, overstatement, understatement, euphemism, and dysphemism. These figures are icms refined to create specific meaning effects, and can be divided into: (i) simple (models in which the generation of additional meanings is built upon propositional icms), and (ii) complex (tropes in which the creation of extra meaning is based on a representational, non-propositional, model). The present chapter studies the role of metonymy in producing the extra meaning effects conveyed by some complex tropes, in terms of both the cognitive operations associated with metonymy and its pragmatic implications.


It has been reported that rapamycin (rap), cyclosporin A (CsA) and FK506 have immunosuppressive effect during the activation process of murine T cells. These drugs were investigated for their suppressive effect on a murine T cell line expressing intermediate (TS1 beta) or high (TS1 alpha beta) affinity IL-2R. Rap and CsA strongly inhibit the IL-2-dependent proliferation of TS1 alpha beta cells while they minimally affect the IL-2-mediated proliferation of TS1 beta cells. FK506 does not have any effect on the IL-2-driven proliferation of either TS1 beta or TS1 alpha beta cells. Simultaneous addition of Rap and CsA or Rap and FK506 inhibit the IL-2-mediated proliferation of TS1 beta and TS1 alpha beta cells and therefore FK506 does not revert the inhibition mediated by Rap in TS1 alpha beta cells. Neither Rap nor CsA affect IL-2R expression and internalization in TS1 alpha beta cells. CsA and Rap strongly inhibit the appearance of DNA binding activity of NF-AT and to a lesser extent NF-kappa B. Rap inhibits IL-2-stimulated phosphatidylinositol 3 (PI3) kinase activity in TS1 alpha beta cells. In TS1 beta cells, Rap activates PI3 kinase on its own, inhibiting the IL-2-stimulated PI3 kinase to a lesser extent. These results suggest that PI3 kinase is a target for Rap action. Our results strongly suggest that we have Rap and CsA sensitive and resistant activation pathways operating in TS1 beta and TS1 alpha beta cells.


Shopping Around investigates the issues of contemporary popular narrative, feminine pleasure, and consumer culture, viewing the permutations of the feminine subject as a textual construction evolved through everyday life. A wide spectrum of texts are examined, exposing the fact that women "read" within a complex and conflicted cultural arena characterized by a significant intertextuality that multiply defines "femininity." Shopping Around raises these issues in the context of everyday cultural practices such as applying make-up, reading magazines, watching television, and working-out, providing a unique introduction to postmodern feminist and cultural theory.


Haemophilia A and B can cause significant bleeding in affected males. Labour management of a potentially affected male should be cautious due to the potential risk of fetal haemorrhage, with delivery advised in a specialist Haemophilia centre. Historically, first trimester invasive testing has been offered but is now rarely pursued due to improved treatments. Some centres offer late (34+ weeks) gestation amniocentesis to aid delivery planning as an unaffected male can then be managed without specialist intervention. This procedure is associated with an estimated pre-term labour risk of 1% and is potentially subject to technical limitations. We report a single centre experience, over a 2 year period, of late amniocentesis in the management of 10 known haemophilia carrier females with male fetuses by first trimester fetal sexing. 50 mL of amniotic fluid was drawn at 34+ weeks gestation. 6 fetuses were confirmed as affected, 2 unaffected and in 2 cases no result was obtained, relating to quality of sample and the underlying mutation. One carrier whose fetus was unaffected subsequently delivered in her local obstetric unit. Gestation at delivery ranged from 36–41 weeks with a median gestation of 38 weeks. Late amniocentesis yields a result in 80% of cases and can be used to guide delivery management where the haemophilia mutation is known. In our series, no result could be provided in 2 out of 3 cases associated with the severe haemophilia A intron 22 inversion mutation. Each diagnostic episode requires specific counselling regarding potential limitations of the technique.


This book analyses the complex interplay between livelihood practices in northern Burkina Faso and diverse processes of geographic mobility, among which massive migration by Moose to the south and west of the country and to the Ivory Coast. Supported by extensive ethnographic data it is demonstrated how the flexibility of land tenure arrangements allows for and is fuelled by actors geographic mobility, how the meaning of migration and the way it is embedded in social organization changed over the last century, and how differential accumulation of cattle by migrants strains relations among Moose farmers and complicates the latter relations with Fulbe herdsmen.


OBJECTIVE To evaluate a weight loss and exercise program designed to improve diabetes management in older African-Americans. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Overweight African-Americans (n = 64) ages 55–79 years with NIDDM were randomized to either an intervention (12 weekly group sessions, 1 individual session, and 6 biweekly group sessions) or usual care (1 class and 2 informational mailings). Clinical and behavioral variables were assessed at 0, 3, and 6 months of treatment. RESULTS Significant net differences in the intervention versus usual care were observed for weight (−2.0 kg, P = 0.006), physical activity, and dietary intake of fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, and nutrition knowledge at 3 months (all P < 0.05) and for weight at 6 months (−2.4 kg; P = 0.006) and mean HbA1c values at 3 and 6 months (respectively, −1.6 and −2.4%, both P < 0.01). After the adjustment for changes in weight and activity, the intervention participants were ∼ twice as likely to have a one unit decrease in HbA1c value as those in usual care. Blood pressure increase sin usual care participants resulted in net differences (intervention minus control) at 3 and 6 months of −3.3 (P = 0.09) and −4.0 (P = 0.05) mmHg diastolic, respectively, and −8.4 (P = 0.06) and −5.9 (P > 0.10) mmHg systolic, respectively. Blood lipid profiles improved more in intervention than usual care participants, but not significantly. CONCLUSIONS The intervention program was effective in improving glycemic and blood pressure control. The decrease in HbA1c values was generally independent of the relatively modest changes in dietary intake, weight, and activity and may reflect indirect program effects on other aspects of self-care.


In this paper we present a new environment for supporting Web user interface migration through different devices. The goal is to furnish user interfaces that are able to migrate across different devices, in such a way as to support task continuity for the mobile user. This is obtained through a number of transformations that exploit logical descriptions of the user interfaces to be handled. The migration environment supports the automatic discovery of client devices and its architecture is based on the composition of a number of software services required to perform a migration request.


Workers who lose their job draw from temporary assistance programs in order to buffer their income losses. They are also more likely to apply for Disability Insurance (DI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Whether participating in temporary assistance programs influences the application decision for DI and SSI, however, is largely unknown. We address this question using panels from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) matched to administrative records on DI and SSI applications. We distinguish between four temporary insurance programs: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Unemployment Insurance (UI), and Temporary Disability Insurance programs (TDI). For each of these programs, we construct instruments based on state policies in order to address endogeneity concerns. Our results indicate that workers select into temporary assistance and disability programs by income and health status. When controlling for selection bias, we find evidence that increased access to UI benefits reduces applications for DI, while increased access to SNAP benefits increases applications for SSI. These results suggests that (i) applications for DI and SSI are sensitive to participation in temporary assistance programs; (ii) the strength of the net effect depends on the overlap between target populations; and (iii) the direction of the net effect depends on benefit levels or on institutional and population characteristics.


Collections of sound and music of increasing size and diversity are used both by general personal computer users and multimedia designers. Browsing audio collections poses several challenges to the design of effective user interfaces. In this paper, we report results from a new version of the Sonic Browser for managing general sound resources on personal computers. In particular, we have evaluated browsing of everyday sounds. The investigation was directed at comparing browsing of audio resources with arbitrary classifications. The problem of sound resource browsing for multimedia designers is the specific area of focus for our experiment. Finally, we conclude with current trends of our approach for further improvement of the system.


In recent years, long wait times for healthcare services have become a challenge in most healthcare delivery systems in Canada. This issue becomes even more important when there are priorities in patients' treatment which means some of the patients need emergency treatment, while others can wait longer. One example of excessively long wait times in Canada is the MRI scans. These wait times are partially due to limited capacity and increased demand, but also due to sub-optimal scheduling policies. Patients are typically prioritized by the referring physician based on their health condition, and there is a wait time target for each priority level. The difficulty of scheduling increases due to uncertainty in patients' arrivals and service times. In this thesis, we develop a multi-priority robust optimization (RO) method to schedule patients for MRI services over a multi-period finite horizon. First, we present a deterministic mixed integer programming model which considers patient priorities, MRI capacity, and wait time targets for each priority level. We then investigate robust counterparts of the model by considering uncertainty in patients' arrivals and employing the notion of the budget of uncertainty. Finally, we apply the proposed robust model to a set of numerical examples and compare the results with those of the non-robust method. Moreover, sensitivity analysis is performed over capacity, penalty cost, service level, and budget of uncertainty. Our results demonstrate that the proposed robust approach provides solutions with higher service levels for each priority, and lower patients' wait time in realistic problem instances. The analysis also provides some insights on expanding capacity and choosing the budget of uncertainty as a trade-off between performance and conservatism.


Abstract This article proposes that economic geography would benefit from a closer consideration of the topological multiplicities of power, that is, the multiple contending configurations of networks that make power a precarious accomplishment through creating constant overflows. It develops this argument by tracing how the circulation of knowledge in the preparation for the Olympic Games establishes sociomaterial networks that are meant to allow the International Olympic Committee to coordinate the organization of the event. On the basis of Bruno Latour's concept of the oligopticon, the article develops a sociomaterial notion of power to govern at a distance that emerges through the triple movement of collecting and mobilizing information, casting it into stable intermediaries, and recirculating knowledge. At the same time, a parallel narrative considers how this power and its spatial reach remain always partial and are transformed by overflows as elements move in and out of networks and how forces outside the network bear on it, creating "absent presences." Giving adequate attention to these topological multiplicities of sociomaterial networks offers an important counterweight to the dominant notion of stable social networks in economic geography and is particularly useful when analyzing the governance of projects and various other forms of ephemeral, distributed organizing.


Due to the inherent deformability of continuum robots (CRs), closed-loop control strategies of CRs come with some challenges, including sensor integration within limited dimension and uncertainties with CR system. In this paper, to obtain the spatial shape information and tip position of a cable-driven CR, a Draw Tower Grating (DTG) sensor is integrated. A shape sensing algorithm is proposed to reconstruct the shape of the CR based on the relation between the DTG sensor and the CR centerline. Then, with the feedback information of the DTG sensor, damped least squares (DLS)-based closed-loop controller is implemented to improve the trajectory tracking performance of the CR. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme, comparative experiments are performed.


Assessment of laser‐induced tissue damage is not complete without an investigation into the resulting cellular and molecular changes. In the past, tissue damage was quantified macroscopically by visual effects such as tissue mass removal, carbonization and melting. Microscopically, assessment of tissue damage has been typically limited to histological analysis of excised tissue samples. In this research, we used heat shock protein (hsp70) transcription to track cellular response to laser‐induced injury. A stable cell line (NIH‐3T3) was generated containing the firefly luciferase (luc) reporter gene attached to the hsp promoter (murine hsp70a1). After thermal injury with a pulsed holmium‐yttrium aluminum garnet laser (λ = 2.1 μm, τp = 250 μs, 30 pulses, 3 Hz), luciferase is produced on hsp70 activation and emits broadspectrum bioluminescence over a range of 500–700 nm, with a peak at 563 nm. The onset of bioluminescence can be seen as early as 2 h after treatment and usually peaks at 8–12 h depending on the severity of heat shock. The luminescence was quantified in live cells using bioluminescence imaging. A minimum pulse energy (65 mJ/pulse [total energy 1.95 J; total radiant exposure = 6 J/cm2]) was needed to activate the hsp70 response, and a higher energy (103 mJ/pulse [total energy 3.09 J; total radiant exposure = 9.6 J/cm2]) was associated with a reduction in hsp70 response and cell death. Bioluminescence levels correlated well with actual hsp70 protein concentrations as determined by enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay. Photon counts were normalized to the percentage of live cells by means of a flow cytometry cell viability assay. Within a relatively small range between a lower activation threshold and an upper threshold that leads to cell death, the hsp70 response followed an Arrhenius relationship when constant‐temperature water bath and laser experiments were carried out.


This paper presents practical experimental aspects for determining the concentration of Fei in mc-Si by carrier lifetime measurements and (Fei)(Bs)-pair-dissociation. The information presented is useful to perform quantitatively correct measurements and understand the limitations of this measurement method. We focus on two aspects. First, we show the effect of performing measurements on areas with inhomogeneous lifetime. This can result in a significant error. At least in some cases this error is accompanied by a significant shift of the so-called crossover point of the Fei and FeB lifetime spectra, the fingerprint of Fei in silicon. Second, we demonstrate and quantify the effect of insufficient pair dissociation. The equations we provide can be used to estimate when pair dissociation is insufficient. This could happen, for example, when performing measurements on a silicon sample without surface passivation or with a relatively high Fei-concentration.


A computationally efficient stereo matching algorithm is introduced providing high precision dense disparity maps via local aggregation approach. The proposed algorithm exploits a novel paradigm, namely separable successive weighted summation (SWS) among horizontal and vertical directions with constant operational complexity, providing effective connected 2D support regions based on local color similarities. The intensity adaptive aggregation enables crisp disparity maps which preserve object boundaries and depth discontinuities. The same procedure is also utilized to diffuse information through overlapped pixels during occlusion handling. According to the experimental results on Middlebury online stereo benchmark, the proposed method is one of the most effective local stereo algorithm providing high quality disparity models by unifying constant time filtering and weighted aggregation. Hence, the proposed algorithm provides a competitive alternative, with its efficient GPU and FPGA implementations, for various local methods in terms of achieving precise disparity maps from stereo video within fast execution time.


Complementarianism, that is, Christian teaching focusing on men's leadership and women's submission as an ideal pattern of relationships and gendered behaviour, has been identified both as a boundary marker with little lived currency and as a contributing factor in instances of intimate partner violence. This contradiction raises a question; does complementarianism have little felt effect or does it have significant—and violent—social consequences? In this article, drawing on Scott's analysis of Secularism as discourse I consider complementarianism as a religio-political discourse. Through analysis of published church material and stories gathered through interviews with parishioners and church staff, I explore how complementarianism is constructed and implemented in the Sydney Anglican Diocese. I argue that complementarianism is not a distinctively Christian theology, but a discourse, or story, told in community which constructs orthodoxy and both creates and limits gendered and religious identity.


Abstract Objective: Abnormalities in the coagulation pathway are often included in the diagnostic work-up of stroke patients, especially in young adults with cryptogenic stroke. Methods: Three common genetic variants within the coagulation cascade were investigated in 500 control subjects and in 167 patients with ischemic stroke defined by TOAST subclassification. Analysed variants were factor V Leiden, prothrombin 20210G→A and factor XIII Val34Leu. Results: The factor V Leiden mutation was over-represented in patients with cardioembolic stroke for trend, whereas the prothrombin 20210G→A variant and the factor XIII polymorphism Val34Leu were not associated with stroke of any subtype. The three polymorphisms showed no association with stroke in subgroups of patients defined by age (<40, 40–49, 50–59, ≥60 years). Discussion: This study suggests that the analysis of prothrombin 20210G→A and factor XIII Val34Leu is not a useful diagnostic procedure in the work-up of ischemic stroke.


Robust statistical data modelling under potential model mis‐specification often requires leaving the parametric world for the nonparametric. In the latter, parameters are infinite dimensional objects such as functions, probability distributions or infinite vectors. In the Bayesian nonparametric approach, prior distributions are designed for these parameters, which provide a handle to manage the complexity of nonparametric models in practice. However, most modern Bayesian nonparametric models seem often out of reach to practitioners, as inference algorithms need careful design to deal with the infinite number of parameters. The aim of this work is to facilitate the journey by providing computational tools for Bayesian nonparametric inference. The article describes a set of functions available in the R package BNPdensity in order to carry out density estimation with an infinite mixture model, including all types of censored data. The package provides access to a large class of such models based on normalised random measures, which represent a generalisation of the popular Dirichlet process mixture. One striking advantage of this generalisation is that it offers much more robust priors on the number of clusters than the Dirichlet. Another crucial advantage is the complete flexibility in specifying the prior for the scale and location parameters of the clusters, because conjugacy is not required. Inference is performed using a theoretically grounded approximate sampling methodology known as the Ferguson & Klass algorithm. The package also offers several goodness‐of‐fit diagnostics such as QQ plots, including a cross‐validation criterion, the conditional predictive ordinate. The proposed methodology is illustrated on a classical ecological risk assessment method called the species sensitivity distribution problem, showcasing the benefits of the Bayesian nonparametric framework.


The notion that evolutionary theory is essential to a complete understanding of human behaviour and psychology (if indeed these are different things) is seen as a truism by most in the human sciences. After all, humans are evolved creatures like all other life forms, so to deny the influence of evolutionary processes on our own species seems willfully ignorant. As Dennett has suggested, Darwin's theory of natural selection can be seen as a universal acid, eating through traditional concepts and revolutionizing our worldview. This being so, it raises the interesting question of why the social sciences have proved to be so resistant to evolutionary theorizing. Is it because they posses a Teflon-coating of post-modernism that repels any scientific understanding, as some evolutionary-minded folk have suggested? Or could it be that evolutionary theory, while essential for a complete explanation, is not, in fact, essential to all kinds of explanation? In other words, is it possible that Clifford Geertz is not, in fact, the enemy, and there are some social and cultural anthropologists to whom it is worth paying attention? Similarly, within psychology, it is a truism that behaviorism is dead, slayed by Chomsky and his sword of universal grammar—not only does behaviourism not work in practice, it cannot possibly work in principle. But, if this is the case, why is Fitbit a 4 million dollar company, and why does Weight-Watchers sustain a reputation as one of the most effective programs for weight loss? Again, could it be that B.F. Skinner's ideas have more to offer, and more in common with, current evolutionary thinking than the textbooks would have us believe? In this talk, I want to suggest that being a pluralistic, biocultural behaviourist or, as they are called in some circles, a "radical enactivist" is not the worst position to adopt, and that taking another look at some old ideas might help generate some interesting new ones, improving our understanding of human (and non-human) behaviour.


Data are used from the 1984–2016 Displaced Workers Surveys (DWS) to investigate the incidence and consequences of job loss, 1981–2015. These data show a record high rate of job loss in the Great Recession, with serious employment consequences for job losers, including very low rates of re-employment and difficulty finding full-time employment. The average reduction in weekly earnings for job losers making a full-time–full-time transition are relatively small, with a substantial minority reporting earning more on their new job than on the lost job. Most of the cost of job loss comes from difficulty finding new full-time employment.


The Southern California Sensory Integration Tests have been developed primarily for the evaluation of children with learning disabilities, yet they have potential for the assessment of adult perceptual dysfunction. In this research the Southern California Figure-Ground Visual Perception Test (FGP) was administered to a sample of 100 adult males and validated through correlation with the Embedded Figures Test (EFT). The results of the investigation found a normal distribution of figure-ground scores in addition to a significant correlation with the EFT. The means, standard deviations, and ranges are presented. Further data on relationship of the FGP to age, socioeconomic status, and educational level are presented, as well as a detailed description of the sample. It is concluded that this test is a satisfactory alternative to the EFT in interdisciplinary research by occupational therapists and, as an instrument, it has some important advantages for assessing figure-ground perception in persons with motor impairment or who are under psychotropic medication.


Background: Recombinant human soluble thrombomodulin (rhTM) was approved for the treatment of disseminated intravascular coagulation in Japan, and rhTM has anti-inflammatory effects. Disordered coagulation is a part of the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) pathophysiology and thus we hypothesize that anticoagulant therapy may help. This preliminary study was to observe the safety of rhTM administration and the improvement on biomarker levels after the therapy for ARDS-patients. Objectives: Case series of ARDS-patients. Methods: Seventeen ARDS-patients that required ventilatory management were treated with rhTM and clinical and laboratory data were collected including platelets, thrombin-antithrombin complex (TAT), fibrinogen degradation products, oxygen saturation/the fraction of inspired oxygen (SpO2/FIO2), and high-mobility group-1 (HMG-1). The administration of rhTM was started during 6 days at a bolus dose of 0.06 mg/kg/day immediately after the diagnosis of ARDS. Results: Eleven of the 17 ARDS-patients were alive at 28 days after the beginning of the administration of rhTM. The serial pattern of the SpO2/FIO2 showed remarkable differences between the survivors and nonsurvivors from day 5 to day 7. The TAT in the survivors significantly decreased after treatment, and there were significantly lower levels in the TAT on day 7 in comparison to that of the nonsurvivors. The serial changes of HMG-1 showed increased levels in the nonsurvivors until day 5 after the administration of rhTM. Conclusions: Additional rhTM administration can safely improve the parameters in survival ARDS-patients, as demonstrated by significant improvements in the SpO2/FIO2, HMG-1 and TAT.


The paper analyzes whether firms that start exporting become more productive utilizing recently developed sample matching procedures to control the problems from self-selection into the export market. We use plant level panel data on Korean manufacturing sector from 1990 to 1998. We find clear and robust empirical evidence in favor of the learning-by-exporting effect; total factor productivity differentials between exporters and their domestic counterparts arises and widens during several years after export market entry. We also find that the effect is more pronounced for firms that have higher skill-intensity, higher share of exports in production, and are small in size. Overall, the evidence suggests that exporting is one important channel through which domestic firms acquire accesses to advanced knowledge and better technology. Also, the stronger learning-by-doing effect for firms with higher skill-intensity seems to support the view that "absorptive capacity" matters to receive knowledge spillovers from exporting activity.


The refrain "Delay, Deny, Wait Till They Die" is more than a slogan for disabled American veterans. It is a battle cry for soldiers, sailors, and air-men who have long put aside their armaments but remain entangled in the unending appeals process of the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) disability benefits system. When Congress created a system for the fair and equitable distribution of military benefits, it did so with the intent that the system be non-adversarial. Congress did not want disabled veterans pitted against the nation that they had sought to defend in litigation over disability benefits. However, defining the contours of that non-adversarial system has proven to be more difficult than Congress ever anticipated. The paternalistic and protective features of the system designed to insulate veterans from the burdens of adversarial litigation have left veterans without legal recourse to address system failures. Using the VA's process for developing expert medical testimony as an example, this article examines the costs and benefits of the non-adversarial process and argues that adversarial procedures must be woven into the fabric of the veteran-friendly system to ensure that veterans' rights are protected. This article concludes that, without adversarial processes to compliment the veteran-friendly rules, the VA model relegates disabled veterans to a substandard process for adjudicating disability benefits.


This paper presents the use of numerical model techniques for identification and damage location adopting the Modal Curvature Difference (MCD) method as reference for the analysis of a simply supported concrete structure. Then, an empirical formulation to detect damages in this structure is proposed. In this method, called Acceleration Summation Difference (ASD), the difference of acceleration amplitude between intact and damaged structures are calculated for concrete plates simply supported on rubber bearings. During the analyses, the finite element models were developed using SAP2000® software. The results obtained depicted that it is possible to determine the approximate position of one or more damages in the structure, with some restrictions, and the proposed ASD method presented good correlation to localize the position of single or multiple damages.


John D'Emilio is one of the leading historians of his generation and a pioneering figure in the field of LGBTQ history. At times his life has been seemingly at odds with his upbringing. How does a boy from an Italian immigrant family in which everyone unfailingly went to confession and Sunday Mass become a lapsed Catholic? How does a family who worshipped Senator Joseph McCarthy and supported Richard Nixon produce an antiwar activist and pacifist? How does a family in which the word divorce was never spoken raise a son who comes to explore the hidden gay sexual underworld of New York City?
 Memories of a Gay Catholic Boyhood is D'Emilio's coming-of-age story in which he takes readers from his working-class Bronx neighborhood to an elite Jesuit high school in Manhattan to Columbia University and the political and social upheavals of the late 1960s. He shares his personal experiences of growing up in a conservative, tight-knit, multigenerational family, how he went from considering entering the priesthood to losing his faith and coming to terms with his same-sex desires. Throughout, D'Emilio outlines his complicated relationship with his family while showing how his passion for activism influenced his decision to use research, writing, and teaching to build a strong LGBTQ movement.
 This is not just John D'Emilio's personal story; it opens a window into how the conformist baby boom decade of the 1950s transformed into the tumultuous years of radical social movements and widespread protest during the 1960s. It is the story of what happens when different cultures and values collide and the tensions and possibilities for personal discovery and growth that emerge. Intimate and honest, D'Emilio's story will resonate with anyone who has had to chart their own path in a world they did not expect to find.


The Boone Formation in northwest Arkansas and southwestern Missouri exposes a nearly complete sequence of Lower Mississippian chert-bearing carbonates deposited by a single 3 rd order transgression and regression. An abundant amount of chert that has replaced limestone highlights the Boone, but little is understood about the timing and development of chert in Lower Mississippian carbonates. Interpretation of the diagenetic history of the chert, in particular tripolite, has significant implications beyond the outcrop. Determining the origin, timing, and extent of tripolitic chert in the Lower Mississippian System improves reservoir characterization in subsurface petroleum reservoirs in the mid-continent that are laterally equivalent to the Boone Formation. The Boone exposures are used as analogs for subsurface carbonate intervals in the Mississippi Lime Play. Results from Petrographic, SEM, EDX, and carbonate weight percent analyses have determined the stratigraphic extent of tripolitization in the Lower Mississippian carbonate succession, as well the controls on tripolite formation. The interpretation that tripolitic chert occurs as a result of a leaching by groundwater and the presence of carbonate controls the development of tripolitic chert can be used to locate highly porous tripolitic chert in analogous carbonate reservoirs in the midcontinent.


The objective of this article is to improve our understanding of counterfeiting and its policy implications by reviewing research in this area. There has been almost no empirical work on counterfeiting because of the limited availability of counterfeiting data and related statistics. The authors therefore focus on theoretical studies that directly model the behaviour of the relevant economic agents. They first establish some stylized facts about counterfeiting to provide a general understanding of the problem. They then briefly review several models of counterfeiting and summarize their relevant insights, focusing on the implications of the findings for the incentive to counterfeit, social welfare and anti-counterfeiting policies. The authors find that the policy implications of these studies support the Bank's comprehensive anti-counterfeiting strategy.


In August, 2006, American moviegoers watched as passengers on an airplane were terrified by poisonous snakes in the movie "Snakes on a Plane." In May, 2007, news watchers across the globe were riveted by the true story of an Atlanta lawyer who flew from the United States to several destinations in Europe for his wedding and honeymoon although he was carrying a drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis. The latter event was met with public outcry; the former was a box office hit which played on the fears of viewers. However, the implications of the tuberculosis incident have reverberated throughout the aviation, legal, and medical communities in a way in which fictional killer snakes cannot. The tuberculosis traveler incident illustrated that there are several areas in which travelers are protected by neither law nor medicine. This article will examine two issues which were highlighted by the tuberculosis traveler incident and its aftermath: 1) the effectiveness of the current legal regimes in international law in stopping the health threat posed by individual carriers of communicable diseases who attempt to travel on an aircraft and 2) the legal standards - or lack thereof - applicable to international travelers when their course of travel is interrupted because they are deemed to constitute a threat to public health by the nation to which they are traveling or at an intermediate point during their travels. Part II of this article describes the various applicable international law regimes and provisions which govern air travel and infectious disease as well as several forms of infectious diseases which pose a threat during air travel. Part III discusses the issue of protecting travelers from infectious disease based threats posed by individual travelers. In this Part, the author advocates the creation of a public health-based do-not-fly list akin to the terror based do-not-fly list currently used by the American government to ensure that travelers who pose a threat to public health do not board aircraft or engage in air travel until their health status can be confirmed or they are deemed to be no longer contagious to the general public. Part IV of this article discusses the issue of travelers who have left their home country en route to another country and are denied entry or detained by the destination country - or a third party country through which the traveler is to connect - on the ground of suspicion of illness. Initially, there seems not to be an issue under the terms of the IHR which allow a state to deny entry to any traveler or to hold them for observation, testing, or quarantine on suspicion of illness. However, those are the only rules set forth by the IHR and issues such as how to transport a traveler denied entry on the grounds of illness safely home are not addressed. In this Part, the author argues that simple amendments to the IHR regime and the Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 and on Consular Relations of 1963 would clarify these issues and spare future air travelers from uncertainty or unnecessary exposure to infectious disease. The article concludes that addressing the issues raised is an immediate necessity because of the frequency of international air travel, the devastation which both global pandemics and regional outbreaks of infectious disease have, can, and will cause at a variety of levels.


A method for the digestion of polymeric waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) by microwave-assisted ultraviolet wet digestion (MAWD-UV) was proposed for the first time allowing us to obtain a single digest for the further determination of Br, Cd, Cr, Hg, Pb and Sb according to the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive. The determination of bromine and metals was carried out by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). The efficiency of MAWD-UV was compared with that obtained without the UV lamp, using 1 to 7 mol L−1 HNO3 and HNO3 plus HCl (5 + 1) mixtures. A wet acid digestion method combined with ICP-MS, as well as neutron activation analysis (NAA), was used to obtain reference values. Although the UV lamp improved the digestion, thus allowing for the use of diluted solutions, possible losses of bromine were observed using a 3 mol L−1 HNO3 solution. After a careful optimisation, a diluted solution containing 0.5 mol L−1 HNO3 + 0.5 mol L−1 HCl + 5.3 mol L−1 H2O2 provided results that were in agreement with the reference values for bromine and metals in the same digest solution. Spike recoveries ranged from 90 to 113% for all the analytes. The results were compared with the values of certified reference materials (ERM 680k and ERM 681k, low-density polyethylene) digested by MAWD-UV and no statistical difference was observed, except for Cr. Limits of quantification using ICP-MS ranged from 0.010 μg g−1 (Cd) to 4.5 μg g−1 (Br) that were suitable according to the RoHS directive. The MAWD-UV method allowed for the single digestion method using diluted acids and did not require different digestion solutions for bromine and metals, thus providing suitable digestion efficiency without bromine losses.


In today's quickly changing work environment, many individuals want to be creative at their workplace, but only some of them succeed at manifesting these tendencies. In three studies, using both field and experimental data, we focused on transforming individuals' preference for creativity, defined as an inclination for liking and wanting to be creative, into actual creativity. We first conducted a pilot Study 1 to establish discriminant validity to related constructs and provided initial evidence on predictive and incremental validity of the preference-for-creativity scale. Next, we performed a field Study 2, where we found that transforming preferences for creativity into supervisor-rated creativity is contingent upon employees' perceptions of clear outcome goals. Clear outcome goals fostered individuals' preference for creativity to result in higher levels of supervisor-rated creative behaviour—a finding that was replicated in an experimental Study 3. Furthermore, we explored whether work enjoyment mediated the moderated relationship between preference for creativity and creative outcomes. The results supported our mediated moderation model, whereby the manipulation of clear goals led to higher work enjoyment, influencing individuals' preference for creativity to result in higher ratings of their creative outcomes.


In Shapeshifters Aimee Meredith Cox explores how young Black women in a Detroit homeless shelter contest stereotypes, critique their status as partial citizens, and negotiate poverty, racism, and gender violence to create and imagine lives for themselves. Based on eight years of fieldwork at the Fresh Start shelter, Cox shows how the shelter's residents—who range in age from fifteen to twenty-two—employ strategic methods she characterizes as choreography to disrupt the social hierarchies and prescriptive narratives that work to marginalize them. Among these are dance and poetry, which residents learn in shelter workshops. These outlets for performance and self-expression, Cox shows, are key to the residents exercising their agency, while their creation of alternative family structures demands a rethinking of notions of care, protection, and love. Cox also uses these young women's experiences to tell larger stories: of Detroit's history, the Great Migration, deindustrialization, the politics of respectability, and the construction of Black girls and women as social problems. With Shapeshifters Cox gives a voice to young Black women who find creative and non-normative solutions to the problems that come with being young, Black, and female in America.


This research aims at the study of the (dynamic) relationship between the World Heritage sites and the related human settlements development. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) can be useful to represent the involved information and to analyze such relationship. However, an effective harmonized structure and unique storage of possibly heterogeneous datasets is necessary to enable it. This initial step is the focus of this paper. First, the description of the structure of the related datasets and the assessment of the availability, quality, and consistency of the available information about the Heritage sites and properties is presented. Among those requirements, the quality of the associated spatial information is critical (e.g. kind of shape, accuracy, georeferencing). Second, considering the structure of the available datasets concerning the world heritage, together with the HERILAND research requirements, a global world heritage GIS is designed. The classification and data model to manage the WH list falls within the wider issue of structuring the cultural heritage documentation, involving both the definition of the semantic content and the geometric representation. In order to comply with the important requirement of data interoperability in science and to strengthen the outcomes of the research, some standardized data models and classifications are considered.


Dozens of law review authors and judges have proclaimed a Chevron Revolution in the Supreme Court's willingness to defer to agency interpretations, but few authors have examined this claim in a systematic empirical manner. Seeking a more factually grounded understanding, Professor William N. Eskridge, Jr. and Lauren Baer, Esq., conducted an empirical study of all 1014 Supreme Court cases between Chevron (1983) and Hamdan (2006) in which an agency interpretation of a statute was at issue. Eskridge and Baer conclude that there has not been a Chevron revolution, at the Supreme Court level anyway. The new deference regime associated with the Chevron decision continues to exist alongside older deference regimes, including Skidmore, Seminole Rock, Beth Israel, and Curtiss-Wright. Indeed, from the time it was handed down until the end of the 2005 term, Chevron was applied in only 8.3 percent of Supreme Court cases evaluating agency statutory interpretations. Instead, the Court has employed a continuum of deference regimes. This continuum is more complicated than the literature or the Court's own opinions suggest, and it is a continuum in which Chevron plays a modest, perhaps even minor, role. Perhaps the authors' most striking finding is that in the majority of cases - 53.6 percent of them - the Court does not apply any deference regime at all. Instead it relies on ad hoc judicial reasoning of the sort that typifies the Court's methodology in regular statutory interpretation cases. Eskridge and Baer find that neither Chevron nor the other deference regimes is applied consistently by the Supreme Court. The authors find some functional regularities, however. The Court is most likely to defer to agency interpretations when they are consistent with norms recognized by the Justices, reflect the application of genuine expertise to a statutory problem, and are pursuant to delegated lawmaking authority. Eskridge and Baer also find that almost all of the Justices vote ideologically; that is, conservative Justices are significantly more likely to agree with conservative agency interpretations, and liberal Justices are significantly more likely to agree with liberal ones. The last portion of the article applies the empirical findings to address normative questions. Based upon an examination of constitutional structure and legitimacy; the rule of law and the regnant super-statute, the APA; and institutional competence, Eskridge and Baer argue against proposals that either significantly expand or jettison the special Chevron two-step framework. The authors' main prescriptions are friendly amendments to the Court's practice and recommendations that judges rethink basic doctrines of statutory interpretation in light of the modern administrative state.


The paper deals with the impact of technological parameters on the heat transfer coefficient and microstructure in AlSi12 alloy using squeeze casting technology. The casting with crystallization under pressure was used, specifically direct squeeze casting method. The goal was to affect crystallization by pressure with a value 100 and 150 MPa. The pressure applied to the melt causes a significant increase of the coefficient of heat transfer between the melt and the mold. There is an increase in heat flow by approximately 50% and the heat transfer coefficient of up to 100-fold, depending on the casting conditions. The change in cooling rate influences the morphology of the silicon particles and intermetallic phases. A change of excluded needles to a rod-shaped geometry with significantly shorter length occurs when used gravity casting method. By using the pressure of 150 MPa during the crystallization process, in the structure can be observed an irregular silica particles, but the size does not exceed 25 microns.


Generalized trust is about trust in people we do not know. It refers to a general optimism and faith in the good will of people at large. It is among the significant civic attitudes that relate to democratic performance because it allows for citizen level association and participation. Turkey ranks low in terms of generalized trust. The present dissertation aims to test the hypotheses set forth by the social capital literature regarding the social network underpinnings of generalized trust for the Turkish case. It employs social network measures which are based on tie level information. The dissertation seeks to answer questions such as: ''Do social networks influence generalized trust? Can we talk about the relevance of social networks and relational ties for low trust countries such as Turkey? How do country level differences interact with social network influence on generalized trust?'' In order to answer these questions, a survey analysis which was conducted in 2008-2009 and was representative of Turkey's urban population, is used. Findings from the Turkish case are discussed within a comparative framework. A cross-country analysis, which is based on the International Social Survey Program's (ISSP) survey of 2001 on social networks, is used for comparison. The study shows the relevance of social networks for generalized trust however, it further points out the need for qualifications of social networks according to the network boundary and the tie properties. Also, it emphasizes the importance of the socio-political context to make better sense of social network influence on generalized trust.


Introduction Educational opportunities provided to children in preschool age not only support their development but also make positive contribution to parent--child relations. For long years, many studies carried out with various sample groups and in various cultures have shown that preschool education contributes to children's cognitive, emotional, social and bodily development as well as to their family (Horn et al. 2005; Huffman, Mehlinger and Kerivan, 2000; Jalongo et al. 2004; Pianta et al. 2002; Ramey and Ramey, 1998; Ramey et al. 2000; Tesser and Iedema, 2001). In the early years of their life, children acquire certain critical skills such as talking, walking and self-care, which lay the ground for many future skills (Hawken, Johnston and McDonnell, 2005). Preschool education supports their development in the short run, and contributes to the formation of positive behaviors in the long run. Experiences support the development of social skills. Therefore, many communities carry out various practices in preschool education to increase the motivation of children, to protect them from violence and to ensure their development. Preschool education indirectly influences primary education through its effects on children. Preschool education has positive impacts on other stages of education (Al-Sahel 2006; Driessen 2004; Fantuzzo et al. 2005; Pianta et al. 2002). Research demonstrates that behavior problems in preschool period can continue in primary education years (Pianta and Stuhlman, 2004). Similarly, it is known that, compared to their peers, children who receive preschool education have higher levels of learning skills, more diverse skills and higher academic success during primary and secondary education (Sucuka et al. 1999). Downer and Pianta (2006) conducted a research with 832 children for two years, where they studied the impacts of preschool education on the development in the first year of primary school. The results show that family dynamics, academic success and quality of child care in preschool period is directly related with academic success in the first year of primary school. Furthermore, it was found that social competence in the preschool age is one of the preconditions of academic success in the first year of primary education. It is also mentioned that preschool education promotes positive behaviors among children and provides a more dynamic, independent and comfortable life style for them (Tudge et al. 2003). The other components which indicate the importance of preschool education are its economic and social contributions. Preschool education institutions provide equal opportunity of education and development to children from varying family backgrounds. Moreover, long-term studies about this topic show that children who take preschool education in their early years of life are more advantageous in continuing their further education and having a profession compared to the ones who do not (Seliverstova, 2006). In our country, Mother-Child Education Foundation (ACEV) conducted a three-stage scientific study called "Early Support Project" for 22 years in order to research the effects of preschool education. The first stage of the research started in 1982. Mothers and their 3 to 5 year-old children living in the suburbs of Istanbul received an education program, and the short-term effects of the program were investigated for four years. At the end of four years, the results demonstrated that the mental development and academic success of children who received either training from their mothers or institutional training was higher than the ones who did not. In 1992, the same children and their mothers were involved in a reinvestigation during the adolescence of children. The results showed that the preschool education maintained its positive effects. Finally, in 2004, measurements were made when the subjects of the study became adults. The findings of this second follow-up study indicated that children who received preschool education either at home or at school continued their education for longer years, had higher rates of admission to higher education and took more part in modern economic and social life (Kagitcibasi et al. …


This introduction article provides a brief history of development studies, including its main challenges and critiques through the years. Based on this, we provide some thoughts on what the future of development studies might look like. There has been a certain continuity of themes in development, with certain ideas coming in and out of fashion. We expect to see more of this trend in the future. We are also hopeful about the necessary global view of development studies, as the Sustainable Development Goals have set the precedent for the move from the 'South' to global development goals. In this article we also provide a short summary of the nine articles in this IDS Bulletin , each tackling the history of a certain topic in development. We draw out the common themes of these development topics, providing complexity, nuance and challenge to existing paradigms.


There has been a rapid increase in the number of overweight and obese individuals worldwide in the past 50 years. It has been assumed that an increased caloric intake and a more sedentary lifestyle are the main causes of this rise. However, recent evidence has shown that the microbes that live in the human gastrointestinal tract may play a role in the regulation of weight and obesity development. These microbes, termed the gut microbiota, are commensal and symbiotic microbes that are densely populated throughout an individual's gastrointestinal tract. This paper presents the relevant research and possible mechanisms of how these microbes, mainly bacteria, are thought to play a role in weight regulation and obesity.


ABSTRACT During its population recovery in the North Atlantic in the early 1900s, the northern gannet (Morus bassanus) established its first colony in Norway at Runde in 1946. Since the 1960s, gannets have established (and later abandoned) several small colonies in the north of the country. These colonies have been regularly monitored, and in 2015–16 ca. 3300 apparently occupied nests (AON) were counted in seven colonies in northern Norway. Two colonies that existed in 2008 had been abandoned and four new ones established. Two of the latter were again abandoned before 2015. In 1995, one pair established a colony at Kharlov on the Kola Peninsula, Russia, where numbers increased to 200–250 AON in 2016. The newest and world's northernmost colony was established at Bjørnøya (Bear Island) in 2011, extending the species' breeding range well into the Arctic. These recent establishments are thought to be associated with a warming of the Barents Sea and the northward spread of common prey of the gannet such as herring and mackerel. This paper documents recent establishments, growths and abandonments of colonies at the gannet's northern limit of distribution.


In this report, we build up on our previous work on speaker clustering, where the number of speakers and segmentation boundaries are unknown a priori. We employ an ergodic HMM with minimum duration topology for this purpose. Starting from a large number of clusters in the beginning, we merge a pair of clusters in every iteration. A new criterion for the merging of two clusters is proposed, which ensures an increase in likelihood of the data. The merging is done in such a way that, the total number of parameters needed to model all the clusters remain same. Thus, the system finally achieves maximum likelihood (which was not the case in our last work) with the constant number of parameters. The merging process is repeated until there are no candidates available for merging. The efficiency and advantages of using only highly voiced frames was reported in our previous work, and we use the same features for this work. The system was evaluated on Hub-4 1996 evaluation set. Improvements over the previous work are reported and it is shown that, the system converges to right number of clusters in case of limited number of speakers.


– By reconstructing the genealogy of digital humanities through examining digital humanities projects and evaluative writings, this paper aims to identify core arguments related to disciplinary transformation and pedagogy in the humanities fields. It also seeks to consider knowledge production and transformation of a general humanistic attitude (the Humanities Program) in relation to digital tools. The paper also seeks to examine its perceived impact on disciplinary development, pedagogy, and forms of digital text., – The paper presents a literature‐based conceptual analysis of distinct and diverse aspects of the enterprise of digital humanities, by identifying their main foci together with implications of these preoccupations within larger discourses. The analysis is grounded in a close reading of 45 exemplary texts published from the 1980s to date, and 14 exemplary projects and initiatives. The analysis highlights several concepts with their underlying assumptions., – The perceived epistemological advantage of digital technology for new forms of reasoning is that community development has produced theoretical frameworks and shaped practical directions. The paper identified three distinct formations characterized by associated digital artifacts: prominent opinion leaders, foundational projects, and document forms (morphs)., – Research data are not comprehensive. Selected texts and projects are exemplary. The results and findings are relevant for the English‐language context and limited by a selective corpus., – The paper outlines a historical trajectory of digital humanities and the formative stages of development from the discourses of that evolving field. It also identifies constructions of technological advantage with implications for knowledge production in the writing of humanities scholars. The paper contributes to practitioner awareness of the history of digital humanities practice.


The visual system can predict visual features across saccades based on learned transsaccadic associations between peripheral and foveal input. This has been shown for simple visual features such as shape, size, and spatial frequency. The present study investigated whether transsaccadic predictions are also made for more complex visual stimuli. In an acquisition phase, new transsaccadic associations were established. In the first experiment, pictures of real-world objects changed category during the saccade (fruits were changed into balls or vice versa). In the second experiment, the gender of faces was manipulated during the saccade (faces changed from male to female or vice versa). In the following test phase, the stimuli were briefly presented in the periphery, and participants had to indicate which object or face, respectively, they had perceived. In both experiments, peripheral perception was biased toward the acquired associated foveal input. These results demonstrate that transsaccadic predictions are not limited to a small set of simple visual features but can also be made for more complex and realistic stimuli. Multiple new associations can be learned within a short time frame, and the resulting predictions appear to be object specific.


Interpretable machine learning has become a strong competitor for black-box models. However, the possible loss of the predictive performance for gaining understandability is often inevitable, especially when it needs to satisfy users with diverse backgrounds or high standards for what is considered interpretable. This tension puts practitioners in a dilemma of choosing between high accuracy (black-box models) and interpretability (interpretable models). In this work, we propose a novel framework for building a Hybrid Predictive Model that integrates an interpretable model with any pre-trained black-box model to combine their strengths. The interpretable model substitutes the black-box model on a subset of data where the interpretable model is most competent, gaining transparency at a low cost of the predictive accuracy. We design a principled objective function that considers predictive accuracy, model interpretability, and model transparency (defined as the percentage of data processed by the interpretable substitute.) Under this framework, we propose two hybrid models, one substituting with association rules and the other with linear models, and design customized training algorithms for both models. We test the hybrid models on structured data and text data where interpretable models collaborate with various state-of-the-art black-box models. Results show that hybrid models obtain an efficient trade-off between transparency and predictive performance, characterized by pareto frontiers. Finally, we apply the proposed model on a real-world patients dataset for predicting cardiovascular disease and propose multi-model Pareto frontiers to assist model selection in real applications.


On a hot, humid, and gusty summer day shortly before their wedding (in August 1885), Laura Ingalls and Almanzo Wilder take a buggy ride south of De Smet. Laura and Almanzo "sense" storminess in the air and watch towering clouds develop. They turn back toward home. Laura and Almanzo watch a thunderstorm to their west produce funnel clouds and then a tornado. While the storm moves from the northwest, they drive the horses toward the northeast and away from the path. Laura and Almanzo return to Laura's house. Almanzo and Pa (Charles) Ingalls set out to assist anyone struck by the tornado. Returning later that night, Almanzo and Pa report that a homestead was struck. Two boys on mules were hit, and one of the boys died. The homestead was destroyed, but the front door was lofted high and fell to the ground, intact, at the home site shortly after the tornado had passed. August 28, 1884 Tornado Outbreak


We have analytically studied uniaxial, birefringent, one-dimensional multilayer structures and found that in such structures birefringence leads to an interesting phenomenon of omnidirectional transmission. In particular, we have demonstrated analytically that the bigger the birefringence in the layers is, the better the omnidirectional transmission is. We demonstrated this property for all kinds of multilayers with absorption and dispersion.


Searching and traversing m-way trees using tries is a well known and broadly used technique. Three algorithms are presented, two have constant insert, search and delete cost, are faster than Hash Trees and can be searched twice as quickly cas Ternary Search Trees (TST). The third has a lg(N) byte compare cost like a TST, but is faster. All require 60% less memory space per node than TST and, unlike Hash Trees, are smoothly extensible and support sorted order functions. The new algorithms defining Array Compacted Trees (ACT), Array Mapped Trees (AMT), Unary Search Trees (UST) and their variants are discussed. These new search trees are applicable in many diverse areas such as high performance IP routers, symbol tables, lexicon scanners and FSA state tables.


Temporal fringe pattern analysis is invaluable in transient phenomena studies but necessitates long processing times. Here we describe a parallel computing strategy based on the single-program multiple-data model and hyperthreading processor technology to reduce the execution time. In a two-node cluster workstation configuration we found that execution periods were reduced by 1.6 times when four virtual processors were used. To allow even lower execution times with an increasing number of processors, the time allocated for data transfer, data read, and waiting should be minimized. Parallel computing is found here to present a feasible approach to reduce execution times in temporal fringe pattern analysis.


Systemic lupus erythematosus is a multisystem autoimmune disease in which the autoantibody response targets a variety of autoantigens of diverse subcellular location. We show here that these autoantigens are clustered in two distinct populations of blebs at the surface of apoptotic cells. The population of smaller blebs contains fragmented endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and ribosomes, as well as the ribonucleoprotein, Ro. The larger blebs (apoptotic bodies) contain nucleosomal DNA, Ro, La, and the small nuclear ribonucleoproteins. These autoantigen clusters have in common their proximity to the ER and nuclear membranes, sites of increased generation of reactive oxygen species in apoptotic cells. Oxidative modification at these sites may be a mechanism that unites this diverse group of molecules together as autoantigens.


Leptin, a hormone produced and secreted by adipose tIssue, muscles and stomach, is involved in the regulation of adipose tIssue mass, food intake and body weight in neonatal animals. It is also produced in the mammary glands and secreted into the colostrum and milk. Since leptin receptors are widely distributed in the small intestine mucosa, the aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of exogenous leptin on the development of the small intestine in neonatal piglets. Male neonatal piglets were fed with sow's milk or artificial milk formula. Every 8 h the latter received either vehicle or leptin (2 or 10 microg/kg body weight). The animals were either killed after 6 days of treatment and the small intestine sampled for histology and brush border enzyme activities or were tested for marker molecule (Na-fluorescein and BSA) absorption in vivo. Feeding milk formula slowed the maturation of small intestinal mucosa compared with feeding sow's milk. However, after leptin treatment the length of the small intestine was increased, and intestinal villi length, but not crypt size, was reduced compared with controls. The mitotic index was increased and the percentage of vacuolated enterocytes was reduced in the entire small intestine. Enterocyte brush border protease and lactase activities were reduced in the jejunum. Na-fluorescein marker molecule absorption did not change but that of BSA was reduced 3.8-fold. In conclusion, exogenous leptin administered in physiological doses reversed the maturation of the small intestinal mucosa to the range found in sow-reared piglets.


There is growing interest in the ways in which the location of a person can be utilized by new applications and services. Recent advances in mobile technologies have meant that the technical capability to record and transmit location data for processing is appearing in off-the-shelf handsets. This opens possibilities to profile people based on the places they visit, people they associate with, or other aspects of their complex routines determined through persistent tracking. It is possible that services offering customized information based on the results of such behavioral profiling could become commonplace. However, it may not be immediately apparent to the user that a wealth of information about them, potentially unrelated to the service, can be revealed. Further issues occur if the user agreed, while subscribing to the service, for data to be passed to third parties where it may be used to their detriment. Here, we report in detail on a short case study tracking four people, in three European member states, persistently for six weeks using mobile handsets. The GPS locations of these people have been mined to reveal places of interest and to create simple profiles. The information drawn from the profiling activity ranges from intuitive through special cases to insightful. In this paper, these results and further extensions to the technology are considered in light of European legislation to assess the privacy implications of this emerging technology.


Determining the complexity of perfect information trick-taking card games is a long standing open problem. This question is worth addressing not only because of the popularity of these games among human players, e.g., DOUBLE DUMMY BRIDGE, but also because of its practical importance as a building block in state-of-the-art playing engines for CONTRACT BRIDGE, SKAT, HEARTS, and SPADES.

We define a general class of perfect information two-player trick-taking card games dealing with arbitrary numbers of hands, suits, and suit lengths. We investigate the complexity of determining the winner in various fragments of this game class.

Our main result is a proof of PSPACE-completeness for a fragment with bounded number of hands, through a reduction from Generalized Geography. Combining our results with Wastlund's tractability results gives further insight in the complexity landscape of trick-taking card games.


The aim of this study is to identify the appropriate parameters for predicting the potable water pipes deterioration. The study evaluated the strength of some variables related to pipe breaks probability of failure based mainly on logistic regression model. The independent variables included in the study are static variables such as pipe diameter, pipe length and pipe material in addition to some dynamic (time-based) variables such as pipe age, water pressure and water velocity. The pipe break history (number of pipe breaks) for each pipe segment is used as dependent variable to be predicted in the statistical model. The resulted prediction equation is then used to calculate the failure probability for each pipe in the potable water network. Finally, prioritization of pipes is performed and the annual renewal plan is developed for the city of Jubail Industrial City in KSA based on the model results.


Given corporate scandals, organizational crises, and accounting irregularities (e.g. Citigroup, BP oil spill, Enron, Arthur Andersen), leadership ethics has grown in relevance. The current study takes a discursive approach to engage in a multimethod case study of a consulting and leadership development firm that takes Conscious Capitalism as the impetus for, and target of, leader development. Using constructivist grounded theory and critical discourse analysis, we reveal themes and 'best practices' voiced by consultants and clients for cultivating mindfulness and developing ethical leaders, as well as micro- and macro-level paradoxes, tensions, and challenges: structuring-releasing; expanding-contracting; opening up-closing; and collaborating-competing. Our critical approach contributes (a) a critique of Conscious Capitalism as a Discourse that appears to offer hope for business ethics and societal transformation and (b) a critique of ethical leadership development through embedded power relations and the complex discursive processes within and driven by leadership development and ethics at the intersection of various d/Discourses. This research helps explain some of the challenges involved in developing ethical leaders. We reveal that although Conscious Capitalism appears to offer solutions to many of today's social problems, including leadership ethics, developing ethical leaders ironically leads to problems that are 'wicked.'


Few women of antiquity have gripped the public imagination as Cleopatra has. For centuries, she has inspired playwrights, poets, artists and film-makers, with the result that she and Antony are arguably history's most famous lovers. However, I have not yet encountered a study which discusses, in one work, the multiple constructions of Cleopatra across the range of genres in which she has been represented. Certainly, many books and articles are devoted to revealing how Cleopatra has been constructed in one or other specific genre, but it seems as though no attempts have been made to portray, in juxtaposition to one another, the many faces of Cleopatra. This dissertation seeks to do just that. Although I could not possibly include a discussion ofevery genre in which Cleopatra has been constructed, I have chosen six areas for study: ancient Greek biography

(using Plutarch's Life ofAntony); the poetry of the Augustan poets: Vergil (the Aeneid), Horace (Ode 1.37) and Propertius (Elegies 3.11); Shakespearean tragedy (Antony and Cleopatra); art (numismatics

and ancient sculpture); film (Joseph Mankiewicz's Cleopatra), and, briefly, Africanist historiography. I have chosen these areas because each offers such diverse constructions of Cleopatra that one begins to appreciate how historiography, propaganda and representation have contributed to the shaping ofthe Cleopatra myth, coloured by the ideology ofthe age in which she has been interpreted afresh. Current Africanist appropriations ofCleopatra suggest that historiography is never neutral: race and gender often intersect to create 'historical' identities.


The fruits (dates) of the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) contain a high percentage of carbohydrate (total sugars, 44-88%), fat (0.2-0.5%), 15 salts and minerals, protein (2.3-5.6%), vitamins and a high percentage of dietary fibre (6.4-11.5%). The flesh of dates contains 0.2-0.5% oil, whereas the seed contains 7.7-9.7% oil. The weight of the seed is 5.6-14.2% of the date. The fatty acids occur in both flesh and seed as a range of saturated and unsaturated acids, the seeds containing 14 types of fatty acids, but only eight of these fatty acids occur in very low concentration in the flesh. Unsaturated fatty acids include palmitoleic, oleic, linoleic and linolenic acids. The oleic acid content of the seeds varies from 41.1 to 58.8%, which suggests that the seeds of date could be used as a source of oleic acid. There are at least 15 minerals in dates. The percentage of each mineral in dried dates varies from 0.1 to 916 mg/100 g date depending on the type of mineral. In many varieties, potassium can be found at a concentration as high as 0.9% in the flesh while it is as high as 0.5% in some seeds. Other minerals and salts that are found in various proportions include boron, calcium, cobalt, copper, fluorine, iron, magnesium, manganese, potassium, phosphorous, sodium and zinc. Additionally, the seeds contain aluminum, cadmium, chloride, lead and sulphur in various proportions. Dates contain elemental fluorine that is useful in protecting teeth against decay. Selenium, another element believed to help prevent cancer and important in immune function, is also found in dates. The protein in dates contains 23 types of amino acids, some of which are not present in the most popular fruits such as oranges, apples and bananas. Dates contain at least six vitamins including a small amount of vitamin C, and vitamins B1 thiamine, B2 riboflavin, nicotinic acid (niacin) and vitamin A. The dietary fibre of 14 varieties of dates has been shown to be as high as 6.4-11.5% depending on variety and degree of ripeness. Dates contain 0.5-3.9% pectin, which may have important health benefits. The world production of dates has increased 2.9 times over 40 years, whereas the world population has doubled. The total world export of dates increased by 1.71% over 40 years. In many ways, dates may be considered as an almost ideal food, providing a wide range of essential nutrients and potential health benefits.